Remember the wedding thing?
Twilight’s wings beat as she raced through the treeline.
She was no fool. All the rest had simply sat there staring as Chrysalis had spat promises of revenge and taken off, vanishing into the distance, but Twilight wasn’t having it. The queen of the Changelings had been ignored before, and what had it got them? More trouble. If she just… blasted off again, this time wouldn’t be any different.
While Twilight loved Celestia deeply, she would not mimic her mentor’s bizarre tendency to allow problems to fester. Freezing troublesome elements in stone for a thousand years didn’t solve problems, it just put them off. And in the case of problems like Discord or Princess Luna, who were shown to be both capable of reformation, and clearly harmed by their imprisonment, Twilight almost considered the act of shoving them under the floorboards and pretending not to hear the heartbeat to be morally questionable.
Not that she would ever say as much.
She was a princess now herself. She didn’t have to.
Instead, she would do what she was doing right now. Chasing after Chrysalis. Pursuing the dangling plot thread and yanking on it now rather than letting it trip her up later.
She was flying as fast as she could. The queen was quicker than she had anticipated, and it was only thanks to her impressive senses that she hadn’t lost her entirely. She was able to pursue based on a flick of a tail, the faint buzz of wings, and the magical signature her quarry left in the air.
But now, she had a bead. Chrysalis had stopped.
The changeling clearly didn’t know anypony was following her. Twilight was sure of that. Exhausted though Chrysalis was from the fight at the changeling hive, she had more than enough juice left in her to cause Twilight trouble in her pursuit, but there had been no smokescreens, projectiles, or misdirection.
Chrysalis had simply been moving very fast.
The wasteland that served as home to the changeling hive was a fascinating one. One of the many corners outside Equestria that had undoubtedly seen some great magical conflict in the distant past that made it as it was in the present. The swamp was dusty, murky water covered in a layer of silt that made it impossible to see beneath it. In some areas it looked like solid ground, if not for its occasional bubbles. The trees were thick, but grew in gnarled shapes that Twilight could easily recognize as the result of poisoned soil. Black leaves let little light in.
It was the same terrain they had spent almost three days navigating in search of the changeling hive, wandering the bogs prodding random sinkholes with a ten foot pole. Many were the dens of vicious animals, and more than that contained deliberate booby traps. Discovering the entrance to the changelings den had even managed to somehow be both dry and wet at the same time, with the rain serving not to refresh the air, but to kick up the dust that lay on everything and choke out any who tried to navigate the swamp. It had been miserable. And on top of that, it had turned out the hive was accessible through easier means.
The tip they’d been given about the sinkhole had been technically correct, but if they’d simply bothered to analyze the secret code on the glyphstones that lay around the swamp, they would have realized there was a specific path through the swamp that magically parted the trees and led directly to the vast hive-cavern.
Honestly, Twilight was still embarrassed by that. It was such an obvious and simple technique, and the secret code had only been a double cipher written in ancient pegasus-latin. Any foal could have solved it.
All the more reason to catch the queen then. What was a little more effort to close out the campaign with a bang?
Twilight could see the place Chrysalis had stopped. One of the sinkholes bubbled, indicating something had just crammed itself into the tunnel that lay beneath it. Twilight waited a moment to let her wings rest, and to steel herself. She was getting so sick of crawling through muddy tunnels.
Properly steeled, she dove down out of the air and into the swamp. Horn glowing to light her way, and with hemispheres of magic acting as goggles for her eyes, she swam into the tunnel.
A few moments later, she emerged. A suppressing spell meant that she rose from the water without a single sound, hoofs splashing and sending ripples out in stony quiet. She didn’t know what to expect, and she didn’t want Chrysalis to know she was there so long as she could hold the element of surprise.
