She felt the hard, unforgiving terrain press deeply against her scarred skin. The sun-soaked sand, the sharp rocks that protruded through the fine grains to jab at her flesh like a thousand miniature knives. Her fall here had been swift, long-lasting, and brutal. The longer she lay here in the midst of such a defeat, in such a place, her will continued to fade away like the morning mist until all she could feel within her weary bones was the desperate desire to simply remain until at last the heat and sunlight claimed her life.

Chrysalis had been struck down. Humiliated. Defeated by the very thing she craved, hungered after more than anything else on earth. When that magnificently terrible blast had cascaded across her flesh and set it afire, it had been the most painful yet most delectable thing she could have felt. She hungered for such ferocity, such delectable nourishment. If she had only been able to hold it back, press it deep down and take it for her own…

The horde would have been able to gorge themselves endlessly for over a thousand years. And there it had been, fighting her back and heaving her into this arid hell that she wished would finally kill her. She had failed them all.

A sound. Silt flowing down from somewhere beside her, echoed across the wind and over in hundreds of places. Groans of misery, death taking hold of lives that were not her own. The voices of her horde as they suffered in an agony that she could perhaps survive. But without her, they would falter here. Fail and wither away for good. It would be torturous, terrible to endure. But Chrysalis would have to resist the call of the reaper, and find the rage within to rise from her place in the dunes.

They had tried to destroy her. She had been beaten back. And now her horde lay dying because of such cruelty. They had only needed to survive, to live- what right had Celestia and the others to deny them the very promise of life? It was not fair, not right! They had been sent here to rot, to die- to be victims of murder!
Chrysalis rose from the sunken sands with a fiery roar that spoke to all the fury and pain that dwelled within her form, the great horde fallen in the sands around her, too weak and too weary to try and stand on their feet. Some had huddled together, perhaps to feel some small comfort before their moment came. She would reverse this tide. In her, they would find the strength to live again.

“All of you, on your feet!” the great Queen cried, her voice like a crack of thunder as thirst and anger battled for dominance. “Will you accept their death sentence, the boot that lays on your throat? I will not have it of you, not a one! Get up! Get up! Rise and we will make them know our wrath for the rest of their days!”

Some heard the words and found their will again, trying to emulate their ruler’s resolve. Others rose slowly, burdened by bruises and drawn blood that left them trembling and weak. Some, so broken and devoid of strength, simply laid where they were.

“My Lieutenants! Your Queen has need of you!” Chrysalis boomed, and out of the groaning throng came her inner circle, the mightiest warriors her horde had produced. Even these great fighters now struggled, some of them sporting wounds that could only be described as vicious. “We have work to do. This shall not be our grave, only the place where we rise from the ashes. Can you follow my commands?”

“Even to death, O Queen,” they said in unison. After such violence, still their resolve was great.

It was time for commands. Chrysalis, ever the quick thinker, knew what was needed. “One of you shall take a team on flight,” she began. “Search for water, and return to me when it has been found. Another of you shall tend to the wounded so they can be moved. As soon as we have water, we shall be on the move. The last of you shall congregate the dead for burial. We shall dig deep where they shall never be found. None shall ever know we fell here, and that lack of knowledge shall make us ghosts of the dark.”

“It shall be done, O Queen,” her trio of Lieutenants answered, and off they went. The calls of commands went through the broken horde like a virus, calls for work spurred the instinct of survival back in them again. The dead and dying remained, but their time would come. Defeated souls would become reapers of their own. Chrysalis would make sure of it.

She remained on her feet, facing the sunlight. Still as a statue, the single fixed point upon all her horde looked to. Chrysalis knew better than to show weakness now, not when their survival hung on such a thin thread. She would be the indomitable one, the shadowy phoenix that would lead them on. She saw the sun and her thoughts turned to its keeper.

I will wait, Celestia. You and I will meet again. The thought would be a mantra, with only the names replaced as she repeated the words over and over endlessly. To Celestia. To Cadance. Twilight and Luna. All of them would know her wrath. The only question was how it would be done.

