It was late evening in the Badlands and the Queen of the Changelings was still alive. Though she didn’t have any fatal injuries, she still just lay unmoving in the middle of the crater her harsh landing had caused, doing nothing but looking into the dimming sky, deep in thought. Shining Armor’s love was still burning in her body and that was what kept her alive, slowly healing her physical body of what wounds she'd gotten from the force of the force field slamming into her as well as her hard collision into the rocky ground. Mentally and emotionally however, she was fatally wounded.

"I've failed to save my race, my siblings, from starvation, I've failed to make a successful invasion for their survival. I've failed as a queen." the Queen hissed, her tone steeped in despair, "Everything I try to do always ends with failure. The only thing I ever did right was hatching from my egg, and even that I doubt. I'm so tired…tired of failing. Tired of everything..."

The Queen didn’t have the strength nor willpower to even stand up. She didn’t have any willpower to live nor a reason to fight anymore. Surely all of her subjects had ultimately died because of her attempt to save them, undoubtedly not having the power to survive the impact of the force-field hitting them nor a crash into the ground like she had, their love supply so very limited and them so weak, the invasion draining them of the last of their love magic. She was simply too tired to feel the despair she should have at their possible loss; the loss of her entire race.

She lay still and did nothing until she heard somepony approach to her. She didn’t need to see who this pony was, the love that she had stolen from this pony already told her who he was. Shining Armor stood above her head now and looked down on her Changeling form, the black-chitin-coated, hole-ridden body of a Changeling Queen.

The Queen gave a humorless laugh as she saw the stallion she'd beguiled now standing over her, simply unable to care anymore. "So, you come here to finish me off personally, huh? You must hate me so much for what I've done, that you had to come this far just to make sure that I died by your own hoof?" she asked, closing her eyes and speaking without looking at Shining Armor.

Shining Armor shook his head. "No…I just have some questions to ask you. I don't want to kill you."

The Queen simply gave a tired sigh, at the same time grateful and disappointed he wouldn't kill her and end her failure of a life. "What questions? Why I invaded Canterlot? Why I pretended to be Cadence, or why I choose to use you for your love?"

After thinking for a while, Shining finally knew what to say. "No. I want to know who the real you is. Are you an evil queen who hungers for power, or a playful mare who loves to play pranks and hang out with pony friends? A hateful mare who strives for the ruination and enslavement of ponykind, or a hopeless leader desperately trying to feed her starving subjects?"

The Queen was silent for a while, considering his questions, before finally sighing again. "Not even I know, really. Ever since I was born, and when I became Queen of the Changelings after my mother's death, I've pretended to be so many ponies. I've worn so many masks, taken so many roles, cause so much fallacy and so many lies, that I didn’t know anymore who the real me was anymore. I don't even know what my true personality is." the Queen said, looking up at Shining Armor, still not having the will to move. "You don’t know what it feels like to be the queen of a dying race, Shining Armor. A queen can’t think about herself or her own wants or needs. Her kingdom and subjects must always come first."

Shining Armor simply stood there silently, letting the queen continue.

"But maybe...maybe that playful mare I was when we were together might be a pony that I want to be...or would be if I were not a queen nor Changeling…if I were a pony." the Queen said, before giving a soft huff, "But...why would you come this far just to ask me that silly question? Why would you waste your time with me when you just got your real Cadence back? Why don’t you just marry her and forget all about this foolish bug who thought she could save her starving race..."

Shining Armor softly shook his head. "No, I will never marry Cadence. Cadence is my friend, and only my friend...but I just realized who I truly fell in love with three months ago. Her impostor. You."

The queen was quiet for a while, before responding to him with a hollow chuckle. "Such a hopeless, misguided love you have for me Shining Armor, to fall in love with a fake pony, a false persona. Thanks to that love you gave me though, I was able to defeat Celestia…it is truly a powerful love you hold for me indeed." she said, realizing how intense his love was for her, indeed even still feeling it radiating off of him like an intense heat as he stood over her.

