Author's Note
Hey, Guys! This one is a bit of a longer one. Tell me if you like this longer, more detailed style, because I got a little carried away with my writing. I just thought about something. I gave this place a timeline by mistake, and now I need people to help me spread out these fics properly onto it, because 17,000 years is not enough time to do this properly, I don't think. In the process of writing this, I came up with a bunch more ideas, so expect a lot of these from today forward. Anyone wanna help me come up with a verse name? Type it in the comment section! I mean it, you know?
Royalty Forgotten
The sound of crying could be heard somewhere in the distance as Queen Chrysalis, Queen of the changelings shed tear after tear after salty wet tear onto the smooth stone floor of her hive.
Her children had been instructed in excruciatingly clear detail, not to disturb her for any reason.
But, after thirty solid minutes of low, constant sobbing, they were getting worried for their leader, and one brave changeling drone had just about had enough.
He walked up to the great big doors that led into Chrysalis' private chambers, and knocked a few times.
"Go away! I told you I am not to be disturbed."
He had expected that response. So, instead of going away like he was ordered to, he simply let himself in, opening the door to his Queen's chambers and walking in like it was nothing. Of course, he knew it wasn't nothing, and that he would likely be in a heap of trouble when she finally got out of her funk. But, she had to get out of it first.
"M...my queen?" He said, trying to sound as apologetic as possible while still maintaining a determined tone.
"I thought I told you to Go away."
"I kn-know, my queen, but-"
"Then what are you still doing here in my presence! Are you not aware that you are currently disobeying a direct order from your Queen?"
Suddenly, the drone found his voice. "I know I am, My queen. But you have been stuck inside your chambers for thirty straight minutes and you have not sent any messages over the hive mind to alert us of your condition. The drones are getting worried, and are currently standing outside your quarters like statues waiting for you to emerge from your brooding and lead them once again."
"Then let them wait. I shall return when I feel the time is right. And only then. Now leave me." She made a shooing motion with her hoof.
The drone, did not move.
"Are you still here?" Suddenly, Chrysalis turned around, confronting the insubordinate changeling with a hiss of anger.
"Why do you insist on going against me?!" she yelled.
The drone shivered in fear, but stood his ground. "Mother, please."
This seemed to shake Chrysalis, if only a little. She sighed and turned back around. "Tell them...I will return in twenty minutes. If I do not return by then, you are to come and get me."
"Yes, my queen." the drone saluted before turning to exit her chambers, and as he walked out, he heard her say,
"And for the last time, I am not your mother."
The drone was confused. Why would she say something like that? Surely, she did not mean it. What kind of mother would say such a thing. It had to be a joke. A prank she played on all young nymphs to tease them into saying the opposite. It just had to be. There was no way she wasn't their mother.
All of the drones certainly believed as much, and he would bet money on it if he could, but there was still the lingering question. If she really was their mother, why would she say it at all?
She got like this every year around the same time, the middle of the year. She would just lock herself away in her chambers for an hour and wouldn't come out. A few bold changelings had tried to get her to come out, but were treated to an earful upon doing so, and got extra workloads for disobeying when she rose from her downtrodden state.
And if she wasn't their mother, who else could she be?
After the drone left her chambers. Chrysalis returned to staring at the floor in silence. She had no more tears to cry. They were all gone. She had used them up a long time ago, and yet they kept finding a way to keep coming back.
For now though, her eyes were as dry as bones, all cried out. She looked up at the ceiling from her place in the middle of the floor, and began to think.
"Oh, how I hate being so cold-hearted to them. It makes me so sad to see their fear stricken faces every time I yell or scream or shout out an order."
"And it hurts even worse to punish them. It makes me feel like a total foal when I do it."
"But I just can't help it. Every time I see their little chitin covered faces it reminds me of...back then."
"Back when I didn't look like...this."
"You see, I wasn't always a changeling queen. I used to be just a pony."
"Well, not just any pony. I was an alicorn. Specifically the third alicorn in a line of those from royal birth."
"You guessed it.. I was the third in line, the youngest sister of Princesses Celestia and Luna."
"I was the baby of the family. Always being cared for and looked after by either our parents, my sisters, or the royal guard."
"When ponies say, 'The royal treatment', you can bet your tail I got it. From royal escorts, to banquets, to traveling, all the way up to Celestia's imported cake. Surprisingly, though, I was never a spoiled foal. I grew up to be a kind, understanding, and generous princess."
"This was mostly thanks to etiquette lessons and our parents drilling into me the virtues of social life. They always said that to rule a country, you had to know how to live in it."
