A Kindled End

Chapters

Chapter 1: The Proof of Love
Chapter 2: Restless Night
Chapter 3: Farewell, For Now
Chapter 4: Premonitions

Chapter 1: The Proof of Love

Let me ask you a question. How do you wish to be born? To whom? And under what circumstances?

Do you have dreams of being brought into a normal life where you're well off and want for nothing?

Or are your dreams much grander and opulent, imagining yourself with overwhelming riches and status? Or maybe even power? Like that of a princess born to a thriving kingdom of a race in Equestria known for their magical aptitude and unique abilities.

If that is your wish, then congratulations. You've been born to the changelings as the next heir to the throne. You have all that you wanted. Money, status, power. The one who hatched you from your egg is none other than Queen Chrysalis, renowned for her magnanimity, grace, and magical ability. She is every sense of the word Queen, inspiring loyalty and reverence at just her mere presence.

And now she's right here before your very eyes, standing above you and smiling so dearly at you as you take your first uncertain and wobbly steps onto the ground below from your egg and breathe the first breaths that life can offer you. But you don't know anything about royalty or grace or even magic. You're a blank slate ready to be molded and know nothing of the world save for what you see before you for the first time.

There's something to be said about the miracle of birth. Falling down to your stomach after finding it difficult to keep your balance, you hold your tiny hooves out to the tall Queen before you, instinctively knowing that she will comfort you if you do. Maybe because of the way she looked at you, perhaps? Or maybe that's just how we all are from the very moment we are born? Wanting to connect and be loved by others.

You don't know anything about mothers, fathers, or even what a parent is. All as well since your kin don’t have those normal familial conventions that other races do. But you feel her love, and you know it to exist from how she hugs you so warmly and gently, you practically melt in that embrace.

You are wrapped by more than just her physical body. In the unique way that only changelings are able to sense, you can feel the very manifestation of her love for you in the air like a mist.

It's warm. So very, very warm. You've no doubt in your mind about what love is and what it means. It's the thing embracing you with absolute care and nurturing tenderness. It's the very heart of this creature before you.

Well, if you even knew to speak the word "love", blank slate as you are, then you'd no doubt associate that word with this moment in time. But it'll take a while still before you know how to use words or how to formulate your thoughts with language. Still, this moment has been forever engraved into your very soul. Soon as you figure it out, I've no doubt you'll learn to connect the two.

This moment, unbeknownst to you, is far more special than you realize. You've just inherited a heavy crown. Even before your birth, there have been many clamoring over who shall preside with the title of heir to the throne. The Queen had never entertained the idea until very recently due to the toils of her duties. And out of thousands of eggs adorning the Great Nest’s walls, she picked you. Like some divination or an act of a greater power, you were the lucky one.

Or unlucky, depending on who you ask.

The fact is, this was nothing short of Fate at work. The Queen didn't just pick randomly or blindly. She felt you. From every egg in that massive room, your signature was so distinct to her, she knew from the moment she walked in that you were the one.

Certain superstitious folks would call that a "motherly instinct". But changelings don't have parents. Not in the same way other races do, as I’ve mentioned before. To changelings, you are known as a successor. Queen Chrysalis is your predecessor. She did not carry you to term or even lay your egg herself. Like all changelings, you originated from the magics of the Great Nest. And it is by the Queen’s magic infusion that you were shaped within your egg and incubated for months on end to arrive at a new generational cycle of changelings.

As far as learning what magic is, you're dead in the water. You couldn’t comprehend it in your mind even if you tried at such an early stage of your life, but again, it’s a compelling force for your kind that goes beyond understanding and delves into the realm of instinct. You feel its tickling presence wafting through the Great Nest’s corridors, and even the Queen’s unique version of it too around you.

Yet, something about the magics in the room makes you shiver.

Were you just sensitive to magic in general? You will think back to this very day often. If not just to remember your first moments with the Queen, but also for the tremor and rumbling in the earth that happened at that moment. An inaudible growl from the very depths of the ground you stand on shakes you ever so slightly, enough to knock you onto your back from where you sat on the floor upright.

The Queen chuckles at your imperfect motor functions, not having noticed it herself. She drapes you over her back and cocoons your resting place on top of it with her crystalline wings. The rocking of her footsteps lulls you into a sleep eventually, and you let a bit of drool make its way out of your mouth and onto her mane.

You’re not conscious for it, but if you were, maybe you’d feel how happy she was. Just about everything you did, she adored. Like all new mothers to their children, she was smitten with every bit of you. All those tireless days of infusing her magic into your egg had made her very excited and impatient to see you with eager anticipation. And now that you were here, to her, the amount of joy and love she was feeling was indescribable.

Yes, she truly loves you. From your imperfect, twisty horn to the tip of the tail. She loves the way your chest slowly rises and falls with every tiny breath. She loves the cute, restful sleeping face you make while you slumber.

And so the drool on her back bothers her none.

You could do no wrong, and luckily for her, in taking after her and with your own unique personality, you would turn out to be a rather docile child who really would do no wrong.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves in your story.

For now, the Queen was walking in the slow procession of new predecessors in the annual hatching ritual down the length of the Great Nest’s halls. It was a sacred moment that even the Queen had no special or unique part in this play, so her tall figure made for a funny sight as she walked down with the rest of the normal-sized changelings and into the world above outside of its dim cavernous halls. It was a long-standing tradition that all predecessors and successors should see the dawn break together, and so most other successors had already been walking alongside their predecessors to do just that.

It was not unheard of, to be sure, but in this batch of kids, you were the only one to be given a ride to your destination and asleep to boot.

The hatching ritual always had its fair share of spectators at every turn, but none had ever seen the kind of turnout that came of this one. In large part due to the Queen and to you, of course. From the crowd gathered, it truly was a very important moment with all eyes staring at your sleeping figure. So many different individuals wanted to see what their future entailed in you and were resoundingly disappointed by first impressions.

It’s an ugly thought, I know, but it’s simple politics. To them, it felt like a slap in the face that you were not the proudest, most graceful, most poignant of the bunch. Despite just being a newborn, they had already found fault in you. They’d been banking on Queen Chrysalis getting an heir apparent for decades now so they could make plans moving forward with a new crown. To train and mold the coming clay. And so it must’ve been like an insult to see, in their eyes, low-quality putty.

After all, they could not feel what the Queen felt in you. They did not love you unconditionally in the same way she already had from the moments she first laid eyes on you. And I’m sorry to say, but this would not be the last you hear of this terrible first impression souring your prospects moving forward in life. None of that would deter the Queen any. Her love was an insurmountable mountain that none could speak against. And she aimed to prove it there and then.

The tip of her nose nudged you awake with such gentleness, one could believe you would break at the slight tap of a breeze. She let you down carefully to your hooves, but you immediately collapsed from the effort of standing. If you had, had a sense for all the conflicting positive and negative emotions in the air, you would've been bothered by the onlookers staring in your direction feeling all sorts of things over the obvious runt in the litter. From wonder, to anger. But you were far more busy being entranced by the sight of a rising sun breaking through the horizon for the first time.

