Servant of the Queen

After almost twenty minutes of leaping and running across the rooftops, Chrysalis and Chrysidea finally arrived back at the mansion. The blood moon cast creepy shadows off the gargoyles and ornaments that decorated the estate.

Chrysalis let the flames on her body die out and deposited her daughter on the ground. The changeling queen had an expression of extreme smugness on her charcoal face. She actually didn’t look upset, which was surprising, considering the words she said before they left the park.

“Well, little hiccups aside, I think that went rather well,” Chrysidea’s mother said as she pushed open the front door. “Let’s get you cleaned up while we wait for my sister to come home.”

“Wait, I don’t get it,” Chrysidea protested. The stab wound in her gut was no longer bleeding, and the skin where it had been was just a little bit tender. She chalked that up to the blood moon’s effects. “What about the sirens? Did you just leave them at the park? Did you fix their gems?”

Chrysalis said nothing, going over to the kitchens and retrieving a bottle of vintage wine from the cooler. Since it was past midnight, all the servants and Silver Platter would be asleep, therefore she didn’t go for a coffee.

After picking out a vinyl from her collection in the ground floor sitting room, the changeling queen settled into one of her thrones and poured herself a large glass of red wine while the music began to play.

“I do love it when a plan comes together,” Chrysalis told Chrysidea. “Why don't you go get changed out of that outfit into something more comfortable? Your aunt should be back by then.”

Still confused about what had transpired over the past half an hour, Chrysidea nodded dumbly and headed off to her room. She took off the armored outfit and dropped it on the floor, changing into a loose-fitting t-shirt and a pair of shorts. She would get the maids to take care of her armor in the morning. She then put her feet into a comfy pair of soft slippers and was about to tie up her hair when she heard a car pull up in front of the house.

Wanting to know the details about her mother’s so called plan, Chrysidea hurried back downstairs, just in time to see her aunt Psithyra come in, carrying three unconscious sirens about herself. Around each of their necks, a blood-red ruby jewel gleamed.

They had done it. Her aunt had finally fixed the sirens’ amulets.

“Hey, sweetie.” Psithyra swept over and brushed a hand over her niece’s head. “How was your night? Not too bad, I hope? Did the heroes show up?”

“Yeah,” Chrysidea replied slowly. “There’s a lot that I feel I’m not getting here…”

“I’ll be more than happy to explain,” Psithyra said. “But first I need to put these three to bed. Just a couple of moments, please.”

Chrysidea watched her go, then blew up at her fringe. She had to wait some more and that was boring. She found herself thinking back to Home Run in the absence of her family. She had hurt him with the knife and she didn’t know why, but that gripped at her heartstrings like claws from the grave. She never wanted to hurt Home Run. It hadn’t been her fault. She wasn’t even aiming for him. He was just too good of a human, always putting himself in front of others, reckless or not.

Thankfully, she had missed any vital organs and all that knife would do was paralyze him for a while. It would wear off eventually.

“Alright,” Psithyra’s voice came as she descended the steps. “I expect you have a lot of questions, so let’s get to answering them. Then we can all bask in our collective genius.”

The three of them gathered in the sitting room, where Chrysalis was just finishing up her glass of wine and getting ready to pour herself another. Psithyra stacked some logs in the fireplace and blew a stream of emerald flame from her mouth to set them alight.

“So,” Chrysidea’s mother said with the air of someone starting an important meeting. “How did it go, my dear sister?”

“Just as well as you would expect,” Psithyra replied, reclining on one of the couches like a cat. “Though not quite as I had planned.”

“Oh? Do tell.” Chrysalis leaned forward and grinned toothily.

“I had the magic circles all drawn, and the leylines and glyphs carved into the floor-”

“But I didn’t see you at the ritual site,” Chrysidea interrupted. “Sorry I cut you off, Aunt Psithyra. But I thought you would be at the hilltop.”

“Ah, yes, I did make sure the Canterlot High girls would think that I would be at the park,” Psithyra said with a cunning gleam in her eyes. “In fact, I specifically told them I would be. That’s why I was actually not at the park. Do you see?”

“So I wasn’t guarding anything important?” Chrysidea exclaimed, feeling more than a little bit cheated and lied to. “But I thought…” She had really given it her all tonight, thinking that she was guarding the sirens’ only hope of returning to normal. Had she done that all for nothing?

