Princess Celestia opened the door and peered inside. It was the right place and the right time, she was sure, so she decided to enter anyway after her knocks on the door had gone unanswered. She closed the door behind her and began to walk between the rows of seats, staring up at the stage, where a chair and some notes had been left. She reached the stage and got up on it, the floor creaking beneath her hoofsteps, and moved closer to examine the notes when a voice came from behind her, somewhat distant.
"Selestia, I imagine," the voice said. "Please don't look at my notes, I don't want you to get spoiled on the fun."
Celestia turned away and watched the rows of empty seats from up on the stage.
"I'm sorry," the voice came again, moving closer and accompanied by the sound of steps, "I was getting ready in the dressing room and I must have lost track of ti-YOU?"
Celestia turned to see Chrysalis standing in front of her, eyes wide and mouth slightly opened.
The two of them stared at each other in confusion for a couple of seconds, then Celestia had a sudden realization.
"Oh!" the white alicorn exclaimed, "So you're the teacher, right? I didn't expect it to be you."
Chrysalis pushed her jaw back up with a hoof. It tended to get locked in place when she kept it open for too long, a result of when she hadn't properly understood the concept of eating love and had tried to eat the whole pony. "Well, yeah. It was written on the pamphlet." Chrysalis grabbed a small rectangular piece of paper from her notes. "See? 'Chrysalis', right here," she said, holding the thing up in her magic for Celestia to see.
"Wait-" Celestia squinted a bit "-that's how you write your name? I thought you wrote it with a k. You know, since you're evil and all."
Chrysalis looked equal parts perplexed and offended, but she shook her head and ignored the feelings. She was getting paid well, after all. "So why did you use a pseudonym? And why such a bad one? Don't want ponies to know you're taking acting classes?" she asked, reordering and re-examining her notes.
"I'm... not sure I understand. I used my real name," Celestia replied.
Chrysalis stopped and turned her head back towards the Princess. "No you didn't. You wrote it with an s."
"That's how it's written," Celestia replied again.
Chrysalis fully turned towards the alicorn. "No. I'm pretty sure you write that with a c."
"I'm telling you, it's s. Like in 'sentaur'," Celestia matter-of-factly stated.
"Did you hit your head somewhen around the time your sister came back?" Chrysalis asked.
"Why?"
"Because if you were always like this then I can't find a valid reason for why it took me that long to beat you," Chrysalis said before turning back to her notes. She read through them one last time and then turned once again to Celestia. "Before we start, are there any questions you want to ask?"
"How is this legal?" Celestia said. "Aren't you an enemy and a danger for all of Equestria? Why are you allowed to teach acting?"
"There's no law preventing me from having a job, and there is one specifically preventing me from being arrested while I'm working as long as I don't do anything illegal during said work," Chrysalis answered.
Celestia looked rather annoyed at the news. "Who approved this law?" she asked, clearly angry at the one responsible.
"You did."
"Because it's a great law! Nopony should be unfairly deprived of a job just because they're considered a threat to Equestria, not as long as they aren't doing anything evil!"
"Wow. You really need these acting classes. Well, any more questions or can we begin?" the changeling asked.
"Do we get to take a pause to eat midway through?"
"No."
"Will I be good at acting after today?"
"It's unlikely you'll become good in just a lesson, but with enough time and patience you'll probably improve."
Celestia looked displeased. "Isn't there a way to learn faster?"
"No, there isn't."
"But can't you just zap the talent inside me with your magic?"
"No."
"But I thought-"
"No! If there was a spell that made you into a better actor or actress I wouldn't have a job. And Twilight would have used it on you already." Chrysalis took a deep breath. "Any other questions?"
"How do you know about the play we did in Ponyville?"
"I played the curtain."
Celestia looked at her, at a loss for words.
"What? If I have to stay hidden most of the time I might as well spy on you or Twilight. Anything else you want an answer to?"