The sight of it was truly majestic, and the memory of it would be forever ingrained in your mind, no matter what may become of it in the future.

The Queen took this time to speak a few certain phrases that you could not have been purview to just yet, in the absence of language. Not to worry. You would hear them throughout your early childhood many times, so it was no real loss for now.

Still, her words carried importance with them and at such a poetic time for them to be uttered. So for the sake of your story, they went a little something like this:

"Feel the world around you, hear the sounds it makes. Take in the smells, the scents of this sweetened earth. Open your eyes and see what only you can see with them. Experience it all, my dear Chrys. And know that I'll love you always."

These were the words of the Queen before she decided to go against tradition and leave those solemn practices of silence and abstaining behind during this pivotal moment of dawn break. Her magic surged through her horn and it lit up with her unique colors, pushing the very air aside now that a saber of light had replaced it. From her hair, she drew a tiny crystal barely the size of an acorn.

Despite the break of protocol, both the watching crowd and the Great Nest's guardians were silent at what she intended to do. Even the untrained eyes of the common folk could see the sheer beauty and infinite depth of that tiny stone. It was nothing short of a true, priceless treasure. A Kingdom's very heirloom, you could say.

The Queen brought her horn to its surface and imparted her incredibly powerful magic into it. All at once, the force, wind, and light of her magic vanished and swirled into that crystal creating a denser, thicker, and milky foggy sheen on its previously translucent surface.

The crowd was stunned. Never had they seen such a gem house that magnitude of power. It was the Queen's ultimate symbol of her love for you. With it, you could sunder the world or even stop the very hands of time.

But you being who you are, you would treasure this gift for a very long time until you would need it no longer.

The Queen embeds it into a necklace and lifts it up to your eyes with one hoof, holding it aloft right in front of the gleaming morning sun.

The two were now eternally connected to one another in your memories from then on. Every time you looked into its swirling energies you could picture this very scene somewhere deeper than just in your head. Your heart, perhaps? Or maybe your soul?

None but you can say, and not even you could know.

You take a hold of that gem without really knowing its meaning. It's your very first gift. Somehow, you can feel just how truly delicate it is. More so than you, almost. One drop and it could shatter. Yet, inside of you is the deep desire to keep it close to your heart.

As a newborn, you don't have the energy to stay awake through the proceedings thereafter. You fall asleep again on that quiet, silent morning when the Queen takes you up on her back once more.

The memory of your first waking moments ends in the darkness of your sleep, with only one other thing bothering you in the back of your small mind like a faint premonition.

Now that you're grown and searching your memories, you swear you felt it at that time too.

The quiet rumble in the earth...

Chapter 2: Restless Night

You awake somewhere. I would've said somewhere "unfamiliar", but just about everywhere and anywhere is new to you. Your eyes adjust easily to the dim, warm glow of candle light. You've yet to know what it is, but the softness surrounding you is the product of a heavenly bed created for you by the tireless efforts of the Queen, as money wasn't solely enough to piece it together considering the special materials that went into its making.

The mattress stuffing had been created with special Pegasi clouds whose structural consistency was sturdy enough to infuse them with magic, thus making them more solid and akin to cotton candy.

Magic silk had to be imported from Canterlot and was sewn into the sheets and pillow casings by Chrysalis' own skills. She wasn't the most skilled at the delicate handiwork required for that, but the Queen was sentimental and liked to add meaning into every gesture, so she felt making them herself to be the best choice. It was her own personal show of her efforts to be a good predecessor to you.

Waterfowl down only found in certain parts of the world was collected for the pillow stuffing, gathered by the Queen herself when she last left the Kingdom to visit a good friend in the neighboring country.

In fact, the only part she didn't have a hoof to play into the creation of was the rather ornate bed frame and the special bedding of hay that was meant to support the mattress further. Those had been gifts by that friend of hers.

The finished product was a bed truly fit for a royal. And strangely familiar. Maybe not to you, but to the strings of time and fate.

Fate is quite the comedian, you'll find out soon enough, as it likes to play a strange game of our lives. Sometimes with cruel jokes and sometimes benign. It likes to use connecting patterns and is generally always working on a whim. Fate is a never ending story-teller with a strange sense of humor.

For now, and for you first moments of life, Fate was going lax on you. To your side, the Queen rested with her head drooped at your side with the rest of her body flowing down to the floor. It had only been a day since she met you, but she had been awake an ungodly amount of hours in her tireless excitement for this very day. That and royal duties, but those were the least of her concerns.

She worried endlessly as to what she would do for you, how she would care for you despite her duties, and wondered why her court didn't allow maternal leave. Maybe that's something she could change within her own time of rule, so that when it was your turn to care for a successor, you wouldn't have to worry about such things.

For now, it was a little late for her to ask for a prolonged vacation. Following the Changeling hatching cycle, this was the busiest time of the year with hundreds of foreign diplomats and dignitaries coming for the celebration of it. And because of you, there were now more than double those of previous years.

She also needed to publicly apologize to the predecessors whose deeply symbolic rituals had been upended by her interrupting display of affection. All of it calculated beforehand like all of the Queen's plans and to her, worthy risks to take in your name, she strongly believed.

It made for a mountain of paperwork she needed to solve before the day was up to allocate appropriate recompense to them and to some ornarey Great Nest guardians who did not appreciate the Queen's inclusion in the ceremony. For more than just the interruption, as they had, had their workload doubled due to the massive crowd you'd attracted. Normally it wouldn't have been an issue if she had just delayed your hatching until the next cycle thus giving them ample time to prepare, but the Queen had insisted she see you as soon as possible and gave them a last-minute warning that she'd be hatching you on this one.

The Nest Guardians had as much a venerable position as the Queen herself in respects to her status and power due to their mightily important job and were often seen as bishops or something similar to spiritual leaders. Naturally and seen throughout all of historical record in any Kingdom's lineage, church and state were always butting heads. Being equal in the social hierarchy meant that it was her duty to appease them to some respect. Sure enough, they would not take this stunt of hers lightly and required "overlook this" recompense. Not a bribe, per say. But a series of promises, IOUs, and other such things she could do to pay them back for taking initiative on her own to grandstand your arrival.

It had been a long, long day for her. That's for sure. She was rightly tired and soundly slept what she could while still watching over you with towering stacks of paper at her sides on the floor. You were none the wiser about it all, as you were just but a wee babe. Not to mention you basically snoozed throughout all the drama that followed.

What was that drama? Funny enough, the drama consisted of partly political things, and partly superficial nonsense. Here, take this for example: Your crooked horn? It's not often a changeling is born with physical defects. It can happen, sure, but it is incredibly rare due to the carefully maintained magic within the Great Nest. That's why the Guardians exist. Not only to protect it, but to maintain it. And not just to keep it clean and tidy, but to constantly even out the coursing power that surged through those halls. They were balancing the very same natural energies of the earth itself that manifested into the changeling eggs within the Great Nest.

Look, you're still young. The sciences, magic-study, and techno-babble aside, something happened to you while being incubated. And that something caused imperfections in your natural form. Your crooked horn and your thinly delicate wings, moreso than average, were proof of that. But all the adults could do was speculate as to what that something was.