"I took their advice to heart and, upon becoming a princess, made frequent visits to the cities of Canterlot, and to the town of Ponyville at the foot of the mountain."
"During my time there, I always made sure to greet the ponies who lived there, and to ask questions, talking to the locals so as to get better acquainted with the town and how life worked there. I didn't want to rule over a country and not know my own citizens, after all."
"I don't mean to sound arrogant or rude or anything, but I was quite the catch in my younger days. Many a stallion and even some mares had made attempts at trying to court me, and I was quite flattered by their daring and bold personalities. But, alas, I never chose a mate. To this day I regret not making the decision sooner."
"You see, I was the princess of love at the time, and I thought that my powers were causing them to fall for me, so I didn't want to influence their minds against whoever they really were in love with."
"Turns out, that couldn't actually happen, but I didn't know that at the time. By the time I figured it out, I was an adult, and I was too busy with royal duties to devote any time to love."
"Not for lack of trying of course. I still had my beauty, and I had gotten even more beautiful as time went on, but my interest in love did not hold a candle to the amount of time my royal duties both required and took up."
"Whenever I entered into town, I was instantly recognizable because of a jade war saddle I always wore on my back wherever I went."
"I had developed an admiration for ancient beings known as humans, who used to use us as mounts in battle, before they were punished with extinction by the chaos god discord."
"I had heard stories of them from my sisters, and I never forgot one."
"Tales of war heroes who defended their lands with honor and valor, giving their very lives to keep their people safe. Countless stories of beings with great intellect advancing technology in their time, and grand structures that were a wonder to see built by the 'hands' these creatures possessed. There was a pony whose company I enjoyed immensely. I believe her name was..Lyra?"
"Anyway, Life continued as normal from that point on, all the way up until I asked a single question. This one question, would mark the beginning of the end of my life as an equestrian, and as a pony."
"I remember my exact words as if I had spoken them only yesterday."
'Why are there no kings and queens in Equestria?'
"Big sister Luna simply kept quiet, and Celestia told me she didn't know. But she did know that it was rumored that if an alicorn became powerful enough, they would become a queen."
"I think I sealed my fate with my words at that time."
'Well, i'm gonna try and become the first queen of Equestria!'
"I was so naive. What a foal. Looking back on it now, I can only say that I was a misguided idiot."
"From that day forth, whenever I had spare time, I would search for a way to gain power. I was determined to become a queen, whatever it took."
"And then, after two long years, my chance finally presented itself, in the form of a pony named King Sombra."
"It was in Canterlot that we first met. I told him about my dream. He wasn't an alicorn, but he was a king, so I thought that if anything, he could be a lead in my search, but he turned out to be more than that. Much more."
"He told me that he believed he could help me. That he was the king of a place called the Crystal Empire, and that if he could become a king, he saw no reason why I couldn't become a queen."
"I arranged for leave, and met him in the Crystal Empire a week later. We exchanged pleasantries, talked for a while, and then it was time to get started."
"He told me that all I had to do was harness and control a ball of magic. Shouldn't be too hard, right?"
"He brought me into a room with an altar in the center of it. On the altar was a pulsing black ball that I instantly recognized as dark magic. I looked back to Sombra with an 'Are you sure about this?' look, but all he did was gesture for me to continue."
"I swallowed my fear and stepped up to the altar. I had to believe in myself. I was the princess of love. Celestia always told me that love could conquer all, so there was no need for me to fear a little dark magic. Besides, I was an alicorn, not to mention a princess. What could a silly black ball do to me? If he managed to control it, then so could I!"
"Oh, how foalish I was."
"I touched my horn to the ball and poured in my magic, immediately regretting my decision as it began to suck away my magic and pull me along with it. I tugged away, pulling against the current and managing to stay upright long enough to stomp my hooves into the ground, spreading my stance out to prevent myself form being pulled."
"Now it was time to do something about my magic. I had to pour it in, not let it get taken, so the first thing I had to do, was stop the flow and restart it."
"I closed my eyes and focused, cutting off my magic reserves and shutting off all contact with the sphere."
"After mentally celebrating to myself, restarted the flow and poured my magic in, the ball maintaining a non volatile state the whole time."
"Eventually, I managed to cover the ball in my magic, and now it was completely green rather than purple. But before I could start celebrating my victory, the green faded and the ball returned to its original color. I had failed."
"The suction started again, and I fought it with all I had, but it was no use. The ball sucked me in, and for a brief moment, all of my senses were cut off, only to be returned a few seconds later. And do you know what I saw? What I heard?"
"Sombra, right there in front of me, laughing maniacally and jabbering about how he had tricked me, how he had planned to corrupt me with darkness and turn me into his first ever minion."
