She was back the next night. She refused to think about why. But when she found the changeling posed seductively on its crude straw mattress she almost turned on her hoof and left right that instant.

"Why hello, your Majesty," said the changeling with a sly smile.

"You tread on dangerous ground, creature."

"I have a name, you know."

"As if that matters to me. I care not for your name, nor for your body, nor for anything of you or yours."

"Yet you return night after night. Tell me, oh mighty queen of ponykind, have you found my hive yet?"

Nightmare Moon bit back a hiss of frustration. "You know we have not, creature."

"Chrysalis," said the changeling.

"Creature," repeated Nightmare, fangs bared.

The changeling only laughed.

"Have a care, changeling, I could crush you with the merest wisp of my power," hissed Nightmare Moon.

"So kill me already and get it over with." The changeling stretched seductively. "Or do whatever it is you're going to do with me."

"You imply I would couple with one such as you?" Nightmare tried to make the words scoffing, disbelieving, but they came out simply angry.

Chrysalis smirked and flicked her tail again, shifting to turn her slim-hipped rump towards Nightmare. "You wish you could sample a piece of this."

The growing anger in Nightmare Moon's heart was matched by the heat of an unasked for desire located somewhere else entirely. It had been a very, very long time since she'd last had a lover. But no, she would not think of such things. She would show this upstart insect where her place was. She dissolved into shadows and in an instant had flowed into the cell, reforming looming over the prone changeling. "Be very careful what you start, insect. If I want you, I can have you, regardless of your own desires."

The changeling looked up at her, her ears back flat. She was trying to keep a smirk on her face, but the expression flickered. "You would not dare."

"Oh, I would."

"I am the queen of the changelings," hissed Chrysalis.

"You are the queen of one paltry hive, and you are my prisoner. My property. I can do whatever I please with you." She leaned in closer, leering at Chrysalis. Chrysalis began to get to her hooves. Nightmare Moon put a hoof on her withers and shoved her back down. "I can make you kiss my hooves, insect."

"Not in a thousand years."

"If that's how long it takes," smirked Nightmare Moon. "I have waited longer."

"To have a lover? I'm not surprised. What stallion would want a bitter husk like you?"

Nightmare snarled. "I am the moon, you bloated tick. I rule over the night, and over what takes place there. I know more than you of what lovers do."

"You know nothing of love, merely of base mating. I can taste the lust on you, but there is no love there."

"And what has love to do with pleasure? What need have I of love? I have the passion of a thousand nights beneath the moon, bug."

"You speak as if I'd have anything to do with-" Chrysalis was abruptly cut off as Nightmare Moon bent her head and kissed her forcefully.

Chrysalis tried to pull back from the kiss, but Nightmare Moon wrapped the amorphous tendrils of her mane—solid now, despite being apparently insubstantial—around the changeling's head and held her in place. The Nightmare's tongue pushed into her mouth insistently, no matter how she tried to free herself. Nightmare Moon wanted to laugh, gloatingly. The changeling had not expected this.

Then the changeling bit her tongue. Her fangs were sharp, and Nightmare Moon jerked back with a startled curse.

Chrysalis laughed.

Nightmare Moon narrowed her eyes dangerously. She tasted blood. "That was a mistake, creature."

"You should see your expression," smirked Chrysalis. "Didn't expect this bug to bite, hmm?"

"If you bite me again I will crush the life out of you. Slowly."

"You wouldn't-"

"Try me." Nightmare Moon's eyes were viper slits, her expression practically daring Chrysalis to go ahead. Chrysalis shivered.

Trying to recover her bravado, Chrysalis said, "Kill me if you wish, only cease to bore me with your boasts of passion. You know nothing of it. You merely pant after me like a colt whose balls have barely dropped."

Nightmare Moon reached out with the tendrils of her mane and wrapped them around Chrysalis. Her eyes were still narrowed, and her voice edged with with both anger and arousal. "You think me ignorant of passion? I could show you delights beyond your wildest fantasies."

Chrysalis gave a convulsive kick, straining against the strands of shadow and magic that held her, and bared her fangs at Nightmare Moon. "I am the mother of a hundred thousand, you ignorant foal. What could you show me of coupling that I do not know?"

At that, Nightmare threw back her head and laughed. "You speak of coupling in terms of offspring! Such naivete! Truly, you reveal that you are the ignorant foal. Well, let me begin your education, then. I will show you the first and simplest of the pleasures your mere rutting will never have equaled."

Tendrils of shadow pulled like living ropes, twisting Chrysalis, pushing her from where she had lain on her belly over onto her back, pinning her to the crude sleeping mat on the cell floor. The magical strands caressed her as they moved, sliding over her smooth chitin sensuously. A pair looped around her thighs and pulled them apart, revealing softer chitin blushing green over a pubic mound with labial folds much like any mare's, if one ignored the color. "Now be still and I shall show you what you have been missing," said Nightmare Moon as she settled to the ground, folding her long legs beneath her.

"You think I know nothing of such pleasures? I have often ordered my drones to-"

Nightmare interrupted. "Your drones are largely mindless. You might as well merely pleasure yourself. No, I will show you true pleasure. Now be silent." A wisp of shadow made solid wrapped around the changeling's muzzle, holding it shut. Chrysalis glared at the Nightmare, but she was helpless. Starved of love, she was also starved of magic; she had no power to fight the shadowy tendrils of the alicorn's mane. All she could do was continue to glare as Nightmare Moon, a smirk on her face, brushed a hoof between her legs.

