Servant of the Queen

“I told you not to drink so much!” Sunny Flare heard Sour Sweet’s voice float into her ears from somewhere on her right as her friend helped her up the stairs. “You need to lay off the punch.”

“I’m fine,” Sunny protested. She drained the remains of the cup she was holding and tossed the empty vessel down the stairs. “I just needed sumfing to take the edge off, ‘kay?”

The stairway swirled in front of her and the more she walked, the further the top of the stairs seemed to move away from her. Sour Sweet’s face seemed to change shades of color and it was now hovering on the colors of purple or yellow.

“What edge did you even need to take off anyway?” Sour Sweet grumbled. “It’s just a party. You don’t need to stress out about having fun.”

“I’ve been very stressed recently,” Sunny slurred. “You an’ Sugarcoat and the fire estinguishurr and Silver Rose. So much to think ‘bout. I didn’t need to think this much before.”

“Uh huh.”

“You guys keep making fun of me…” Sunny stumbled on the next step and Sour Sweet had to stop her from rolling back down the stairs. “I’m not crazy ‘bout the sex. I’m not wearing no sexy vampire costum. This is what all vampires wear you gots it? I’m not an attenturn seeker.”

Sour Sweet rolled her eyes and hauled Sunny up the last few steps and into Lemon’s guest room.

“Sober up in here before coming back down,” Sour grunted. “Take it easy, okay?”

She dropped Sunny on the bed and went to turn off the lights before leaving out the door. Sunny groaned and flipped herself on her back, rubbing at her eyes. The ceiling spun around in her vision and she could swear the lightbulb was sneering at her.

“I’m not drunk…” Sunny pointed at it and frowned. “I didn’t drunk too much alcomahol, whatchu looking at? I’m just stressed.”

The lightbulb ignored her.

“I’m a vampire. I’m a vampire. I’m a vampire.” Sunny pulled at the side of her mouth. “I’ll bite you if you make foon of me, you don’t do that.”

Sunny lay there in the dark for a while, listening to the faint sounds of merrymaking coming from downstairs. She reached into her mouth and took out the fake vampire teeth she had been wearing. Nobody was going to see her up here anyway, so she thought she might as well relax a bit.

“Nonsense… it’s all nonsense…” She threw the teeth off the bed. “Silver Rose is no vampire, she’s no witch, she’s a pretty girl, so very sexy, she’s sumfin’ else that I don’t know what. Where is she? What is she doing?”

Why did they even need to be suspicious of her? So she was crazy for her, but so what? Was there anything wrong with that? Sure, Sunny knew she enjoyed touching herself, sometimes in front of other people, but was that so wrong? Why was it important if Silver was the cause of that? And she hadn’t even done it in a while, so was it even still a problem? Why did this rift between them need to go on?

Sunny had so many questions and she didn’t feel like answering all of them now. She just lay there and tried to steady her vision, but it was all over the place. This time, she could swear there were elephants dancing on the ceiling.

Once the elephants shrank into mice, Sunny tried moving her legs. They responded sluggishly and she felt a little annoyed that her body wasn’t responding the way she wanted.

Then she heard the door open and she was relieved. Perhaps Sour Sweet was back to help her up.

“Hey, Sour. Come help me wiff this…” she called out, but she got no answer. “Sour, I’m talking to you.”

There was still no answer and Sunny felt her eyes drooping. It was getting harder to even focus on the ceiling and even as someone stood over her. She couldn’t see who it was, but it was a fairly large shape.

“Sour? Izzdat you? You look big in your bear costume.”

And then hands pushed her cloak aside and began rubbing at her shoulders.

“Oh, you muh-sagging me, Sour? How nice…” Sunny said and the motion made her soon close her eyes. “Itz nice.”

And then the hands slowly moved over down her collar bones, then she felt her corset being tugged.

“Whaz you doin’, Sour?” Sunny groaned and flipped on her side. “You try’na take it off, the zip’s on the back…”

Sunny felt the hands scrabbling with the zipper on her corset, but something wasn’t right. Sour Sweet’s fingers weren’t this rough, and her breath wasn’t this foul. Sour Sweet’s breath smelled of that medication she took to keep her symptoms down, this smelled like rotten meat and strong alcohol.