“Now, don’t get too upset at us, sweetie,” Psithyra said consolingly. “It’s one of the most basic rules of warfare. To fool your enemies, you first need to fool your friends.”

“B-But I hurt Home Run. And I didn’t have to. I was just trying to slow them down.”

“You barely held them off for fifteen minutes,” Chrysalis sighed and took a sip of her wine. “After all the money I’ve spent on swordcraft tutors, I thought you would have been better than that.”

“I-I did my best…”

“Clearly you weren’t,” Chrysalis said critically. “That, or your best just isn’t good enough. But we can deal with that later. Thyra. What exactly happened?”

“Well, I placed the broken pendants on the magic circle like Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle told me to. The skylight allowed the blood moon to shine down and infuse them with magic. But nothing happened. The entire thing was a failure.”

“All that planning and scheming and disguises, and it failed?” Chrysalis repeated, disgusted. “Pah. Humans. Useless as always. So how did you fix the gems if the magic ritual failed then?”

Psithyra took out her black dagger, still in its sheath. “This is how.”

Chrysalis and Chrysidea leaned closer to peer at the dagger. It didn’t look any different than before, and Chrysalis arched an eyebrow for an explanation.

“I was about to give up and go storming over to the park to exact vengeance for having tricked me,” Psithyra said, tapping the sheath of her dagger. “But then my kris started to vibrate, and three… sparks? Blue sparks came out of it and flew into the gems. It seemed to set off some kind of reaction that was the source of the light pillar, if you saw that. But long story short, the gems are now repaired, and the sirens are sleeping off whatever it was that happened. We should ask them to sing for us once they awaken.”

“So you’re saying we didn’t have to even go through all the trouble of these heroes finding us and trying to stop us.” Chrysalis walked about the room. “And you could’ve just done this right here at home.”

Psithyra put the dagger away and shrugged. “Maybe, but I didn’t know that. Besides, I don’t even know what brought about those magic sparks. It’s possible that the blood moon had some influence,” the elder changeling princess turned to her niece. “Now, how did your night go? Losing the sword fight aside.”

“She blabbed.” Chrysalis eyed her daughter through narrow slits. “They knew who I was. They know we are changelings. She must’ve said something.”

“Mother, I didn’t say anything about what we are!” the young changeling pleaded. “Really, I didn’t. Smell me, you know that I’m not lying.”

Chrysalis sniffed. “Well, if you didn’t tell them, then who did?” she demanded. “Our entire way of life here is at risk. We cannot afford to let our secret get out.”

“Sunset. She seemed to know what a changeling was. I was planning on capturing her to see what she knew, but my paralytic dagger… it hit Home Run instead,” the changeling princess finished disappointedly.

At this admission, half a sly smile crept onto Chrysalis’s face. Psithyra noticed this.

“You are finding something amusing here?” Psithyra asked Chrysalis suspiciously. “They know about us. This is a serious matter. No one has come this close in ages. Not even those hunters fully knew what we are.”

“No, no. Not that.” Chrysalis covered her mouth and began snickering. “Just… Things couldn’t be any better for us in a certain matter.”

Chrysidea didn't like where this was going. In her experience, whenever her mother as an undisguised face was happy, someone else was about to be very sad.

Psithyra seemed to get it too. “What did you do?”

Chrysalis kept on grinning and she settled back down in her throne, tapping her finger to the music. "Well, if you must know, I replaced that sissy paralytic toxin on the throwing knife with something that had a little more kick."

“You what?” Psithyra approached her and frowned. “Why would you do that?”

The changeling queen looked at her sister with a curious gaze, as if she had discovered that Psithyra had a strange hobby. "Hello? These people we were dealing with tonight managed to take down the sirens at the peak of their power. You must be touched in the head if you think I'm just going to let my daughter fight them without a little trick up her sleeve."

“We weren’t planning on killing anyone.”

"You weren’t."

“What poison did you put on that knife?”

"A very simple one," Chrysalis said smugly. "Took me about five minutes to mix up. Essence of belladonna with a hemlock chaser. Nothing too fancy, but effective."

“That would kill the boy!” Psithyra thwacked her sister across the head.