Many of them had criticized the Queen for her haste, with many still blaming her for having sped up your hatching by an entire cycle. Some in the royal court believed the Guardians were at fault in some way, even going so far as to propose an inside sabotage by some of them. Some believed this was an ill-omen, for the changeling royal family was a long-held successive line by only the most powerful of their individuals when it came to using magic. The twisted horn made them, without any proof, think that you were not capable of magic at all and thus had ruined the royal line entirely.

Despite their positions, these changeling nobles could be real fools... Some even tried to make a case about how your crooked horn, if not a sign of magic deficiency, was just unsightly for royalty. The beautiful, graceful, magnanimous Queen Chrysalis had left big horseshoes to fill in terms of the Kingdom's ruler and what kind of public image her successor had to have to match up, and thus had opened the floodgates to vanity. All while they fought over trifling things like that, if you had been awake for it at that time, maybe you could've heard something similar to a teapot kettle boiling over and whistling as the Queen sat silently to hear their protests before she would speak. To say she was angry was an understatement...

When she finally had enough of their prattle and endless things they could come up with to besmirch your name, the Queen stomped her hoof once with a loud BANG on the floor which quickly whipped silence into the room. When push came to shove, the Queen commanded respect as much as earned it in her grace.

She would then proceed to defended you at every step and retorted to every painful thing they had said. She loved your imperfections and endeared you to her more because of them. She said they were part of your once-in-a-generation uniqueness and made you more beautiful because of them. She made them painfully aware that all of this was just baseless conjecture, and that they could not know if you harbored magic or not until much later when you were of the age to start training it. She would not put sanctions on any of the nobles who had badmouthed you, since she was a just and kind ruler, but it did not stop her from chastising those grown men and women of the royal court. For adults to speak ill of a newborn... Well, it brought shame not only to themselves but to everyone involved. The Court, the Crown, and you, the most innocent of the three.

Sadly, if simple words could fix the thoughts and the hearts of others with one conversation, then maybe this is where your troubles would've ended had they been reasonable, non-prideful changelings of high society.

You see how those two things contradict each other, right? To not have pride as a noble is to not be a noble at all. And so, these man-children who held sway in every facet of society would no doubt take their frustrations and create even more drama in the future for you, if only to get back at the Queen. They could not speak against the Queen due to her reputation and her impervious air of command as a regent, but you were free game in their eyes.

As wonderful a ruler as Queen Chrysalis was, it did not mean she was surrounded by equally magnanimous personalities of power. Without you knowing it and while you slumbered on, suddenly, you would find nary a friendly face in the palace. It was a hotbed and a battleground for dirty politics after all.

But for now, you were left to inspect the quiet, somber night you had awoken to with none of that weighing on your clueless self. The dark of night and the soft glow of blue, silvery streams of light breaking through the glass doors of the veranda in the distance were making your eyes heavy again since they had a way of making such a comforting scene, but you were curious as to what could be casting that kind of light. The way it reflected off the marble flooring created a mesmerizing effect of shimmering glints, which further drove you into a curiosity.

You got out of bed without so much as a whisper, being called to the light of that unknown. Just walking was an effort in of itself, since your imperfections seemed to be more than simple outward appearances and had affected your constitution too. However, your curious nature was in full swing, so nothing would've stopped you from getting to those glass doors. You were not strong enough to push them open, but regardless, you got a good view of what had created the mystifying rays of silvery blue light.

It was a ball. A shape. A big round thing. It was beyond wonderful, and it cast such a strong spell on you that it had you staring at it for lord knows how long. So long that the Queen had awoken from however much rest she allowed herself and had quite the fright when she didn't find you on the bed. Imagine her relief when all she had to do was turn around to see you sitting by the veranda's glass doors, fixated up towards the moon.

Who could fault you? The moon is really pretty, and changelings are naturally attracted to lights of all kinds. Maybe your kind shared a brainwave or two with moths? Plus, there was a lot to keep you entertained in its image. Like that silhouette of a pony-like creature.

But maybe there was more to it. Maybe there was something extra in there that caught your attention. Something about the moon made you sad. Like if you could almost... feel emotions radiating from its gentle glow. Remorse, anger, grief... and all sorts of feelings you had no names for yet. They were the kind that made you hurt inside. Barely a day old now and you were already forming the beginnings of empathy. Unbeknownst to you, someone else's hurt had become your own. Those feelings were very faint as they were likely very far away. It was not nearly enough to make you cry. Nonetheless, they'd caught your attention with a strong bind, and you could do nothing but stare endlessly at that round ball in the almost black sky.

"The moon. It's real pretty isn't it, Chrys?" The Queen had said, knowing full well you didn't understand words yet, but saying them anyway to help you learn and associate. "It's a reminder of the sad things my friend has had to bear, so to me, looking at it fills me with melancholy. Bad things happen, for no good reasons. None we could accept anyways. But yet we continue on. For our own sake, and especially for the sake of those we care about. And since we are royalty, we must persist. More so than commonfolk. For everyone's sake."

She sat behind you and began stroking your hair gently, caressing you with tender care. Partly to comfort herself, but mostly to comfort you as she could feel the downtrodden nature of the feelings resting inside of you now. She could've made you happier right there and then by consuming those emotions of yours, but she didn't. Queen Chrysalis very much believed that changelings were meant to live with their own emotions in stride. That only by doing so could you grow up to be virtuous and good of heart.

There was a lot of truth to that idea too. Emotionally driven creatures as changelings are, both physically and magically, learning to live alongside your feelings without repressing them is crucial. It too was rare, but it had happened before that if taken too far, that repression could lead to any number of consequences within the changeling's very mind. A range of things too, from small quirks like developing timid anxiety-stricken personalities, to some of the more severe things like psychosis. There had even been a few recorded cases of changelings developing entirely separate personalities in a sort of... magically manifested Multiple Personality Disorder. And even some who had entire sections of their motor and speech functions damaged due to extreme trauma. One such case had left one poor changeling being unable to speak the words in her mind the way she wanted to and took quite a lot of work to repair that damage over a long-extended period of time. But that case had not happened yet and would not for several more years to come.

So the Queen was doing her best to allow you to grow up the best way she could think to help you along, which was by allowing you to feel those troubling feelings. It did not mean she would allow you to simply stay sad all night long, as she hurt just as much by watching that sadden expression of yours. After a while, she proceeded to prop up the gem she had gifted you which dangled from the necklace around your neck, and up towards the moon.

Of course, contained within that gem is the wonderful feeling of love. A huge amount of it. And so, the sight of it had eased your heart. The white, milky sheen of that crystal mixed with moonlight made for quite a scene of its own too, and without really trying to, somehow the necklace had been ingrained in your mind and into your memories forever with pictures of the sun and the moon.

But the Queen had more up her sleeve to cheer you up, even if she had already been successful in doing so. She brought you up to her back again so you could rest atop of it. Unlike last time, she secured your body to her back with the help of a comfortable baby strap built into her prepared-before-hand saddle that had been designed specifically for you in mind way in advance. She opened the veranda to let the cool night air waft towards the two of you and walked you to the edge of it so you could see the large city of the capital below you. Its many midnight lights shown like a rainbow sea, and again, you were hooked by the array of that colorful display.