Chrysalis gave a tiny shudder at the touch, but made no sound.

It was a gentle brush, delicate even, just touching the soft, greenish chitin of her outer labia. A second touch, a little firmer, circled teasingly rather than touching directly. Nightmare continued thus for a time, teasing, gentle, promising pleasures never quite delivered. She noticed, at length, that Chrysalis sometimes shifted just a little, as if to lift her hips and press into the touches. A soft sound, as if a whimper of need had been bitten back, rewarded some of her teasing as well. She smiled and dipped her head then, her muzzle hovering above the changeling's entrance.

"You smell of lust, creature. And..." Her hoof pressed more firmly at last, parting the outer folds to slip within, where it found a slick, wet heat awaiting. "Ah yes. You are practically dripping already. Can you deny my skill?"

Chrysalis could say nothing, but her glare intensified. Nightmare chuckled and lowered her head. She slipped her tongue between those outer folds to taste the wetness that lay between them. It was slightly alien, a little more acidic than a pony's would have been, but not entirely unfamiliar. She lapped upwards, until she came at last to the soft nub of the changeling's clit. She stopped just short of it, and Chrysalis let out a soft groan.

Nightmare only smirked and repeated the teasing motion, still stopping short of her eventual destination. Chrysalis managed to stay silent this time.

Nightmare did it again, just barely brushing Chrysalis' clit at the top of her tongue's track. That finally got her a desperate little whimper of need.

"Hmm. What was that? Was that you, the mighty changeling queen, admitting that I do indeed know the ways of pleasure, and begging me to show you more? Was it? I do believe it was. So, if you insist..."

Her tongue pressed between the changeling's lips again, but this time slid straight to its destination and began working across the delicate, greenish nub of flesh with determination. It was still gentle as yet, but it was also insistent, lapping rapidly again and again. Chrysalis gave up all pretense of silence and let out a moan only muffled by the fact that her muzzle was still held shut.

Nightmare Moon hummed softly with satisfaction as she heard the changeling moan at last. The creature certainly couldn't deny her skill now. But she had only just begun. She shaped a tendril of her mane, which still held Chrysalis captive, and pushed it just below where her tongue gently worked, slipping the magic inside the changeling. Chrysalis made a muffled sound of surprise, twitching in her bonds of shadow, and then another low moan as the shadow thickened within her, filling her.

The magical tentacle writhed and twisted within the changeling, moving easily along her inner walls, for she was dripping wet by now. Her moans became utterly shameless, kept quiet only by the magic still muzzling her. Every motion of the magic within her and every stroke of Nightmare's tongue without made her shudder and writhe in the confines of Nightmare's mane.

As Nightmare Moon continued, her eyes half closed in concentration and a satisfied, even smug expression on her face, she loosened her magic slightly, letting Chrysalis move more freely. Chrysalis immediately lifted her hips, pushing herself eagerly against the caress of Nightmare's tongue, and against the twisting, thrusting motion of her magic. She was breathing fast, and when Nightmare loosened her muzzle a bit as well her jaws gaped open in a dazed expression of bliss.

She was obviously not thinking of escape, or of vengeance, or of anything else but the pleasure that filled her. The Nightmare allowed herself a brief pause and an utterly smug smile. The pause got her a whimper of need, which made the smile even wider, but she returned to her self-appointed task willingly enough. She would make the changeling scream before this night was over, if she had her way. And Nightmare Moon always had her way.

But the first act was nearly over now. Chrysalis was moaning loudly, and the way her body tensed, the way her hips lifted, straining, told Nightmare that her pleasure was building towards the desired peak. She adjusted the motions of the magical tentacle that pushed within the changeling, making the strokes deep and powerful but slow. Her licking, on the other hand, she speeded, flicking her tongue over the sensitive clit in rapid, almost frantic motions. This got a gasping cry of pleasure that spiraled rapidly upwards in pitch. There was a pause, then a shudder, and a sharp "Ah!" of pure bliss as Chrysalis came hard. The Nightmare didn't stop, pushing her through it, her tongue seeking to give every last erg of pleasure it could, but when Chrysalis finally went limp, Nightmare Moon at last raised her head. Her chin was somewhat damp, but her fanged smile was immensely self-satisfied.

"You see? I do indeed know something of passion."

Chrysalis, lying dazed, her eyes unfocused, her chest still heaving as she caught her breath, could not summon the coherence to respond.

Nightmare Moon rose and stood, grinning down at her. The shadowy magic of her mane withdrew, letting Chrysalis lie sprawled in a limp heap.

The changeling's wings twitched, and her eyes slowly aligned. She blinked, then turned her head to look up at Nightmare Moon.

"So, you must admit now that I know somewhat of the pleasures that may pass between mares?"

Chrysalis shifted, trying to arrange herself into a slightly more dignified posture. "I 'must' admit nothing," she finally said. She couldn't quite summon the defiant sneer that should have gone with her words, though.

Nightmare Moon laughed. "You cannot pretend you did not enjoy my considerable skills. If you say otherwise, I will know you are lying. Your every cry of passion betrayed you to me."

Chrysalis managed a snort. "Very well, it was somewhat... pleasant. I am surprised, though, that you would perform such a subservient act. I would have expected you to merely take your own pleasure of me."

The smug smile spread into an equally smug grin, showing her sharp fangs clearly. "I do what pleases me, whatever that act may be. And the night is young. Indeed, the night is forever. There is time yet."

Author's Note

Now we get to some of the good stuff. Enjoy!