You register the sunlight beaming through your eyelids and pushing the dull haze of sleep out of your mind. Rising to stretch your still slightly unfamiliar limbs, you look beyond out your bedroom window.
“Well, it seems we’ve been blessed with a lovely day today.”
You reach out and shake the gently breathing figure in the bed next to you. “Wakey wakey, lazy bones.”
He grunts and scrunches his face, not accepting that you would just keep shaking him until he moved. Finally, he speaks. “Away, succubus! I sated you last night!”
You titter and lower yourself next to him, gently nuzzling the back of his neck with your nose.
“You should know that one as wicked as I will never be satisfied, Anonymous.”
He groans in protest yet reaches a hand back to caress your cheek as you kiss his neck and the feeling of warm spreads through your chest.
”This is what I get for going to the altar with a Changeling Qu-“
“Not a “queen” of anything anymore, darling.” You interrupt “And barely a Changeling these days either.”
”Mm.” he says as you spread your hands across his chest. “Then what could you be, Chrys?”
You breathe the scent of his hair in with glee “Simply a wife, a teacher, a mo-“
”MOOOOOOOOM!” you both hear through the walls followed by two pair of galloping hooves. ”HE TOOK MY OCARINA!”
You and your husband release a familiar sigh as you both push yourselves up out of bed.
“Be there in a minute, sweetheart!”
”I’ll take this first. Go fix yourself up.” he says.
You cock your head inquisitively. “Beg pardon?”
”Ear alert.”
Your hand shoots up to the side of your head and welcomes an abyssal sinking feeling from your chest down to your stomach when it finds a long, flat appendage not fitting with the form you chose for your life.
“O-Oh.”
The pit in your chest gave way to a whirlwind inside you that reached up to your brain, you tried to push it back down while also keep up appearances.
“H-how foolish. When did t-that happen? One moment my dear, let me just-“
You pull your hand down the length of one ear, trying to make it snap back to place. “W-we mustn’t keep the children waiting I’ll just get this back…back-backbackba-“
Anonymous whistles and puts his hand on your shoulder, calling your attention to his smile.
”Relax.” He says, and you just begin to.
”Go to the bathroom and get yourself all taken care of. I’ll take care of the kids and you can join us for breakfast, does that sound good?”
You feel your heart slow itself at his touch and take a breath. “Yes…yes of course, you’re right. I’m sorry.”
”Don’t be.” Anonymous leans over and pecks your lips. “See you downstairs.”
As Anonymous gets off the bed and leaves the room, you give yourself another few moments of calm peace before heading to the bathroom. You could already feel your ear changing shape thanks to your calm mind, meaning you might get waffles before they’re gone today.
The sounds of something sizzling on the stove welcomes you as you come down the stairs some time later.
”Mom’s here, kids!” you hear Anonymous call out.
Entering the kitchen has you find your husband frying strips of bacon on the stove while your daughter awkwardly plays an ocarina between her hoofs and your son tries to cut into a waffle on his plate with a black eye.
“How in Equestria did you hear me over that?” you ask as you peck Anoymous on the cheek.
”My ears are GREAT. How are yours?”
You catch his code and move your hair, flashing him a glance. “As they’re mine? Perfect.”
”Got that right.”
You titter and walk over to the table with the kids. “And what happened here?”
”He stole my ocarina.” Your daughter answers.
”She left it out.” Responds your son.
”And pops was too slow to stop that.” Anonymous calls.
You sigh and give your son a disappointed look.
“You’re getting slow, dearest.”
”Yeah, probably.” Anonymous answers.
“And you are grounded.”
”I know…” the colt answers.
”Hey, hon! Come man the guns here while I make your lunch, will you?”
Excitement plays at your senses at what that means, and you hurry over to the stove.
“Gladly!”
Anonymous chuckles and steps to the side, tapping a small music device from his world with his finger. “Any preference?”
“Something soft at this hour, I beg you.”
”I mean food.”