Suddenly, the Queen's wingspan extended their full length, and she beat them down towards the ground slowly and carefully. A lot of amazing things were happening one after the other, but the Queen was taking a good amount of time to gently kick off the ground and into the air so as not to shake you more than she needed to. A testatement to her abilities as Queen, as she made the take off and the ride a cozy sail through the air by using magic here and there to keep winds and the shaking to almost non-existent levels.

But boy. What a feeling flight was. If you hadn't cheered up before with the necklace and then the awesome sight of the capital at night, then soaring through the sky undoubtedly put you there. I mean, you were making all sorts of noises. Real happy ones. Some cute little cries of joy and a couple of tiny squeaks of delight. It was obvious the Queen was enjoying every moment of it.

The Queen kept her flight low, and suddenly, all the sights and the feelings vanished as you entered a thicket of trees and a forest. The Queen landed and proceeded to walk a short distance towards the destination she had taken you all the way out of the castle to. The walk was not entirely unpleasant despite the contrast, as the moonlight still managed to break through the trees making an interesting showcase of the forest floor. It kept your mind busy and riding that emotional high until the two of you reached a large pond. Its waters were still and reflected the night sky above.

If this is what she had taken you all the way out here to show you, you might've felt a little cheated had you been anyone else. But your eye for beauty is ever searching, and it didn't have to search hard at all to show you the true spectacle of what she meant for you to see.

It was a night sky unpolluted by the city lights, reflected off the pond like liquid night. Now the moon was in an even more beautiful splendor. Everywhere the eye could see, tens, hundreds, thousands, or maybe even millions of stars dotted the heavens. Along with them, huge strands of color painted over the cosmos. Nebulae of purples, bluish whites, and oranges gave even more life to the deep blue ocean of sky that was previously all black before.

There was nothing in the whole wide world quite like it. The Queen let you down next to the pond so the two of you could stare up into the sky for hours. The memory of you holding your hoof out to the stars as if to try and grab them were something she desperately wanted to immortalize in some sort of painting or drawing, and secretly took note of it in her head for future reference.

She laughed heartily when you brought your hooves to the pond to grab it down there instead, since reaching up hadn't helped you. She comforted you by nuzzling you for a long time when you felt sad that the liquid was running away from your grasp when you took your hoof out of the water again. And she stayed there all night long even after you had fallen asleep, to watch over you as you slept soundly in the peaceful quiet of that night.

The Queen was a mix of emotions. She had forgotten all about the stresses of life during that precious moment with you. But now that she had been given time to contemplate, all she could do was look towards you and worry. She desperately wanted to believe that all the nasty things those nobles had said had been false. But the sad thing was, even if they were, there would always exist those who think it true. She could not change that public perception by force lest she be a tyrant. The opinion of the royal court was usually a microcosm of the rest of the common-folk, and the mix of those opinions they'd showed told her how divided all of changeling society would be towards you.

Try all she might, she understood trouble was brewing on the horizon for you. And because of her duties as Queen, she could not be there for you in the capacity she truly wanted. She could only hold onto dear hope that you would overcome it somehow. If nothing else, she promised herself there and then that she would work even harder for your sake. A dangerous gambit for someone already working themselves to the bone, but for her peace of mind, she would not allow herself rest.

Finally, her thoughts fell on your horn. It was a definitive piece of you, and a lovely one. Everyone else's opinion be damned. But to say she was unconcerned with it was false. She worried as to why it had happened to you, of all changelings. Had it truly been her fault? She could've sworn she took every precaution... every careful calculation... but then, what if it really was her mistake? She couldn't help think what she thought, or feel what she felt. She could only wallow in unwarranted remorse.

It's honestly quite sad. I wish someone had been there to say something to her. To tell her the truth.

If only someone had even known the truth to begin with, maybe she could've carried on with more heart.

The truth that the earth beneath their hooves was trembling with power, both then and in this moment in your story. The very same power that gave you your form, and gave Fate the ability to ever so slightly, slyly, tip the scale to one side.

On the side of tragedy.

Author's Note

I am making an illustration for each of my chapters, and currently chapter 1 got its own. If you didn't manage to catch it the first time, be sure to go take a look at it! Skyey's art is truly lovely, but it takes time and so I release them usually after a chapter has already been published.

If you want to make sure you don't miss any illustrations, follow me or bookmark me so you can check my blogs where I post them. I post them on a couple of group forums too from time to time, so keep an eye out! Regardless, I'll be rotating any new artwork I get for the cover art so you'll also be able to see it there.

Chapter 3: Farewell, For Now

If life was like a card game, being dealt Queen Chrysalis would have been like that all powerful ace-in-the-hole that instantly won you the game. But it was also the kind of card that came with hundreds of restrictions before you could use it to its fullest potential. And so far, it was the only card you had.

Now look at your opponent's hand.

Not even a few months later and it was safe to say they already had a full deck built, not just a hand. And what a series of cards... From solid defense to relentless attack. To the brim with trap cards, reversals, buffs and debuffs, and even direct attackers.

The nobles in opposition to the Queen had long since existed to some extent but never had they seen such a rise and growth in their numbers than the moments after your birth.

The Queen was seeing it everywhere now. How they looked at you with cold eyes and addressed you as if you were a commoner leeching off of her highness, with no respect to your crown. The way in which lowly maids spoke of rumors and fallacies in hushed whispers behind closed doors. And how even her advisor would ignore your needs as if you were just a distraction.

There was a brooding within those ornate halls. And Queen Chrysalis could see, more clearly than anything, how it affected your state of being.

You were, are, a bright child. Your adaptability, curiosity, and sense had shown through spectacularly your first few months.

You were quick to learn things, and through your already developed empathy, you could somewhat figure out emotional states in others. This was an innate ability all changelings had, but yours was particularly acute. Often you could be seen steering clear of the palace's personnel that seemed to dislike you, eventually making it so that you wouldn’t want to come out of your room. You would try desperately to do as you were told despite not understanding words, leading you to imitate basic gestures and commands. While this alone would've been promising for any child to show signs of cognition so early on, those around you were always expecting more than what was reasonable for a newborn to do. It was never enough and earned you harsh remarks. Finally, you'd often comfort the Queen whenever she was stressed, in what ways you could understand to do without words yet.

It wasn't hard to do. All you had to show was a smidge of concern her way, and she'd feel a breth of pride and joy. It's always a good sign for a parent to see such a caring personality in their children.

At the same time, gifted though you may be in some ways, they're none that matter to the royal court and the expectations of the changeling crown. You'd yet to show any signs of magic aptitude at all, and your frail body had caused both the Queen and those attending to you to wait on you hoof over tail.

This made worse the opinion of any who saw this. Was this to be their new Queen? Unfortunately, like all positions of power, it attracted and bred the worst of a kind. Those in the senate of the royal court used their power to further drive all sorts of ill and malcontent within the palace. Lord knows what they were doing on the outside to the public. Nothing good, we don't doubt.

