There are times when a Queen must suffer for the sake of her people. Sometimes she must starve so her people can eat. Sometimes she must risk so her people can triumph. And sometimes she must run so her people can survive.
Necessity makes my burden no easier to bear.
The ponies couldn't understand what it was like to run away. They were weak. Running was their way. Only a predator truly knew the scathing, burning shame of absconding from the hunt - and on her home turf no less. It's a horrible feeling, to be put in that spot where you either ran or died. I was going to choose death. I was prepared to go down fighting. The predator in me was ready to unleash every iota of magic I had left and drag as many of those infernal ponies as I could down with me into the depths of Tartarus.
But I wasn't just a predator. I was a Queen. I had a duty to my children, to save them from the weakness that imbecile Thorax cursed them with. Where the predator would die the easy death the Queen would suffer anything for the sake of her people. So I bore the shame, the hate, and the fury on my shoulders, stared my hive's murderer in the face, and bravely ran away.
Well, it sounds a little less noble when I say it like that.
I took a deep breath and calmed myself. Thinking about it was only making me angry again. And getting angry didn't make me any less hungry. I needed to feed, and soon. Very soon. The beating of my punctured wings was slowing down and becoming more erratic with every flap. I'd been flying for a few days now, and despite my best efforts to conserve my magic I could feel my strength leaking away.
I knew what the problem was, of course. I was too accustomed to the love tribute from my hive. It was unspeakably uncomfortable, feeling the void where the stolen love from my children in the field should have been trickling in. I was hoping I wouldn't be as reliant on it as I was, but clearly exile was a heavy burden.
For another two minutes or so I managed to keep flying; then my wings finally, and suddenly, gave out. I wasn't expecting it so soon. I attempted to control my graceful but rapid descent towards the ground, and eventually was rewarded by crashing unceremoniously face-first into the ground. My momentum carried me forward a short distance, the trail of my fangs in the dirt ending only when my horn buried itself in a pile of rocks. Clearly fate didn't intend to give me even the tiniest break.
I stumbled weakly to my hole-ridden hooves and surveyed my surroundings. When I fled from the ruins of my home I didn't have a destination or even a sense of direction. I'd just flown forward without thinking. A tactical error uncharacteristic of me, but there was nothing I could do about it now. Two days ago the landscape had changed from the bleak desert wasteland of the hive to a bleak, rocky wasteland of... wherever I was. Two days later and I had yet to escape the accursed rocks. They were all I could see, apart from distant mountains and the thin layer of dirt below my hooves and—
Wait. That wasn't a rock.
I trod forward cautiously. For a moment I was sure that my tired brain was playing tricks on me. Then in the next moment I reasoned that it had to be a trap. But I reached the thing, I touched it, and nothing jumped out to attack me.
What in Tartarus was a tree doing in a place like this?
It couldn't be natural. Trees didn't just grow in barren deserts. It didn't even look like it was growing in sand. It looked like its roots had dug themselves into the rock. A few cacti sprouted beside it, having accomplished similarly impossible feats of nature, and all of them were wresting enough nutrition from the barren ground to sprout bright pink flowers.
Food.
I backed away from the tree, still not entirely convinced that it represented some sort of ill intent. But the promise of sustenance was greater than the danger. I looked around - there was a tree behind me, too - and quickly established that I was standing on some sort of primitive dirt pathway. Not a griffon stronghold, then. A pony village of some sort seemed the likely candidate. It was somewhat concerning, though, that I had no inkling of any settlements in a place like this.
It could be dangerous, my mind warned.
But food, though, my stomach argued. There was no retort.
I picked one direction in the path and followed it. Luck, for once, was on my side; the trail led me to the crest of a small hill, and the moment my head cleared the peak I could see the quaint village in the distance, two simple rows of houses sticking out from the dreary background in bursts of tan and earthy brown. I squinted, and I could just make out a mass of moving pastel blobs that I could only assume were ponies.
Jackpot. Ponies were the best prey. There were a few sharp ones, with the paranoia, distrust, hunger and cunning that served a predator well, but for the most part they were trotting, talking gullible food sacks who trusted blindly and never questioned anything. If only their princesses had taught them better. But they insisted on squandering their endless luck with foolish notions of 'friendship' and 'forgiveness'. All the better for me.
I ordered my hunger-addled mind to calm down and cast. It was second-nature for a changeling to change, obviously, but in my state even that was a challenge. As the remnants of my magic swept across my carapace, I set my thoughts to the task of conjuring up a new identity.
Species? Unicorn, obviously. I needed my magic.
Name? Chry... Cry... Crystal. Crystal... Jade. Sounded like some kind of cheesy restaurant chain. Whatever. It'd do.
Colour scheme? I had the benefit of not having to impersonate anypony, so green. Jade green coat, to go with my name, and mint green for my mane. It matched my magic so it wouldn't arouse suspicion. Not that ponies were particularly observant.
Cutie mark? With a name like mine the choice was obvious. A single cut gemstone would do.
There was more on the list. History, place of birth, et cetera et cetera... but I was in no state to weave a convincing story now. I had the basics. It would be enough.
I sucked in a deep breath, closed my eyes, and cast. A queasy feeling washed over me, followed quickly by the comforting familiarity of changeling magic. I felt myself shrinking slightly and my exoskeleton morphing into soft coat. Then pain stabbed at my abdomen - the angry lash of hunger - and the transformation wavered. I grit my teeth and forced it through. The spell sped up and tapered off at my hooves in full completion, but something was wrong. I thought. I didn't know what it was, but I intuitively knew that I wasn't as I had envisioned.
No time. I checked my hooves, my hair. Green, as planned. I glanced at my cutie mark. The gemstone was there, albeit cracked somewhat. Inconsequential. Whatever it was, I couldn't see it. The ponies would probably overlook it too. I suppressed the unmistakable feeling that this would come back to bite me in the rump, and made my way down the hill to the town.