The element of surprise however, was on the other hoof. Twilight was expecting some murky escape tunnel, but instead found herself in an underground grotto. The pool of water she was floating in was quite large, with pony-made slopes and stairs leading away from it, up into the darkness. The grotto was full of crystals, in all colors of the rainbow, also clearly hoof-placed, artfully arranged like bundles of flowers and glowing with a soft internal light that cast soothing tones across the cave.
More surprising than that was the sound of somepony crying.
Suppressor spell still covering each wary hoofstep, Twilight dragged herself out of the water and onto the stone landing, taking a moment to shake off and try to get all the silt off her coat. After fluffing out her wings, she turned her full attention to the tears that drifted out of the darkness.
Advancing up the stairs and along the craggy path, she could make out something more to it now;
“-ven thinking!? Of course not! All you can ever think about is-” The words were nigh unintelligible, being choked out through a series of ugly sobs that rendered them more a pattern of dry-heaves than speech. Twilight didn’t fully recognize the voice. It was familiar, but not. Had Chrysalis come here to meet somepony?
Peering around the corner, Twilight was both shocked and confused.
In the center of the round cave, lying in the middle of a large and crude rug woven of changeling-silk, surrounded by cushions, was Chrysalis. Alone. The voice was, bizarrely, hers.
Twilight couldn’t help but hold her breath as she listened to the insect queen sob into her hooves.
“-obvious all along! Of course they don’t need you! Who’d ever need a queen so-”
Twilight didn’t want to say anything. It was just too risky. She was in the enemy's turf, and had no idea what to expect. Chrysalis was capable of anything, and was a master manipulator to boot.
But Twilight weighed it in her mind, and try as she might, her role as the princess of friendship was stronger than her tactician's wit. So she spoke.
“Queen Chrysalis?” It carried the tone of utter disbelief.
The changeling whirled around, body flailing without grace. Her legs swung around under her, tripping and throwing the cushions that surrounded her against the walls of the room. Her wet mane clung to her carapace, dripping on the rug.
Twilight felt a horrible sting race through her. She could have weathered the withering gaze of hatred, or the daggers of fury the queen had stared at all assembled during their confrontation earlier…
But she hadn’t been prepared at all for the feeling of eyes looking at her with fear.
The changeling stared at her, her face soaked with tears, with more of the things still welling in her eyes. Gaze locked on twilight, she scrambled backwards, trying to put any distance possible between the lavender alicorn and herself.
“No! You’re not real!” She hissed, pressing up against a cluster of the crystals that illuminated the room. “I’m just seeing you in my head! Go away!” She screwed her eyes shut and cringed inward, presumably in the hope that the Twilight Sparkle apparition would cease to taunt her.
But Twilight was flesh and horse, so the effort did little.
Twilight took a tentative step forward, unsure what she was meant to say. She had been expecting vitriol, of the sort that had been spat upon the queens departure. The stuff that had accompanied the hoof-shaking and ‘and your little dragon too’ speech. This couldn’t be the same changeling. It was a decoy. The real Chrysalis had vanished down a secret passageway, leaving this drone who hadn’t heard the news of her deposement to face Twilight's wrath instead. It had to be.
“Is this a trick? Where’s Chrysalis? Who are you?” She tilted her head. Empathy managed to win once again as she looked at the sorry state of the creature in front of her, and it forced her to add an additional question: “Are you… okay?”
The changeling stared back at her, eyes still runny, but now with a growing edge of spite and anger. Her teeth set on edge, fangs interlocking as a growl rose in her throat. But halfway up, it lost its rage and escaped as a choked sob.
“No! What do you think?! You just- all of- how could you possibly need to ask that?! You just chased me out of my own hive! What in Tartarus could possibly lead you to question anything about this!?” The voice that fired out of Chrysalis was… not what Twilight was used to hearing come out of that mouth.
Rather than the buzzing and cruel tones that oozed with malice, each syllable dripping with gleeful villainy… this voice was reedy. It had a wavering quality to it that sounded like a singing cricket, with an odd cadence and vocal fry that reminded Twilight of the young mares she had overheard on the beach on her last visit to Coltifornia.
