We Are Each Other

Three weeks.

It had been three weeks since Chrysalis had seen Princess Luna in the cafeteria, and two since her talk with Bluegrass in her room. While she was seated alone, disguised as Bedpan the scullery maid, and busy with her stack of blueberry and banana pancakes, she saw the alicorn fill up her tray with one of everything and make her way over to where she was sat.

“Is this seat available, Bedpan?” Luna asked politely, shaking the pastel green earth pony mare from her reflections.

“Of course, your highness, help yourself,” as Luna seated herself opposite ‘Bedpan’, the alicorn took careful interest what was on the mare’s plate. She was pleased to see in addition to pancakes, there was a generous helping of cheesy scrambled eggs, as well as a small bowl of oatmeal. “Is something wrong, Princess?” she asked as she caught the curious look she was getting.

Luna just smiled serenely, “Nothing, it seems you have the swallowing thing down now.”

“I've been practising, swallowing, I - I mean having things in my mouth…” ‘Bedpan’s’ blue eyes wide like dinnerplates and she blushed a beautiful red colour, and rested her head on the table, “Never mind what I mean…”

It was a good thing Luna had levitated up a mouthful of food, it allowed her to cover her mouth with a hoof to stifle her giggles, “Should I ask Royal Ribbon to swap out Bluegrass for a stallion?”

“No!” ‘Bedpan’ squeaked, and she tried to recover her composure, though she was squirming a little on her seating pad, “I've grown rather fond of her and the way she cuddles me.”

Smirking knowingly, Luna started to sample the food in front of her, “Erotic dreams do not fall under the category of nightmare…”

‘Bedpan’ hated the way the Princess left that sentence hanging in the air like that, “And yet I have the feeling you're going to tell me about mine nonetheless?”

“Oh, I didn't linger,” Luna’s smirk was so large it almost warranted its own zip code, “My sister doesn't like me to be in her dreams, and I wasn't in yours,” she finished with a wink before she made short work of her own cheesy scrambled eggs.

“What...” ‘Bedpan’s’ eyes widened once more, bypassing the dinnerplate stage and bugging out of her head, “Mistr...I mean, Princess Celestia was dreaming about me, like that, like I dream of her?”

The good natured, teasing smile left Luna’s muzzle and it was replaced with a deep sigh, “No.”

“Oh.” And just like that, Chrysalis felt like Equestria had been pulled from under her hooves and she was plummeting into an abyss, “I didn't think so. I mean, why would she?” she scuffed her hoof on the table, “It's been what, almost a month and she can't stand to be in the same room as me.”

“She fears what she might do to you,” Luna commented, feeling a great deal of sympathy for her. It hadn’t been all that long ago when she had been in a similar position to her, after all. “I thought you'd remain in the internment camp forever, then Bedpan went and died on a mountain climb.”

“Lucky me huh?” Chrysalis muttered softly, the blue eyes of Bedpan staring at the table as she wished she were back in that camp. “Look, I want her, Princess. For a moment, a glorious moment yesterday I thought she was going to spank me, but...she just screamed in my face and ordered me back to my room.”

“Being an alicorn grants us many powers,” there was an amusement in her voice, “But it doesn't give us the power to read minds,” she snorted, “Often not even our own.”

“So, what should I do?” the disguised Chrysalis threw up her hooves in frustration, “I've obeyed every humiliating degrading thing she's ordered of me, worn everything, no matter how ludicrously short, in the hopes she would soften towards me…” she trailed to a sigh.

“Didn't you once call yourself 'Queen'?” asked Luna after she had taken a few bites of her meal.

Slowly, Chrysalis nodded her head, “That seems like a lifetime away now…”

“We could be Queens,” Luna smiled, “But that is way too much responsibility. Princess is one of those 'shared' titles. You,” the lunar alicorn leant across the table and prodded the earth pony’s chest, “On the other hoof, are acting more like a drone than a Queen.”

“Are you saying I'm too submissive?” Chrysalis asked, slowly chewing the thought over as she chewed her scrambled eggs. “Or that I'm just mindlessly obeying whatever she orders?”

“Mindless obeying.” Luna agreed and then she helped herself to a long swallow of her steaming hot zebran coffee, “I'm sure she will tell you to do it a way you didn't, and then when you do it that way she told you to do it like you did the first time?”

