Twilight Sparkle's Plan

Princess Twilight Sparkle. To her, the title didn't ring right. The other princesses had retired and left her in a position of power over the kingdom, but to her, she was still just Twilight Sparkle. She just had a lot more chores to do and an entire kingdom to look after for some reason

She was still not sure what exactly she had done that qualified her for the role of Princess. She had been a fantastic student for the previous Princess, she had saved the kingdom a few times before, but she had never really done much that made her feel like she had earned the title.

Saving the Kingdom using a magic artifact was good for sure, but it wasn't the sort of thing that meant she was good at leading. All her friends and seemingly the entire kingdom seemed to disagree with her in that regard, however, and seemed to believe that she was a perfect fit for the role.

The mulberry (And she was mulberry, anyone who thought otherwise was color blind) unicorn slowly walked her way down one of the many winding hallways of her castle.

She was an alicorn now, but she still felt like Twilight despite the fact she was now several dozen times more powerful then she had ever been before, and despite that when all her tasks were done, there was nothing that she liked more then to go for a walk.

Twilight stood on the balcony and stared out across her Kingdom, the place that she now ruled. It was so strange, staring out across miles of land, and knowing that every single inch of it, as far as the eye could see belonged to her.

She leaned against the balcony and let out a soft sigh, then lifted herself up over the balcony and let herself fall.

The air whipped at her, rapidly gaining speed that rapidly begin trying to suck the heat from out of her body. The ground approached rapidly, seeming to rapidly close in.

Terror gripped at her heart, excitement begin to wake up her body and shake the sleepiness from her body. Spending all that time doing mundane tasks and activities was exceptionally boring, but this helped wake her up.

And then just before she hit the ground, her wings opened up, spreading out around her and sending her into a glide as she curled up towards the sky.

The air whipped around her as she begin to move her wings, effortlessly pulling against the air as she zoomed up towards the sky and dove into a corkscrew, the whole world spinning around her. The sky was hers, she could go anywhere she wished, and it was a sense of freedom that was like an adrenaline shot to the heart for her.

Her mind could work much faster like this. Before, she had always thought best in stuffy libraries, sat in the candle light late into the night. But she had made friends and changed so much over the years, and now this was when she thought best, not so much with practical problems, but it wasn't a practical problem she was facing.

Her amethyst eyes filled with a cold focus as she span up into the sky, the wind tearing at her as she flew towards the clouds like a bolt loosed from a bow.

Pegasi also had tough eyes, and she was glad of that, because the speed she was flying at would've made it impossible to keep her eyes open otherwise.

The sun bathed down upon her, the sun that she had raised into the sky soaking her with its warmth as she broke though the clouds at the apex of her flight.

And then she stopped flapping her wings, and begin to once more plummet towards the ground. She folded in her wings to make herself fall faster, staring at the ground as it rapidly approached.

And then, the idea came to her. The solution to her problems, a way to finally prove that she was actually worthy of being a princess.

Her wings snapped open and the ground pulled away right before she had chance to make a purple smear across it. She never got close enough to put herself in any danger, but it did not stop her brain from freaking out as it soon the ground rapidly approaching.

She gave a final corkscrew, then lightly touched her hooves against the ground, slowing herself down from a rapid trot as she reached the gate of the castle and came to a graceful stop before it.

Her heart was still racing in her chest, feeling like it was going to give out, but of course it wouldn't. Especially now that she knew exactly how to solve her problems

She made her way up to her office and scribbled down a letter in a frantic fashion. Already she was starting to feel some of that old flair coming back to her, that same flair that reminded her of all the good things she had done to earn being a princess.

She had given so much to be here, and she knew that she was always being too harsh on herself, but that was because she had high standards, and she wanted what was best for the kingdom she loved so much and had worked so hard to protect.

It was less then a day later when the double doors to her throne room swung open and a squad of guards slowly made their way into the room, pulling a steel cage behind them as they scanned around the castle nervously.

She sometimes forgot just how nervous she made [ponies now. She was a princess, and she demanded a lot of respect with that title, even if that was not what she wanted. Her own teacher had never demanded much respect from her, but the fact she was a princess had always made Twilight slightly nervous, especially when one considered the fact that she had banished her own sister to the moon.

Twilight understood why she had done it, but she wanted to avoid doing such things in future because they normally left a fearful impression on many ponies.

Speaking of, the statue currently being bought in also left a fearful impression on any ponies that saw it. It was an exact replica of Queen Chrysalis. She had been a changeling, a terrifying creature standing at almost twice the height of a normal pony, with a mouth full of fangs and long legs that had holes going all the way through them.

And this statue showed all of this in excruciating detail that showed the creator had been well read in his passions. One could almost believe that it was the Changeling Queen herself, turned to stone for her many crimes against the kingdom.