It was… really not what she was expecting. “You’re Chrysalis?”
Chrysalis stared at her in befuddlement. “Yes?”
“But…” Twilight didn’t have any better way to say it. “You’re… crying.”
The tears welled forth again. “I can’t go home! My whole hive has turned its back on me! I’ve failed to help anypony, and now that there’s a chance anything can get better, I can’t be there to see it! I’m a failure! I’ve completely messed up everything!”
Twilight was desperately trying to figure out how to process this. Trying to get it to gel with the big climactic fight they had just had was tying her brain in knots.
“What do you mean you messed up? What did you mess up?” Twilight approached and sat down on the rug, feeling the rough-spun silk against her coat. “Was it the part where you kidnapped my niece out of her crib? The part where you asked for a ransom demand that included the whole of Manehattan? The part where you claimed to be hiding in a place that didn’t exist, and your letter said “Please don’t let Twilight Sparkle see this or she’ll know it’s a trick”?”
Twilight could hear the edge of anger creeping into her own voice. The whole adventure that had led them here had been aggravating to say the least, and recalling it was making her a little testy.
Chrysalis burst into a new round of tears.
“I’M STUPID, OKAY!?” The words hit Twilight like a wet fish to the muzzle.
“What?”
“I’M STUPID! Is that what you want to hear?! I’M DUMB! I’m a pathetic wiggler who can’t get anything right!” The changeling screamed with a hoarse fury, eyes squeezed shut and hooves over her head.
Twilight had to stop being gobsmacked. She was going to run out of adjectives for it, and it was getting repetitive to note.
“You aren’t stupid!” She hadn’t meant to say that with the note of indignation, but it was hard to suppress.
“What do you call it then? In all the time you’ve known me, have I ever done anything smart?!”
Twilight sputtered. “You- you successfully infiltrated the highest seat of Equestrian power while it was under high alert, successfully reached the endgame of your plan, and won a direct power clash with Princess Celestia!” The wedding had been a certified disaster, and Twilight couldn’t consider that campaign anything but the result of masterful tactics… couldn’t she?
Chrysalis looked incredulous, steadying her breathing. “You mean the wedding thing?”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. ‘The wedding thing’.”
“That was a complete disaster!” Chrysalis laughed hoarsely. “How could you look at any of that and not see how stupid I am?”
She continued. “The hive was starving. More than usual. Two infiltration parties in a row failed to come back at all, and things were desperate. Wings were starting to buzz with the kind of pitch that means changelings are at each other's throats.”
Twilight listened in silence.
“I had to do something, so…” she snickered joylessly, as if reminiscing about a scar that still stung. “I tried to cheer everyone up. I gave a big speech about how all of Equestria would be ours and how we’d… storm Canterlot and build a new hive in the Canterhorn. You know the drill, I guess. Soda in the public fountains type stuff.”
She sighed. “And it worked. All my subjects were invigorated, the next infiltration party we sent off was all charged with patriotism and stuff… and then I had to actually figure out how I was going to fulfill any of the stupid promise I had made up on the spot.”
“What followed was… one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done. It was one bungle after another. I only managed to replace Cadenza because she tripped and knocked herself out trying to get away from me. And I have no idea how nopony couldn’t tell I was an imposter!”
Twilight was surprised. “I mean, you are the queen of the changelings. I was the only one who seemed to see anything was off about you.”
“Twilight, I’m a terrible actress.”
“What?”
“It’s just another part of me being stupid. Any newly hatched grub can do a better job than me. I’m terrible at copying ponies. I can never talk right, and I’m especially awful at thinking on my feet. And thinking ahead. And thinking in general.” She sounded close to tears again.
“Didn’t you notice? I failed in every way I could. When I first met you, it wasn’t until you left that I realized you knew Cadenza, and that you weren’t just doing a weird little dance for no reason. Through all the wedding preparations, ponies were asking me to have opinions on fancy dresses and weird food, so I just babbled whatever made it sound like I knew what I was talking about. Every day I spent in that castle, I was on the verge of a breakdown.
