In Which the Chapter Title Is a Work in Progress
Twilight woke suddenly, sounds coming in short bursts and the smoothed wood rubbing soothingly against her cheek. Her eyes followed her wakefulness in kind, only moments later slowly opening and adjusting to the harsh light of midnight. That is, the plethora of candles and bulbs glowing brightly in the room around her. Such was the plight of those who both fall to slumber and awake in an informal position.
But it’s not like she was asleep, obviously. She was simply conserving energy by resting her head on the table for about eight hours — awake — and snoring loudly. The latter was simply an innate pony instinct to ward off predators. And most of all, she was an alicorn. Even if she would refuse to admit it, Twilight was a goddess living amongst mortals and with that came an inability to do anything less than perfect in life.
Therefore, as was the natural order of all things, Twilight would never — and could never — disgracefully fall asleep on a table during a late night study sesh and wake up in a puddle of her own drool whilst making throat noises loud enough to keep the late King Elliot Eleanor Sombra II awake. To accuse her of such was tantamount to blaspheming the Princess Sun herself as well as simultaneously insinuating Princess Luna is no more than a moon’s foolish errand from a haystack.
“This is the part of the story where you get off your ass and establish the setting or I stab you to death,” a voice to her right said quietly. Twilight looked in its direction and found herself mere inches from an earth pony’s face: Limestone Pie. She quickly recoiled from the mare who had a steel blue coat and plain grey mane with a cutie mark of, like, a tree with rocks, or something like that. Twilight would look more closely at it, but she didn’t want to have a full screen image of a pony's butt on her laptop, during class, when she was in the front of the room. Apart from that, her eyes were a sickly yellow shade, in the sense that anypony who stared into them for a moment too long would instantly be stricken with an illness that would ravage their body from the inside out and then condemn their soul to an eternal and agonizing existence in the special pits of hell reserved just for Limestone’s victims.
Twilight shook her head and turned to the other occupants in the room. Sitting at the table next to her own — in this infinitely small kitchen filled with an infinitely large number of tables — was the elegant form of the Princess of Celestia. Her brilliant white coat shone like a beacon of blindingly bright light right unto Twilight’s retinas where an afterimage was painfully scorched and would forever reside. Her similarly beautiful mane, the flowing image of a transgender rainbow in its entirety, waved playfully at Twilight. The pony cutie mark upon her pony butt represented both her pony affinity for pony kindness and pony love as well as her pony ability to raise the pony sun (the griffins, diamond dogs, and dragons each had their own celestial objects to play godly ping pong with). Her entire demeanor radiated benevolence and care for all those under her long lived reign.
She was also attempting to disintegrate Starlight Glimmer into dust with a glare so foul, Twilight expected it to take flight at any moment. Starlight, the pony in question, was scrutinizing the other characters in the room with a frightening intensity from her seat next to Celestia, the Almighty. Her horn would light up occasionally and she would frown before looking back at a thick tome on the table. When she lifted up the book once more, Twilight squinted at the title. How to Mind Control Gods: A Guide to Subtlety, it read, subtly hinting at its contents.
Sitting at a third table was none other than Queen Chrysalis herself, her dark figure slumped listlessly against the dark wood and a number of random objects stuck through the holes in her legs. Her long, jagged horn was stabbed through an innocent sticky note that rested on her forehead.
Finally, and uncomfortably close to Chrysalis’ dark figure was a contrastingly petite white unicorn named Rarity. Her elegant mane coffered confidently, coinciding with curled curtains in a conscientiously concise concession of unrelated synonyms for no other reason than a quaint, but by no means clever, example of alliterative prose.
Plated in front of each being in the room, Twilight included, was a fluffy donut or two. Even Limestone had one, though she wasn’t entirely convinced the red filling was jelly. For some reason, horrific images of danishes flashed through her mind, but she quickly banished the thought. Such treats were for another, much funnier story than this one, after all.
Twilight blinked. A rock hit her head with a thud, but caused no discomfort otherwise. This was strange. As all ponies know, rocks are hard. Skulls similarly follow suit, but rocks are oft to defeat bone in a battle of wills, especially when limestone is involved. That is, the extremely aggravated earth pony, Limestone, standing uncomfortably close to Twilight and growling aggressively. Somehow, Twilight didn’t appear to be dead or concussed, so it was a win in her book. She liked books.
“That’s what you trash bins refer to as a run-on sentence,” Limestone offered in a rare moment of semi-neutrality and questionable helpfulness. Then, she rounded on the pony and changeling pair. “Learn how to speak the fucking language or I swear to Celestia, I will slit your throats in your sleep!” Hot venom flew from her clenched teeth towards the pair. Not literally, of course, as that would be dreadfully unsafe.