All of this would be correct as well. Ponies did not like taking the life of other creatures and went to extreme lengths to avoid it, and that was why instead of executing the Changeling Queen, she had instead been turned into a statue, along with the other criminals that had aided in her final fateful scheme.

She didn't like getting her hooves bloody either, and while turning creatures to stone for hundreds of years might have seemed cruel, it passed exceptionally fast for those trapped within the stone, and the other advantage that it gave was the fact that as time progressed, ways to help the criminals were found.

Discord, a chaos God that had ruled over Equestria and caused havoc for everyone had been turned to stone, and then thousands of years later they had managed to use a kind mare named Fluttershy to rehabilitate Discord, a feat that had seemed impossible when he was first imprisoned.

And now, the Queen of the Changelings had been dragged into her throne room and Twilight was hoping to do the same thing. For all her flaws and all the trouble she had caused the Kingdom, Chrysalis. had only been trying her best to help her children. When she had first attacked the kingdom, it was more then understandable due to the fact that the ponies would have not given her a second thought before deciding to toss her out into the wastes, or worse, execute her via a lynch mob.

That actually meant she was not evil, rather she was just trying to do what she felt was best for her people because she had never been shown much kindness by the ponies around her. And if she tried to show her that the ponies were not actually bad creatures, she got the feeling that Chrysalis. would be more then prepared to help the ponies out in return.

And if she could get the changelings to support her Kingdom, she would be forever immortalized in the history books!

Her horn glowed to life, wrapping around the statue as she begin to cast the spell required to awaken Chrysalis. from her stone prison.

The spell was one that would normally require a team of specially trained unicorns to carry out, but Twilight was no normal alicorn, and her powers were well beyond that of even the greatest of unicorns.

The purple glow around her horn only seemed to get more intense, her hooves shaking softly before she planted her hooves firmly against the ground. It had been a long time since she had cast any sort of intense magic.

The feeling of the intense magical power that was currently coursing through every inch of her veins was intoxicating to say the least, it always felt good to use magic, and she actively had to drag herself away from feelings such as pride, not wanting to become over confident in her own abilities and mess up.

Chrysalis. slowly begin to turn from a stone statue to a creature of flesh and blood, a creature with a black chitinous hide that looked like something straight from a foal's nightmare.

Her horn glowed brighter and her teeth grit as she fed the spell the magic it demanded to keep carrying out its work. The depetrification slowly spread its way over the changeling's hooves, then up her legs.

It spread up to her chest, and at this point the two guards that were still stood in the room looked like they were about to have a heart attack, despite being the very best of the best.

It easily made it halfway up the changelings chest, organs and complex internal machinery and parts slowly being returned to life with much more care then her legs had received.

Finally it reached her neck, starting to slowly spread up it as Twilight grit her teeth, knowing that she needed to be very careful when reviving their head.

The wicked features of the mare that had terrorized Equestria for so long made themselves clear, a muzzle much like that of a pony, but filled with vicious fangs, a set of massive eyes that were currently clenched shut, having closed before the spell had hit her.

The last part of her to be revived was her tattered green mane, filled with holes and looking like it was attempting to rot away.

With the spell fully cast and the enchantment over, the terrible Changeling Queen collapsed to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, her gangling limbs spreading out in every direction as she sprawled across the floor in a heap.

Twilight did try to save her using magic and ensure that she did not hurt herself, but unfortunately with the amount of magic she had just used, there was no real way for her to swap spells so quickly and effectively.

The Changeling Queen would not be getting up or saying anything for a while, being turned to stone had a strange way of messing with someone, and it would take her body a while to catch up and start doing things correctly.

Twilight scooped her up with the purple glow of her already tired magic, carrying the poor creature to the guest bedroom which she had taken the time to prepare before waking Chrysalis. from her stone prison.

She already had the guest bedroom prepared for whatever creatures wanted to stay. Being turned to stone had sapped all the strength out of her, and she would likely need a while to rest before she was able to get back on her hooves.

She had a guard standing by the door to make sure that Chrysalis. did not escape, Twilight was not a fool, and although she hoped that the changeling would see the error of her ways, she was still an enemy of Equestria, and a dangerous one at that.

Allowing her to escape would only confound Twilight's inability to rule. Instead of having maids fetch the things needed to make Chrysalis. feel better, Twilight herself saw to it.

Love was a vital part of the changeling diet. Nobody fully understood how they managed to eat emotions, but without them the changelings shriveled up and died, but they did not need to eat just emotions, and a lot of them actively enjoyed eating foods simply for the taste of them.

They could also get certain nutrients from them that would hopefully help her in recovering from being a statue for so long. She had studied changelings extensively upon realizing the threat they might pose to Equestria, but she did not have any of the specialist food that they would need, as it was mainly manufactured within a changeling hive, of which Chrysalis. was the only one they had known of up until this point.