“Well, yes…” Chrysalis answered, and as she did so, gears and cogs were whirring in her head, adding two and two together to make four. “Sometimes I've dusted the bookshelves several times in one session before. It is...beyond frustrating. Many are the times I've screamed into my pillow in my room.”

“At least your pillow returns a soft punch,” Luna chuckled, having eaten her fill, “Should I return this tray?”

“Yes please, Princess,” Chrysalis replied softly, “I'm sure she'll be calling on me any time now. Thank you, for the talk. You've given me much to think about.”

“Don't over think it,” Luna advised as she stood up to her hooves and held the tray in her magic, “But do try to be a bit more 'natural' and maybe she will respond. I'm not sure how, good or bad, so I'll show up for any major explosions.”

“Hmmm…” Chrysalis wasn’t sure if Luna was joking or not about that, but as she watched the alicorn walk over to Ms. Spatula, who was again glowing from the feedback about the kitchen’s efforts, she decided to get up and she trotted quickly back to her room. Her mind was buzzing with possibilities and scenarios running around in her head.

In truth, she reflected as she walked into her room and laid on her bed staring at the ceiling, she realised she was reaching the end of her rope with how Celestia had been treating her. More than once she had been reduced to tears in her room.

Thirty minutes later, there came a familiar knock on Chrysalis's door. Shieldwall’s friendly voice roused the room’s occupant, “The Princess is ready to receive you with today's instructions.”

Sliding from her bed, Chrysalis summoned the green flames and, once they had resided, in her place was Bedpan, the pastel green earth pony maid. She quickly dressed herself in the skimpy black maid’s dress and stepped out. “Very well, Shieldwall, let's go get it over with,” her heart wasn’t in it as she walked alongside the guard to Celestia’s door. After he had opened it with the medallion on his armour, ‘Bedpan’ spared the guard a smile before squaring her shoulders and walking into Celestia’s quarters.

When she stepped into the Princess’s room proper, Chrysalis saw that all the hundreds of books were scattered on the floor, and Celestia herself was sat at her desk by the large open doors that lead onto the balcony. “Somepony put them up on the shelves by author.” The alicorn didn’t bother to look at her maid, “They should be done by the Canterlot Royal Library system.”

Seeing the mess, Chrysalis closed her eyes, and counted to ten, three times. ‘Here we go again...’ she muttered, angry that her hours of work the day before had been for nothing. “Forgive me...but the day before yesterday they were arranged by the library system. Yesterday, you had me arrange them by author!”

For once, Celestia turned her gaze to her maid, a look of pure thunder on her usually serene visage, “Don't you dare talk back to me! Do it right and do it now!”

“Or what?” ‘Bedpan’ demanded as she watched Celestia turn to walk out the door. The way Celestia said nothing and carried on walking, opening her door, just served to annoy the frustrated mare all the more. She was sorely tempted to rip and tear at any book she could get her hooves on, but she barely managed to hold her temper. “I'll put them on the shelves in any way I please!”

At her door, Celestia paused and trained a look that could incinerate a mountain on the creature stood before her, “How dare you…I could have you resume your true form, take away your magic, and put you in stocks in the public square! My little ponies can decide your fate!”

In a flash of green flames, Bedpan was gone, and, in her place, Chrysalis was stood in her true form, looking just as angry. “Go on then!” she snarled, black lips pulled back over her fangs in a feral snarl, “Here I am! Why don't you just whip me and be done with it! Leave me a bleeding puddle, just get it out of your system!”

Only centuries of experience allowed Celestia to quell her inner fire long enough to address the guard standing outside the door. “Brass shield, please let Wisteria know to reschedule court today. Something has come up with my maid that needs to be resolved. No need to inform my sister about this…” she added in the most sinister tone she could muster.

“Yes, your highness,” Brass Shield saluted his Princess, “Should I let Ms. Wisteria in should she wish to enter?”

“Tell her it is at her own risk,” Celestia’s sinister grin grew deadly, “But of course my personal attendant can have access.” She magically closed her door and turned her full attention back to the changeling stood before her, “Finally you’ve said something I can agree with.”

“Well?” Chrysalis yelled back, “What's stopping you, or should I put the books away first?” she lit her twisted horn and she magically picked up several books at once, some upside down, some on their sides, and without looking, she jammed them in the nearest bookshelf, “Job done!”