"Do you love me too, as you always said you did, Queen? Did you actually love me, or was it all an illusion to gain more and more power from me?" Shining asked, genuinely curious now.

The Queen was once more silent for a while before she opened her eyes to look at Shining Armor. "Can a love-eater like me even truly feel love?! I don’t know…but it doesn’t matter to me anymore, since I will die here in this crater! I have nothing to live for; I've failed my subjects, all of whom are probably dead now! I've failed as a queen...and a failure like me doesn't deserve to live anymore!" she said as she closed her eyes and prepared to die again, willing her heart to stop beating even if she couldn't actually do so voluntarily.

Shining Armor placed a hoof on her, making her flinch from the unexpected touch, "No…you can’t die yet." he said, shaking her softly.

The Queen pulled away with what strength she had, finally moving. "Leave me be! Let death be my punishment for my crimes against pony-kind, and my failures to Changeling-kind! I...I don’t want to live anymore! I'm so tired...I just want it to be all over..." the Queen said in an exhausted tone, before flopping limply to the ground a few inches further from Shining.

Shining Armor merely shook his head. "No, you don't deserve to die. Your crimes aren’t unforgivable, given their noble purposes. Get up…" Shining Armor said and, upon not getting a response, he dragged the Queen to lay on his back with his magic. The queen moaned from the pain of spending too long laying, as well as her strained muscles and tendons from slamming into the ground. She didn't resist nor try to struggle to get off of Shining Armor’s back however, simply laying as limply on him as she had on the ground.

"You can’t die yet. You still have a role to play in this world…your race still needs you." Shining said, reaching up a hoof to lift her sunken head so she could look around them; so that she can see so many Changelings around them. She was saddened upon finding, with a heavy heart, that some of her fellow Changelings were indeed dead in their own craters, not having the strength to survive the impact as she'd feared, and some were badly injured. But, to her happy surprise, the Queen found that the grand majority had lived, and that some even had enough strength to stand and watch their queen, and this pony with her on his back, pass by.

The Queen was now near tears; if some of her siblings and race still lived, she was still their queen, and all of the misery and hardship that brought with it was still upon her. "No…please…drop me! Leave me to die! I don’t want to be a queen anymore, I-I never did! This role is too hard and too painful for me to bear! I'm a failure of a queen!" she wailed, "I'd rather die!"

Shining Armor shook his head. "I can't do that. You don’t have to be a struggling queen anymore! Let me help you. Let us ponies help you! You don’t have to face this starvation crisis alone anymore, and you never did have to. Come with me, we can ask Princess Celestia for help like you should have instead of invading us. Let her help you and your kind. You don’t have to be a lone queen and carry this burden all by yourself."

The Queen was shocked by Shining's words, and what they implied. "I…I don’t have to be a queen anymore? C…can I be myself if I go with you? That's all I ever wanted..." the Queen said, her voice seeming more calm and sweet; not sounding like the voice of an evil dictator anymore, but instead a young, hopeful filly.

"Yes…you can be anypony you want to be. You don’t have to be anypony but yourself now…" Shining promised, daring to give the hoof of the mare on his back a nuzzle.

The Queen smiled for the first time in what felt like forever as she slid off of Shining's back and stood in front of him, shedding away her second disguise, showing her true self that was hiding underneath the fake facade of a fearsome Changeling Queen; the body of young Changeling mare. Her body shrunk somewhat, losing its terrifying height and stance, instead looking the height of most pony mares, though still looking like a Changeling. The change strongly reminded Shining of the difference between Princess Luna when she dressed up for Nightmare Night as Nightmare Moon, and her normal self; the first simply being a scary facade, while the second was her true self.

Overall, the Queen's natural form looked a lot more cute than scary to Shining. The most striking change, however, was that of her expression. Instead of a hard, stern scowl and piercing gaze, her expression was one of a calm, happy mare, with her even holding a small smile on her lips, her eyelids slightly drooping in relaxation. A look that very much suited her.

Shining Armor was completely stunned at the stark difference between the appearances of the old and new Queen, even if they were fairly subtle. "AAAaaaw! You are so adorable!" Shining said with a huge smile, not even noticing the hint of teasing it held until he'd said it.