The ponies seemed to be occupied with something, gathered at the fringes of the town - taking some strings down, it looked like? - but it didn't take them long to notice me. The first one was a pegasus, who spotted me a half a minute away from the outskirts. She signalled to her
comrades, three of whom fell into step beside her, and she took to the skies and swooped towards me like a griffon on the hunt. I unsteadily swallowed my apprehensions as best I could and kept moving forward.
She met me halfway, landing firmly in front of me while her allies played the rearguard to her vanguard. Her eyes fixed themselves on my face and looked me up and down. Evaluating her opponent. I tried to do the same, but the hunger confused my assessment. I could only maintain a neutral expression.
"Are you okay?" the pegasus asked.
What kind of a question was that? "Ye," I started to say, but a breakdown of communications between my brain and tongue forced me into a slur and I finished with a "ssssssss." My vision blurred briefly, and a distant part of me noted that my supposed neutral expression was probably a lot more pained than I intended it to be.
"You're obviously not," she said. "You look like you're going to pass out." She put a hoof around my neck. I tensed up instinctively. It was a poorly coordinated manoeuvre. My muscles convulsed in response and I nearly toppled over. Her hoof was the only thing that stopped me.
"Celestia, you're burning up!" She turned to her companions, who had by now caught up with her. "Sugar, Party, can you get her inside? Her temperature's through the roof. Diamond, fix her something for a fever."
"Got it," said the white earth pony. He galloped off back towards the village. The other two, both unicorns, trotted up to me, and the double sheen of simultaneous telekinesis floated me up into the air. The pegasus said something along the lines of "Don't worry, you'll be okay."
And then I blacked out.
"Oh Chryssy...~ where are you...~"
Her voice. I hated that voice. Not because of the way it sounded; it was the voice of an angel. No, it was because it was hers. She was better than me in every way, and she knew it. Every changeling knew it. The Queen, the drones, the princesses. Me. She was a better shapeshifter, a better talker, and a better fighter.
And now she was going to kill me.
I stared down at my hooves. They were covered in green blood. Six different princesses had died by my hoof today. The other eight kills were probably hers. That left her and me. Soon it would leave only her.
"Come on, don't make this any harder than it needs to be."
I had no idea where she was. I'd tried a hundred times to pinpoint her voice, but it echoed carelessly off the shifting walls and gaps of the hive and filled the air with cacophonous indiscernability. I'd set a hundred traps, cast a hundred spells, and as soon as I drifted away from the area I'd felt them fall apart under her methodical dismantling. I'd found several of her cantrips myself, but with every trap discovered I inched closer and closer to falling into one. I was tiring out.
"We both know who's going to win."
And she was as fresh as ever.
I peeked out from behind my cocoon. Nothing. I tentatively summoned my dependable combat spells and crept out from hiding. I kept my wings firmly at my sides, unwilling to give away my presence with the telltale buzz of changeling flight. A convenient stalactite beckoned me; she might miss a trap enchantment on the flip side. I prepared an explosive cantrip and moved towards it.
I almost missed it. A flash of light. I jerked my head towards it. Then the stalactite detonated in a fiery conflagration of green flame, consuming the ceiling, and the floor, and me. I screamed.
"There you are."
I snapped upwards, breathing heavily. Green hooves clutched a warm blanket close to my chest. My hooves now. My eyes darted around, scanning the unfamiliar room. It was a pony bedroom. I was in bed. Beside me, sitting patiently, was the white earth pony from earlier, mixing a warm bowl of soup. He heard the rustle of the blanket and turned towards me.
"You're awake," he said kindly. "How are you feeling?"
"Better," I said cautiously. It wasn't entirely a lie. I felt less hungry, probably from the passive absorption of love from the ponies around me. Also I felt less... bad.
"Oh, good! The remedy worked. I wasn't sure it would, with how high your fever was." He blew gently on the bowl of soup and hoofed it over to me. "Have some soup. You should get something in your belly."
"Thanks," I said. It was a while since I had used that word without sarcasm or contempt. The soup would do nothing for my hunger, obviously, but I made a show of drinking it anyway. I would hate for him to get suspicious. I tipped the bowl to my mouth and swallowed the broth in a single gulp.
He chuckled. "Wow, you really were hungry, huh?"
"Yes." I put the bowl down carefully and licked my lips. It actually tasted pretty good. "Did you make this? It was delicious." Ponies did enjoy compliments, if I recalled correctly. Besides, credit should be given where credit is due.
There was no response. At first I thought he hadn't heard me. Then I actually paid attention to his face, and I realised he was staring slack-jawed at me.
"Is something wrong?" I asked icily.
He shook himself out of his trance. "No, no, it's nothing, I just noticed your..." He motioned to my mouth. "You know."
"My what?" I tried to look down at my lips. I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.
"Your..." He gesticulated awkwardly. "Your teeth."
"My..." I ran my tongue - my pony tongue, not my normal forked one - over my teeth. And there it was. They were dull, only about the size of my other teeth, but they were unavoidably, unmistakably, fangs.
Well. Horsefeathers.
"I..." I faltered, trailing off into bewildered silence. This must have been what went wrong during the transformation. Of all the things that could have happened, of course I had to get the anatomical impossibility. What explanation could there be for fangs? Tartarus, I didn't even make up my past yet, how was I supposed to explain this?
"... I don't like to talk about it," I finished lamely. Mentally, I facehooved. But as much as I hated to admit it, it was the best course of action available to me. I had to start crafting a history for Crystal Jade as soon as possible.
"I understand." He took the bowl from me gently and put it back onto the bedside table. "If you're feeling better, I should get back to the others. They're as anxious about you as I am."
Alarm bells went off in my head. How much did he know? How much had he deduced? Was he going to tell the others about what he saw? "Stay here," I ordered in a panic. Then my manners came back to me, and I added, weakly, "Please."
"Um." He squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. "Are you feeling alright?"
"Yes, yes I am," I assured him. "I just... need some company." Specifically the company that knew too much.