Sunset came when at last her scouts returned with news of water. The order to move was given, and the dead were thrown into the mass grave with what respect could be given in the face of such ignobility. With the wind blowing, what tracks the living made would not last forever. It would as if they had never been here.

Moonrise saw them reach the large pool that helped quench their thirst. Hunger would not be sated yet, not in the way they desperately needed. Meat, the things of earth and sea would keep them alive to survive another day- only through love would they find the nourishment to be strong and grow. It would be a long time before such times would come to pass, but Chrysalis vowed to see it done. Even if it meant her death, she would see the horde grow strong.

The dark grew deep. Her horde rested and still there she stood, her mind allowing the reflections of the water to be the place where her mind wandered. Time to think, to understand what had gone so disastrously wrong, was critical. She had been so close, one step away from victory. If her cover had not been blown, and Twilight not alerted to her ill will, it would have been so easily done! Why could she not achieve success, even when the odds had been so heavily in her favor? Shining Armor had been in her thrall, until the last moment. So what had she done wrong?

Evil. Twilight had call her evil. “Ha!” Chrysalis muttered under her breath. A haughty thing to say when every last Changeling had been sentenced to die. A genocide that would be called just. Not if she had anything to say about it. She would sink her teeth into that little woman’s throat and suck it dry, all her love be damned-

“Wait,” Chrysalis whispered, a sudden switch in her brain now firing. Evil. She had looked like Cadance, sounded like her- they could have stood side by side and none would have been able to tell who was who. Yet in her actions, she had failed. The callousness of character had been the giveaway. Twilight, who had known the real Princess of Love, had deduced things were wrong from the very start. Abrasive words, harsh judgement, everything- there might as well have been no disguise at all. Chrysalis had been so desperate to win that she hadn’t realized just how great a fool she had been.

Any course that took the means of violence would be defeated. It was inevitable. One more catastrophic failure as the one they had endured and it would be the final judgement of the horde. She needed to try a different approach, one perhaps not so familiar. But now, armed with the knowledge that would assure conquest, Chrysalis found a small smile form upon her cracked lips: honey, not vinegar, would bring in the flies to her parlor.

But how would she find her way to them again? It would have to be in due time, when all suspicions about the horde had fallen away. To go back now would be suicidal. She would not be able to take the form of another and simply be a duplicate, a replacement. She would have to be someone new, someone that would be irresistible. Proper dress, proper action, even the simplicity of look and appearance. It would have to be pristine, so succulently tempting that no one could resist. She only needed one, and then the iron chain that kept her people starving would begin to break.

It could not be Twilight yet. Nor Cadance. Celestia and her sister were out of the question. Shining Armor? Odds were that she would be permanently dug into his mind like a tick in fat flesh, but even he would be difficult to access. She needed someone of less risk, one that would be far simpler to find- and easier to seduce.

“Your Majesty!” One of her Lieutenants called out from the darkened mass of life and approached where she stood beside the crystalline water. “I bear news from the battle.”

“And what will you reveal that I do not already know?” she asked.

“A weakness, O Queen,” her Lieutenant answered. “One perhaps worthy of exploit.”

A cryptic answer. She looked beyond her warrior and saw a group of her drones shuffling behind him, eager to make their report. They sported gruesome scars, every one of them. What story of weakness could they possibly have on their tongues?

“What say you, soldiers?” she demanded. “Will your words help defy this death sentence?”

“Yes, O Queen.”

“Then speak. Breathe life into your brethren.”

“We were the ones who faced the young student of Celestia, O Queen,” one of them said.
“And yet we were defeated. Your words surely mean more than that,” she replied. This was to be a waste of time, was it?

“Her companions fought alongside her, O Queen,” another of them added. “Many of them fiercely. One, however, was unwilling.”