“I thought you said you weren’t gonna have any alcomahol yourself?” Sunny drawled.

And then she felt herself being rolled back as the corset was yanked out from under her. Sunny felt the cold air wash over her body and squirmed. Then she felt the rough hands brush over her breasts and squeeze them. A tongue began flicking along one of her nipples.

“Sour?” Sunny asked. Then she realized that it wasn’t Sour Sweet, and it never had been. She opened her mouth to shriek, but one of the hands pressed itself over her mouth.

“Just a little while, girlie,” the man said, his horrible breath wafting into Sunny’s face and stinging her eyes. “I promise it’ll be good.”

Then Sunny felt the man’s weight shift atop her and something long and hard was stuffed into her mouth. She wanted to yell in surprise, but she could only manage a mumble.

The man grunted and moved, and Sunny felt it move in and out of her throat, but then out of the corner of her eye, she saw two circles of turquoise light in the doorway. Just like the two lights she had seen in the attic window of Ebony Wings’ house. Even in her drunken state, she could still picture those evil eyes glaring at them from the window.

There was a guttural growl and the lights leapt at Sunny, who attempted a scream.

The man let out a yell and there was the sound of scuffling, then the man stiffened and rolled off Sunny and onto the floor with a shuddering thud. She lifted herself and began coughing and spitting.

She wasn’t the only one spitting. The owner of the glowing turquoise eyes was also wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and Sunny could see a pair of fangs sticking out from under her lips.

“Ugh, blood,” a familiar voice said.

“W-What are you…?” Sunny asked, scooting back in the bed. Then she looked down and saw the man just lying there, stuck in a half surprised position, unmoving except for his eyes and mouth. To Sunny’s horror, his pants were down and his privates were on full display.

“What did you do to me?” he asked.

“I bit you,” Silver Rose’s voice said. “You’re a zombie now.”

“Wha-?” Then the girl with Silver’s voice kicked him in the head, knocking the man out cold.

“You’re a zombie!” Sunny exclaimed and eyed the Silver Rose character. She looked familiar, as though she’d seen her earlier tonight, but she couldn’t remember most of the night now.

“No, I’m not actually a zombie,” Silver Rose’s voice explained. "That's a little joke."

“Th-then what are you? Who are you? Are you really Silver…?”

“You’re drunk. Go back to sleep.”

Sunny’s eyes drifted to the man on the floor and she pointed at him. “H-He almost got me! He had his dick in my mouth!”

“Yes, and I will get one of your friends to turn him in.” The Silver Rose character raised her hands to calm her down. “I’ll make sure he’s caught. You don’t have to worry about him again.”

“What if he gets up?”

“He won’t. Not for another half hour at least,” the Silver Rose character said impatiently. She took out her phone and looked at it. “I have to be somewhere soon. I just came to check up on you. It’s a good thing I did.”

She turned to go, but Sunny wasn’t done. “Wait! At least… Tell me what you really are, Silver. I have to know why I was… so crazy for you. I need to know.”

“It’s Halloween, and the blood moon is high,” the Silver Rose character drew herself up to her full height and fixed Sunny in those glaring turquoise eyes of hers. “Strange things are allowed to happen on this one night of the year.”

“Tha-that doesn’t answer my question.”

The other girl sighed. “No, Sunny. No magic was cast on you or anything. I don’t know why you feel the way you do. You like me, and I like you. Whether that means we keep dating or not… well. You’re not completely sober so it wouldn’t be fair to ask you to decide now.”

Before Sunny could ask anything else, she was gone, disappearing out and around the door in a mere second. Sunny was left there in the dark room with her assaulter beside her on the floor. What had even just happened?

And then her adrenaline started to wear away and she fell back on the bed, her eyes starting to close. Perhaps she just needed a little rest first.