"Do fishes need to drink?"
Chrysalis smacked her front hoof against her face. "Questions I can give an answer to," she lamented from under her limb.
"Are you telling me you've never turned into a fish?" Celestia asked, sounding offended even.
Chrysalis's hoof slowly dragged down her face and fell back to the ground. "Questions relating to the lesson we're about to have, Celestia."
"No really, how have you never turned into a fish? You'd think it would be the first thing you'd think of when discovering you can shape-shift. You know, do the truly natural thing and slip into an appropriate form to swim among the waters, snapping up fish in your jaws, instead of having to fish. I know I'd like to know how that feels."
Chrysalis walked up to Celestia. "You know, the only reason I haven't hypnotized you into my obedient slave yet is because there are guards both outside and-" Chrysalis threw a glance at the armoured pony poorly hiding inside the prompter's hole and another at the ones behind the curtains, whose hooves were visible at the bottom "-inside this place. There always are, trying to catch me when I leave or waiting for me to do something illegal while working, and with you being here they're even more than usual. But believe me, you're dangerously close to the point where I won't care about them and attack you anyway. Questions?"
"Where does the word 'dog' come from?" the alicorn asked, seemingly oblivious to the changeling's threats.
Chrysalis, being a changeling, didn't have a circulatory system like that of ponies, but she understood how those worked. And in that moment, she swore that she would have popped a vessel had she possessed them. It was only by reminding herself of the last time she'd been imprisoned that she was able to stop herself from strangling Celestia there and then. "Okay," she said after many more deep breaths to calm herself down, "let's start." Chrysalis passed some of her notes to Celestia with her magic and turned away from the alicorn. "I'm going to have you read some of those lines with different inflections to see where I need to start. Begin with the first one, read it in the way you feel would fit best with the context of what is being said."
Nothing but silence was heard. Chrysalis initially paid this no mind, thinking Celestia was taking her time to read and decide, but the alicorn remained silent and eventually she decided to look at what she was doing. Celestia was biting the paper. Somewhat guiltily, when she realized she had been noticed, she tore away the part still in her mouth and munched on it. Chrysalis's jaw blocked open again. Celestia swallowed.
"Sorry, I got a little hungry," Celestia apologised, rubbing the back of her head.
Chrysalis smashed her mouth shut with a hit from her hoof and turned to the guards hiding behind the curtains. "Black Fire?" she called.
One of the guards visibly twitched.
"Come here and hold me please, or you'll have to explain why you allowed a regicide to be committed during your shift."
"...and then I threw him inside the volcano. I don't know why I did it. I miss him sometimes. That felt good, thank you."
"No problem," the black unicorn said, letting go of the hug he was holding Chrysalis in. "If you want I can give you my therapist's address." He put his armour back on and levitated a business card out of it, which Chrysalis stashed away inside her notes.
The changeling turned back towards Celestia, who had just finished eating a jar of cookies provided by some of her guards. "We can go back to your lesson now. If you want to," she said to the alicorn. "Please say no," she quietly added.
Celestia dismissed her guards with a motion of her hoof, and they went back to hiding. "Yes please, I would like to."
Chrysalis cursed inwardly. "Okay then. I think we can start with this." She passed a sheet of paper to Celestia. "Do what you were supposed to do with the other one. And not what you did with the other one."
Celestia grabbed the paper in her magic and began to attentively study it. Several seconds passed in silence.
"Well? What are you waiting for?" Chrysalis asked, annoyed.
Celestia focused her eyes on the piece of paper, scanning the surface, then she lifted her gaze to meet Chrysalis's. "I can't read this."
"What do you mean?" Chrysalis lifted one of her eyebrows. "That's a perfectly normal sentence, why can't you say it?"
"No, I mean I can't read this. I have no idea of what's written here." Celestia pointed a hoof to the paper.
Chrysalis walked up to her, perplexed, and she turned her head to look at the notes. She slowly exhaled. "You're holding it upside down."