Twilight mostly ignored her as usual; her attention was far more devoted to her friend across the room. Despite the prissy unicorn being the odd one out of the strange party gathered in her kitchen, Rarity was a great moral boost for her. Her friends, Rarity included, were something of pillars in her life. They always remained by her side as a beacon of stability in a sea of turmoil. Rarity’s unexpected presence was a sign that everything would be back to normal soon enough, and that she would always have a shoulder to lean on if the going got tough.
Rarity reached into her mane and retracted her hoof soon after, now with a wickedly sharp butterfly knife grasped expertly in her grip. The small hilt was lined with rubies and sapphires, each on separate sides of the thin steel. Without hesitation, she lunged forward and mercilessly sank the tempered metal deep into the changeling's chest, right over the heart.
Twilight gasped in horror, but the blade slid bloodlessly out of an inexplicable hole that had manifested around Chrysalis’ would-be wound. It had the shape and size of those on her legs and was free of lacerations of any kind.
Twilight blinked. She was about to comment how often she had been doing so recently, but stopped short. It felt as if she had already done this song and dance before with a blinking gag, not that it would have been funny the first time.
“Here, drink this,” Limestone muttered from across the table of Twilight. A subtle undertone of barely concealed hatred cut through her faux cheery tone like butter to a thousand degree meme. She passed a platter of eight shot glasses filled with crystal clear liquid. They smelled suspiciously of paint thinner and tequila. “Maybe you'll be less of an idiot after,” the earth pony mare suggested innocently.
Twilight shrugged and quickly downed five of the containers and eyed the last few critically. They were at least better than vodka shots. She pushed them away and looked up at the alabaster unicorn and then the Queen.
“Uh, Rarity, why are you and Queen Chrysalis—“ she began.
Chryssi interrupted with a wave of her hoof, “Call me Queeny.” Twilight paused and glanced at Limestone, who was currently drawing a gratuitously explicit image of Princess Celestia being dismembered by an egg shaped rock while Limestone stuck questionable objects into the holes. Twilight sagely decided to not look to her for advice and started again.
“Uh huh, so why are you—?”
“She’s my bitch,” Chrysalis interrupted once more. Twilight blinked again but said nothing in response. At that moment, she swore to herself to never again blink in confusion in order to keep things exciting and fresh.
Limestone suddenly appeared by her side and scared the bejesus out of her. “What loosely passes as humor in this narrative is being generated from the extreme flanderization of pre-established characters. For example, you wouldn’t expect a pony like Rarity to try to murder another creature in any sort of normal circumstances.”
Twilight blinked. She swore under her breath. Then she blinked again, but this time simply to keep her eyes from becoming dry and thus, was not an offense. She did that a few more times.
“Right now, the author is trying to subvert the reader’s expectations by bringing undue attention to an action that was previously unusual, but in this specific instance is not.” Limestone bit into her donut as she paused. “It’s a pretty shitty attempt at a joke, all things considered.”
Twilight turned to the mare. “What?” she asked.
Chrysalis was the one who spoke up. “Do you think I’m pretty?” she inquired, frowning sullenly at Twilight.
“Yes, my love!” Rarity practically shouted.
“What?” Twilight repeated.
“I asked if you wanted a donut,” Chrysalis replied, despair consuming her very essence and the confectionery treat before her in kind.
Starlight teleported inches away from Twilight’s face and her horn glowed with stolen eldritch power. Her gaze bore deep into the alicorn’s eyes. “You want a donut more than anything in the world,” she spoke, her voice resonating with the untold magicks of a long dead civilization. Without breaking eye contact, she hoofed a donut onto Twilight’s plate and pushed the other one to the floor.
The purple bookworm leaned back and tried to look around the looming unicorn. What she saw made her wish she never crawled out of bed that morning, kicking and screaming and eating month old donuts. She broke away from the disgustingly intriguing sight of Chrysalis passionately sticking a tongue down Rarity’s virgin throat with a grimace at the thought and another wince at the wording used to describe it.
Looking back in front of her, she took notice of the enormous white alicorn attempting to smite Starlight with all the might of the sun. The victim in question, for her part, seemed oblivious to her ire.