Every part of that plan was desperation. The hive wanted marching orders, so I just… told them to wait for a signal. I didn’t know what that signal would be. The bridesmaids had to be replaced because the night before the wedding, they got me drunk and I slipped my disguise. Even you! When you burst into the rehearsal, I thought it was over!”
Twilight had no idea what to do with this information. “Those were real tears, weren’t they?” She remembered watching the imposter Cadance bolt from the room, weeping what she had been sure until now were expertly-conjured crocodile tears.
“Y… yes.” Chrysalis looked mortified, head slumping down to the floor. “And after that, when I sent you to the cavern… how can you possibly say I’m not stupid? I sent you right to Cadance! And I did it at the exact moment you were starting to doubt yourself! I would have won if I had just left you alone! Mama would be so disappointed in me. I totally failed to uphold the three G’s...”
“I… had always wondered why you did that. It felt way too convenient…” Twilight winced. “I figured it was part of some larger plan. Like, you wanted to push me until the sight of the real Cadance would drive me to…” the lump in her throat kept her from finishing that sentence. She had spent far too much time pondering that potential, and it had kept her up for many a night.
Chrysalis stared at her. “No! No! Oh my weaver, no! I was just- I was just stupid!” The changeling queen looked horrified. “I-if you- If you had- to her- I… I could never forgive myself! Our goal was just… like… conquest and subjugation and destruction! I could never kill somepony…”
This was the final bullet point that made a burning question finally surface from Twilight's mind. “Chrysalis, I’m processing a lot about you right now… but this can’t be right. You… the queen of the army of shape-changing infiltrating monsters renowned for their viciousness and cunning… suck at making plans, can’t act to save your life, and don’t like the idea of killing?”
She chuckled in disbelief. “Forgive me for asking but… why exactly are you queen?”
“I’m the tallest.”
Silence.
“That can’t be h-”
“I was born to be a queen. So when my mama was crushed to death in a cave-in, I was fed the royal jelly, and I changed, and… became the tallest. To be Queen.”
Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment there, she was worried the universe had become far too silly to stomach.
“Okay, I understand. Being queen means you have a unique physiology. So you meant that that’s part of the requirements for holding the title, not that… your leaders are selected based on…”
Chrysalis couldn’t hold back her laughter. “Of course not! Just because I’m stupid doesn’t mean all changelings are!” She stuck out her tongue, snickering at what Twilight had thought she had meant. “It’s just important that our leaders be the tallest. The same as yours.”
Twilight laughed too. She supposed they were alike in that way. Although whether the princesses conformed to the equestrian idea of beauty and leadership or shaped it was an answer long lost to history. She had to admit it would be hard to accept a replacement for Celestia who was the size of a normal pony.
She ruffled her wings uncomfortably at that thought.
“You mentioned your mother?”
Chrysalis, tears drying, smiled sadly. “What about her? Queen Chrysalis, Former queen of hive Chrysalis, mother of Queen Chrysalis… squashed like a bug around 10 years ago.”
Twilight blanched. “You’ve only been queen for 10 years? I- I thought you were ancient!”
“Well, the line of queens all share the name of the hive, and we tend to look just like each other… so I could see how equestria would get confused. It’s not exactly like your historians can wander in and ask around. While we queens are immortal in age, we can be killed just as easily as anypony.”
“What was she like? If it’s alright for me to ask?” Twilight was getting distracted. This was just so much… stuff that she didn't know! She was always easily captured by new information, and this was information nopony outside of the changeling hive had likely ever heard! It was fascinating, just… talking to Chrysalis like this.