"Oh." Celestia's eyes opened a little wider and she began to rhythmically open and close her mouth, trying to think of something to say. "Of course!" she finally said with a small jump of her body, startling the changeling. "I knew it! I was just testing you!"
"You know, it's a bad idea to lie to someone who teaches ponies to act for a living," Chrysalis said, walking back towards the chair, "and it's an even worse idea to lie to a creature whose nature is to masquerade as something else, but-" she turned around to face Celestia and sat on the ground "-I'm pretty sure a foal would be able to tell you were lying. How did you manage to run a nation for over a thousand years? I could imagine Luna being the smarter one, but she was gone for a while, so how did you keep things going without her?"
Celestia puffed out her chest and cheeks, offended. "Are you insulting the Princess' skills? Do you know that is considered treason and is punishable by the law?"
"Add that to the list," Chrysalis said, waving a hoof as if to drive away the crime like one would with a fly. "I guess that explains why nobody spoke up about it though. Can you read the first line now?"
Celestia went back to looking at the notes. After about four seconds she turned the paper right-side up. She brought it closer to her face, squinting to read the text. She squinted so much that her eyes closed and she pressed the sheet of paper over her face for a couple of seconds, then realized her mistake and brought it back to a distance she could comfortably read it from, reopening her eyes.
Chrysalis brought the tip of her hoof up to her face, examining it while waiting for the alicorn to speak. "Don't you write letters?" she asked after a few more seconds of silence.
Celestia appeared to be startled out of a trance, and she looked at Chrysalis like she hadn't noticed her before. "What?" she asked.
"Don't you ever write letters? To that book-obsessed student of yours or to some other important pony?" Chrysalis began to examine her other hoof.
"Yes, I do. Why are you asking?"
Chrysalis began to polish her hoof-tip out of boredom. "And don't you sign them?"
"Of course I do," Celestia said, nodding.
Chrysalis switched to polishing her other hoof. "And nopony ever pointed out how you wrote your name wrong? How exactly do you sign them?"
"At the bottom." Celestia seemed to pause and think for a while. "Although there's usually something I forgot that I add below it."
"So you were writing letters signed as 'Princess Selestia' to a pony who acts and talks like she swallowed an encyclopedia since when she was a foal and she never said anything about it?" Chrysalis lowered her hoof and looked to Celestia.
"Well, not really," the alicorn replied, "I only write my initials."
It took Chrysalis a couple of seconds to process the information and understand how things went. When it finally clicked she looked at the ground and contemplated the idea of smashing her face against the floor. She decided it would be too uncomfortable for her spine, so instead she ripped the floorboard in front of her up with her magic and smashed it against her face. She then repositioned and reattached it to avoid breaking the law, which would have given the guards a reason to capture her.
Celestia had meanwhile gone back to the notes, and was now clearing her throat in preparation for her first line. She coughed, sputtered, grunted, she blew her nose, she took a sip of water and washed her mouth before swallowing, she rearranged her feathers, styled her mane and finally took one long inhale before reciting the first sentence of the ones Chrysalis had given her. Then at the last second, right as she was opening her mouth, a thought occurred to her and she stopped. She turned towards Chrysalis and studied the changeling. "How did you get those holes?" she asked.
A cracking sound was heard, and Chrysalis discovered the changeling equivalent of popping a vessel. "You gave them to me during a fight. Don't you remember?"
Celestia appeared to be focused in thought for a moment. "Wait, that was you? You're old! I thought that one was another Changeling Queen. You know, since you all look the same I assumed all queens looked the same."
"I'm not old!" Chrysalis stammered out, "I'm younger than you are! And I'll have you know-Wait, are you saying I look young?"
Celestia nodded.
"Oh, thank you, dear." Chrysalis began to run a hoof through her mane. "I always try to look my best and... Wait a minute." The changeling stopped and went back to staring at Celestia with a questioning look. "If you thought I was a different queen how did you know my name at the wedding?"