Chrysidea stood by the driveway with Canvas Splash again, her phone in one hand and her bag of candy in the other as she waited for her mother to arrive. The police had come about ten minutes ago, which was actually a surprisingly fast response time, and the man was dragged away in cuffs, his pants still unbuttoned and his legs unmoving. Lemon Zest was also given a warning to keep the music down, but at least they hadn’t said anything about the spiked punch. After this, people were beginning to leave anyway, so she probably didn’t have to keep playing music.

“Wow, I can’t believe all that even happened!” Canvas held up her sketchbook, which had a drawing of the man being carried away, with his junk dangling out and everything. “See, I even drew him. I’ve never actually seen a real penis before. Gotta say, it’s smaller than what I thought it would look like.”

Chrysidea, unfortunately, had also seen one for the first time and it looked kind of gross. She hoped Home Run’s wasn’t like that.

“And Sunny had that in her mouth?” Canvas asked. Chrysidea had told her about it earlier, but made her swear to keep it a secret. “Absolutely disgusting! He pees with that.”

“Myeh,” Chrysidea made a noise. “At least Sunny’s honor is still intact. I think.”

“Well, not unless I go tell everyone about it. But hey, you told me to keep it a secret. I’m great at secrets. Sketchy vouches for me.”

Coming down the street and passing the police car came a van. Chrysidea’s mother’s van.

“Oh, so that’s my ride, Canvas. I’ll see you in school?” Chrysidea waved.

“Of course you will. I mean, unless I’m sick. I should be there.”

“Thanks for the fun tonight, Canvas. Bye, then!” And the young changeling got in the back of the van and shut the sliding door.

Her mother turned around and looked at her. She was dressed in a sort of dark bodysuit with a slightly perforated deep green cloak thrown over it. She wore no dyes on her skin or hair, and her emerald eyes shone in the dark. Tonight she was the very picture of a changeling beauty.

“Have fun?” Chrysalis asked boredly as she stepped on the gas pedal.

“Oh, yes mother,” Chrysidea began. “The party was boring, so I went trick or treating with Canvas. We got a lot of candy.” She shook her bag.

“Mhmm,” Chrysalis said as she turned into a dark alley and switched off the lights. “Make sure you brush your teeth after eating that. If you get a cavity we can’t exactly take you to the dentist’s, can we?”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess not. Oh and can you believe it, mother? It was that man again. That one who tried to rob us when Home Run and I went to the theater. I didn’t recognize him at first, but I remembered his voice.”

“Oh. That man. Did you kill him?”

“N-No. I just called the police on him. He was at the party.”

“Shame. I would’ve killed him.” Chrysalis looked at her fingers. “Did he try to rob you again? He shouldn’t be able to recognize you. You were wearing a persona then.”

“He tried to force himself onto Sunny Flare. So I bit him and knocked him out.”

“He what?” Chrysidea’s mother laughed hysterically and slapped her hand on the wheel a few times. “That’s great, that’s really great. Why did you stop him? You should’ve just sat back and watched. You could learn a thing or two from him.”

Chrysidea said nothing as her mother guffawed.

Finally the laughter ceased and Chrysalis cleared her throat. “Anyway. Your uniform is in that box in the corner. Clean off that makeup and get changed. It’s almost midnight.”

The young changeling did as she was told and got to setting herself up. This was it, it was the moment she had been waiting for since her aunt concocted the plan. The sirens’ gems were going to be fixed and they would be good as new. Off came the zombie costume clothes and on came the leather boots, the armored gloves, and the mail-backed hooded coat. She strapped the drugged throwing knife to her leg and tested the mobility. Chrysidea pulled the hood on and tugged the face guard up to cover her mouth and nose. Finally on went the sword belt, with her Eastern blade attached. She was glad to use this sword, as she had drilled with it for years.

“Oh, by the way, thought I’d let you know. I’ll be auditioning for a new role tomorrow afternoon,” Chrysalis said and the young changeling looked up to see her chewing on a stick of gum. A literal stick. It was in the shape of a twig and half of it hung out of her mouth. “It’s a little different from what I usually do. The character smokes, but you know I don’t do that. I have to keep up my image, so they’ll edit in the smoke instead.”