“She was… amazing. She could win a whole battle while directing it from her throne. She could mimic anything perfectly. And everypony loved her. She was one of the queens who’s rule saw… Well, no prosperity, but changelings were hopeful. She was an immaculate shadow, and all that that means.” She paused. “That’s a good thing. To changelings. A shadow is invisible and feared at the same time, and any shape it needs to be based on the light. So it’s like… how would a pony describe something gorgeous and wonderful and awe inspiring?”
“Celestial.” Twilight mused.
“That’s a big surprise.” Chrysalis laughed. “I’m envious. It’s not like anypony describes things as ‘Chyrsalesque’.”
“She sounds like she was quite a leader. I’m… sorry.”
“Oh, she was. I wouldn’t expect you to consider her good though. I’d think between an effective and intelligent queen, and a disorganized moron, Equestria would prefer the latter.”
Twilight had been sitting on it for a while, but there was one large question that was haunting her.
After the confrontation at the castle, where Thorax had uncovered the truth that changelings could be part of love rather than parasites upon it, it had seemed obvious that Chrysalis had been aware of this to some degree, and had allowed the idea to be buried out of tyrannical self interest. At least, that’s what she had assumed, until now. Knowing that Chrysalis was so easily turned around and a whelp of a ruler…
“Chrysalis… did you know? That changeling’s could share love?” Twilight had a lot of anticipation behind this question. She knew the answer she wanted. It was the one that fit into the narrative now running in her mind.
Chrysalis looked uncomfortable, shifting in place and adjusting herself on the assembled cushions. She pulled one close to herself, hugging it to her barrel.
“Yes.”
Twilight’s face fell. That wasn’t what she had hoped to hear. But Chrysalis continued.
“But I was stupid. I was… scared. I knew there were two options open to me.
One is what we had always done: the theft of love. It fed us little. Everypony was always hungry, one or two missed meals away from total starvation. But it was how we had always done it, and specifically… It worked. I knew how it worked and could count on it to feed everypony. It was safe.
The other option was risky. It had been theorized by some of the hive thinkers that love could… change us somehow if we interacted with it differently. But it wasn’t understood, and the core idea of it was unthinkable. It involved the cooperation of Equestria.”
Twilight hissed air in through her teeth. She had just put the rest of the puzzle together, and she didn’t like the resulting image.
“I had a choice. I could keep everypony meagerly fed with a system I knew worked, or I could gamble on an idea I didn’t understand and the charity and understanding of a race that despised us. And… and I’m stupid. So I picked the former. I made the decision to stick with the easy comfortable thing my stupid bubble-brain could wrap itself around.”
“Chrysalis… that… isn’t stupid.”
“What?”
Twilight had passed through anger and confusion, and now she was feeling the crushing weight of guilt.
She thought to when Spike had brought Thorax before everypony in the crystal empire, and all of them, even her, had reacted with hostility and fear. And the changeling hadn’t been able to prove himself on his own. The only reason Thorax hadn’t left in irons or worse, a dustpan, was because Spike had been there to vouch for him.
Who would have possibly vouched for Chrysalis?
“It isn’t stupid at all. You… you made the right choice. You didn’t have the means or knowledge to know if the new way would work. You… faced a tough decision and took the option that you knew would keep your subjects alive.”
Chrysalis was starting to tear up again, and Twilight wasn’t sure why at first.
“I… I thought it was just another place where I was a coward. Changelings value courage. Risk. But… any time I tried to think about pursuing the idea, I was paralyzed by the fear of it failing. The fear of being turned away and not having a way to feed anypony. And I couldn’t keep the infiltration parties deployed while trying it, because…”
“It would torpedo the diplomacy if any were actually underway. But that would put your subjects on the razors edge… Chrysalis, that’s actually… really smart to realize that would be an issue.”
The tears began to flow again, but this time there was no sobbing.
“C-could you say that again?” Buzzed Chrysalis.
“That it was smart of you?”
Chrysalis threw herself forward, and Twilight would be ashamed to admit she flinched at the glint on the queen's fangs as she came in close… but it wasn’t an attack. Just a hug.