Still smiling, Celestia magically pulled on of the upside-down books off the shelf and she slammed it with unerring accuracy into Chrysalis's chitinous ass. “You will do things my way and you will like it!” she declared; her voice full of furious authority as the book slammed into her ass again. “You will submit to me body and soul!” her voice rose as she hit her a third time, “Or I will end you here and now!”

Words were for the moment stolen from Chrysalis’s throat as sweet, sweet pain radiated from the chitin over her ass up through her body, leaving her drooling a little from both ends. “Yes Mistress!” she answered automatically, like she did in her dreams, “I’ll submit to you, Mistress!”

Celestia stalked towards the quivering changeling, the book held in her magic ready to strike, “Chin to the floor, back legs straight, ass in the air!”

“Yes Mistress!” obediently, Chrysalis lowered her head all the way down to the floor, very much aware that the current pose was showing off her lithe body and her dripping wet glistening marehood.

Behind her, Celestia dropped the book onto her bed along with her golden horseshoes and instead, she used her bare hooves to spank Chrysalis. “You will do what I say, when I say, how I say, and you will not question it. My little ponies would have your head on a pike, but I'll wear out your ass right here and now!” the raging alicorn punctuated every second word with a hard, stiff smack directly to the changeling’s rear.

Chrysalis didn't doubt the last claim that Celestia had made, though she was more focused on the pain – and the pleasure – spreading across her ass and her flanks. It was everything she had dreamed of! To get more of it, she spread her hind legs wide to better accept the spanking, and she lifted her tail to bare her rear end. “I-I u-understand Mistress!” she babbled, though all she could think was, ‘Oh dear mother it's happening!’

Each and every firm painful swat that Celestia delivered was making Chrysalis’s juices flow from her winking marehood down her inner thighs. Behind her, the alicorn was so focused on smacking that black shiny ass, that she didn’t notice the glistening wet trails of arousal until she spanked a thigh and the hoof, she pulled back was wet through. In utter horror, she backed away. ‘What have I done? What am I doing? To her!’ she thought frantically, “P-put t-the books on the shelf correctly!” her voice wavered as she scampered back like she had been burned to the relative safety of her seating pad by her desk.

Her eyes never left Chrysalis, or her upturned ass. Now her initial anger had faded, she didn’t know if to be aroused or disgusted with herself for what she had just done, and who she had done it to.

“Y-Yes Mistress…” Chrysalis, still in her presenting position, was slightly breathless with arousal, and it took a huge effort to move and to put the books back on the shelves the proper way, how Celestia requested, though her hooves were shaking and she was leaking like a running faucet.

At her desk, Celestia’s mind was a heaving roiling maelstrom. ‘I cannot want this abomination!’ she thought, trying to force anger into her mind, ‘I cannot want her…I will not…’ And yet, she hadn’t removed her eyes from Chrysalis’s wet marehood, and she couldn’t deny it was her that had made it so. Nor could she deny that she was getting extremely hot for that 'abomination', as she watched her obediently placing the books back in the correct order, her rear proudly displaying the array of spanks and slaps she had visited upon her.

As much as she was telling herself she didn’t want Chrysalis, that it just wasn’t right, that feelings for her were abhorrent, Celestia nonetheless remained in her room watching Chrysalis like a hawk until the last book was placed on the shelf. “You are dismissed for the day. If you wish to leave your room,” she said it before she knew what she was saying, “Shieldwall will escort you. You may leave the castle grounds but must be back before sunset.”

Still in a bit of a daze from the harsh spanking she had received, and from how wet she was as a result of it, Chrysalis bowed respectfully, “Thank you, Mistress, it would be nice to stretch my legs.”

Before she reached the door, Celestia stopped her with a loud cough, “As Bedpan.”

Chrysalis actually had to stop and look down, and even then, she was mystified to see that she was in fact herself and not her disguise. “Oh!” with an embarrassed blush, she summoned the green magical flames and in an instant, she was Bedpan once more. “I’m sorry, about that…”

Celestia simply nodded and watched Chrysalis go. When she was alone, she tried to calm herself with tea, but that didn't work as the tea grew cold and remained untouched, then the second cup went the same way as the first, as did the third. “I need some air…” she grunted eventually after four cups of tea went to waste.

