A Tale of Dusk

Chapter 7:

“So this it it?” Spine said in a flat tone, staring at the cute little white Unicorn who had so kindly shown her around the town. “No arcades, no clubs, not even a computer store?”

“Yeah, it’s dead boring. Occasionally my sister goes to other towns and lets me tag along, and she gives me a purse full of bits and sends me to wander around rather than embarrass her in front of her clients, but Ponyville is dead boring.” Sweetie Belle said in the same flat tone, giving the Drake a sympathetic look. “I mean, there’s a monthly festival with singing contests and handicraft stalls, but that’s hosted by the Sisterhood and it’s really preachy, so none of the stallions in town show up for obvious reasons, and back when we were allowed to go into the Everfree, we could at least go find Cragadile eggs or go swimming in the rivers, but that’s just kiddy stuff. Mostly I just hang out at the Cake’s shop and listen to music on their radio with my friends.”

“Cragadile eggs? You mean one of the largest and more dangerous sub-species of the basilisk family?” Spine’s eye-frills lifted about a half-inch at that little nugget of information. “What, are your parents looking to cash in on your life insurance or …”

“Nah, the nest we used to raid was abandoned, and most of the eggs had turned to stone without their mother to keep them moist, but the nest was the size of a large house and full of tunnels from where the hatchlings who’d survived had dug their way out, so we’d all used to climb inside and use it like a fort … until Silver Spoon tattled to the adults after her favourite shirt got half-eaten by some parasprites, and then we all got yelled at by every parent in town and ordered to not go anywhere the forest.” The white unicorn groaned and kicked at a loose cobble, sending the flattened stone skipping down the road. “Your Neightendo is probably the most advanced technology in town outside of the computers in the city-council building.”

“Ugh. UUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH.” Spine rubbed at her temples, feeling a stress-migraine coming on. “Okay, I am going to find Dusk, we’re going to fix this because I am not spending six months in a town this boring.”

“You’re leaving? Already?” The disappointment in the young filly’s voice was both heart-breaking in its intensity, and soothed a need by Spine to have a random pony want to spend time with Spine because of herself, not because she was connected socially to Dusk or Celestia.

“No, no, I meant we’re here for at least six months, so Dusk had better damn well get me that connection to the Magi-Net, and while I’m laying down the law, I’ll see if we can get my consoles shipped out here.” Spine gave her guide a toothy grin, and felt her heart warm when an equally-excited smile was given back to her. “I mean, how much traffic can a library in a town of this size get? A lan-party is just as good as an online group after all, and this far from Canterlot Campus, Dusk and I can eat out without needing to keep an eye out for his demented groupies trying to bum-rush us, so I probably won’t need to make all of our meals.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that. Apart from the Cake’s bakery, Cafe Botte de Foin and the Hayburger Stand, there’s not many places in town to grab a bite to eat, unless you go to the market stands … which is almost entirely run by mares, and a lot of them are Sisterhood-types.” Sweetie Belle said in a strained tone, giving Spine a grimace-like smile. “We have maybe fifty stallions in a town of four hundred ponies, and at least thirty of those are married, gay, married and gay, or underage. If you’re taking a stallion into the market stands, both of you had better be prepared for at least some light flirting, if not some straight up ‘stand and deliver’ situations.”

“…Fffffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, I think Dusk might have been safer back in Canterlot with all the crazed super-talented mages trying to ride both his horns.” The Drake groaned and slapped a claw over her face. “Looks like I’m doing the shopping all on my own again. Bah!”

“It could be worse. At least you guys can go back to Canterlot. My friends and I are all stuck in a town where nothing interesting ever happens.” Sweetie Belle said darkly, before the air was rent by a high-pitched screech as Dusk Shine, the source of the awful noise and blinded by what looked like half of a white shirt impaled on his horn, came racing past, flailing his arms wildly in the air with a buff orange mare in hot pursuit, holding an arm across her chest to try and keep her thread-bare plaid shirt over her breasts, the other one reaching vainly for Dusk’s back and a frustrated look on her face.

The Drake and the small Unicorn watched the pair dash past before disappearing around a corner, their brains still trying to comprehend exactly what was going on, before Spine snapped back to reality first.