“It all tastes the same.” You say as you man the frying pan.
Anonymous finally places something on and begins rooting around for food.
Music
You close your eyes as the music starts and let it enter you. The feeling of the notes worms their way under your skin and make their way into your blood.
“You ought to have been a composer instead of a deliveryman, darling.”
Anonymous laughs and continues to pack. “I said I had good ears, why does nobody listen to me?”
Your hips begin to sway back and forth on their own as you pop a few morning grapes into your mouth and feel the smooth sensation seep from them and down your throat. You must have been smiling.
”Why does mom always look so happy when you pack her lunch, dad?” one of your children asks.
”Because your dad’s the man.” Anonymous says flexing.
You laugh and put more food inside you before the music ends. “It’s because I’m so different from the others in this town.” You say.
You had originally wanted to never tell your children about what you were born as, but Anonymous had convinced you otherwise saying that the truth would get out eventually. He was right, of course, but you were still determined to look the part of a human’s wife. For your sake more than theirs.
You walk over and dish out bacon onto each breakfast plate. “So for me this music feels…heavenly.”
Your children look up at you just a bit confused, at their age it was no surprise they couldn’t understand your…unique biology.
“It’s also because your father is “the man”.” you say.
The music ends as you sit and Anonymous kisses his arm. “Knew it.”
“Can anyone answer this for me?”
You turn from your blackboard and meet the gaze of your students past the glasses you wear entirely for show.
“What is love?”
You banish Anonymous and his infectious beats from your mind for the moment and watch the class contemplate, eventually one of the students, a griffon, raises a claw. “Love is…a connection? I guess? An…energy, I guess that binds two people who love each other? Across time and space?”
You consider her answer and nod. “Very good, Grizelda. A close approximation.”
You begin to pace in front of the class.
“For the purposes of friendship, love can be considered the ultimate finale state. When one forms a bond with another, they may cultivate that bond over time as you both make your way through life. Eventually your bond may become a blood oath and so on and so forth from there. Friendship scholars theorize that it is the accumulation of those strong bonds through life that strengthens one’s soul against hardships it may face, with love being the ultimate expression of that, an unbreakable bond.”
Another student raises their hand. “But…isn’t love a rare experience? Is it really the ultimate expression of a bond or is it possible to reach a similar point without romance?”
“Aha. I’m not in my younger years anymore, but I believe the youth call that the “friend zone”.”
The class laugh at your joke just as the bell rings.
“That would be lunch, my dears. Read pages sixty to seventy-three tonight and remember that you’ve got a quiz on depression and broken friendships next Monday, study hard.”
Music
You smile as the music beats through your earbud. Your husband was cheeky, that much was certain. Perhaps it was simply because he was not in the same room as you. The music Anonymous packed on these little music sticks always made eating anything a joy, even something as normal as these cheese sandwiches.
The sandwiches disappear quickly as you try to preserve the sensation of consuming them while listening to this song for as long as possible until eventually they’re gone. You didn’t mind, however. You push the earbud in your ear with one hand as you eat with the other, bouncing in your seat in the cafeteria a bit as you listen. Hopefully none of the students saw you or your reputation as a stern teacher would be irreversibly ruined.
For you, the treat was the side effect of the music.
As the song ends and you prepare to check the next morsel prepared for you, you open your eyes and spot a purple pony princess sitting across from you.
The sight of her pushes all the positive vibrations you had just heard out of you.
She sits there silently with her hooves resting on the table as you take your earbud out. You release a small sigh, wanting to keep this professional until she goes away.
“Is there something you needed, Headmistress Sparkle?”
”Nope. Just checking in.” she says.
An awkward silence hangs in the air. Part of you wonders if she’s here to cause you problems before
”Does that taste good?” she asks glancing at your food, interrupting your train of thought.
Oh yes, she was here for that. The important thing here was keeping composure.
“A bit of a complicated question, headmistress…Because of the biology of my birth, I don’t have taste buds that work the same way yours do, so I’m afraid I can’t taste any of this like that.”