"S-Sure," he said. "Alright." He stayed put in his spot and stared down at his hooves. I didn't know what to do or what to say. I gave myself a few precious seconds to plan out a simple history, and then I began with the standard question.
"What's your name?" I inquired.
"Oh!" His head snapped up from his hooves. "I'm Double Diamond."
"That's a nice name," I remarked obligingly. I fell quiet, as did he, and we resumed our awkward silence until he asked, "So, what's your name?"
Oh, yes. I'd forgotten to reciprocate. "Crystal Jade," I said. "I used to be a jeweller in Manehattan."
"A jeweller? That must have been interesting," he replied. Empty words; even I didn't know how it could possibly be interesting. Then again, it was my cutie mark, and in pony culture that probably meant I had to like it.
"It was quite fun," I lied. Now if only I had the slightest clue of how jewelling actually worked. Or what it meant. "What is it that you do?"
"I'm a botanist," he said proudly. He turned around to show me the trio of blue flowers printed on his flank. "Mostly I grow flowers to give this town a bit of colour, but I also do herbs and spices."
A little part of my brain added two and two together. "You're responsible for those trees over the hill?" I asked.
"Yep!" he said. "I'm really proud of those. It took me a long time to find something that would grow in the right conditions - for some reason the soil alkalinity is off the charts around here - and I had to chip through the top layer of rock to actually get to the soil, but it was so worth it. It's a pop of colour compared to all the drab rock."
I forced a smile. "Yes, it was very beautiful." It wasn't a lie; I did think it was pretty, at least by pony standards. But I was getting rapidly bored of his rambling. Still, every moment he spent here was one he didn't spend ratting me out. "Tell me more."
"I'd love to, but..." He turned his rump away from me and picked up the bowl with his head. "I really have to tell the others about how you're doing."
Damn it. "Please stay?" I pleaded.
"I have to prepare your next batch of medicine anyway," he said apologetically. "Don't worry, I'm sure somepony will come up to see how you're doing. They'll keep you company."
I supposed his departure was inevitable anyway. Time to make a gamble. "So, you know, about my... teeth..."
His ears perked up. "Yes?"
"Could you... not mention it?" I paused, then added for good measure, "It's a sensitive thing to me." Silly emotional reasons had a fairly good track record for deceiving ponies, if my reports were correct.
He blinked. "Um. Sure."
"Do you promise?" I insisted. It was a foalish tactic, but ponies were particularly foal-like.
He nodded sincerely. "Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye."
I raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Just something I learned from a friend." He flashed me one last smile and disappeared down the staircase at the end of the room. The delicious siphon of love weakened, but held. He was only downstairs. I let myself lean back on the bed and ease the tension out of my tired body as I monitored the situation. For the first time in days I felt some measure of safety.
Then Diamond's siphon was joined by three others. A set of hoofsteps on the staircase signalled the arrival of his friends, no doubt the pegasus and the two unicorns. The tension returned to my muscles. A moment of patience confirmed my supposition as the three familiar faces arrived the steps.
"Hey," said the pegasus. "You doing better?"
"Yes," I replied. Unlike Diamond I didn't yet know where I stood with them. "Thank you for saving me."
"It was nothing," she said dismissively. "You were in trouble, so we helped. Anypony would've done it."
Sure. Any pony.
"Now that we know you aren't going to up and kick the bucket, though, I need to know." She settled down on the floor where Diamond had been sitting. "Why are you here?"
Well. Here it was. "What do you mean?" I asked.
"You know," she said. "Why did you come here? To our town? It's way out of the way."
"It is, isn't it?" I observed needlessly. Yes, this was a bit of a problem. And I hadn't any reasonable answer. Thank goodness ponies weren't reasonable. "I was... bored, is what you'd call it."
"Bored?" she asked.
"Bored of my life in Manehattan," I said. I filed the little characteristic into my mental character consistency repository. "It was the same routine, day in and day out, and while it was enjoyable it eventually became too repetitive for my tastes."
"So you just... left?" she queried, a conspicuously inquisitive note creeping into her voice. "And wandered randomly over to here?"
"I intended to lose myself," I said. "And there was nothing but wilderness on this part of the map, so I thought I'd be sufficiently lost." I let the obvious though apparently not go unsaid.
She didn't reply. Instead, she looked expectantly to her companions. The female unicorn just shrugged helplessly. The male one gave her a knowing nod, and with that took over her side of the conversation. She yielded the floor in an unspoken acquiescence.
"I understand," he said, sitting down beside his comrade. "A lot of us came here for that too, a long time ago. The real question is, though..."
"Is?" I prompted.
"What are you going to do now?"
"Uh." It was a bigger question than he knew. What now? I found food, so my survival was no longer at immediate stake. The long-term objective was obviously to liberate the hive from my usurper, but there was a lot to do to get there. I had to gather power, enough to challenge a changeling supported by the love of the drones and triumph. Ideally I would not have to strike alone, either; perhaps I could track down another hive, if there even were any left. Or perhaps I only needed to brainwash a bunch of fools into obeying my every command.
"You don't have to decide now, if you don't want to," he assured me. His pegasus friend shot him a pointed look. He ignored it. "But if you're going to stay, we should—"
There really was no contest, in the end. "I'll stay," I said. There was everything here. A steady and stable source of love, a potential group of disposable minions, and relative proximity to the alpha hive location. I was already on good terms with one of their number, and certainly with time that count would grow. It was slow, yes, but given time I could easily take control and establish a firm power base. And from there...
From there, I would show my children their folly. I would show them the strength of the ruthless.
The unicorn smiled. "Alright. I suppose you could stay with Diamond for now. What happens next will be up to him. Maybe we could build a new house, or partition out a separate room... any number of arrangements, really."
"That sounds great," I said. And it would be. But not for them.
"We should never have been friends, Chrysalis."
She acted well. I would do the same. "Yes, Scara. We shouldn't."