So your emotional maturity at such a young age ended up becoming something more like a curse rather than a blessing. The adults all around you were constantly angry about something. Worse yet, that something was usually you yourself. And you knew that.

The stay at the castle was not ideal, to say the least. The only reprise were the occasional quiet moments with the Queen alone, outside of her duties which seemed to wear her down a little more each day. Partly due to constant worry about you. And again, you knew that...

And though you smiled for the Queen since you came to learn that doing so would make her happy, and she smiled back each time, there was now a sadness inside your eyes and in hers. It hurt her to know you were hurting and putting on a mask. At such a tender age too. How could she have allowed this?

For all the good a crown was, it didn't allow her to change anything. Her powerlessness, nay, better to say kindness, frustrated her to no end.

With a heavy heart, she made a difficult decision. The only choice available to her that could immediately help you. This choice came at the cost of having to send you away from the palace.

It's not as bad as it sounds. She wasn't abandoning you. In fact, this was something she should've done a long time ago. It'd been a little hopeful of her to want to raise you herself in your youth, but almost all changelings underwent their first years in specially designed live-in nurseries to be taught the basics. Like learning to talk, write, rudimentary mathematics, and anything you can imagine what children are meant to learn before they go back to live with their predecessors.

Changelings in general break the mold in a lot of ways in which the other races care for their young. What the Queen was doing is not what is normal of changelings "in general", you know. The royal court already knew her pension for sentimentality and had expressed their distaste for allowing those foreign ideas of family and union into her idealisms. They were something she'd adopted thanks to several non-changeling friends of hers over her many years.

Funny enough, like most changelings in her kingdom onto that point in time, Chrysalis had heard about families, parents, and unions from one particular pony when she herself had hatched and attended the nursery. That pony was the nursery's matriarch, otherwise widely known as the nursery's "mother".

And again, it's no coincidence that she was called this. She practically preached those ideas of familial love in the form of stories and other tall tales of her travels to the kids, as she was a well-traveled pony. And those ideas spread like an intellectual contagion amongst the impressionable children, which then traveled further down the vine and to the predecessors too. Thus creating an entire generation of changelings hoping to make those ideas a reality.

Chrysalis just happened to be one of many such children that took those ideas and tried to run away with them. It's just that it's kinda hard to run at all when you have a ball and chain attached to you in the shape of a crown. She was forced to concede and let you go.

It pained her. She was not abandoning you, but she felt like she was and hated it. If you could visualize her worries and anxieties like drips of water into a nearly full bucket, imagine that letting you go was like pouring another bucket full of water into it violently, splashing water everywhere.

Contrary to the norm and placid as she was, the Queen didn't explode in anger or reel back in sadness like you'd imagine anyone else doing if placed in a similar situation. She was a Queen, so she couldn't. Not in front of the Kingdom, and she especially didn't want to do so in front of you.

When the time finally arrived to say goodbye, she put on a brave front and waved you off with a smile that hid any concern. And you? Cursed to know the hidden truths of the heart and the tears we don't show.

You looked on at her with worry, failing to return that smile. It felt like something had broken. But you couldn't tell what that something was, so there was no way to fix it.

It was just a temporary goodbye, as the Queen would make every effort to visit you every day and night from there on only rarely failing to do so, but at that point in time, there was no consoling you.

For the first time since you were born, you cried.

You couldn't have known this was a goodbye. All you could understand at that moment was the outpouring sadness in the Queen. The real question then was... which one of you was hurting more, if yours was only in response to hers?

That hug between the two of you at the Nursery's steps was a lot longer than any you'd had before. By seconds? Minutes? Hours? Who knows. You couldn't count yet.

You had hardly used your voice since you were born. A side effect of wanting to disappear from the many scowling faces in the palace, perhaps. Even your sobs were quiet. Hardly a peep except for the sound of your sniffling.

Eventually, and I mean eeevveeentuaaallyy, you managed to calm down. It was mostly due to the Queen coming to terms with it after enough time had passed. To you, almost every day was something new and world-changing, so going to the Nursery didn't seem like that big a deal in a life full of inconsistency.

But coming off of those downtrodden feelings was still rough. It painted your first impressions of walking through the Nursery's doors in a rather grim and grey light.

Crying your heart out as much as you did earlier had given way to apathy, that nothingness where one can't feel much of anything afterward. Just an emptiness in the pit of your stomach. For changelings who are emotionally driven creatures, it is a very dangerous feeling indeed. It quite literally painted the world grey, as an apathetic changeling's very lifeforce diminishes in such a state, and physical changes begin to occur like a dulling of their vision or the loss of rationality.

Your apathy was not nearly strong enough to send you into a true apathetic depression the likes of which are hard to recover from, but it was still strong enough to cause the visual artifact of color blindness.

And so, what might've been a unique experience of meeting kids your age for the first time instead became a sign of things changing for the worse. You didn't care much for the colorful messy walls full of scribbles made by the children. You didn't care for the toys scattered all throughout, which would've delighted any young child's curiosity. And sadly, you didn't even give the Nursery's Mother much of a thought when she welcomed you in with all the care in the world since she understood the circumstances from which you hailed.

All you could do was watch longly at the disappearing back of Queen Chrysalis as she took the color from the world with her, leaving only grey behind after she had disappeared.

Even the earth beneath your hooves, which had long since been in a state of unrest, had become silent and still as if to respond to the muddy feeling in your heart.

To you, it felt like there was nothing anymore.

Chapter 4: Premonitions

"Juley, no. Snacks are for after lunch. You know this." But alas, little Jule had already torn through the cookies and was now just finishing her last, sending the tin they came in rolling on the ground which made a racket as the aluminum cylinder met the ground.

"Parthi, don't you dare mister! Get away from the clock this instant." The young little sprite took his hooves out of the wooden casing of the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, making an irritated face before ignoring the warning altogether and going for it. Somehow, the month-old had triggered its afternoon chime which further added to the cacophony of the overwhelming noise present.

"No no, it's okay, Mali. Your hoof art is just as wonderful as everyone else's. You don't need to feel bad about it." There was no helping Mali, who was forever on the verge of tears. The waterworks halted for no changeling. With the added source of noise, now the room was a very upsetting one. The kind that could make anyone cry. And boy did it. Every child who hadn't been crying had now gone into their own fits.

A chaotic mess, it was. It's to be expected. Running a changeling nursery is hard work. Especially with a brand new batch of kids who were very new to the world, let alone the Nursery itself. They were bundles of untapped energy and emotions ready to play, laugh, run around, and of course, cry like there would be no tomorrow.

The poor Nursery's Mother... having to deal with that every day. You felt an incredible amount of empathy for her while watching the chaos ensue in front of you, all while wanting to cry tears of your own.

"Alright, little ones. I'm back. Seems like there was a party while I was gone!" The soothing, nurturing tone of hers filled the room that instant, causing an almost immediate dissipation of the wailing children. It seems your worries were unwarranted since Mother was a seasoned veteran in the art of child rearing.

The changeling children all gathered around the aged white unicorn pony with bright amber eyes and were being pacified with just her mere presence alone.