She rubbed her head and eyed her sister. “Hey. That’s why I said things couldn’t be better in a certain matter. With that boy gone, my daughter will no longer be all lovey dovey around him and we can get back to normal hunting.”

Chrysidea didn’t take that bit of news well. Kill? No, it was only supposed to be paralytic poison. She couldn’t have doomed Home Run. Not Home Run. She began to tremble on the spot, not paying attention to her elders arguing in the background.

"It's no use trying to berate me now," Chrysalis frowned grumpily. "My daughter threw the knife, not me. If anything it should cut down on the witnesses who know about us. Isn't that good?"

Psithyra groaned. “That is true, but it doesn’t change anything about the fact that someone out there knows who you are.”

“Easy. We just eliminate them.” Chrysalis looked at her fingers. "That’s your job, by the way."

“I told you. I don’t kill children.”

“Then how about you just hit them really hard over the head so that they’ll forget about it?” Chrysalis suggested sweetly. “Cut out their tongues so they can’t blab?”

“Does everything have to be violence with you?” Psithyra asked, exasperated.

“If violence doesn’t solve your problems, then you’re not using enough of it,” Chrysalis shot back. She tipped her wineglass back and drained the red liquid within.

Psithyra turned to Chrysidea. “You see what I have to deal with? Sweetie? Is something wrong?”

Chrysidea was still sitting on the couch across from her aunt, but she wasn’t paying any attention to their conversation. She sat there, head bowed with a silent stream of tears running down her cheeks that dripped into her lap.

“What are you mewling on about?” Chrysalis asked, looking genuinely puzzled. “Tonight has been a great success; you should be celebrating.”

Chrysidea didn’t hear her. Had she accidentally killed Home Run by trying to knife Sunset Shimmer? How could her mother have played such a mean trick on her? It wasn’t fair.

“Sweetie?” Psithyra said, getting up and sitting down next to her niece. “Is everything alright?”

The young changeling simply shook her head.

“Aw, you can tell me what’s wrong,” Psithyra draped her arm around Chrysidea’s shoulders. Chrysalis opened her mouth to say something but her sister glared at her to be silent. The changeling queen rolled her eyes and went back to her wine.

“I… I killed Home… Home Run…” Chrysidea covered her face with her hands. “I didn’t know… I didn’t know.”

“There, there, sweetie,” Psithyra stroked Chrysidea’s head as she sobbed. “Don’t cry. It’s not your fault.”

“It is… It is!” She leaned into her aunt. “I threw that dagger! I didn’t… didn’t have to…”

“Shh...” Psithyra continued stroking her niece’s head and shoulders. “There was no way you could have known the poison was switched. Why don’t we head to the kitchen and I’ll fix you up a cup of strong, herbal tea? You’ll feel better after that, I promise.”

All the young changeling could do was nod. She was in no mood to feel happy after what she had done.

Chrysalis watched her sister and daughter leave the room. Once they were out of sight, the changeling queen put down her goblet of wine and went over to the window, which gave her a splendid view of the grounds, all dyed a ruddy hue with moonlight. She smiled brightly.

“This night has been just perfect,” she sang to herself quietly. “Just perfect indeed.”

Sunny Flare woke up and found it was still dark. She rubbed at her head and found it was difficult to turn it. She blinked a few times and tried to figure out what had happened. There was a thick blanket over her and she found she was no longer wearing her corset.

“What is going on…? What time is it?” Sunny tried to find a clock, but it was too dark to make out the time. “Did I strip? What happened?”

Her mouth was dry and her throat hurt a little, but there wasn’t any water nearby for her to drink and she couldn’t get herself up to go get some. All Sunny could do was lie there and wait for something, anything to happen.

She tried to recall the night and how she had ended up in this bed, but all she had were flashes of images, with dancing, Indigo playing around with her cyborg sword, Sugarcoat in her Principal Cinch costume, Lemon in her black skinsuit, Sour Sweet in her bear costume, she especially remembered the punch and she remembered feeling upset about the whole Silver Rose ordeal, and she also somewhat remembered the girl herself, though now she wasn’t really sure if that was even Silver. She had grey skin and turquoise hair which was long and curly instead of short and spiky. Perhaps she just remembered it wrong.

Sunny wondered where her friends were now. She couldn’t hear any music from downstairs now and she wondered what was going on.

“Oohh, my head…” she groaned. “My throat… Ugh.”