This part of the hive was alien to me. I knew every hole, every cavern, every corridor, and every change in my own section of the hive like the back of my hole-ridden hoof. But this was Scara's domain, and it obeyed her intuition, not mine. Even though our fight was a sham, she had to play her part and go down fighting. I kept catching my tail on closing apertures and falling head-first into opening holes.
"Who's next, after me?" Her voice reverberated through the shifting chambers, refusing to betray her location. "Exos? Ocelli? Maybe even Theria?"
"Not Theria." I swivelled my head around, scouting vigilantly for any sign of my target. I had the advantage in combat. Even if she decided to betray the plan and fight me, I would still win. "She'll kill most of my competition."
Scara laughed. It was a hollow, mocking laugh, not at all like the mirthful giggle I was used to. She was an excellent actor. "And then she'll kill you."
"Not a chance," I said. But it was a lie.
I caught a glimpse of something around a nearby corner. I extended my magic senses towards it. An explosive cantrip. I would never fall for something so simple as that. She knew that. It was a secret sign, no doubt, one she knew I and only I would catch on to. I was coming close to her position.
I cast an invisibility spell. Aided by my changeling magic, the cloaking was smooth. Then I cast a muffling spell for my hoofsteps and wings. When I was sufficiently assured that I was now undetected, I began a careful move towards the corner.
"What's wrong, Chrysalis? Scared of a little magic?" Her facade cracked for a moment, the tiniest hint of relief seeping into her voice. She was happy that she no longer had to pretend to obstruct me. This would no doubt accelerate the plan.
"What can I say? Your spells are masterful."
She scoffed. "I won't let you kill me just because you flattered me, you know."
"It was worth a shot." I crossed the corner. Across the hallway, an opening was rapidly closing. Another sign; I'm here. I blinked over to the other side with a quick teleportation spell. The comforting dull grey around me morphed into shadowed black and sickly green.
"You don't need to hide. I know where you are."
"No, you don't." I was in a small room, now, no longer shifting and changing under my hooves. Slime was splattered all over the walls. The room was bare; there was nothing in here. Nothing except a large, green chrysalis, linked by a sensory thread to the floor and ceiling. And, within it, a quiet, floating princess. "But I do."
She said nothing. Clearly she knew we were at the end of this charade. All that was left was the last part of the plan.
Of course, it would never happen.
I took a deep breath, powered up my magic, and let loose a tremendous burst of green fire. It sucked the power from my invisibility spell into its conflagration, doubling, then tripling, in size. I focused it into a single, thin line of concentrated deadliness. Then I let the little inferno go, ripping through the air and slamming straight into the chrysalis.
The chrysalis popped like a huge bubble, unleashing a torrent of green fluid onto the ground, and with it then Scara herself. She flopped weakly on the floor. Green fire leaked in wisps off the edge of the large hole in her torso.
I strode up to her. She looked up at me, shock seared in her fading eyes. "This... wasn't the plan," she rasped.
I knelt down beside her. "I'm sorry," I said.
Weakly, she shook her head. "No... you're not."
"I am," I said. But it was a lie.
Of all the problems I expected to face in this town, the last one on my list was nightmares.
I'd been having them since I arrived here. Three days, by my count. Naturally I was guarding that secret closely, but Diamond had already caught me screaming in my sleep once, and there were only so many excuses I could make up to explain mid-sleep panic.
That aside, though, my situation was steadily improving. Diamond no longer was suspicious about my fangs (which I was forced to keep, lest he notice their disappearance) and nopony else showed any signs of being aware of them. I'd moved into his spare upper room, where I'd originally been put after I fainted. It was already well-furnished, for some planned additions to the village that apparently didn't work out, so it was a simple task for me to take their place. Pony culture, and frankly changeling culture too, demanded that every service be repaid, so I'd been spending much of my time on chores around his house. The rest of the time I spent on making new acquaintances around the village and increasing my influx of love. I'd managed to learn many of their names - among them, Diamond's three friends: Party Favour, Sugar Belle, and Night Glider. No doubt they would be common sights, living in Diamond's house as I was, and therefore they were primary targets for manipulation along with Diamond himself.
But before I could manipulate, I needed to fix my own problem. My irritation at my nightmares was nothing short of Tartaric; of course when everything was going my way, fate had to conjure something else to drag me away from the goal. The very first thing I did, after the first night, was to shield my mind from unwelcome magic, to ensure my misfortune wouldn't attract the likes of the night princess. After that, I pretended to Diamond that I was having trouble sleeping, and asked for some herbs. My hope was to induce a dreamless sleep. It didn't help. Now I was out of options, which meant that I had to find more options.
The first step was research. I woke up early in the morning, and quickly finished the obligatory house-cleaning - only a spell away, given how powerfully my magic had been enhanced with latent love - and then set off in search of anything approximating a library. It was one aspect of ponykind that I had come to appreciate; knowledge in the hive was always passed down from Queen to Queen, and written records were scarce. If this problem had cropped up a few days ago I would have been at a total loss. I still was, now, but hopefully somepony knew something I did not. And hopefully that somepony wrote it down somewhere, because I was not about to discuss my weakness with any living beings under any circumstances.
With the village as small as it was, the library wasn't hard to find. I stopped by the building with the sign board of a crudely-painted book and walked in. It was one of the smaller places in the town, with only a few shelves from front to back, which was worrying for my chances to say the least.
"Hello!" somepony said from behind me. I spun around instinctively, a combat spell shimmering to life at the tip of my horn, before I remembered where I was and suppressed the urge to annihilate the one who had ambushed me. It was Sugar Belle, the female unicorn, standing behind the receptionist counter I'd missed on the way in. Her smile was frozen still on her face, her eyes fixed on my glowing horn.
"Sorry," I lied, quickly letting the magic dissipate. I hadn't realised how powerfully it was glowing until I saw the shadows cast on the wall behind her. "You surprised me."
She tore her eyes away from my horn and chuckled nervously. "It's okay. I just... kinda didn't expect that."