Walking to her balcony, Celestia spread her wide powerful wings and she flew down to the royal gardens. Before she landed on her hooves, she was greeted by cello music, slow and verging on melancholy, drifting up from the inner part of the royal gardens.

Flying lower, Celestia observed that Octavia was stood in the private part of the royal gardens by the statue of a rearing pegasus mare. The alicorn smiled wanly, for she had mixed feelings about the mare the statue represented. Then, she saw the small array of cleaning and gardening equipment next to her on the grass. Carefully, Celestia maneuvered to land just outside that area and then she walked in. She said nothing while Octavia was playing, she was content to sit and listen.

After ten minutes, and only when the piece she was playing was completed, Octavia refused to pause a piece for anypony or anything, did the earth pony look up and acknowledge the company she had. “Princess, how nice to see you. Won't you come join me?”

As Octavia stowed her bow and put aside her cello, Celestia stepped closer. “How are things with my sister?” she asked just to start a conversation.

“Very well,” Octavia giggled brightly, “Better than things with my behind, at any rate. I was worried Lulu would be in a mood, luckily the only one she was in was a good one.”

Celestia took a moment to look at the statue, “It’s good that she can find some happiness.”

“I agree with you,” Octavia smiled and, once her cello and bow were secured, she joined the Princess at the statue, “It's Sky Dive's birthday today, you see. Lulu and I were out here all last night, having a party with her, or for her…you know what I mean.”

“Sky Dive was a feisty mare, as I recall,” Celestia smiled somewhat grimly, she remembered the mare and everything she had done.

Octavia burst out laughing at that. “Feisty is a word to describe her. Luna told me how they met, the way Sky swore at her for busting the cloud she was sat on. As I understand it,” the cellist shot the Princess a sideways glance, “You and she didn't get on very well.”

“They were both mares,” Celestia responded with a shrug of her shoulders, “It wasn't an example I wanted for Equestria.”

Out of nowhere, Octavia snorted a laugh, “Prehistoric social rules be damned!” she laughed, not caring one bit who she was with. “You and I have something in common, because when I first got with Lulu, I didn't get on with Sky either. I resented her in fact, the way Luna spoke of her all the time, practically beatifying her next to me.”

“I’m sure Twilight would say the only way past haltered is the magic of friendship,” Celestia started, giving voice to the things that were troubling her, “How do you do that if you don't want to be friends?”

In the gardens, with the noon day sun overhead, Octavia inched closer to the obviously troubled alicorn and placed her foreleg over her shoulders, “I learned to stop comparing myself with Sky. I'll never be her, just like she can never be me, y'know? I wasn't a replacement for Sky, Lulu loved me. So, to be happy, I got over it. I left the past where it belongs, in the past. That freed me to love.”

“What if Sky Dive stepped down right now from that pedestal and said, ‘Thanks for filling in, but you can move along now’?”

“Do you know,” Octavia barked out a laugh, “I had nightmares about that very thing happening? That she wasn't dead, merely frozen by a cockatrice? All I can do is trust Lulu when she set my mind at ease.”

“Who do I trust, Octavia?”

“Not who, what. You trust your heart,” Octavia placed her grey hoof on Celestia’s chest, “Because it's big enough to love not only your nation, and your subjects, but your somepony too. Love is the one thing truly infinite. It's how I know I won't be replaced, because I'm loved, just as Sky was and is. I love her, I love Lulu, you, my family. Love is everything, Tia.”

“Anger and hate have slammed that door shut,” Celestia snapped quickly. Who did this earth pony think she was, lecturing her? What in Tartarus did she know about anything? “There are things I don't want to love…” she thought immediately of Chrysalis and her wet marehood, “Things I cannot love…”

“Poppycock!” Octavia exclaimed, completely unafraid of the company she was with, “If that were true, and you had no capacity to love, you would not be Celestia. You would be some nightmare creature. Your sun blazes with love.”

“For my ponies, yes. Equestria, yes. But for that creature...that evil monster...”

“You speak of Chrysalis, I assume?” Octavia asked, pleased to see the looks of shock and outrage play across Celestia’s face, “Yes, Lulu told me all about her. And you and her. I don't believe she's evil any more than I believe you are. She is a creature of love, Tia.”