She remembered drinking a lot, but she didn’t think she drank so much to knock herself out.

The door creaked open after an undetermined amount of time and Sunny’s eyes tilted to the door, where she spotted Lemon Zest walking in with a glass of water and some kind of pill.

“Dude, you’re awake!” she squealed. “Took you long enough. How’re you feeling?”

“Like I’ve just spent the past few hours eating sand,” Sunny croaked. “It’s gone all quiet.”

“Yeah, party’s over. It’s like, four in the morning. Everyone’s gone home except us.” She dropped the pill in the water and shook the glass. “Here, drink this. It’ll help with your hangover. You like, drank so much, Sunny, you crazy girl.”

Sunny took the water from Lemon and drank it down after the other girl helped her into a sitting position. It was slightly bitter, but she was too grateful for a drink to care.

“So what did I miss?” Sunny said between sips. “Did Indigo show off her sword swinging skills?”

Lemon, who was also drinking from a glass of water, spat it all out at Sunny in a torrent of laughter.

“Hey!” Sunny wiped a hand down her face and chest. “What the hay!”

“You don’t remember? Dude! So much has happened!”

“What. What did you all do?”

“It’s not so much of what we did, Sunny. It’s more of what you did.”

“Oh? What did I do?” For some reason, Sunny didn’t like where this was going.

“Dude you don’t remember?” Lemon leaned closer with her eyes going wide. “You almost got jumped by some junkie, but Silver Rose told us and we called the cops. How you managed to take him down, we don’t know yet,” Lemon bounced up and down a bit. “So, how’d you do it?”

Sunny’s mind struggled to recall the events of the night, clouded by both sleep and alcoholic punch. And then images slowly began to fill her head and she vaguely remembered what happened. The man stuffing his dick into her mouth, the turquoise eyes in the dark, and then those fangs. She remembered the fangs well enough. “Silver Rose… saved me. She bit the guy.”

Lemon did a double take. “She did what now?”

“Silver… I think it was Silver, she told me that strange things can happen on nights like this,” Sunny went over to the window and pulled the blinds aside. The moon was sinking now, but it was still casting its rust-colored glow on the city. “I don’t know if she meant Halloween or a blood moon. Maybe she meant both.”

“So Silver is a vampire?” Lemon joined Sunny at the window, bringing over the sheet to drape over her friend. “Or am I missing the plot totally?”

“I don’t know…” Sunny sighed. Her head fell forward and rested on the glass. “I feel more lost than ever now.”

“Weird stuff does tend to happen on Halloween,” Lemon agreed. “A couple hours ago, there was this big beam of red light from over there,” she pointed out the window. “I bet it was more magic. You think those Canterlot High girls were involved this time?”

“What would they possibly be doing magic for?” Sunny licked the inside of her mouth. Now that she remembered the man’s privates in her mouth, it began to taste sour. “Hey, why did you leave me alone in a room for a man to try to rape me? I told you it could happen!”

“Hey, chill. You weren’t raped.”

“I would’ve been if not for Silver!”

“Yeah well… My bad?” Lemon stretched her arms out. “Besides, Sour Sweet was supposed to watch out for stuff like this. Don’t blame me!”

“Ugh…” Sunny rubbed her head. It still hurt.

“So how is it? You like dicks again? You gonna go back to loving guys?”

“Hey, don’t jump any guns. I don’t know, alright? I don’t know what to think anymore…”

Attempted rape, Silver’s fangs again, her odd look, magic lights in the sky. Just what was going on this Halloween night?

“I need a drink…” Sunny sighed.

“Uh, no. You don’t.”

Sunny Flare went back to the bed and sat down on it. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Oh, it’s just me now,” Lemon said. “Party’s over, remember? I’ll have to clean up everything before my parents get back on Saturday. You can help me.”

This didn’t please Sunny Flare, but she didn’t have it in her to discuss it with Lemon right now. Instead she fell back onto the bed and closed her eyes.

“Well, I’ll leave you here to rest then,” Lemon shrugged. “Feel free to use the shower; you kind of need one. I’ll get the rest of the girls here in the morning. Well, maybe the afternoon.”

Sunny mumbled something and began to drift off to sleep. Her dreams were full of bloody light and a pair of turquoise eyes that followed her through an endless crimson forest.