Chrysalis, wrapped around Twilight, wept with a smile on her face.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
The grand confrontation between Equestria’s finest and the changeling queen had been quite an adventure. After Princess Flurry Heart was foalnapped, her parents, the elements of harmony, and Starlight Glimmer had all mounted a rescue mission. Frankly, their full combined power had likely been unnecessary, but everypony was rather pissed off. The changeling plot had involved each and every one of them being awoken in the middle of the night by an attempted ambush.
However, none of them had found it at all hard to chase off the changelings. Even with the element of surprise, they were more than a match. Twilight felt particularly bad for the changeling drones that had awoken Princess Celestia. Apparently the royal guard was still trying to coax the terrified creatures out of her wardrobe.
Overall, it had been a truly slapdash plan. The idea that the changelings could somehow spirit away every important pony in Equestria was laughable. (And even then, the royalty was only worth so much. The changelings would have accomplished more going after the Canterlot house of commons. If only Chrysalis knew what those words meant.) But It had led them all here, to the hive.
The trek across Equestria, the hunt for the hive, and the infiltration to find where Flurry Heart was being kept had all been made even worse through the magic suppression that covered the swamp. Twilight herself likely would have been in serious trouble if Starlight hadn’t been there to save her after everypony got split up. Too much of her muscle memory was grounded around her magic, and without it, she had been a bit cumbersome to escort.
But they had all made it. They had navigated all 13 levels of the changeling hive-city. They had rescued Thorax the traitor from the slime pit of eternal boiling, and he had helped them solve the puzzle of the ever-shifting gondola boats. Rarity and Applejack had apparently had a very exciting adventure in the Pheromone District that the two didn’t want to talk about, Fluttershy had become champion of the Changeling Colosseum, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash managed to talk part of the hive into open rioting (by singing!), and they’d all come together to storm the throne room, in a clattering symphony of plotlines that had led everypony involved to prove themselves and their mettle, with Starlight leading the final charge. Very exciting stuff.
Oh, and Trixie had been there. Twilight wasn’t sure when the changelings had abducted the showmare, but it did explain why nopony had seen her for a while. Frankly, she was surprised she hadn’t somehow become queen of the hive.
Now, she was returning to the hive alongside Chrysalis. This time through the proper entrance rather than the mudhole, and this time with her wings, now that the magic suppression was gone.
The hive was abuzz with activity. It didn’t take long to navigate to the throne room they had all had that climactic clash in, given that the walls of the hive shifted aside to let the queen through. (Twilight wondered if any of the puzzles they had solved were anything more than practical jokes for the tourists.) And when they returned, it was to another fight.
“Ah’m just sayin, Rares, it ain’t really somethin they can likely control. Yer bein awful rude right now!”
“They’re changelings! Surely they can control their appearance! I can’t just stand by and let this… this… tutti-frutti nightmare stand! It’s an insult to aestheticism!”
“I dunno, I think it looks fine.” Thorax shrugged guiltily. “But I… have to admit that I don’t know why it happened.” The new changeling king turned himself in circles, trying to get a good look at his own vibrant carapace. The huge orange antlers on his head sent dazzling beams of light in every direction as he did. “It’s starting to make my head hurt a little. It’s cool to be so colorful, but everypony’s now so… shiny.” he winced.
Around the throne room, the numerous changelings that had come together to blast Chrysalis into her own throne were all in similar states of debate about their new post-reformation appearances. The throne room itself had changed too. The black hive wax had crystalized, taking on refined shapes and colors reminiscent of the crystal empire, and the various sacks of glowing green slime that had offered sickly ambiance had metamorphosed into bright and radiant lighting.
And nopony knew what to think. Opinions ranged from those that favored the new look, to those that hated it and were clearly trying to change out of it. The main debate was, obviously, between the frazzled-looking Thorax and Rarity, who looked like her head was going to explode.