"It's a reflex," I said. Then before she could ask me to explain, I continued, "So, this is the library?"
She nodded. "Yep. Is there anything I can help you find?"
Don't let them know. "Nothing in particular. I was just going to look around." Judging by the dimensions of this place, I wouldn't be able to do much of even that.
"Oh, okay." She shrugged. "That's just as well, I don't think I'd've been much help."
Not much help? She was an odd choice for the librarian. "Do you actually work here?"
"Nope, just covering for Dusty while she's away." She rolled her eyes. "I don't know why she needs somepony to be here. It's not like anypony is going to steal these books."
That made me almost curious enough to want to do it. "You never know," I remarked.
"That's what she said," Sugar grumbled. "And then she left to climb the mountain and I took over, and you're the first pony to come in."
It was a real wonder how ponies weren't more interested in libraries. Maybe they didn't appreciate the necessity of learning. You could only stay ahead of your hunters with the same tricks for so long. "How long have you been taking care of the library?"
"Hm." She touched a hoof to her chin. "Since the tremors started, so... a week?"
This was news to me. "Tremors? What tremors?"
"You know, the ones every night?" She gave me a quizzical look. "Didn't you notice them?"
At night. Of course. "I guess I was too fast asleep," I suggested.
"You're a real deep sleeper then," she said, impressed. "Dusty said it might be a sign that a big earthquake is coming up, so she went to check one of the nearby fault lines. I'm pretty sure it's nothing serious though."
Clearly she was missing one or more of her marbles. "Tremors are very serious."
"I mean, in theory, sure, but come on." She twirled her right hoof dismissively. "In Equestria, we're either living happy, normal lives, or being invaded by some kind of unholy super-ultra demon. Earthquakes are just boring."
It did annoy me slightly that she probably considered me one of those demons, but I refrained from commenting. "That logic doesn't make sense," I said instead.
"Hey, it's worked so far." She motioned to the shelves. "Anyway, don't let me keep bothering you. You need to find that book."
"What book?" I immediately queried, maybe a bit more forcefully than I intended. What did she know?
She flinched. "I mean, that's why you came here, right? To find a book you like?"
Of course. I exhaled the built-up apprehension in my throat. This was happening far too often, and irrationally at that. My nightmares had me on edge. I had to get those instincts out of my head before it blew my cover. "Right, yes," I said. "I just thought that you were..." And my train of thought stalled, leaving me with nothing to finish the sentence. I ended up staring at her awkwardly.
"... Yeah," said Sugar uncomfortably. "Um, well, I... wasn't. That thing. That you were saying."
"I know," I said. Then I fell silent. There was another awkward bout of staring.
Eventually I said, "So, I'm going to go look for that book."
"Good idea," she said. I went to go look for that book.
I scoured the bookshelves intensely, spurred on by the need to avoid initiating any more conversations with the pony until I was prepared. There weren't as many tomes as I hoped. It took only a few minutes of careful scrutiny before I reached the very last row of the very last shelf, with no reward to show for my efforts. There was nothing related to nightmares except for some old legend book about the fit Luna threw a thousand years ago. I decided to take that one and quietly excuse myself from the library, before I could incriminate myself further.
Of course, I was not yet ready to accept that my endeavour was a failure.
It occurred to me soon after I left that there might be more to the library than was immediately apparent. Surely no library could be this small. Perhaps there was another row of books behind the front row. I wouldn't put it past the lacking organisational skills of ponies. Of course, it was poor social form to return to the scene of the awkward social situation I had recently absconded from, and therefore I spent the rest of the day in my room instead.
I had no problems with waiting. But in this case waiting meant another night's nightmare. I would just have to bear it.
The line of succession to the throne of the Hive was a messy and complex affair. The ponies could never understand. They had the simultaneous luxury and curse of regional primogeniture and an immortal Princess. But in the Hive, it was kill or be killed. And before that, it was win or be killed. Every princess was assigned a sector of the Hive that they presided over, and they had to manage it for as long as the Trial lasted - on pain of death.
The Trial was the name that had been given to the ten weeks leading up to the deathmatch to decide the new Queen. Every week came with a new challenge, an objective to complete. This week was Architecture Week. Every princess that had not yet been disqualified was expected to expand their sector's influence into their neighbours', until they completely took over at least one other princess' sector. This week was one of the bloodiest in every Trial, and inevitably at least halved the number of remaining competitors. There was no princess who would not fight a long and arduous battle, likely forgoing sleep and rest, over the next seven days.
Except Theria. And, as expected, me. She conquered both her neighbouring sectors in the first two days. The next day, I accomplished the same. As was customary for the gifted princesses, I set myself to the task of assisting other, weaker princesses, in the hopes of getting them in the final deathmatch and therefore having a much easier time.
Today was Scara's turn.
"Thanks again for helping me," she said.
"It's my pleasure," I replied.
"Should you keep your head stuck out like that?"
"It's not a problem for me." At the moment, I was almost entirely contained within her control chrysalis, leaving only my head protruding from the green outer film. It compromised my concentration and power somewhat, but given the circumstances, I wasn't willing to risk her possible betrayal. If she decided to attempt to run me through I needed to cast the failsafe spells I prepared. "I'm more comfortable having familiar surroundings. It helps."
"If you say so." She rubbed her hooves on the ground awkwardly. "How's it going?"
"Well." I suppose it must have been awkward for her. She was just standing there, doing nothing, watching me apparently hang there doing nothing. It was a feeling I knew many drones to have, watching their Queens sit quietly on their thrones and stare vacantly into space. But connecting to the living fabric of the hive, whether through the rudimentary control chrysalis or the Queen's senses, occupied one's thoughts and concentration so thoroughly that it was difficult to do anything else but nothing. Thankfully fighting Scara's neighbours' flimsy magical offensives was so easy that I could afford to split my attention. The invisible tendrils of my control were mere minutes away from their control chrysalides, and once I disconnected those Scara's progress into the next round was assured.