"Parthi, don't you want to sit with the others to listen to a story?" She asked the unruly month-old who had stopped crying and was back to sticking his hoof into the grand clock. He took a second to think about it before turning around to sit with everyone else.

Noticing she was one changeling short, the Nursery's Mother turned to you finally. "And what about you, Chrys?"

You wiped the built-up moisture on your eyes and sat down along with every other changeling, making sure to sit at the very back since you were much older and bigger than the rest of the kids there and would ultimately make it hard for them to enjoy the story otherwise if you blocked their view.

"Today, I'm going to tell you about the Frozen North. A vast expanse of snow and ice. A rocky cold desert with only its mountain ranges to distract from the snowy plains." At her words a refreshing gust of wind swept through the room, giving the children a chill down their spine that left them giggling since they had never experienced that type of cold before. The traces of magic that had brought that wind were left behind in small little motes all around the room barely visible to the eye, in the shade of a yellow unique to the Nursery Mother's magic.

The motes then began to pool towards the aged unicorn's horn which stuck out of her long, bright yellow mane atop her head. Her amber eyes began to glow in a golden hue, and strings of her hair pulsated with the power of her magic as it coursed through her body. It was quite the sight to see a skilled magic user at work, but even more impressive when a spell shot out of her horn to create a plain circle in the air, with its center screening a mirage of her choosing. Visions from her past.

"And while there isn't much to see in the Frozen North, there is one thing you can only see by going to it." She continued. "A natural phenomenon of unparalleled wonder!"

At her words, the center of that magically drawn circle in the air that was all black gave way to the image of a small unicorn filly next to a creature unlike anything any of the children had seen before. A tall equine-like figure with two long, thin horns that seemed to branch out like a tree in different directions. From those strange horns, straps of paper floated in the air. With their backs turned to the image's perspective and night casting a shadowy silhouette of them, there was not much of either of those two figures to see.

But that was clearly not why the Nursery's Mother had shown that image. What stole the show for every young child present, including you who had already seen that picture a number of times before but never stopped mesmerizing you, was the night sky above the two.

What streaked across it painted the whole of the image in a vibrant and stunning hue of blues and greens. One of nature's very own masterpieces. The Frozen North Lights. The kids were all glued to the image of those swirls and columns of light in the sky.

"These are known as the Northern Lights. An Aurora Borealis. But this is only a small glance at that all-inspiring sight of a real one. Imagine those lights reaching all across the sky as far as the eye can see. It's hard, but you'll just have to trust that it's one the most amazing things in this wide world! And they're all-natural, no magic included." She explained. "Chrys, you've heard this story before. Do you remember how they come to be?"

"The sun! I think. Um, the wind?" You'd heard the reasons plenty of times, but being called on so suddenly had left you scrambling for a proper answer. Before you could, the Nursery's Mother smiled warmly in your direction, nodded, and proceeded with explaining it again.

"That's correct! Solar Winds are the cause of northern lights. They mix with the air and cause all sorts of trouble in the sky, which in turn make these lovely displays for us down here on the ground. Fascinating, isn't it? There's more to it than that, but you kids are still young. Perhaps when you're all grown up, you can look into the sciences of their creation even more!" With that, the circled visions disappeared along with her magic when she stood back up from the reading area in the lobby where every young changeling was gathered. "Okay, so who wants to have some ice cream sherbert only found in the Frozern North towns?" She said to the excitement of all the children present who all scrambled to say "me, me!".

Well, all but one changeling child. The Nursery Mother sent the rest on their way, to receive their snacks in the cafeteria from the Nursery's staff who had just arrived themselves. You could sense that she wanted to speak with you, even if you hadn't made a show of your own questions you wanted to ask her. She walked over to you after they'd all gone out of view and stood by your side, waiting for you to be ready to speak.

You rubbed at your foreleg with one of your hooves, not sure of what to say. The Nursery's Mother was a wonderful lady who was kind and graceful and well-respected. She was beloved by all of the children and the other staff held her in high esteem, despite not being a changeling. That's why she was called "Mother" by both the kids and the staff, and even the changelings outside the Nursery.

But to you, there was always something that bothered you in the way she looked at you. Nothing unnerving or disturbing, despite the many rumors that she was a witch with eyes on the back of her head who could foresee all manner of things. Like being able to tell when someone was about to cause trouble, like small Parthi. Or was about to cry and needed specific comforts, like little Mali.

No, what troubled you about the way she looked at you was your own reflection in her eyes. If it really was true that she could see deeper into someone else more than anyone could, what then did she see in you that caused that emotion to shine through them? A mix of sad things. A melancholy so profound, you could not help but feel paralyzed with fear that something must be wrong with you.

Or maybe that something will be wrong with you.

"Yes, um... Miss Tera. I'm sorry for not being able to handle the kids while you were gone." You said in finally speaking up.

Her expression dropped ever so slightly at the way you addressed her. There were not many kids or even adults who did not call her Mother. But deep down she understood the reason why and was happy for you.

"It's okay, Chrys. I think you did pretty well all things considered. You kept Jule out of the pantry for the most part. Handling even one tot is hard work, but a handful of them? Give yourself more credit." She said as she ran a gentle hoof through your hair. "Besides, I should be the one apologizing. It's not often we find ourselves so short on staff that we need to rely on our own kids to help us out as you have. You've been helping us out with everything. Cleaning, cooking, bedtime... come to think of it, yeah! Everything. Thank you, Chrys. You're an absolute dear."

"Happy to help, Miss Tera." She smiled contentedly at your response and signaled you to follow her to the cafeteria to get your own portion of ice cream before the tots ransacked the rest. "I just want to earn my keep." The casual comment you made had frozen Tera in place, which made you bump into her hindleg while following her. She stood in place unflinching long enough for you to skirt around her to see what had happened in curiosity. But that was a mistake. There was real sadness in her eyes. "Miss Tera? Did I do something wrong?" You asked in your worry, not understanding how the mood had gone south so suddenly.

She pulled you into a hug in that empty hallway and patted your back on occasion to comfort you. For a while, the two of you made for a strange sight since it looked like she was comforting someone who didn't need comforting. However, slowly but surely, you degenerated into a quiet mess and dug your face into her coat. You found yourself shivering and trying desperately to hold your tears back within that hug.

"Everything is fine, Chrys. You'll be okay. I know you. You're strong. Stronger than me. And everyone cares about you." She whispered over and over into your ear quietly. "This is your home. Don't feel like you need to earn it. You're our family. My family. I've known you since you were so little after all, and you've been here the longest. It doesn't mean that you have to work for your place here. It means that you'll always have a place with us. And with me."

The rumors were very much true. Or at the very least, she was extremely perceptive.

You'd been at the nursery longer than any other changeling child. Even some of the staff too, as you'd seen many of them come and go. It had been nine years since you first entered its halls. The generational birthing cycle had happened three whole times and was fast approaching its fourth. Most if not all of the kids that had stayed only ever lasted one, two, or at most three years before being picked up by their predecessors to spend their life in a traditional home.

But every time, you just waved those boys and girls off, left to wander those empty halls until you would see the new generational cycle for a few years before again becoming gradually emptier and lonelier. With each passing cycle, you would lose friend after friend, until eventually, you were too old to really relate to any of the new kids, thus becoming the resident big sister who helps out the Nursery's staff when push came to shove.