“Oh hell! DUSK! Keep running!” The Drake yelled, desperately trying to catch up, while Sweetie Belle threw her hands up in the air and whooped with laughter.

“Best! Day! Ever!” Sweetie cheered, grateful that Ponyville was going to be exciting for a change!

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Deep under the mountains, she waited, biding her time patiently, like a cunning spider in its web, waiting, waiting, waiting for that one tremor along her web to let her know the prey had stumbled into her trap.

Chrysalis let the illusion of elegance and control wash over her for a few more seconds before the unending cacophony of the Hive’s industry shattered her calm frame of mind. Her mother’s Hive, as the paranoid old hag was so fond of saying. Chrysalis couldn’t have five seconds to herself, or leave the Hive, or even take a shower in peace without either one of her mother’s Drones getting underfoot, or her older sisters hassling her endlessly.

“Oh hey Chryssi, you need to figure out how to feed fifty changelings with rations meant for ten.” “Chryssi, change my grubs' diapers for me!” “Chryssi, get outta here, this orgy is only for the cool Changelings!” “Go find me a hot Guard Drone, Chryssi, or I’ll tear your wings out and beat you with them!”

It’s not like Chrysalis hadn’t tried everything she could think of to change the status quo, to save her Hive, but when push came to shove, Chrysalis’s less-is-more attitude to the fodder, aka Ponykind, made her seem weak and insipid to her far more ambitious family members. Ponies were to be grabbed in lightning raids on groups of vagabonds, outcasts and exiles, the unfortunates cocooned and placed into suspended animation as their love siphoned from them, trapped in fantasies that pandered to their deepest, darkest desires as the Hive’s Tenders coaxed their psychic essence out to serve as the Hive’s nourishment.

The concept of living amongst the Ponies, integrating seamlessly into their societies and pretending to be Ponies so as to harvest love directly and in larger quantities than the old methods could ever produce was feasible was Chrysalis’s greatest dream and the only hope she could see of saving the Hive from the slow, withering path to extinction the Matriarch had set her children upon. Flames of Tartarus, Chrysalis had tested her theory personally for several moons, just soaking up the ambient love and psychic energies of the townsfolk as she used her telepathic powers to befuddle their minds just enough that her insertion into their community went unnoticed, and returning to the Hive stronger than any Changeling Queen since the Golden Age. Certainly stronger that the Matriarch had thought possible, at least.

That alone had been her saving grace. Her mother, that sadistic, self-obsessed witch, had immediately tried to have Chrysalis executed on the spot as a traitor for returning to the Hive without permission, only to have to do some amazing political back-flips when Chrysalis, gorged on power, had laid into those older sisters who had leapt to earn favour from the Matriarch by shedding Chrysalis’s blood. Chrysalis has shattered their limbs to end their physical attacks, pulled their wings out root and all to stop them trying to escape, pulverized their horns with her bare hands to neuter their spells before marching over to the nearest storage crystal and pumping all of her energy into it, glaring into her now-cowering Matriarch’s eyes the whole time .

I could take everything from you right now, but I am doing this for the Hive. Chrysalis had sent the message burning through the upper levels of the Hive-Mind, taking a certain sort of pleasure in how her mother’s presence in the Hive-Mind shuddered as much from the concept of sharing as the fear that her most despised daughter was now capable of toppling the Matriarch with a single blow, let alone how the mind-glows of her fellow Queen-caste sisters all trembled with rage and fear.

Chrysalis’s gift of stolen psychic energy, specifically charged with the power of Love, should have been enough to feed the Hive for over a year if they kept to the current rationing levels. Proof, empirical proof that Chrysalis’s method worked leaps and bounds ahead of the old ways, proof that the Hive could thrive if only the Changelings were willing to change.

And her mother had suddenly turned into sweetness and light, praising Chrysalis for her ‘gift’ to her Hive, lavishing meaningless honours on her daughter’s head while simultaneously laying claim to the massive amount of psychic energy as not only her idea, but her private source of sustenance.