“While this place was utterly disgusting before, it carried a dark ambiance, with heavy use of hive-core and gothic fantasy. Not to mention the artful use of insectpunk and post-funnybug color palettes. This is… bright and clean, but it has no cohesion! And these new light fixtures are just gaudy!”
Thorax looked guilty. “M-miss Rarity, please, I don’t know anything about visual design! And it’s not my fault! I didn’t ask to be made- made- whatever I am now!”
“Queen?” Chrysalis offered. The room gasped. Twilight's friends, offering slight groans, all began squaring off for another confrontation. Rainbow loudly let her exhaustion be known with several rude words. (thankfully the royal couple had already taken Flurry Heart home, or the laws of comedy would have made one of them her first word).
Chrysalis cringed as the room turned on her, but Twilight quickly darted in front of her. “Wait! She’s okay! I talked to her! Big… big friendship talk. Thing. It was really complicated, but she’s friendly now!”
Chrysalis straightened up, face taking an assured expression. Her mouth curled cruelly, and her wings flared dramatically. “Yes, treacherous wretches and hated ponies! I, the magnificent queen of the changelings, have returned to-” Twilight shoved her off balance with her flank, causing her to squawk mid sentence and almost fall over.
“No! We talked about this! No more big-bad ‘I will destroy Flash Golden’ routine. You have to act like yourself!”
Chrysalis let out a whine. “But nopony will take me seriously!”
“No but’s! Cut the radio-serial villain act and apologize.”
The queen whimpered, lowering her head sheepishly. When she spoke again, it was not in the hissing, booming villain voice, but in the reedy, vacuously cadenced tone Twilight had now grown used to.
“I’m really sorry. For the trouble I’ve caused you all. Both Twilight’s friends, and to all of you from my hive.” She cringed, looking around the room and taking in how startled everypony looked. Both by her change in voice and behavior, and in the fact that she was apologizing.
“Twilight…” Applejack ventured. “Ah don’t mean to be rude, but…”
“What did you do to her?” One of the changelings asked, jaw hanging open.
“Yeah. that.”
“Nothing has changed! Just because I… can apologize about things, doesn’t mean I’m not still queen, and deserving of respect and junk!”
An unhappy murmur traveled through the crowd. One of the Changelings, one that Chrysalis recognized as part of her council, even under all the rainbow shellac, stepped forward.
“Forgive me Chrysalis, but… I do not believe you are queen anymore.” All eyes turned to stare meaningfully at Thorax. Thorax turned around to see where they were all looking. Then he spun back around.
“Woah! No! What!? I- I can’t be queen! I haven’t gone through any of the selection process! I haven’t even had the royal jelly!”
“You are the tallest though.” A changeling in the crowd offered weakly.
“No he isn't! Look! We’re the same height!” Chrysalis buzzed across the room to land next to Thorax, and the pair of them eagerly gesticulated at each other. “Yes! She’s right! See?” His voice had a pleading edge.
“Your horns are far taller.” Thorax and Chrysalis both looked up at the huge orange protrusions that stretched out of his head. Then they made eye contact again.
Thorax went prone, and Chrysalis stretched on her tippie-hooves.
“See!? Shorter! Not the Queen!” Thorax yelped.
Chrysalis sighed. “Oh never mind. This is pathetic.” She lowered herself and looked down at Thorax. “Thorax, you are. When you… did the love thing, you decided the fate of the hive. The magic in that elevated you to royalty. It happens very rarely, but… it’s how royal lineages start.”
She looked downcast as she allowed this admittal to come out of her. “I… messed up. A lot. And the fact that you not only became royalty, but did so with such strength that you can determine how changelings… no, the hive appear, demonstrates that you have as much connection with them as I do.”
Thorax looked mortified to be hearing this. “My Queen, no! I never wanted this! All I wanted was to have friends. I don’t want to lead anypony! And… wait, the colors on everything are my fault?”
Rarity hissed from where she stood. “I knew it!”