Interesting. She had assumed the companions of such a powerful sorceress would be among peers, those of equal courage and merit. Perhaps one had simply quailed under the pressure of surrounding vengeance.

“A young woman, O Queen, would not raise a hand against us. She refused to strike, and instead tried to draw away,” was the continued speech. “She was afraid of us, O Queen. There was not an ounce of violence to be found in her.”

“Show her to me,” Chrysalis ordered. Just who was this peaceful soul that her drones spoke of?

A sudden flash of green fire and where her drone had once stood was now the form of a young woman, the likes of which was attractive even by Chrysalis’ standards. Gentle features of the face; warm, worried eyes that spoke of sweetness; long hair that was soft to the touch, just as her skin was smooth; the figure itself was… pleasant. Not magnificent like the Queen was, but still candy for the eye. This was no warrior, simply a lovely village maiden. And yet, she was a peer to the protégé of the Princess herself. This was not to be ignored.

“We must investigate further. She shall be put under surveillance. Every move she makes, every word spoken, even her hours of slumber will be kept under watch,” Chrysalis ordered. “We shall not make plans for anything until we know more of this young woman. Lieutenant, take what Ravens remain- they shall watch her for thirty days, even the minutest detail will be recorded. When the month is passed, they shall report to me alone. Is this understood?”

“Perfectly, O Queen,” her Lieutenant answered. “To where shall your Ravens be sent?”

Chrysalis remembered the words of Shining Armor, how he had spoken endlessly of the younger sister he cherished- all the information he had been so willing to divulge. “I know just the place,” she said.

Their days in the desert were unforgiving. By month’s end, nearly a third of her horde had finally withered into the dust, whether it be by infection or the wrath of the sun that no creature could abide. The dead were either burned or buried immediately, lest a plague spread through the ones that still survived- or worse, they been seen and expelled from their hiding place in a bloodbath. The horde was still weak, and secrecy was their goal more than ever. Chrysalis could do little more than wait; wait for her Ravens to fulfill their task and then let the havoc be wrought.

Thirty days passed, and at last the beautiful Queen of the Changelings held the name of her target. “Fluttershy,” she murmured aloud, her face set aglow by the firelight. “Even her name holds promise.”

“She is promising, O Queen,” the Head Raven reported, the mouthpiece for the entire squad. “Gentle-hearted, perhaps even to a fault. She is quiet, seemingly willing to see the best in others- even those who are perhaps undeserving.”

“What does she do? Who is she among others?” Chrysalis pressed.

“She tends the creatures of the region, O Queen,” came the swift reply. “All things harken to her voice. A lover of flowers, also.”

“And of others?”

“Kind and patient in excess. Overly kind, as it were. Perhaps not a pushover, but pliable. Compliant.”

“What of her sexuality?” Chrysalis asked.

“Your Majesty?” The Head Raven seemed perplexed by the question.

“Does she pine after another? Is she lonely?”

“It is difficult to tell, O Queen,” the Head Raven answered. “Such things are rarely spoken of aloud, even by chatty folk. This one hardly speaks at all.”

“And that is all you can say for yourself?”

“So we infiltrated her cottage instead. Her personal diary spoke volumes.”

These are my Ravens, Chrysalis thought. She wouldn’t have expected anything less. “And of what can you tell?”

“There is no pining to be noted, nor loneliness to speak of,” was answer, and Chrysalis felt disappointed. “She simply feels without an equal. A creature of the quiet is surrounded by very loud friends. It would take much to make her wish for otherwise.”

It was enough. Smaller details were spoken of, mentioned and referenced. Some of it mattered, else did not. Chrysalis had what she needed, with only the need to formulate the plan. This little woman, the gentlest of creatures, would be her way in.

Chrysalis looked out on the desert she despised, and knew she could not waste anymore time. Her horde was dying. Act swiftly, and there may yet still be some hope to cling to. The board had been set; it was time for the pieces to move.

Author's Note

So there's this. One chapter a day.

Yes, it's stupid. I know.

New chapter tomorrow.