And while Tera and the Queen were a constant presence throughout the years, you were left to the quiet and lonely moments in life more often than most others. You had more than enough time to think about your circumstances and to get the idea that you had to provide some worth to be worth housing into your head even as young as you were.

Quietly and without anyone noticing until the moment you uttered those words, you'd begun to shackle yourself with responsibility. You hadn't truly understood the weight you'd given yourself until the moment Tera had hugged you.

You shed no tears. Sadness was an emotion you had learned to bottle up, as it made no one happy to see you as such. Even so, it took a while before you were back to normal and before Tera was confident enough in letting you out of that hug.

"You've never even complained about how unfair your situation has been, Chrys. Most kids your age would've complained about unfairness if their cookies were slightly smaller than someone else's. It's only natural and healthy for a growing changeling. You shouldn't be afraid to speak your mind." You stayed silent at this since you didn't know how to respond.

You were still too young to understand that her words were very much true, and that you would've been happier had you expressed your discontent more openly. But her advice was conflicting with a lot of other advice you'd gotten from all sorts of adults. You would visit the palace occasionally with the Queen, and oftentimes it was to be part of your lessons in royal upbringing. Your teachers were strict, harsh critics who drilled the ideas of grace and royal behavior into you. A Princess and much less a Queen were to ever show weakness in front of the public. They were symbols and rulers of an entire nation. A thousand souls rested on your command.

To act like a normal child as a princess was to be the biggest disgrace in the land. And for the sake of Queen Chrysalis, you would not risk allowing that to happen if you could help it. So over the past few years since you understood this to be your truth as a princess, you did your absolute best to hide your emotions. To be perfect.

Yet life is not so kind, and even if your actions spoke of perfection, the nobles who were against you still existed and were still growing in number. If they could fault you on any little thing, they would.

The worst part of it was, that they still had one major calling card every time there was an argument in the royal court about you. The kind that could not be dismissed. The kind that had grown in intensity and importance with every year that passed by.

Your inability to use magic.

Even changeling toddlers could perform tricks if they understood how. But you'd yet to show even a hint of magic ability. You'd gotten visited by numerous doctors from all across Equestria, and from many different magically apt races. Strangely, what none of them could figure out was why you couldn't use magic. Every testing instrument and method they'd used to check if you were capable of it read normally. In fact, your aptitude for magic rivaled the Queen's since your vessel had been shaped by her during your hatching and could house and control a huge amount of it.

If you could only use your power, none could speak against you. But alas. You could not channel even an ounce of it.

Okay, sorry to interrupt it here.

This is one such gap in your story. Even I don't truly know why this happened to you. The best that I can do is reconstruct the past by looking into the strings of fate. Yet even they offer no answer as to how and why this was yours. The future has proven that you never had a fault to begin with, and the past is inconclusive.

What's your guess, little miss?

Hmm? Oh, I see. Yes, that makes sense. Changelings, huh?

So you say that this was the result of your feelings... The matter of you bottling them up, is that right? It's okay. You couldn't have known that this was the case. You had pressures from all sides urging you to be perfect. Exacerbated by the frustrations that you were magic-less, the push towards being faultless on the outside made you fault-full on the inside. Irony can be such a cruel trickster.

Besides, it's all in the distant past.

Shall we continue?

"I know of one thing that might cheer you up, Chrys." Tera said while patting you on the head. "A birdy flew by to tell me that Chryssy is coming to pick you up. Sounds like she found the time to spend this afternoon with you and wants you to go along with her."

"Mom is coming?" The change of mood was certainly immediate, and while your poker face was indeed very good, Tera figured you out quite easily. She chuckled at how happy you seemed to be, then proceeded to be quiet as she pondered upon something.

"It seems obvious now that I think about it, but it must be because of her visit. It's been a while, maybe I should pop in to say hi later." She smiled a knowing smile and nudged you towards the cafeteria gently. "For right now, you should hurry or you'll miss out on the ice cream. I'm thinking the staff are having a hard time fighting off Jule for your sake right about now."

Sure enough, a loud banging of pots and pans clattered in the background behind the cafeteria doors. Feeling more chipper already, you pushed on the doors but stopped midway through to get one final thing off your chest.

"Thank you, um..." Reading a room... When you were a changeling, that statement can be taken quite literally, no? Looking around Tera, you could feel the emotions that were had still lingering in the air. Always thinking of how to help someone else, the words you found to finish that sentence floored the unprepared, aged unicorn. "Grandma Tera" With that, you disappeared behind those doors to fend off that tiny glutton.

"Auntie!" You exclaimed at the sight of the regal white alicorn sitting at a table on Queen Chrysalis' balcony connected to her personal chambers. She immediately set down the tea that she'd been drinking in order to catch the hug you were tossing her way in a quick jog.

"So good to see you again, Princess Chrys. It's been a while, hasn't it? When was the last time I visited?"

"Since the last hatching cycle, I believe. Running up to a year and a half now. You know that time goes by quick for children, right Celest? You should visit more often. You're not getting forgetful in your old age, are you?" Queen Chrysalis was the one to answer that question. Between close friends, there was no reservation between the two.

"Heavens forbid. No, I just had a busy year. And... it's been pretty hard for a while. I can't stop thinking about things at times." She said softly as if not wanting to be heard. Princess Celestia nudged your nose with her own in order to make you laugh after seeing the beginnings of concern welling up on your face from having noticed the downtrodden nature of her comment. "Now that Chrys is nearly ten, the more she grows, the more she is reminding more and more of... Well, you know."

Queen Chrysalis quietly nodded her way. "I understand. Whatever the case, as you can see, we won't hold you to it. Chrys is just happy to see you again. And so am I."

"Mighty thanks to the two of you." She chuckled heartily.

"The least we could do. You did help us out even when you were not here, after all. Thank you again for sending your best medical unicorns to come take a look at Chrys and the technological equipment to make those tests happen."

"I hope everything turned out well with those investigations?"

"Ah, so you hadn't heard then? We weren't able to fix Chrys' inability to use magic."

"Oh my... I had heard from down the vine, but was hoping they would've been just rumors..."

Before the mood could sour, Queen Chrysalis bumped the table they sat on with hearty enthusiasm and beamed a smile.

"Don't look so down, Celest! It's not like it didn't help us at all. We found out Chrys' vessel is as big as mine. If not bigger! I DEFINITELY think it's bigger. What do you think?" Having returned to Queen Chrysalis' side since the conversation had started, at that moment, she pulled you closer to her body with a foreleg so that she could rest the side of her cheek against your head in order to give Princess Celestia a good look at the two of you. Her pride had flared and she was actually happy about it, which helped the mood lighten up quite quickly for all of you. "Besides! It shut that portly senator up for a while. You know the one, always nagging about my dear Chrys. He really gets my goat, you know? So yeah, it helped us out plenty!"

Queen Chrysalis did not show her unruly side to just anyone. If there is a universal truth for all of us alive, is that perfection does not exist. For all the grace the Queen showed to the public, she was equally prepared to show the opposite in private.