“Uh… yeah. The queen shapes how things look. My family has just always liked the color black…” Chrysalis blushed.
“Wow.” Thorax turned this over in his mind. “I knew I was no good at color theory, but I had no idea it would become everyone’s problem. Sorry everypony!” He chuckled.
“You should be!”
“Can I be blue instead of green?”
“I like the new colors!”
“Shut up Ted.”
Chrysalis grit her teeth. “Anyway, we’re getting off track! Thorax!” She stomped, drawing all attention. “If the future of the hive is your way, then it’s not my place to say otherwise. I… was planning on trying to claim I was still Queen, and part of me really wants to. But…”
She looked across the hall of changelings.
“But I can’t now. You took a chance and bettered the lives of the hive, whereas I was a coward who avoided the truth and forced everyone to suffer because it was the easiest choice. You deserve to be called a leader, whereas I-”
Sunlight.
“Thorax demonstrated great courage and spirit in his deeds, but you, Queen Chrysalis, made hard decisions with the little information you had. You did your best for your subjects, no matter what it would end up costing you in image.”
White hooves impacted the ground gently. Twilight’s friends bowed. The changelings seemed to be unsure if they should bow or flee. Twilight… resisted the urge to bow. Celestia had told her many times that she no longer had to.
“That is what a ruler does, Chrysalis. There are times when we must play it safe, when we must appear incompetent or cruel, and when we must even die for our subjects. If you can understand that, you are already a better ruler than the tyrant you masqueraded as. I regret that it has taken so long to create a situation where we may speak peacefully.”
Chrysalis and Thorax were both clearly unsure how to deal with this development.
Twilight was the first to speak. “Princess Celestia! How did- I mean- I hadn’t even sent you a letter yet!”
Celestia laughed, a joyous sound that brought to mind sunbeams dancing in the crystal clear waters of a pristine mountain stream. “Oh Twilight, Luna and I have been watching you through the chip in your head this entire time. Very good work on that gondola puzzle, by the way.” She winked.
Twilight couldn’t respond to that.
Chrysalis very much could.
“Wait, you were- does that mean that you saw- in my hidey cave, when Twilight and I talked about-” The changeling queen stammered at such a high frequency it could shatter glass.
“Yes, I heard all of your emotional baggage, and I’m sorry for that. It wasn’t my place to listen in. But, as a result of doing so, compounded with the reformation Thorax has brought to your hive… I would be honored to be able to offer you the allyship of Equestria.”
Chrysalis was silent. Not in consideration, but in shock.
One of the councilchangelings cleared their throat. “Your highness… we may need some time to actually… sort out which of these two is our current leader before we can… attempt to accept such a gracious offer.
Chrysalis snapped back to reality. “We are both leader.” Thorax let out a yelp of surprise as she said this.
“No! No we’re not!”
“Yes we are!” she snarled, staring him down in a way that made the orange-horned changeling instinctively shrink. “You are my equal in rank, and will not do as I say! Understand!?”
“Yes ma'am!” He squeaked.
“And as one half of the changeling leadership…” She turned back to Celestia. “I would be honored to accept your recognition and ally… nition.”
“Allyship.” Offered Thorax.
“That too.” She nodded. “We’ll accept whatever means changelings don’t starve. And whatever means we can move out of this awful swamp.” There was a round of laughter at this, as well as several woops. One particularly large orange changeling let out a loud “YEAH!” that Twilight couldn’t help but find comfortingly familiar.
Celestia laughed as well. “I suppose we’ll see what we can do. I will warn you though, authority I may be, but it will take a lot of work to get the world to accept this change.”
“Meh, one thing at a time.” Chrysalis paused. “Hey, wait, if I’m recognized as leading royalty by Equestria, and I do have wings and a horn…”
Celestia’s eyes narrowed.
“Do I count as a princess now~?” Chrysalis beamed.
The white alicorn looked to Twilight with a look that could only read “your fault”.