Suddenly, the anger that Celestia felt washed over her like a breaking wave, and it poured from her, unable to keep it in any longer. “She is a creature that devours love!” she exclaimed in temper, “That will do anything, even kill for her kind. That will even submit to my will for her kind. That...” as quickly as it had come, the anger went like a waning tide, and her voice was soft. “I hate the hate.”

“Everything she does is motivated by love,” Octavia said, unruffled as if the alicorn’s angry tirade had never happened, “Yes, she devours it, like I devour a hayburger, or you devour a red velvet cake, yet there is no shortage of burgers or cakes. Are the dragons evil? Or the griffons? They declared war twice. Are you evil for killing them to save your ponies?”

Suddenly ashamed of her outburst, and of her feeling for Chrysalis, Celestia looked away. “Am I negligent for not killing to save my ponies?”

“No,” was Octavia’s short and simple answer. “I think you are wrong to abuse Chrysalis. I'm not saying she doesn't deserve it, or that what she did was right, but this isn't about what we deserve. She is in your heart, however much you are trying to deny it.”

“I have been verbally and mentally abusing her to get her to snap,” Celestia felt like she was confessing her transgressions to her mother. Like she was four hundred again, caught in the act of some mischief, “To get a reason to destroy her, but today...today, I...” why couldn’t she just say it? “Your relationship with my sister has a physical aspect to it, yes?”

“Very physical,” Octavia agreed with an enthusiastic nod, “When words are not enough, Mistress Lulu uses her hoof, her cane or her paddle - often all three - to make sure my attitude is sufficiently adjusted.”

“What do you get out of being abused?” Celestia asked, “What does she get abusing you?”

Octavia didn’t answer for five whole minutes. She couldn’t, she was laughing so hard she was rolling around on the grass like she had just heard the funniest joke in Equestrian history. “Ti-Tia please,” she said, trying to get control over herself, “Mistress Lulu doesn't abuse me. She cannot because she loves me. When we play, I give her complete control, I give her my free will, because I trust her. Luna gets the thrill of the illusion of being in complete control.”

“I don't lover her!” Celestia snapped, stomping her hoof into the grass, “All I can do is abuse her.”

“But you do love her,” Octavia countered, wiping her leaking eyes on a hoofkerchief, “If you didn't, you would have dropped the sun on that train seven months ago and walked away. Stop listening to your head and what you should do. Politicians are in your head. Open your heart and trust it.”

When she spoke next, Celestia’s voice was so soft it was barely audible, “What if I don't want to?”

“If you really didn't want to, I don't believe we would be having this conversation. Forget what you should do. Put aside the Princess,” Octavia placed her hoof directly on the alicorn's beating heart, “What does Celestia want?”

“You're a musician, Octavia,” Celestia said as she stood up to her hooves, “Let's go back in time. Thank you for the talk, I'll leave you and Sky Dive to enjoy the rest of the day. I still need to organize my thoughts.”

Octavia simply smiled and with a nod to say she had understood the reference, she once more picked up her cello and her bow. As she watched the Princess spread her wings, she began to play one of Celestia's favourite pieces. “Have a pleasant day, Princess.”

As Celestia rose up into the early afternoon sky, the sounds of Le Carnaval des Animaux followed her until she couldn’t hear it any longer. Still, she carried on ascending, her goal the peak of Canterlot Mountain. Despite it being thousands of feet above her, she reached it in mere minutes, and she sat, perched on the single peak right at the summit.

‘All those millions of ponies below,’ she thought to herself as she stared across the whole of Equestria, ‘All of them falling in love, being in love, happy in love…why should I not have that?’ Do I not deserve it?’ she brooded there, like one of the silent statues she had left behind in the royal gardens.

And Princess Celestia did brood, like one of the silent sentinels of old, whose likeness was carved into the exterior of the city boundary wall that surrounded Canterlot. ‘How can I break her without breaking myself?’ she wondered, unfortunately the void had no answers for her. ‘She wanted what I was doing to her so badly, but do I want it as bad, or even worse?’

Deep down in her heart, she knew that Octavia was right. The knowledge didn’t make her thoughts any easier to live with though. “Am I hating her simply because I'm expected to hate her?’ It was of course the old problem that forgiveness doesn't excuse the one that hurt you but frees you of the hate you hold for them. Celestia had buried the hate she had for Chrysalis and the changelings when she thought the problem was gone. Now she and it were back, and the hate was the first thing to surface.