Chrysalis looked pointedly at Twilight and Twilight looked pointedly at Celestia who looked pointedly at Starlight by whom her aged book was looked pointedly at. All these points soon proved too much for the fragile and ever expanding balloon that is the universe and an almighty pop spread throughout the cosmos. All life was eradicated instantly. Neighboring verses looked unto the expanding destruction with horror, most notably the Spavtanacs who quickly arranged a petition to reinstate life, the universe, and everything else. Unfortunately, very few species could stand their oppressive cheeriness so the actual turnout was quite low.
One of the few races that got along with the Spavtanacs to any degree at all was the Froghrils, which came as quite a surprise to the rest of the universe given how pessimistic they were. It was but simple circumstance that these same creatures happened to be on vacation in the Caribbean when a freak accident somehow restored the universe to a save state from just before its violent implosion.
Of course, Twilight and friends didn’t realize any of this had happened in the first place and therefore continued on as usual.
“So what are you doing here?” she asked to Chrysalis, though the question extended to the rest of the hooligans in the room.
Chryssi leaned back in her chair. “I just wanted to visit my good friend, Twilight Sparkle, is all,” she hissed, voice thick with malice and a hint of maple syrup.
Oh, Twilight mouthed silently.
“You will all bow before the fury of the sun, lest thy backside be gobsmacked!” Celestia suddenly yelled over Starlight’s shoulder.
Twilight looked at Celestia for a split second before deciding that splitting seconds was far too dangerous and quickly returned her steady gaze to Rarity who was stealthily moving her hoof towards Chrysalis’ own. It came as a surprise to both when Chrysalis deployed a trap card on top of the unicorn’s ultra-super-boss card.
Starlight took a deep breath from where she had remained standing. Everypony waited with masturbated breath except for Limestone who was last seen drawing a pentagram with blood on a bagel. “In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat,” she finally said, picking up a donut glazed equally on all sides and sprinkles spread equidistant from each other across its surface.
“How darest thou speak against our government, cretin?!” Celestia shouted, inches from the offending unicorn.
Chrysalis popped up from under the table that Rarity was sitting at and smacked her lips. “I always found ruling with love to be the best way to go about things.” She tilted her head and snarled. “Until Thorax stole all of my male subjects for his own personal harem!”
She spit on the table. “What a faggot. Right, Rarity?”
The blindingly white unicorn responded immediately with a hungry look in her eyes. “Absolutely, mistress!”
“I’m more of an anarchist myself honestly,” Limestone called from across the room, inexplicably hanging upside down from the rafters.
“Our sister remaineth a perpetual virgin on account of being too edgy to make it half a league from her dorm without losing a pint of blood,” Celestia mumbled quietly from beside Starlight.
“When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hooves of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class,” murmured Starlight equally as quietly.
Celestia merely harrumphed with a vengeance. Chrysalis raised a chitinous eyebrow. Celestia glanced at Queeny and their wandering eyes met. A battle of frigid ice and fiery fire raged between the two, mercilessly massacring any caught in the crossfire. Twilight conjured a fire extinguisher from the deepest depths of hell, just in case. Eventually, Chrysalis looked away bashfully.
Starlight snuck up behind the changeling. “Do you know anything about…” She paused and looked back and forth before lifting a hoof to the side of her mouth. “...Mind control?”
Rarity immediately stepped towards the unicorn menacingly. “How dare you accuse my paragon of virtue with—”
Chrysalis held up a holey — or holy if you happen to be a prissy white fashionista — hoof in front of the aforementioned pony. “Don’t worry dear, I’ve got this.” She turned towards Stary Wary Glimmy Glammy Fantastico. “Can’t say that I have!” she lied.
Celestia scoffed. “Sure you haven’t,” she said.
Chrysalis crossed her legs on the table. “And what’s that supposed to mean?” She leveled a glare at the white alicorn.
“And what happened to your bizarrely Luna-esque speech pattern?” Limestone interrupted. Twilight glanced over to the pony and noticed she was using her horn to levitate a large wooden spoon.
“It matters not!” Celestia commanded. She slammed a hoof onto the floor causing a spiderweb of cracks to appear. Nearby, one of Fluttershy’s friendly spiders chuckled at the meek comparison to her own web. It was just then that an even larger friendly Fluttershy spider challenged its small kin to a battle to the death. The minuscule arachnid was swiftly defeated and the funeral was held the next day. No less than three separate duels were initiated during the event. Fluttershy’s super friendly and totally not bloodlusting spiders were an extremely violent species with a flair for the dramatic and hearts of gold. Except for Webinold IV. Fuck Webinold.
Starlight suddenly returned to the present, figuratively this time, and glowered at the changeling. “You will answer me truthfully,” she growled.