"That's good," she said. Again, she scraped her hooves on the shifting floor and stared uncomfortably down at them. "Chrysalis..."
"Yes?"
"Are we... friends?"
"Of course," I lied automatically. I wonder how much she believed that. It was foolish to maintain illusions of friendships that were doomed from the very beginning. But, perhaps, it was necessary. At least for her. She needed a notion of hope to justify her continued efforts to survive.
"If I manage to get into the deathmatch," she insisted, "I don't want to fight you."
"Me neither." My ponderings on her strange psychology were interrupted by magical opposition. Her west neighbour was attempting a desperate incursion into the southern border of her sector, likely a last-ditch attempt at survival. I let her penetrate slightly into her territory, then swept back in and cut it off. The invading magic lost the signal of her command and stagnated, now harmlessly inert.
"What are we going to do?"
"I don't know." Now her east neighbour was getting the same idea too. Their teamwork was coming too little too late. I pooled my influence in that area and crushed her feeble attempt before it even started.
"Maybe we can fight," she said, "but after you beat me you can spare me."
That remark caught my attention. It was a tempting proposal. Of course I'd have to betray her afterwards, since I wasn't allowed to spare anyone. Who ever heard of a deathmatch with two winners? But not having to fight her would ease my burden somewhat, and remove the possibility that she might surprise me. It was a big risk, though. Deception and cheating might have been allowed, encouraged even, during other parts of the Trials, but the deathmatch was specifically strength only. If she wanted me to play along, we would have to accomplish a great feat of trickery to delude the ever-watching hive.
"We can't do that," I said, testing her, as I allowed my attention to return to the war. My borders had retreated slightly during my period of distraction. I exerted my will and pushed it back out fiercely. "It's against the rules."
"They might not find out," Scara argued. "It's a risk we can take."
And there it was. All her cards on the table. It was silly of her, putting her fate so casually in my hooves like that, and with absolute trust no less. It astounded me that anyone raised in the hive was capable of such naïve stupidity. But it played perfectly to my advantage, even if it was not a substantial one, and I would make the most of it.
"Very well," I said. "It's a plan." I punctuated the announcement with a final burst of magical power through the hive, crushing any remaining resistance my neighbours could have offered. I focused my magic and pushed full force towards their control chrysalides.
She breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Chrysalis. For a moment I was afraid you'd let me die."
I closed my eyes and allowed the comforting embrace of my chrysalis to take me as I severed my opponents from theirs. A fight well won. And soon, another.
"I would never betray you," I lied.
As far as nightmares went, last night's was fairly tame. Perhaps fate was finally lending me some mercy.
Today, I was completely prepared to repair the blundering mess I'd made yesterday. I'd taken the time to prepare a conversation tree, complete with dialog possibilities and appropriate responses. I would be ready this time. Pony culture would not stump me again. I quickly finished up the morning chores, as usual, and hurried back down to the library. This time, when I walked in the door, I remembered to turn around.
"Sugar," I said immediately, "I'm sorry about yesterday."
She blinked in surprise. It appeared that she hadn't expected my entry, given the questionable literature that was flipped open over the counter. She quickly stuffed the book under her table and gave me a sheepish smile. "Hey, Crystal! Um, sorry about what again?"
Not part of the plan, but improvisable. "About scaring you," I explained patiently.
"Oh yeah," she said. "It's fine."
That was obviously a lie. "I thought about what I could do to earn your forgiveness," I said, "and so I decided that I could take your place in the library. Clearly you're not having a very good time with it."
Her ears perked up. "You mean, you'd be okay with sitting here all day?"
Surrounded by research? "I'm sure I can handle it." There was (hopefully) a wealth of knowledge waiting to be harvested, and I would not let her presence interfere with the acquisition of relevant material.
Her next move surprised me. She leapt straight out of the chair and enveloped me in a big, squishy hug. "Oh, thank you thank you thank you! You have no idea how boring it was. I'm never doing something like that again!" She sighed. "Well, unless Dusty asks again. She'd better not."
Her fickle nature was perplexing, but it was only to be expected of ponies. "It's not a problem. It's the least I can do."
Sugar giggled. "It wasn't nearly as bad as you think, but I'll take any chance I get to get out of this place." She grabbed her book from under her desk and dashed over to the door. "Ta-ta!" And just like that, she disappeared in a cartoonish puff of smoke.
Finally. Alone. The first thing I did was to remove an entire row of books and check to see if there was anything behind them. Nothing. Next, I moved the bookshelves around. They were arranged back-to-back for some reason, and sure enough, every bookshelf had a side that wasn't being used. But there weren't any books there. I presumed the deed was done to make the library seem more full than it would otherwise have been. After that, I double-checked the rows I'd previously scanned to ensure that there was indeed nothing helpful. There wasn't.
That was all of my previous ideas exhausted. I allowed myself to indulge my puzzle-oriented side and examined the room for any sort of hidden mehanisms. Ponies exhibited a strange fondness for those, in place of the unparalleled command changeling Queens had over their hivespace. Nothing immediately stood out to me. I started randomly yanking and pulling things, and none of it triggered any sort of hidden mechanism. I was at a loss.
I must admit, my frustration-fuelled destruction was one of my more major oversights. Especially since it was at that moment that the door opened, and Sugar returned with a tray of disgustingly caramelised confections.
"Hello!" she said, in her cheerful and thoroughly gullible voice, until she noticed the state of the library and her excitement withered to resignation. "Wow, that was even faster than me."
"This is not what it looks like," I stated firmly and categorically. Obviously that lie wouldn't get me very far, but for some reason it was my first instinct.
"Um..." Her eyes flickered from me, to the floor, and back to me again. "Do you need help picking all that up?"
"No," I said. I powered up my magic and shoved all the books back into their respective places, which earned a surprised but impressed look from Sugar. Then I added, "And by the way, I was just looking for an interesting book."
"What about the one you borrowed yesterday?" she asked.
I realised I hadn't actually read it at all. "It wasn't very good."