"I. Was. Furious."
"I did all I could to fight the dark magic, but every bit of magic I poured out was sucked into it, and the vortex was getting even stronger. On top of that, I couldn't get free no matter how hard I struggled."
"In a last ditch effort to escape, instead of trying to keep my magic, I poured it in, higher and higher amounts at a time, into the ball."
"Eventually, it turned green once again, and in that instant, I released all my magic at once in an explosion of force that broke apart the ball and set me free. I stalked over to where I had seen Sombra, but he was gone. He must've seen what I was doing and ran away, the coward."
"I had destroyed the place in my explosion, and now glass littered the ground. I stared at my reflection in one, and nearly fainted in terror."
"I was hideous. Gone was my smooth, soft, shiny, obsidian coat. Replaced with, upon contact with my hoof as I touched it, a hard, tough, armor-like skin. There were holes in my legs and hooves, as well as my wings, which now looked more insect like than pegasus-like. But the one thing that made this whole horrible situation even worse?"
" The Jade saddle I had worn on my journey now felt less like jewel encrusted metal, and more like it was a part of my body. The boundary between clothing and skin had blurred to such a degree that it was indistinguishable from my new, more durable coat."
"it was as if it had been fused with me on the cellular level. The very thing I had used to honor those unfortunate warriors from the past had now become an integral part of me, without which, i don't even want to think what would happen."
"I had become a monster. An entirely different animal than a pony. And the worst thing about it? The absolute most unbelievable thing?"
"I had become a queen. I could feel the magic coursing through me. Feel it running through my veins like a river of power. See the crown on my head that marked my ascension to a new level of strength. I had achieved my dream after all this time. I had mastered dark magic just like he told me to. But what had I become in the process? What had I lost in my pursuit of knowledge and fame?"
"I felt sick. The power felt like ice, or poison in my veins. Now that I had it, I didn't want it at all. Just what had I given up for this fruitless quest of mine. I guess it is true what they say. 'Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it.'"
"I was sobbing even as I looked around for Sombra. I saw him in the entrance of the room, looking at me with disgust. I couldn't blame him. I wasn't much to look at anymore. My beauty was gone. And it wasn't even his fault."
"It was mine. For choosing to follow a pipe dream, and for being too dumb to realize that I was being played."
"I hated the fact that I couldn't hate him for this. I hated myself even more for letting this happen. And then I decided."
"If I couldn't blame him for this, I could at least take out my anger on him."
"I lowered my horn at him, firing up my magic to snatch him up in telekinesis. I wanted to beat him. I wanted to make him feel on the outside everything I was feeling on the inside. I wanted to stomp on him, to make him cough up blood. I wanted...to kill him."
"But just before I could find him, he hoofed it somewhere else. I couldn't even get revenge. This was infuriating."
"Back at Canterlot, I tried to get my sister's to understand, but they didn't even recognize me. They thought I was a monster, and wanted nothing to do with me. I was exiled to the badlands soon after. At first, I could understand."
"And then they replaced me with Cadence, and gave that taffy maned, cotton candy coated bitch my place as princess."
"It was around that time I discovered that, whatever thing i was now, I could shape-shift."
"I pretended to be so many different ponies, constantly going back and forth between the badlands and the Crystal Empire as different ponies to practice this new skill of mine. And just as I was about to launch my attack on the Empire, I discovered another neat little trick."
"I. Could lay. Eggs. This opened up so many possibilities for me, and I'll be bucked if I wasn't gonna use them. An army of whatever I was now-I still hadn't thought up a name for my new species- going against the princesses? Sign me up."
"I planned out everything perfectly, from where we would live, how we would live, how I would set up my army, how and when we would eat-I discovered that being the former princess of love allowed me to feast on love itself, which until now I never knew could be eaten.- and what we would do."
"After about 10 years, I had everything in place. A kingdom of Changelings-I had a name at the time- an army of well trained soldiers, and a food source to drain from them if they did not comply.It was all. just. perfect."
"Then Twilight Sparkle happened, and my plans went down the tube. She was just like me, when I learned a special secret a those years ago. She just didn't know it yet."
"What she lacked in experience, she made up for in sheer magical power, and I lost spectacularly."
"Which brings us to now. That defeat made me rethink things a bit. Now, I just miss my sisters, for Faust's sake. I wanna be a pony again. Experience love in a form that isn't magically infused mist that tastes like cherries. I want my life back."
"So, no, my poor, poor little drone. I'm not your mother. At least, not the one your deserve in your life. I'm a reject. A washout. An outsider in a land that used to adore me. And the worst part is? I still love them. Just as much as I love you."