Celestia continued to brood in that same vein for the rest of the day, right up until it was time to set the sun so that her sister could raise the moon. With her thoughts still running round and round in her head like a foal’s playground ride, she performed her duty from the summit of Canterlot Mountain before she flew down for the evening meal she shared with Luna.

“Sister!” Luna looked up from her breakfast plate of three cheese scrambled eggs and Prench toast and greeted her elder sister with a warm smile as she flew through the window of their private dining room. “How was your afternoon on the mountain?”

“Not as mind clearing as I'd hoped,” Celestia ruffled her feathers and huffed, put out to be called out like that so quickly, “But the view was nice. To see the curvature of the planet, and to see the sun set and the moon rise…was nice.”

“Tavi told me of your conversation,” Luna smiled sweetly, “Captain Moonscar reported to me you were flying up high. Did you really brood the entire time?”

Celestia levelled a dirty look at her younger sibling, “I did learn from the best.”

“Touché,” Luna swallowed a mouthful of her food before piling some on a plate for her sister from the loaded serving tray on the table. “So,” she said as she filled a teacup for her, “What did your hours looking down at the country tell you?”

“How utterly lost I am!” Celestia groaned, before walking over and taking her seating pad. She wanted to bang her head on the table. Hard. “She humiliated me, and she killed my ponies, for what? Fear will gain no love. Nor does hate. But…”

“I did the same, as I recall.” Luna interrupted her sister, “Yet you forgave me, did you not? Forgiveness doesn't excuse what she did, because nothing can, but it does free you of the hate.”

“That is the rub, isn’t it?” Celestia muttered, moving the scrambled eggs around on her plate with no intentions of eating them, “I was beating her ass with my hooves and she was enjoying it. I had to stop because I was starting to enjoy it. I don't know if I want to let go of the hate.”

“Of course, she enjoyed it,” Luna scoffed like it was the most obvious thing in the world and her sister was blind, “She's as submissive as they come! There's nothing wrong with enjoying it. And of course, you want to let go, you don't want Daybreaker back any more than I want Nightmare Moon back. You just don't think you're allowed to love her, that’s your problem.”

Celestia felt physically sick. When did her little sister become so perceptive? “What will my ponies say if I show any love to that mo...to that creature?”

“That's what's holding you back,” Luna brandished her fork at her sister like it was a broadsword, speaking through a mouthful of eggs, “When you say 'what will your ponies say' you mean, 'what will the ministers and the nobles say'.” Unnecessarily, Celestia nodded, “No doubt there'll be uproar, outrage, rebellion!” she smiled, “Was it any different when we negotiated trade with the griffons after the second war? Or when we made peace with the dragons?”

“None of those embarrassed me like...” Celestia caught herself way too late. She had started to say it now, and her sister was staring daggers straight through her, “None of them embarrassed me like Chrysalis did. What can we gain from...I need to talk with Royal Ribbon. I see her reports, but I don't think I read them.”

Luna decided she had heard quite enough. “So, she gave you a bloody nose, just like Blacktalon the Executioner did at the Battle of Fillydelphia!” she exclaimed, “The only difference is those battles are out of living memory, and the invasion isn't.”

Celestia sprang to her hooves, “She laid me out in front of Twilight!”

Likewise, Luna sprang to her hooves, muzzle inches from her sister’s, “And there we have it, fillies and gentlecolts! Finally, we get the truth from the almighty herself! You lost a little face in front of your precious student. Grow up, Tia, you're four thousand, not four hundred!” then, her eyes went dangerously narrow, “Don't make me tell mom…”

Celestia tried to hold it in, but with the tension in the room between them all but tangible, with the both of them in combative postures, muzzles bared, she couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing, and then Luna followed suit, both sisters laughing until they cried. Once she had regained some control, Celestia said, “Well that won't be a first, would it?” then, she sighed, “I feel like a lost foal in this, and...I'm afraid of where I'll be when I find my way home.”

“If I were you, I'd be more afraid of ending up a bitter old mare living in a shed somewhere surrounded by a hundred cats,” Luna giggled and hugged her sister tight, “You won't know unless you try, but you won't get home unless you take that first step.”

“How do you know if you've crossed the line into abuse?”