"Well, yeah. I was going to tell you it was a foal's book, but I figured you would've found it out on your own soon enough." She lowered her tray to nose-level. "So, want some? I made them to thank you for taking over my boring kinda-job."
I imagined this sort of food would have been appealing to ponies. They insisted on cooking mountains of such things back during the Canterlot wedding. I couldn't stomach it. Smelling it was making my stomach turn. "Uh, they aren't my cup of tea."
She blinked. "Really? I've never met anypony who doesn't like cupcakes before."
"I'm quite sure," I said, adding quickly thereafter, "Though I'm sure they taste fantastic."
"Well, if you say so!" She put the tray down on the receptionist table and wandered over to me. "So, did you find what you were looking for?"
"What was I looking for again?" I asked.
"The book."
"What book?"
"The book you said you were looking for."
Right. I did say that. The complex web of lies had come full circle and bit me in the rump. Still, at least I had disclosed nothing of the nature of the book for which I was searching. "No," I said.
She shrugged. "Yeah, this place doesn't have many books. If Starlight hadn't been collecting them we wouldn't have any at all."
That made sense. "So where might—"
Hold on.
Wait.
Starlight.
Starlight.
"Starlight?" I asked, artificially calm. I felt the rage building, unbidden, in the pit of my stomach, and I did my very best to keep it from overwhelming me. "Starlight Glimmer?"
"Yeah, she was the one who founded our town," Sugar said. "And mind-controlled us and stole our cutie marks, but we got over that."
"She... mind-controlled you and stole your cutie marks?"
"She was pretty powerful," she said.
So she was, apparently. But more importantly, I hadn't just stumbled across any town. I'd stumbled across a town that Starlight Glimmer had personally menaced. And that presented a great deal of opportunity. Opportunity to recruit them, to save my hive, and to take my revenge.
One step at a time, Chrysalis. One step at a time.
"That sounds terrible," I said, with every ounce of fake empathy I could muster.
Sugar smiled. "Well, at least it's over now. We all have our cutie marks back and we're all happy."
"What about her?" I asked.
"Who?"
"Starlight."
She cocked her head to the side. "What about her?"
"How was she punished?"
"Punished?" Sugar pondered for a moment. "Um, I don't think she was punished."
So it was worse than I thought. Obviously her comeuppance had been minimal, as her studies under Twilight and her presence at my hive attested to, but an absolute lack of retribution... well, I suppose it was only to be expected from the dysfunctional pony justice system. If I had been in charge, she wouldn't have lived to destroy my hive.
"That's absurd," I exclaimed.
"I mean... I guess so?" she said hesitantly. "It's all over now, though, and that's what's important."
"No, that's not what's important." I stomped my hoof angrily on the ground. Intentionally, of course, for emphasis. "What about retribution? What about fairness? What about justice?"
"What about..." she began, but I found myself cutting her off.
"How is it fair that someone who did so much harm to you and your people can be allowed to escape the consequences?" I demanded. "Why not banishment? Why not execution?"
"We haven't executed anypony in thousands of years," she said weakly.
"And look what it brought you," I said. "Attacks by eldritch horrors and dark magics on a regular basis. Punishment shows strength. It shows that you are capable of bringing your enemies to task. Who would dare menace the bearer of such power?"
"It doesn't matter how powerful you are," Sugar protested. "Good always wins in the end."
I laughed. That was the most childish notion I had ever heard. Ponies really were stupid. "Good doesn't matter in this world, Sugar Belle. Everyone says they are good. The bad ones are the ones who lose."
"Good can't mean nothing," she said. "It means... being good. Being loyal, and honest, and kind..."
More pony naïvety. They didn't understand, with their comfortable homes and their threatless lives. It was wearing my frayed nerves dangerously thin. My contempt was abandoned in favour of anger.
"The world is not kind," I snarled. "A kind world wouldn't steal your happiness. A kind world wouldn't starve you and your family. And a kind world wouldn't doom your own and leave you to rot!"
Her eyes widened. The resistance deserted her. She looked like she was seeing a ghost. "C-Crystal," she stammered.
"Being kind to the world is an invitation for it to trample you into the dust," I growled. "Forgive no one. Trust no one. Or else you'll end up nowhere except the bottom of the heap!"
"Crystal!" Sugar shrieked. I snapped out of my mad trance. The red haze cleared from my vision. For a moment, I almost thought I had been yelling at Starlight. But there was only a trembling, fearful unicorn here. "You're scaring me..."
"I..." Something wet dripped onto my lower lip. Salty. I traced it up to my eyelid. Tears. I looked at my reflection in Sugar's watery eyes. Red-eyed, nose and mouth contorted in snarling insanity, and two sharp, terrible fangs glistening in the soft library light.
What was I doing?
My body moved of its own accord. My upper lip slammed back down over my teeth. My mouth pressed itself tightly shut, hiding the proof of my failure. I wanted to utter an apology, no matter how insincere, but I couldn't, and in a bout of teary, hazy rebellion my legs pushed Sugar aside and ran.
"Crystal, wait!" she shouted after me. I barely heard it. I just kept running.
"Is she here?"
"She's upstairs."
Oh, how I wish I was having a nightmare right now.
"She was pretty upset when she came in. She just ran upstairs. Did something happen?"
"Yeah. I need to talk to her."
I had to take a moment to appreciate the absurdity of the situation. Here I was, the Queen of the changelings, blessed with the power to obliterate a hundred ponies and the cunning to turn them to my will, and here I was cowering like a foal under the blankets of the enemy. I hadn't the presence of mind to concoct more excuses or manufacture more plans. Every ounce of my energy was spent on my outburst. The vengeance and hatred had burned me out like a candle in the dark. There was nothing left but to hide in the darkness and close my eyes to the trouble.
But trouble was looking for me today. The soft tap tap tap of hesitant hooffalls on the staircase signalled Sugar's approach. i pulled the covers further over my head, hoping for her to go away. I had no more lies to spend today.