Twilight spoke up for the first time in an ambiguous number of paragraphs. “What about Shining Armor?” She raised an eyebrow at the blank looks she received.
“Who?” Chrysalis finally asked. Rarity likewise shrugged.
“Never heard of him in my life,” Celestia agreed.
“Sounds like a massive fucking weeb,” Starlight echoed.
“Bet he likes dick,” Limestone concurred as she fell on top of Starlight, causing the aforementioned pony to emit a squawk in surprise. She instinctively fired a vicious bolt of black magic that sliced a groove in the fabric of the universe and caused the souls of the damned to scream out in agony. Limestone merely let it glance off of her, protected by a well-polished suit of contrived plot armor. She rolled off the stunned pony and stood up.
Twilight slammed a nonexistent mug on the table. “That’s it!” she screeched, not unlike a banshee but far more like a pony. “What are all of you doing here? Why is everypony insane? Why is Celestia, praise be unto her, a colossal vagina? Why is Chrysalis acting more pathetic than usual? Why is Starlight so hellbent on mind controlling me? Why is Rarity a sex slave? Why is Limestone a psychopath? Do any of you want some coffee?” The other creatures in the room blinked owlishly at Twilight.
“What?” Celestia and Starlight asked simultaneously.
Twilight’s horn glowed and she teleported across the room, appearing next to a lonely coffee machine. The machine’s spouse had recently died from a devastating stroke — not unlike Starlight’s own prophesied fate — and their best-friend-slash-secret-lover just a month prior fell victim to a nasty case of starvation after having its cutie mark removed and forgetting how to eat. Starlight denied any involvement in the untimely passing and the case remained open.
“Does anyone want coffee?” Twilight repeated, holding up a newly filled cup o’ joe (not to be confused with Kappa Joe, Donut Joe’s less fortunate cousin). She continued, “I just made some.”
Chrysalis glanced at Rarity who shrugged helplessly. “Sure,” she responded quite unsuredly. Rarity took a sip from Chrysalis’ when it arrived.
“I could go for some,” Starlight echoed.
Limestone swooped in from the ceiling on a pair of fiery demon wings and snatched Twilight’s mug out of her magic. “Thanks!” she shouted behind her. Twilight rolled her eyes and made another cup.
Celestia huffed and turned away. Her horn glowed and a mug of her own apparated in her aura. “Coffee is for losers,” she mumbled indignantly. Twilight sniffed the air as a curious scent found its way to her.
“Is that paint thinner?” she asked, staring worriedly at Celestia’s drink.
Celestia looked up. “No.” She went back to daintily vacuuming up the decidedly-not-paint-thinner.
“Oh. Well in that ca-” Twilight was interrupted when Celestia suddenly slumped in her seat before crashing to the floor with the distinct clang of metal. She convulsed on the ground for a few seconds before going still. The room descended into silence.
Chrysalis let out a small chuckle before returning to whatever she was doing with Rarity. Twilight glared at her for a moment before turning her gaze back to Celestia’s unmoving figure.
“Um…” She trailed off. Just as suddenly as Celestia met her painful end, she sprang up again and shook her head.
“Woo!” she exclaimed as she took her seat again. She leaned over the teacup and stared deeply into its soul. “Remind me to never drink from Cadance’s stash again!” She immediately went back to take another sip. A few moments passed. Celestia fell off her chair once more and collapsed into a convulsing mess. Twilight slammed her head into the table she sat at. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, not raising her face from the wood.
“Methinks the writer is running out of ideas,” Limestone whispered into her ear.
“Great,” Twilight mumbled through the table.
“Or who knows, maybe she’ll reread the original story and come up with some more?” Limestone paused. “Speaking of which…” She hobbled off into a corner and began to ascend to a higher plain.
“Just kill me now,” Twilight continued, unabated.
“Oh come now, my little pony,” Chrysalis sang alluredly from her new seat directly across from the unicorn. Celestia cast a frown in the changeling’s direction before remembering she was supposed to be comatose or dead or something and promptly stilled once more. “Why don’t you eat something?”
Twilight groggily lifted her head off the table and glared at the smile which was the farthest thing from malicious known to ponykind directed her way. She raised an eyebrow testily.
Chrysalis waved her off and turned to a table of assortments that was decidedly not there a moment ago. She put a chitinous hoof to her chin for a minute before picking something out from the pile of desserts. “How about a donut? That’s sure to turn that frown upside down,” Chrysalis said through a violent sneer. Or it could have been a kind smile, but Twilight was a jaded fuck who was beyond irritated and didn’t care to see the good in other ponies at the moment. So it was probably a sneer.