"One of my spies informed me that you had replaced Cadence and provided me with a detailed description of who you were. Most of which I yawned my way through, but I did catch your name in the process." Celestia looked to the side and saw the piece of paper she was still holding in her magic. She jumped backwards, surprised, then approached the paper with an inquisitive gaze, like someone who had just discovered an insect they were unfamiliar with trying to determine whether or not it was a dangerous one.
"And... why didn't you stop me?" Chrysalis asked with raised eyebrows.
"Well, you weren't doing anything wrong." Celestia squinted as she moved a little closer to the paper. "Shining was still marrying a member of royalty, and he didn't seem to mind that it was you. But, you know, when the second Cadence popped up I sort of had to take a stance. Thankfully you outed yourself, because I wasn't sure who to attack." Celestia sniffed the paper.
Chrysalis stared at the floor, contemplating her life choices. "So you're telling me that for over a thousand years Equestria has been run by someone who only managed to make things go the right way through dumb luck?" she asked, mostly to herself. "This is a joke, right?" Chrysalis looked to Celestia. "It's an elaborate prank to make me lose my sanity so that I..." she stopped.
Celestia didn't reply. She did, however, stop midway in her action of licking the sheet of paper she was holding in her magic. She looked back at Chrysalis for a few moments, then finished running her tongue over it.
Chrysalis's eyelids violently twitched. Somewhere on the outside of the building, a large number of flower pots were thrown to the ground from their balconies, pushed by a green aura. "Will you read that note or do you want us to stay here all day?" Chrysalis almost screamed at Celestia.
Celestia looked at the first line. "Hello, how is it going?" she said in a painfully over-accented voice, dragging out the vowels and alternating her cadence while speaking in a way that made the question sound like an affirmative statement, all the while producing guttural noises from her throat and spinning her front legs around.
Chrysalis felt herself lose at least a hundred years of remaining life.
"How did I do?" Celestia asked.
"That was..." Chrysalis began in a chocked out voice.
"Did you not hear that properly? Don't worry, it happens to me all the time. Here, I'll say it again," Celestia said, bringing the paper back in front of her.
"NO!" Chrysalis screamed at the top of her lungs.
Celestia lifted her gaze to look at her.
"Don't. There's no need to. I perfectly understood that," Chrysalis frantically blurted out. "The truth is, I was just so stunned by your performance!" The changeling had a sudden moment of enlightenment. "Yes, that's it!" she said, looking around herself. "You're just so good, you're wasted on this type of exercises!"
Celestia looked at her with interest.
Chrysalis began to dig through her stuff, all the while hysterically praising Celestia's acting capabilities. "Your talent needs to be put to good use, immediately!" She brought a box from the changing room up to the stage with her magic and began to throw out some of the props stashed inside. "Such skills, such unmatched genius!" Chrysalis ripped a feather from a hat and levitated to herself a blank sheet of paper from the chair. "No known play could truly capture the magnificence of your performance! We'll need a new one, a story never seen before to truly make your excellence shine!" she ranted as she started to furiously write down on the paper.
Celestia moved closer, curious.
"It's finished!" Chrysalis exulted, holding the text up over her head, her eyes opened unnaturally wide.
Celestia appeared excited. "Can I read it?" she asked, prancing in place.
"Of course you can, dear," Chrysalis said while passing the paper to Celestia, her eyes still too wide. She kept taking long, irregular, deep breaths. "We should play it out right now! It's a tragic tale of a princess' death. You'll lie on the ground and read your line, and I'll jump on you and stab you with my horn!"
Celestia looked up, slightly confused.
"Worry not! I will blunt my horn with magic!" Chrysalis exclaimed, as a green glow encapsulated her horn and sharpened it.