The Queen grimaced. "S…Shut up! A q-queen's not supposed to be adorable! A strong, fearsome queen is what I had to be, to make our enemy fear us Changelings!" The Queen walked up to Shining, placing a hoof on his shoulder, "Nopony wants to follow a ruler that looks this small and weak like this. I had to take that false appearance to make my kind respect me; to make every Changeling believe in their queen and always have hope that a large, powerful-looking queen can save them. That is why I had to hide this real me under that fearsome form ever since my mother passed away and the title of 'Queen' was passed down to me."

Shining Armor smiled and once more lifted the changed queen onto his back, before starting to walk with the smaller Changeling Queen on his back, with Equestria's border as his destination. Every surviving Changeling that had crashed around the queen started to walk - or limp, or fly, if injured - after him as well. "Come, Changelings. You don’t need to starve anymore. If you follow me and your queen, you will be fed and safe." Shining shouted out in a promise, before looking back at the queen on his back. "Can I know your real name? I want to know the real you."

The queen merely smiled, happy to tell him. "I was named Queen Chrysalis," she said, before smiling in realization, "but…no…not anymore. I am not a queen. My name...just call me...Chrysalis."

~

Shining Armor brought Chrysalis, and any surviving Changelings he found along the way, levitating those who couldn't carry themselves, to meet Princess Celestia in Canterlot. After Chrysalis had explained to the princesses about the starvation problem that had forced her and her Changelings to invade their city - like a thirsty pony who had found an oasis in the middle of desert, but it owned by somepony else - and that she and her kind never held any ill will against their subjects, Celestia and Luna unanimously agreed to take the Changelings into their empire and help them.

Celestia and Luna then sent their Guard to find any Changelings that had survived their crash landings all around Equestria. Some were already dead in a crater, and some survived but with fatal injuries, but many survived without too many wounds and could be saved, while a miraculous few had landed somewhere soft and were completely uninjured. Some were alone, and some were aided by their own kin, but there were also some Changelings that received kindness and got help from the local ponies, even before soldiers arrived and found them. There were ponies who had helped the injured Changelings, even if they looked scary to them and had invaded their capital, their hearts guiding them to the right path.

Because of that kindness, the Changelings now knew that most ponies had a good heart and were always willing to help, if only they asked for it. They all, though especially Chrysalis, now felt bad for what they did at Canterlot’s invasion; for trying to steal the love that they now knew was given freely and gladly, if only it was requested instead of stolen. This aid, however, came with conditions.

Princess Celestia had seen that 'Queen' Chrysalis wasn't fit to be a Queen of the Changelings, nor a queen at all. When officially asked to concede her title and her crown to become refugees with her ex-subjects in Equestria, Celestia and Luna found Chrysalis herself all too willing to give it up. With that conceding of her power and position to Celestia, she made every Changeling become one of Celestia’s subjects instead of hers. Becoming citizens of Equestria. Chrysalis was only too glad to accept this condition. Now she knew she could finally be free from the heavy responsibility of being a ruler of the Changelings, a title she'd never wanted but had been forced upon her by her birthright. She was a free mare.

The Changelings' crimes, however, had not gone without any punishment. All Changelings were made to work community service to redeem themselves, but this also gave them a chance to be in pony society much closer, and it was through this they learned how to work pony jobs, how to earn money, and to love those ponies whom they merely viewed as a source of food before. They worked now to help support the kingdom that had finally given them a home to live in, and plenty of love for them to feed on. Her Changelings, her siblings, Chrysalis realized, would never starve again.

Another condition was that all Changelings would always have to wear a blue cloth collar while disguised as a pony. It’s was not for marking them as prisoner, nor to control them; it didn't have a shock function or anything to harm them, but instead was worn willingly by the changelings as a symbol to show that they are a Changeling and are proud to be, as well as that they are under protection of Equestria’s law the same as anypony else.

The former Queen, Chrysalis, also got special 'punishment' as well.

Author's Note

What is her special punishment? Read on to find out!