“Mmm, donuts,” Rarity moaned out in perverse pleasure. Drool fell from her open mouth into Chrysalis’ in some bizarre corruption of physics that led to the liquid reversing direction multiple times in mid air and an inordinate amount of energy being destroyed in the transfer.
Twilight had a sudden sense of déjà vu as her vision blacked out and she found herself in a cavern deep below Canterlot Castle where Chrysalis had left her to starve to death. Mere meters beyond her reach lay a tray of jelly filled donuts that taunted her from their side of a thick pane of glass. Twilight then realized none of this had actually happened and none of the events nor dialog in the past few minutes were reminiscent of events that had previously taken place.
“What flavor is it?” Starlight asked with vested interest.
“Uh…?” Chrysalis responded, staring at the treat in confusion while somehow turning the trailed off sentence into a question.
“I’ll trade my kingdom for that donut,” Celestia interjected, or she would have if she had been capable of doing so. Instead, her statement came out more like “thhsssed sjjdjjjajiekkkd :((((( iiiiidkskkkdjjk mmmmmmmmmmmm,” with a theologically accurate pronunciation of a penta-chin frowny face included.
“So what will it be, Sparkle?” Chrysalis pushed.
Twilight stared at Chrissy's hoof with the intensity of a god. “Why do you have holes in your legs?” she eventually answered.
“Chrysalis growled and moved the donut closer to Twilight’s purple hooves. ‘This is no time for games!’ She lowered her head and glowered at the alicorn. ‘Well?’” Limestone shouted, her voice echoing through the halls with unmeasurable power. The words were spoken in an ancient language, reverberating with magic and forever lost to time and yet, Twilight understood her perfectly. She took another deep breath and held it for a moment.
“No.”
Chrysalis looked disappointed for a second but quickly nodded in understanding. The foodstuff immediately dissipated into thin air. “Do you want a hug?” she asked in earnest.
Twilight sighed and looked down at her hooves. “Yeah…”
Chrysalis stood up and trotted over to where Twilight sat, taking a seat next to her and wrapping a perforated leg around the purple alicorn. She started brushing a hoof through the pony’s disheveled mane. “Do you want to talk about it?” she finally asked.
Twilight sniffled and leaned into the hug. “Yeah…” She trailed off. Chrysalis waited patiently for her to continue. “It’s just that…” She took a breath. “I’m not sure how to describe this.” Her snugglebug said nothing. “I guess my life has started to feel a little overwhelming.”
“How so?” Chrysalis spoke up.
Twilight waved a hoof in the air vaguely. “I dunno! I’ve just been coming into my princess duties these past few weeks, even this long after my coronation and… Like, that and my friends have been oddly distant recently and I’m worried they may be moving on with their lives and I’m not sure how to deal with that.” She looked into the distance at nothing in particular. “I’m just some bookworm librarian! I don’t know how to deal with all this shit!”
She rested her chin on the table. “A few nights ago, I noticed that I was getting weird bursts of magic at random moments and I ran some tests and I couldn’t figure anything out and I’m worried something is wrong with me! What if I lose my magic?! At first I thought that Pinkie and Rainbow might have pranked me with some stupid chemical but when I confronted them about it, they said they were getting married and I asked how long this had been going on and they responded about two years and I’m upset because they never told me about this before and also I’m a little angry that Rainbow wasn’t shipped with me in this story because it’s not like it actually had much to do with the actual plot of this narrative in the first place! It’s just not fair!” At this point, Twilight broke down into tears and openly wept into Chrysalis’ nonexistent coat.
Chrysalis smiled reassuringly. “I’m sure it will all turn out fine. Your friends certainly have made a name for themselves but I doubt they’d ever leave you far behind.” She turned her head to look directly into Twilight’s eyes and smile with a toothy grin. “Well, I guess they did this time, but ya know...”
Twilight ceased her sobbing and stared at Chrysalis.
Chrysalis stared back.
Twilight continued to stare at Chrysalis.
Chrysalis flashed her best winning smile.
Twilight made a rude gesture and went to bed.
Author's Note
~~At the moment, this story has not been entirely through the editing process. Sorry if that results in any bizarre combinations of words or something.~~
Also, if you didn't catch it in the story description, this is a tribute of sorts to Six Characters in Search of a Point by Cynewulf. If any of the jokes seem reminiscent of they're story, that is probably why. I tried my best to avoid doing so, but I can only do so much.
Credits:
Jack Getschman as the writer of Chrysalis' last line of dialog.
Wordplay and Napoleon The Lesser as partial proofreaders.