She nods. “Yes, I think I remember that at the hearing. So you…?”
You dangle your earbud between your fingers. “My husband, bless his heart, packs this for me each day full of music from his home. I can feel the passion and emotions in the music and that serves as my substitute for taste.”
She offers a faint, momentary smile that vanishes just as fast. “Yes. Anonymous is quite the catch, isn’t he?”
You stow your music player. “The best in the lake.”
You were utterly CONVINCED Twilight Sparkle had eyes for Anonymous before the two of you had fallen in love.
”Is that why you choose to look like him?” she asks.
You steady your breath a bit. “I choose to adopt a human form for several reasons, Twilight.”
”Such as?”
You shoot her a glance, she still has that innocent look on her face for the students around you both, but you could spot the glint of steel behind her eyes. You invented that glint.
“As you know doubt remember, Headmistress, when Anonymous and I fell in love, I felt that the “me” of the past did not exist any longer. The Changeling Horde have all assimilated with King Thorax, with no need for a Queen or her old…ineffectual ways. The pit of despair that followed that was what Anonymous saved me from, aaaand now I have no interest in being anything I once was." You brush some of your hair to the side “It was all in the hearing…”
”Mm.” she says. “Is that all it takes these days? Changing your shape and adopting some foals?”
“Do not bring my children into this, Sparkle.” You were fine with the hazing she liked to heap onto you, just desserts for your failed invasion those years ago, but not that.
“Please.”
Twilight Sparkle’s face remains as stony as ever. “But that doesn’t change anything, does it? You’re used to changing shapes and adopting new persona Chrysalis, but did that ever change things in the past?”
The fact that Sparkle was technically your employer at the Friendship Academy, even if it was under orders from the Princesses, meant you bit your tongue.
”I mean you can’t expect me to believe that hundreds of years of subterfuge and sabotage against the kingdom while you stole our love was done by, how many years of marriage was it?”
“Six years and counting…”
”Six years and counting of marriage?” Twilight continues to speak words that cut you like a knife. “I was at the trial, yeah, but the Princesses confidence is based on YOUR confidence, can you even be sure that you’re really different? What if this is just another persona you adopted to survive? Six years doesn’t get rid of centuries of crimes.”
The feeling from this morning returns, along with the abyss forming in your stomach and your heartbeat increasing. Nothing she was saying was true, it couldn’t be. You were Chrysalis, mother and teacher and wife. You lived a quiet existence in a quiet town that JUST HAPPENED to be also have the six ponies who were responsible for your previous life collapsing and the now-princess of the guard captain you had attempted to seduce. It didn’t matter. You weren’t her anymore, you loved your husband and you-
”Your ears look a bit off, Chrysalis…”
As fast as your hands shoot up to cover your ears do you shoot out of the School of Friendship.
“No no no NO NO!”
You don’t even have the time to make it to your bathroom, bee-lining straight for the downstairs wash as your three-button suit for work vanished from your body. To your horror, your “California Gold” skin of a human slid off your body like an ooze, showing a black insectoid shell underneath it. You scream a scream you have not held within you since Thorax collapsed your hive as the skin hits the floor and dissolves into smoke.
“Nonononopleaseno…” you whimper into the mirror.
Already you could see it. Your eyes growing greener as your pupils began to slit and your hair beginning to adhere together into long strands of moist moss. You had to stop it before it got too far. You concentrated on Anonymous and your family but found Sparkle’s words echoing inside of your ever-elongating skull.
What if this is just another persona you adopted to survive? Did that ever change things in the past?
You were not her. You were not her. You were not her anymore.
Air flows through your hands as holes begin to form in them and a pain in your forehead nearly pushes you to the ground as a horn starts to try forcing its way through your skin.
Claws pick at your heart pounding in your chest as your thoughts turn only to your family. They can’t see you like this, you were not her anymore. Nothernothernothernother.