“Because Tavi uses her safe word if I go too far, and I know when to stop.”

“Octavia talked to me of love, but I don't love her,” Celestia sighed, a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of her soul, “I just want to stop hating her. How, how did you and Octavia start?”

“It was a few months after we got together,” Luna smiled, because she remembered her first time with her wife like it was yesterday. “She had that tour of Equestria with the orchestra, remember? She was in such a state of nervous tension the first night she could barely stand up let alone play her cello. I took control where there was none.”

“Chrysalis welcomed my hoof,” Celestia looked down at the hoof she had used to rain such pain down on the changeling’s black hide, “She was leaking from both ends. I just...I wanted to hurt her, and I had to stop myself from really hurting her,” she added with a dark chuckle, “And go brood on a mountaintop.”

“Maybe she gets off on the pain?” Luna suggested before she went back to attacking her eggs, “She wouldn't be the first, nor will she be the last. Tavi gets off on me taking control.” She shot her sister a sly look and prepared to unleash the big guns, “I believe your daughter gets off on being turned into a pony by her partner?”

Celestia’s eye twitched at the mention of her estranged daughter. “Sunset is a big mare. She can get off on whatever she likes. I'm supposed to be the straight laced one with no kinks…” she let out another sigh, this one tired and weary, “I'm fooling nopony. I can but try.”

“Why don't you take a couple of days off and go visit Sunset?” Luna offered as she finally finished her plate and lifted up her mug of strong zebran coffee, “Breathe different air, get a different view on things, away from Canterlot and its baggage, you know, mend those fences you keep putting off?”

“You’d offer to take my schedule even after I know Wisteria told Crescent Moon Crest how packed it is?”

Luna shrugged and chugged her coffee, “Equestria won't burn if you're away for a few days. You could use the time off. And, if Equestria does burn, I'll have Twilight deal with it.”

“Time off would do me some good,” Celestia agreed, “But as tempting as it sounds leaving would not. I must face my fear, but at least I won't have the daily issues,” she leant in and gave her sister an affectionate nuzzle, “Thanks sis, I’ll let you know how I'm doing after a week.”

Perfectly straight faced, Luna said, “You just don't want to go and watch your little filly get reamed senseless by her world's Applejack.”

~ ~ ~

The next day, Celestia didn't call for Chrysalis – or Bedpan - at all. When she asked Shieldwall why, he just told her that the Princess was taking a personal day. She was however allowed to move about the palace as she saw fit. That suited her fine though, because the day before, when she had been allowed out, she had bought herself a book.

The day after that, just after seven in the morning, there came the familiar knock on Chrysalis’s door. “The Princess has requested your services,” Shieldwall announced through the door.

When Chrysalis opened the door, she was ready transformed into Bedpan with her flimsy skimpy maid’s dress on, ready to serve. “Ah, Shieldwall!” she beamed happily, “Such a joy as always!” unable to leave her new book behind, she took it with her as she trotted out of her room.

In her quarters, Celestia was seated at her desk writing. As had become the norm, her bed was unmade, there were a few books on the floor by one of the shelves and her breakfast tray was on the floor near the door. “Tidy up, please, Bedpan.”

Chrysalis blinked once then twice as she processed that. It was the first time Celestia had used the word ‘please’. “At once, your highness,” she smiled as she set her book down on Celestia's bed and she went to pick up the tray first from the floor, making sure to ‘accidentally’ present her ass.

While Chrysalis was working, Celestia did shoot her behind a surreptitious glance, but that was all she gave her, even when she noted the fact that her maid was not wearing her panties before she went back to her paperwork. She didn’t look at the unmade bed. Once the tray was taken care of, the disguised changeling started work on the bed, making her book jiggle as she tugged the sheets. “May I ask how your day was yesterday, your highness?”

At that, Celestia looked up from her usual stack of morning scrolls to see Chrysalis making her bed. She smiled broadly, because that was a good view. What puzzled her though, before she could answer, was the book she saw on the bed. She knew she didn’t leave one there, and she didn't see Chrysalis bring it in. Curiously, she magically lifted it up so she could read the title. “Fifty Shades of Hay.” Her voice was not impressed, “What is that book doing in my room?”

As she straightened the bed sheets, Chrysalis added an entirely unnecessary wiggle of her ass and she stood up, “Oh, forgive me, your highness, I was reading it in my room, I must have bought it with me."