And the Hive had cheered her mother, not Chrysalis. They had cheered for the evil bitch who was hoarding a Queen’s ransom in food for herself, and only herself, while they would have to continue to make do with mere scraps that would diminish with every passing month, as the weakest Changelings slowly starved to death in the dark corners of a Hive that had once held fifty times their number with ease because the cocooned ponies no longer produced as freely as they had once first captured, and the Matriarch refused to do anything to stem the steady loss of the Hive’s food-supply because to do so would be to admit she was wrong.

Chrysalis had debased herself, a Queen-Caste living amongst the Ponies as a simple labourer, putting up with their banal stupidity, their idiotic laws, their … boringness, trudging along on her mission all on her own, with no contact amongst the Hive Mind for fear of sabotage or worse from her elder kin as she lived in a small crawl-space above the warehouse she worked in, sneaking down to the river in the pre-dawn to bath in the freezing water to keep herself clean and trying desperately to infiltrate a society whose more intimate social mores and folkways she knew nothing about.

It wouldn’t have been the first time that Chrysalis had had to separate herself from the Hive-Mind, but it had been the most terrifying for the sheer length for which she had not had the incessant drone of tens of thousands of minds chattering in the back of her own head. Unfortunately, cutting all contact with the Hive-Mind had also made it all but impossible for Chrysalis to rally any Drones to her cause by showing them how easy it was to harvest Love without needing to bow to the tyrannical Matriarch and her fanatical adherence to the old ways, even as the Hive starved under her mother’s rule, even as the Changelings edged closer and closer to extinction, all because the Matriarchs refused to release even an inch of their stranglehold on their society, as the Queens all squabbled and bickered and feuded over who would replace a Matriarch when one finally succumbed to old age or the incessant assassination attempts.

It was … maddening. No matter what she did, her mother was determined to hold onto the ancient traditions that gave her ultimate authority, even if it killed everyone in the Hive in the end. Her sisters were more interested in standing atop what little scrap-heaps of power they had clawed together for themselves and trying to murder each other to claim each other’s hoards, her brothers were all either too young to help or already traded away to whatever other Hives still remained to prevent inbreeding, and the Princes from the other Hives were just as hollow-eyed and broken as the common Drones were.

Struck with a growing sense of despair that everything she was doing was pointless, Chrysalis stood and walked through the Hive towards the primary exit, ignoring the sneers of her older Sisters who, despite their superior numbers, kept their distance and their protective wards fully charged, turning a blind eye to Guard Drones who followed her at distance just shy of respectful and closer to outright surveillance, until she stood at the entrance, narrowing her eyes as she braved the harsh rays of the mid-day sun.

Behind her lay a dying Hive, ruled by bitter paranoia, spiteful intrigue and a self-destructive lust for power, where her death was simply a matter of time until her Sisters managed to bury their mutual loathing of each other and fear of her long enough to unite against her, or her mother finally decided to move openly against Chrysalis again to crush the biggest ‘threat’ to her rule.

Before her lay a barren wasteland that no sane species claimed … and beyond that, Equestria. A land of plenty, ruled by a Goddess of mercy and hope, the ancient enemy of her people that had sundered the Changeling Empire of old and driven her species to the brink of extinction.

For several heart-beats, Chrysalis wavered. Everything she had fought for, the weight of tradition, loyalty, love for people weighing on her shoulders, telling her to come back inside, that tomorrow she could try again and maybe it would work this time.

A moment later, Chrysalis stepped out into the sunlight, leaving it all behind, and she had never felt lighter, both in body and spirit.

She would lead her people away from the precipice of extinction that the Matriarchs seemed hell-bent on pushing their entire species over. But to do that, Chrysalis would need power, political and otherwise, a bountiful territory of her own and an army strong enough to overthrow any force that stood in her way.

And to attain all of those things, she would need to head deep into the beating heart of ponykind’s society, alone and without any support from her Hive, and hope that her theories and tactics would survive contact with the enemy at their strongest.

Chrysalis extended her gossamer, tattered wings and took to the air, ignoring the whispers and the shouts behind her, and flew resolutely to the north, towards ponykind’s greatest kingdom.

Towards Equestria. Towards Canterlot.

Towards destiny.