You would be chased out of town if this got out, they would think you were relapsing. You would die alone and starving in the middle of the badlands as befits one as hideous as the Queen Chrysalis of old. Your children would grow up having had their mother ripped from their lives by her own weakness and sin and would become hollow shells of what they could be.
Your husband would-
There’s a thump from outside in the living room.
You feel him, you wish you didn’t. Cracking the door open you creep from the washroom towards the source of the sound. You find it in the form of your husband placing a record player on an end table and setting an old vinyl disc on top of it. You hide your foul form behind the corner of a wall and try to spot the sleeve the record came in but must stick your head out too far.
”Hey there, beautiful.” Anonymous says.
You jump back to the shadows nearly on instinct. “D-darling! What a-are you doing home?”
”I could ask you the same thing, hon.”
You curse.
“Oh I-I just, f-forgot something at home and wanted to use my free period to…”
”Come on out, Chrysalis. Let me get a good look at you.”
You shrink behind your protection again. “I…don’t have my face on right now!”
That wasn’t a lie, the snout you have is proof.
”A…huh.” Your husband says.
You try to stall. “Darn, where was that b-binder…”
”Derpy says she saw you running home, Chrysalis.”
Damned mailmare!
”Please, come out.” your husband says.
You grip at your chest as the tightness grips back. You wanted to run to him, lose yourself in his embrace and forget all your woes from ages past.
“I don’t…want you to see me like this.”
”I think you need me to, sweetheart.”
His words cut you nearly as deep as Twilight and before you can think of a response, you find your satyr-like legs moving you into the living room. You can barely look Anonymous in the eye as he looks over you.
”Chrysalis…”
You don’t respond, you don’t want to hear that name, it’s why you used so many pet names. Anonymous puts the needle down on the record. “May I have this dance?”
Music
Anonymous throws Jazzhands and his favorite wide smile as soon as the music begins playing and he prances around the living room. You remain still watching with some confusion but notice your wings on your back fluttering to the beat.
“What are you-“
”Hey, do you remember the first time we spent together? It was when you were sitting alone in your old hive and I came to visit.”
You nod, not wanting to speak of the day.
”I remember seeing you and thinking…’Wow, that’s got to be the most depressed thing I’ve ever seen’ And then I asked you to dance, do you remember?”
You remember that dance in your dreams and give a small smile when Anonymous grabs your hands and begins leading you on a jig you can’t resist.
“Something about love and all I needed…”
”I just thought it was funny. You were a good dancer though.”
Your hands in his, you feel lighter.
“Liar. I’ve never been good at dancing.”
”It’s not about how good you are, baby! It’s all about how you feel when you do it. Music isn’t the only thing that carries emotion, you know.” He says with a smile and a wink.
You giggle.
”And then every time I saw you, you looked a little bit less sad, and I think that’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”
“I find it hard to disagree.”
”Know what I see now?”
You grimace and avert your gaze from his. “Darling, I don’t want to…”
”No no! Come on, it’s important.” Anonymous protests, pointing to the mirror on the wall. “For me, please?”
You feel your frown on your face and look to the reflective glass, expecting a monster to look back at you, but only finding the face that smiled in all your wedding photos. Words don’t make it out of your mouth but Anonymous speaks for you. “Don’t let Twi get to you. She’s the past, you’re the present, and you’re better than every Hearths Warming present I ever got.”
You sniff back tears as he kisses your neck. “I’ve only ever seen you, Chrys. Whatever shape you have on, I felt that connection with the one I danced with in that cave that day, nothing will ever break that bond.” You pat a trembling hand on his cheek as you separate and summon up that spirit you had when you and your husband first danced together as you join him around the room.
“That probably sounded less foolish in your head.” you say.
”Nope, just as, I promise.” Anonymous laughs as he spins you around and then back into his arms. Your lips meet under the roof of your slice of paradise and you think to all the good things that came to your life that Sparkle could never take away so long as you had them in your life.
You also think about how to thank that mailmare.