"Crystal?" came her unmistakeable voice. "Is that you?"
"Go away," I murmured hoarsely.
"Sorry, but no." The hooffalls drew closer and stepped by the bedside. She sat down on the floor with a thump. "I need to say this."
I lifted the blanket from my face and fixed her with my stare. I couldn't summon the anger to poison the look. "Go away."
"No," she repeated. She sucked in a deep, deep breath, and said, "I'm sorry."
I narrowed my eyes. "Sorry for what?"
"Sorry for bringing Starlight up," she said. "I didn't know you felt so strongly about her."
"I don't," I stated, and pulled the cover back over my head.
She sighed heavily. "Please, Crystal, please stop lying."
"I'm not lying." Go away.
"Yes you are," she said.
"I'm not."
"You are."
"I'm not."
She growled. "Celestia damn it all, Crystal, you've been lying since you got here!"
Of course. Of bloody course. "Prove it," I snapped.
"What was the address of the house you lived at in Manehattan?"
"Third Mane Street."
"That's not even a real street!" she exploded. "Glider went to check your story, you know. No one named Crystal Jade ever lived in Manehattan."
"Check again."
"She did!" she shouted. "We all did!"
"Well, good for you." I'm sure I would have raised a stirring defense if I had the energy. But I didn't.
She sucked in a deep breath and breathed out the distress. "I'm not angry, Crystal. I'm really not. I'm just frustrated. I know you have some secrets you want to protect. Everypony does. Maybe you ran away from something horrible, I don't know. And that's fine if you don't want to talk about it. But just... don't lie about it. I don't want to spend every conversation with you wondering how much of what you said is a lie and how much is the truth. How can I trust you like that?"
Foolish. Foolish, foolish fools with foolish notions of foolery. I had nothing to say to the likes of her. But my mouth betrayed me.
"You can't," it said. "You can't trust me and I can't trust you. I can't trust your friends. You can't trust your friends. No one can trust anyone."
"Why?" she asked.
"Because you make yourself weak," I said. My voice cracked; I put it down and pressed on. "You let people know what you want, and they know how to beat you down. You let people know how you feel, and they know how to hurt you. You let people know the truth, and..." I swallowed the lump in my throat. "... and they know how to kill you."
She didn't reply. If not for the absence of hoofsteps, I would have assumed she had left. But eventually, there was a long, deep sigh. "Oh... Oh Crystal. What made you like this?"
"Home," I said. It was the truth. I no longer cared.
"How bad was it?"
"Bad." I paused. Then: "I don't want to talk about it."
For a moment, there was only silence. Then she spoke up. I could hear the grateful smile in her voice. "Thanks, Crystal."
"For what?"
"Not lying."
I suppose she was right.
"You're welcome," I said.
"What about your past?" she asked.
"What about it?"
"Was Glider right? Was it fake?"
"Yes," I said. There was a burden, I suddenly realised, that had weighed on my shoulders since that lie, and with a word it was lifted. One less facet of the web to worry about. It was a pleasant feeling.
"What's the real story?" she asked.
"I don't want to talk about it."
She chuckled and comfortingly patted my back. "It's okay, Crystal. It's okay."
And perhaps it would be after all. There was just one last thing to do.
"Sugar?" I asked.
"Yeah?"
"Do you have any advice for nightmares?"
Sugar left soon after it was clear that she had nothing helpful for me. It was only to be expected; I hardly thought a baker would be well-versed in the art of dreams. But she pledged to help me nonetheless, which surprisingly managed to calm me somewhat despite the logical assumption that she would be no more successful than I. I thanked her anyway, though, before she took her leave.
She returned as I was preparing to go to bed. With her was a large tome, three times as thick as the largest I had found in the library. She dropped it on the bed with a strained "oof!" and a muted thud.
"What's this?" I asked.
"Something that might help you," she said. "I talked with Glider for a bit. It took some convincing, but I managed to get her to let you have this." She blew off the thin layer of dust over the top of the book, scattering it all over the bed.
"That was a bad spot," I said, annoyed.
"Sorry." She gave me a sheepish smile. "But this is Starlight's most powerful book. A record of the magc invented and reworked by the great mage Meadowbrook. There's a ton of powerful spells and cantrips and all that, and I figured that for someone as powerful as you, well..."
"... There might be something to fix my nightmares." This was a huge gift she had just laid before me. I had little experience with pony spells, let alone their most powerful ones. There was so much to learn between these two covers. Enough, perhaps, to even let me take back my hive and save my children.
"Do you think it'll be useful?" she asked eagerly.
"Absolutely. This is amazing." I surprised myself with how genuine I was being. I suppose the truth did have its place.
She wrapped me in a tight hug. I chose not to shrug it off. "I'm glad."
"Me too," I said. "Thank you so much." And I knew, in my heart, that it was the truth.
"Do you ever wonder how different we would be if we weren't changelings?"
It was a starry night tonight. For some reason the eternal cloud cover of the hive was lighter today, letting the bright starlight peek through to the ground. I had no interests in stargazing, but Scara did, and tonight I had indulged her requests for company. We were perched on the highest balcony of the Hive, lying flat on our backs and staring up into the sky.
"No," I said. "We're changelings."
"But what if we weren't?" she insisted.
"Well, I suppose we wouldn't be starving. That would be a welcome change."
She laughed. "I mean, how different would we be?"
Sigh. Scara and her incessant what ifs. "We would look like ponies."
"No, really?" she said, in a playfully sarcastic tone. "Come on, Chryssy. You know what I mean."
"Suddenly I'm not sure I do."
She turned to me and rolled her eyes. "I mean that they're so carefree and happy. They can actually trust each other and make friends and not have to worry about being killed by their sisters."
Typical prey behaviour. "That's their problem."
"Do you think that's a problem?" She looked back into the sky. "I think it's a gift. Imagine how great their lives must be."
I shrugged. "I can't see it."
"Maybe you will, one day," she said. "Maybe you will."