Celestia giddily smiled and laid on the ground. "Woe is me, for I have been defeated at last by the evil queen's superior intellect and magic," she atonally read from the paper.
Chrysalis feared for a moment that her heart would stop from the sheer lack of talent displayed, but fortunately for her it didn't. Had she not been so destabilized by the alicorn's performance she might have made a joke about being heartless. All she did instead was line herself up with Celestia's body and jump towards her.
While Chrysalis was midway through her jump, Celestia's attention was caught by something to her side. She rolled over and Chrysalis landed on the floor, her horn embedding itself deep in the wood.
Celestia looked back at the changeling. "Sorry, I noticed some cookie crumbs were left on the floor," she apologetically said.
Chrysalis remained there, her horn in the ground. "No problem, dear. But I'm afraid we're out of time for this lesson. I don't think we'll have another one, I've already gotten reservations for the next four hundred years." Even in her condition, Chrysalis proved herself a much better actress than Celestia.
The alicorn looked demoralized. "Are we out of time already?" she asked, pouting.
"Well, as you can see-" Chrysalis used her magic to open the theatre's front doors "-the Sun is already setting. I'm afraid I'll never teach to you again."
Celestia brightened up. "Well, if that's the only problem then I can help." Her horn glowed and the Sun went back to being high up in the sky. "We'll have as much time as we want!"
"Sixty one."
"Sixty two."
"Sixty five."
"Sixty eight."
"Seventy two."
The five guards looked at each other, then back to their cards.
"Seventy three."
"Pass."
"Seventy four."
"Pass."
"Seventy seven."
The first guard looked at the fifth one.
"Eighty."
"Pass."
"Eighty one."
The two remaining guards stared at each other.
"Eighty two."
"Eighty three."
"Eighty seven."
The fifth guard took another look at his cards.
"Ninety."
"You win this one," the first one said.
The fifth guard smiled. "King of swords," he called out, the players going back to looking at their cards and waiting for the game to start.
The first card was about to be played when the theatre's door violently opened from inside. A colourless blur landed over one of the guards, screaming something. Three of the remaining guards encircled the thing to see what it was, while the last one took a chance to spy on their cards.
"Take me away!" the large creature, which they had now identified as Chrysalis, was telling to the guard beneath her, almost begging.
"What do you want?" one of the others asked.
Chrysalis turned towards him. "Arrest me! Put me in prison! Take me away from that pony!" she screamed, eyes wide, hooves outstretched in front of her. "I am an enemy of Equestria, a danger to ponies, I must be locked up in isolation! Please, I can't deal with her another minute!"
Somewhat perplexed, one of the guards tied Chrysalis's hooves with a rope, blocked her magic and began to escort the changeling away.
"Yes! Yes! Free at last!" she said, looking back to the door through which Celestia was now walking.
The Princess lowered her head and whispered something to a guard, which replied to her. She appeared rather happy at the response she'd received. "Hey!" she called.
Chrysalis stared at her as she walked closer.
"They said they aren't putting you in isolation, so I can come visit you whenever I want. We'll be able to continue our lessons," the alicorn said, beaming happiness.
"No!" Chrysalis began to struggle against her bonds. "No, wait! This is a mistake! I wasn't doing anything illegal, you can't arrest me! Wait! Let me go! No! No!" she screamed as she was carried away.
"Say," the guard who had remained there asked to the one who had won the bid during their game, before being interrupted by Chrysalis, "how do you do it?"
"What?"
"You know, cheating. You called your own card and still had enough stuff in hand to win the game. How?"
The guard turned. "Well, you guys decided to play with a unicorn that has five aces as his cutie mark, you should have seen that coming."
Somewhere in the distance, Chrysalis's screams could still be heard. Celestia had decided to follow her and give her a detailed exposition of everything they were going to do together, and she was apparently not liking it.
"Yeah, but, how do you do it?" the guard asked again.
Chrysalis's voice was heard giving out in the middle of a particularly loud scream.