“What’s this movie called?” Chrysidea asked, flexing her hands and gripping the handle of her sword to test the mobility.

“Oh, it’s not a movie. It’s a television series.” Chrysalis rubbed her hands together. She smelled excited. “It’s by the company, Congo.”

“You mean that shipping company?” The young changeling asked. “Why are they making shows now?”

“Doesn’t matter. What matters is I think it’s a promising show, so I will be auditioning for the part of Milly Mulcher. She’s the leader of a group called The Girls, who hunt down superheroes who step out of line. Very violent character, so I will get to show how versatile I am, you see.”

“Sounds umm… interesting. I guess.”

“Fast Bender will be acting as my husband, should you still want an autograph for that Sunny girlfriend of yours.”

Chrysalis started up the engine of the van again and drove towards the Canterlot Park. The red moon shone down from overhead, casting red light inside the van and throwing shadows into the vehicle’s interior.

The van stopped just a short distance from one of the park’s hills, which Chrysidea recognized as one of the places her aunt had scouted out for a good place to perform the repairing of the gems.

“And we are here.” The changeling queen shut off the van engines. “Now, remember your role. I will be at the top of that hill preparing the ritual. You just need to make sure no one reaches me. Think you can manage that? That’s what your sword and throwing knife are for, got it? No one is to reach me.”

“Yes, mother. I can do that.”

“Good,” Chrysalis said. “While you were at the party, your aunt and I took the liberty of setting the scene a bit. A couple of old swords and moving shrubbery to block off any side entrances to the top of the hill. Only way to get there is through you now.”

“Yes, mother.”

“Yes, mother,” Chrysalis imitated. “Stop wasting time and let’s go.”

She kicked open the door and trudged off, with Chrysidea scurrying out the back and following after her. The walk there was quick and she soon spotted the shrubs and swords her mother and aunt had set up. There was now a narrow path leading up the hill and around it became more dense near the top to really ensure there was no other way to get there.

“You stay down here,” Chrysalis instructed. “I’ll go on up ahead. Oh, and your aunt insisted on me giving you these,” the changeling queen reached into her cloak and took out a short, stubby orange gun. “It’s not for shooting anyone with. If something goes horribly, catastrophically wrong out here, fire this up into the air and I’ll get us both out of here in a flash. But if you use it, you’ll be in a lot of trouble at home. And this,” Chrysalis passed her daughter a small cylinder. It looked like a flashlight. “From what your aunt has told me, the girls who might show up can only use their magic if their musical instruments are working. This device will jam all electronics in a short range. That includes your phone, so don’t try to use it while this gadget is active.”

“O-Oh…” Chrysidea pocketed the gun and the device. “Ok-okay, mother…”

“And so it begins.” Chrysalis looked up at the sky and breathed in. “Ahhh, the smell of a magically charged atmosphere.”

She walked up the hill and left Chrysidea to peer around in the darkness of the park, waiting and watching for anything to happen. Her aunt had said Sunset Shimmer and her friends might attempt to intervene, but Chrysidea just couldn’t understand why they would even help plan for the gem repairs if they were going to come and stop it tonight. It just didn’t make sense why they wouldn’t try to stop it sooner. In the end, she just chalked it up as typical hero actions. She just hoped Home Run wouldn’t be here tonight. She knew he always tried to do the right thing and the right thing this time was to stay home. She didn’t want to have to hurt him.

By the light of her phone, Chrysidea saw that there were less than ten minutes until midnight, when the blood moon’s power was supposedly the strongest. All magic was supposed to be supercharged then, which was why she felt like she could do anything. But Sunset and her friends were also magical, so she couldn’t rely on that as an advantage. She would have to use her skill and wits instead.

She put her phone away and brushed a lock of teal hair from her eyes. Perhaps she should have tied it back like her aunt liked to do.

From a far-off grove of trees, there came a flicker of motion. That was fast. The ritual hasn’t even begun to start yet. They were early. Chrysidea placed a hand on her sword and waited. The time had finally arrived.

With the red moon’s strength rushing through her body, Princess Chrysidea drew her weapon, ready to defend her queen.