Hopefully magic would be able to provide an adequate supplement in place of actual love, but at this point it was mostly speculation and guess as not a whole lot was known about changelings or how they functioned.

Her horn glowed to life once again as she wrapped the magic spell around the changeling queen and begin to work through her, attempting to feed and revitalize her body, tail tucking up underneath her as a headache begin to flare up from using all this magic in such a short space of time.

It was something she was more then used to at this point, headaches were part of being a unicorn, and after a few moments, Chrysalis. slowly dragged her eyes open fully, staring straight at Twilight.

For a moment, Twilight realized that she might have made a mistake, that the Bug Queen might have actually been evil, and maybe keeping her in a normal bedroom rather then a jail cell had been a terrible mistake.

Instead of lunging right at her and attempting to tear her limb from limb, or send a blast of magic into her defenseless body, Chrysalis. instead shook off her limbs one by one in a practiced fashion, then rotated her head around one hundred and sixty degrees, before letting it rotate back to its starting position.

That was fairly terrifying, but nowhere near as terrifying as the grotesque cacophony of pops and snaps that came with it. Twilight kept herself ready for if anything went wrong, or for a pending attack, but Chrysalis. simply stared at her blankly as she pulled the sheets away from her body.

"Ah, Princess Twilight Sparkle, to what do I owe the… Pleasure." The last word hung a lot more then it should have, but as of yet she had not attempted an attack of any kind, so there was no reason to do anything that might raise the tension even further.

"Queen Chrysalis. I am here because while your crimes against Equestria were unforgivable, and the lives you have ruined can never be made up for, but out of the three criminals responsible for the attack on the Kingdom of Equestria, you show the most redeemable traits out of all of them. You committed those crimes because you care for your people, and to the best of my knowledge, my Kingdom has never attempted any kind of diplomatic route with you or your people."

Chrysalis. spent the whole time Twilight was giving the entire dramatic and drawn out speech looking down at her hoof as if she was waiting to file it down. After a few moments she spent looking like she was thinking, she lowered her hoof down raised her head up to look at Twilight.

On her face was perhaps the most bored look anyone in the entire history of pony kind had ever given. It looked like she was about to fall asleep, and yet had managed to hold on for just a few more moments to spite the person who had given such a boring speech.

"An alliance? You want to form an alliance with me? And what did you want from out of this alliance?"
Twilight had honestly not been expecting to make it this far. She had been expecting Chrysalis. to attempt some kind of trickery or sneak attack, but that did not seem to be the case, and it was something that shook Twilight's confidence for just the briefest of moments.

But of course she had a plan on just how she was going to respond. Twilight always had a plan for almost every situation that she could find herself in.

"I don't really have everything worked out, but I was hoping we could spend some time together, get to know each other some more, and then once that is done, we could work it out then. I… Need you to put on a horn restraint however. I am very sorry, but I can't have you roaming around the castle free."

Chrysalis. let out a soft chuckle upon hearing this, a chuckle that came from deep within her chest and seemed to vibrate outwards like some kind of evil energy.

"I see how it is. You act like you want to make friends with me, and then you don't let me use my magic. If I was a Saddle Arabian diplomat, would you have my horn bound, be honest with me."

Shit. Twilight furrowed her brow for the slightest of moments, before quickly breaking the expression in case it be seen as impolite. The gears of her mind were grinding over one another rapidly in a desperate attempt to think her way out of this situation, but unfortunately for her, there was no way to think her way out of this one.

Chrysalis was right. If she was a diplomat from any other country, they'd have their weapons removed, but Chrysalis.' entire body was one giant weapon, and there was no getting rid of that. If she wanted to make friends with them, the first step in obtaining that was trust, which meant that binding her horn and treating her like a prisoner was not the right thing to do.

"OK Chrysalis., I can let you keep your magic, on the condition that you don't transform into anyone in a malicious fashion, and you don't use any magic besides levitation."

Chrysalis. gave her a… Smile. At least that's what Twilight thought it was… Well, to begin with, she had thought that the changeling queen was baring two rows of razor sharp fangs with malicious intent, but after a few moments realized that it was her attempt at a smile.

"So, to start with we're going to try having meals together, which will give us chance to talk over any issues we might have, from what I understand Changelings are able to eat for enjoyment."

Chrysalis. nodded once, "That is correct. I actually rather enjoy tea, put the milk in first, then the tea bag, sugar and finally the water."

Twilight needed to remember she was facing down a monster. She stared at Chrysalis for a few moments, trying to look for some kind of tell that she was joking.

After a few moments of keeping a straight expression on her face, the Changeling Queen let out a soft laugh.
"I'm joking, I might be a monster, but even I'm not that insane. I'll have jasmine tea if you have it."