You spent a rather jovial afternoon together with the Queen and Princess Celestia. While most of the topics being tossed around were more technical things like the art of stateship, there were still some things that allowed you to be part of their conversations, like when the Princess would ask you about your royal training and classes. And also conversations like when they would begin their rounds of behind closed-doors bashing of the royal nobles from their respective courts. You didn't have anything mean to contribute, but you loved to talk about the pretty dresses that some of the women of the royal court wore. This would then devolve into you trying your best to convince Queen Chrysalis not to ordain a Seamstress to make that dress for you or for her to try and make it herself. You already had plenty of clothes and knickknacks gifted to you by her. All in all, the three of you spent a good time.

The only thing that bothered you was Princess Celestia's gaze occasionally falling on you. The look in her eye reminded you of Tera's, but was different in a way. For starters, it never seemed like she was looking at you, despite looking directly at you. Did that make sense? Maybe not. There was a longing in those eyes of hers, and the bags under her eyes had grown since the last time you saw her. Lastly, the emotions still floating in the air where she'd stood were not all happy ones... You could sense that the Queen knew this too, and was purposely being careful about broaching the topics she would bring up.

With the day reaching its end and with the Princess getting ready to leave, a familiar face had come to pick you up. Tera walked up to the two tall figures of the Queen and the Princess, and had them both bowing their heads in respect for her.

"Now now, I want to see none of that. You know that's not how we raised you two to act around us." She poked at their knees with her hooves, as it was the easiest place for her to reach considering their height differences.

Queen Chrysalis laughed and knelt to get a quick hug from her. "Yes, and I've told you many times, Mother, this is my duty as Queen. I need to keep up appearances, and you're respected enough for me to do this every time I see you. Besides, I think you deserve respect too."

"Pish posh. I took care of you when you were in nappies. You bow to me when I tell you to bow. Not before, not after." Tera had not at all forgotten the attitude she needed to adopt for taking care of a young Chrysalis. Turns out, she was rather rambunctious in her youth and needed a stricter talking to than most.

"Good to see you too, Amare."

A magical gust of strong wind kicked up directionally towards Princess Celestia, leaving her mane disturbed. "Is that sarcasm I hear? How rude! And not even my title or first name, but my last?! You've become quite cheeky, Celestia."

"What? Fimbul said that there were countries out there that used the last name first when addressing others."

"For those who you don't know well! I may have not been the one to raise you like I did this Phasmatidae over here, but I'm many times your senior. Show me some respect, young missy." Doing a complete 180 over to you, her tone drastically changed back to being her usual soothing, calm, and gentle form. "Did you have a good time, Chrys?"

You couldn't help but giggle from the absurdity in it all, and her face showed how contended she was to see you express your emotions more openly, considering the talk you had with her earlier. "Yes! I did, grandma Tera."

"Chrys! It's rude to call her grandma." Queen Chrysalis had begun but was quickly shushed by the aged unicorn.

"Well, I am old. So it's not rude at all. Besides, she's calling me that because you call me Mother. And what does she call you?"

"Mom!" You responded.

Ever since you'd first heard of family structures yourself from Tera's storytelling, you'd stuck to calling the Queen your mother. We skipped over it in your story, but you can bet it was an extremely happy moment for the Queen when she first heard you utter that word and to her, too. Especially considering that it was also the first word you'd ever said.

On that note, it's quite a shame we skipped over a lot of things that happened in those last nine years. But it's okay. Some things in life are best kept to oneself. Not everything has to be told.

You could say, that some stories are more special when they're only ever told between two people.

"This wonderful little thing figured out that a mother's mother is a grandma. She's been paying extra attention to my talks about family. She's quite the smart cookie, Chryssy."

"I know, right?" She beamed.

The night had already grown quite old by the time the two royals had enough of catching up with Tera. It had taken their talk so long, that you'd begun to doze off and were laid to rest on Queen Chrysalis' bed so you could wait it out.

You were stuck in a state between dozing off and sleeping, waking up occasionally with a start to see if you'd missed the opportunity to leave back to the Nursery with Tera. You woke up in a daze just as they were nearing the end of their conversation.

But now they had bred a much more serious atmosphere with their talk. Their voices were quieter and more solemn, with distinct concern in them. Try as they might, they were not careful enough with their volume which allowed you to overhear what they were saying.

"Celest, I failed to mention something about the magical tests we ran. I didn't want Chrys to hear it." The Queen was the one to start it. "The instruments you gave us allowed us to determine the cause of what happened to her horn."

"Is this about the Great Nest, Chryssy?"

"Seems like there's no point in hiding anything from you, Mother. You're entirely right. If you remember, we cordoned off that part of the Great Nest to keep newer generations from suffering Chrys' fate. The Nest's Guardians and I ran an extensive timelapse with the magical seismograph Celest gave to us. Initially, we weren't able to find anything for the longest time. We didn't expect for that particular piece of equipment amongst the many others we got to find anything, since it didn't do so right away and nothing it showed seemed out of the ordinary. But then we started to have a malfunction with it. What we thought was one, initially. The machine would shut off for split seconds at a time, and then turn on again. We thought it was normal of it or some maintenance issue it had, considering that the line graph it outputted seemed completely fine. But it started happening regularly and in consistent intervals. We checked some of the logs from the time when Chrys had hatched when we had a similar investigation with similar equipment, and sure enough, that same issue was happening with a different seismograph at the time."

"I understand why you ordered several from me and from different manufacturers a few months ago, then."

"You're getting it. That issue happened with every single one of them. We still don't have a proper machine that can read this anomaly accurately, but we now know that what happened wasn't a fluke or something that I messed up personally. This issue seems to be affecting every inch of the Great Nest, and we've made the heavy decision to stop all hatchings for the foreseeable future while we try to understand the seismic activity."

"So then the next hatching cycle..."

"Yes, Mother. The Nursery will likely be empty for a while. We'll need to prepare your staff for this eventuality. I'm truly sorry about this."

"It's okay, Chryssy. Do what you need to do. For the Kingdom's sake. I'd hate to see more of the young affected by this."

"If you need anything at all, Chrysalis, I'll be ready to mobilize help at a moment's notice."

"Thank you, you two. For understanding."

The conversation ended at that, and you were unsure about what to think of it all. You didn't recognize some of the bigger words being thrown around. What was seismic activity? What did it have to do with your horn?

But there were definitely things you understood. The Nursery was going to be empty for a while. For how long? You don't know. Your heart clenched at the thought. You hated the feeling of loneliness, and now the thought that there would be no one was eating you from the inside out.

You did well to pretend as if you were asleep, and you managed to hide your growing concerns from Tera's all-seeing eyes when she came to wake you up. Again. Showing weakness was not an option.

It felt like a small hole had opened in your heart. All the emotions you'd swallowed had ripped open a leak. But for now, it was manageable. You could handle catching everything that dripped into some other imaginary cup.

Except... as you got up from the bed in order to walk with Tera back to the Nursery...

You found it hard to keep that cup steady and from spilling over.

For the ground beneath your hooves had begun to tremor once more, like it had nine long years ago.