“But why?”

“I thought it might give you some...inspiration.”

“A book burning inspiration,” Celestia facehooved. She admittedly knew little about the whole bondage thing, but she did know – from her sister’s many rants on the subject – that the book in question was utter trash. “That book is full of idiot ideas written by an idiot who has no idea what she’s writing about!” she sighed and shook her head, “Finish up and wait here when you’re done.”

“Is it that bad?” Chrysalis asked, before she realised Celestia was gone, that she was alone, and she was talking to an empty room as she picked up the book and placed it on the table. She quickly resumed her cleaning. “Hmm...I wonder what a good example of this type of literature is then?"

Twenty minutes later, and Celestia walked back into her room carrying three books in her glowing magical aura. “You really want to be a submissive, don't you?”

“I want to be your submissive, your highness,” Chrysalis clarified her position.

Saying nothing for the moment, Celestia looked to see if her maid was done with her chores for the day. She was pleased to see that everything was finished, and finished perfectly, though the bedsheets did have a wrinkle in the corner. “Lay on the bed with your hind hooves on the floor and your tail up high.”

The look on Chrysalis’s face was joy itself, and as soon as she heard the order, the disguised changeling scampered over to the bed and she laid herself over the foot of the bed with her hind legs apart and her tail up remarkably high.

After taking a long, long few minutes to admire ‘Bedpan’s’ ample teats, Celestia used her magic to lay out four books in front of the pastel green mare’s nose. One was the Fifty Shades of Hay book she had bought in, the others were The New Bottoming Book, The New Topping Book – both by Hardhoof – and a BDSM Beginner's Guide by Fig Leaf.

“I will now put this book to some good use,” Celestia took the hated Fifty Shades of Hay in her magic once more and she started beating Chrysalis's ass with it. “This book is full of lies and half-truths!” she declared, punctuating every other word with a sound, solid smack from the book that made the submissive pony lurch forwards with every swat.

“If a dom was like anything in this book you would not have the pleasure of pain, but the pain of death.” Celestia kept up her impromptu lecture as well as the steady rain of blows from the book, “It will turn your mind into mush and make you into the most useless bottom and worth less than any drone you've ever known.”

Prostrated on the bed, Chrysalis was definitely not ready for the steady painful spanking she was receiving from the one she loved. Each strike lit up her ass, turning it from a pastel green to a dull red and then to a brighter angrier red.

Chrysalis howled in pain with every strike she received, and by the time Celestia was done, the earth pony was reduced to a crying, drooling and leaking mess on the bed. “I-I'm s-sorry! Mistress I’m sorry! I didn't know! I didn’t know!”

Seeing the state she had reduced Chrysalis to, Celestia felt such a swell of power the like of which she hadn’t felt before. It was a heady rush. She wanted to hit her again, and again, and again. The more she cried and begged, the more the alicorn wanted to hurt her, to make her cry and plead all the more.

Instead, Celestia tossed the book back onto the bed with the other three. “And your education has been advanced. These three are my sister's. Do not damage them. Read them. I will quiz you in one week. Now fix the bed, you got it wrinkly.”

“Y-Yes Mis...y-your highness...” in a haze of pain and pleasure, Chrysalis staggered back to her hooves and very slowly, she fixed the bed. She had to go slowly, because every movement of her legs sent spikes of pain coursing up her spine and that was just from the frilly dress touching her flanks.

Ostensibly, Celestia went back to her paperwork but, every so often, she snuck a glance at Chrysalis as she worked. She took a great deal of pride in the fact she was walking funny, knowing she had caused it. She was also very much aroused by the way the skimpy maid's dress did absolutely nothing at all to hide her glowing behind or the glistening trail on her inner thighs and her large teats.

Something else occurred to Celestia in that moment. When she beat on Chrysalis’s ass, she found she didn’t hate her so much. Perhaps that was the answer. She wanted to be beaten, and she wanted Celestia to beat on her. ‘If that’s what it takes…’ she thought with a dark sinister smile, ‘Then so be it…’

When Chrysalis was finished, Celestia said, “You can have the rest of the day off. Read the books. There’ll be a quiz in one week.” She watched the earth pony leave and her dark smile deepened, picturing all the ways she could hurt that mare, and have her thank her for it and beg her for more.