The Chemical Re-Mark

It was a late spring afternoon.

The last tendrils of the Sun painted the sky as it slowly shifted to a reddish brown comparable to the ginger tea with honey Starlight was nursing. She turned from the window to the mare who shared her single-bedroom home's kitchen table with her.

Cheerilee had invited her over for tea under the pretext of wanting to "Learn more about the Princess' new protege." Starlight hadn't ever talked to her before, or even known she was the teacher of Ponyville's school before she'd introduced herself, in spite of all the time she'd spent there. She made a mental note to try and pay more attention to this town's individual ponies from then on.

"Slurrp... So, Cheerilee, was it? I'm going to guess you want to know about the whole 'Saving-the-Elements-of-Harmony-and-all-four-Princesses-by-strolling-into-a-bug-queen's-anti-magic-lair-with-a-stage-magician,-a-god-of-chaos-and-a-changeling-just-like-the-ones-who-caused-this-mess-in-the-first-place' thing, right? Ha, ah. Aha. Hum."

Cheerilee fidgeted with the hem of the tablecloth, her teacup and slice of cake left completely untouched. "S-something along those lines. I was more curious about the sudden change the changelings took after you defeated Chrysalis?"

"Oh, that little 'glow-up'?" Starlight set her teacup down and brought a hoof to her lips. "I still can't believe that just learning to share love did all that."

Cheerilee held her teacup up to just before her lips. "It might seem simple to you and me, but you have to wonder- was it just sharing love? Combined with the metamorphosis and what happened to Thorax afterward... you don't think he changed who they were, as a species? tampered with their bodies and minds so that their... urges... would vanish?"

"Haha- I, uh. I don't think so. Even if Thorax could do something like that, I doubt he would. Besides, if the changelings really were changed that far, wouldn't they notice something was different?"

"We have no idea of what a fully powered Changeling monarch can do. For example, Chrysalis" - she spat out the name like it tasted like a raw clove of garlic - "could hypnotize a stallion and three mares, while holding an alicorn and Element of Magic Twilight Sparkle hostage in a cave, just before going hoof to hoof with Celestia herself, and all she had was somepony else's husband to power her. Maybe Thorax's idea of 'sharing love' is a more efficient iteration of that same circumstance- and since hypnosis is already a thing they can do, what's convincing a species to change how it feeds?"

"...You know a lot about Changelings, huh."

The sip of tea Cheerilee was midway through taking wound up coating the back of her hoof, staining the fur but thankfully remaining hidden from her guest. "Ah- um. I-I- guess I just found them interesting? A filly's got to have hobbies!"

"Okay," Starlight said as she brought down a fork against the cake and the lull in conversation. She brought a small piece of it up to her lips, pausing as she noticed Cheerilee looking at her fork with more intensity than she'd ever seen the mare with in her life. Cheerilee's gaze twitched, and she broke eye contact as early as it happened. Starlight set the forkful of cake back on the plate. "Uh, is something wrong?"

Cheerilee recoiled back. "Wh- NO no no no! Don't worry about a thing. I was just worried you wouldn't like the cake I choose, haha."

"You mean this red velvet cake?" Starlight gestured toward it with a floating knife. "My favorite kind of cake, which I overheard you asking Twilight about earlier this week?"

Cheerilee felt a bead of sweat staining the back of her head. "Well, yes. That cake, yep. I was worried that maybe the folks over at sugarcube corner made a mistake?"

"Don't even joke about that! They're the single best bakers I've ever seen. Or whatever the cake equivalent of a baker is."

"...That's still a baker, Starlight."

"Oh, well." Starlight shrugged, fell back on her seat, and plunged a forkful of cake down her throat followed by a chorus of happy humming. Cheerilee watched her guest's eating intently and allowed herself a small smile.

"So," began Starlight after a few bites of cake. "I'm still not sure why you think Thorax would do that to- uh, his brothers and sisters and cousins and stuff. Do you have beef with him, or something?"

Cheerilee studied Starlight's face intently while replying. "No, no, nothing personal. If anything, I think he's every bit of a hero as you describe him as!"

"And yet you think he brainwashed basically everypony- erm, everychangeling he ever knew?"

"You're making it look worse than it is. Look at it this way: both reports of changeling interaction we have involve extraordinary individuals. Monarchs, noticeably bigger, most likely stronger, possibly smarter individuals, and even then both Thorax and Chrysalis acted to feed the hive. Who's to say normal changelings know anything other than how to feed? Then it'd be all they'd do, no matter what you tried. From what we've seen, it's possible Thorax took the most merciful approach he had."

Starlight's face scrunched up, as if she was talking to somepony who had their back to the Sun. "Ohhhh. Oh no. Oh no no no no. You're making a little too much sense right now."

"Well, I've spent a lot of time thinking about it."

"I still think your little, uh, theory doesn't make much sense," declared Starlight triumphantly before her last bite of cake.

"Hypothesis, actually, since I didn't do any experiments about it."

"Pbbbthhhh." Starlight slouched back on her chair. "I don't think the specific word matters too much..."

Cheerilee's breath hitched, and she propped herself up on the table. "Well, I think it very much does. If we don't use the correct terminology, then the meaning of our words is muddied, which specially in pedagogy can have disastrous results. Imagine if ponies got hurt because somepony dressed up a dangerous idea as an 'unorthodox theory!'"

Starlight giggled to herself. "Oh ho ho, I can see why you and Twilight are friends." Starlight let out a huge yawn, and gulped down what remained of her tea. "Both of you are super nerds, and like... books, and, uh... reddish coat. Odd, Twilight said you were more relaxed than her..."

Cheerilee leaned forward, slowly. Nervously. "Starlight, are you... feeling alright? Maybe a little tired?"

"Hm? A bit, I guess. I get a little sleepy after eating sometimes."

"Are you sure? You seem quite tired to me."

"I don't know what you're on Yaaaawwnnn-bout, Cheers." Starlight sat up, stretched herself, lightly slapped her cheeks magically pinched her nose to try and fail to stir herself alert. "Is it okay if I call you 'Cheers'? Either way I think'll go for a nap at Twilight's now. Thanks for the food!"

Just as she stumbled out of her chair and stammered towards the door, she almost heard Cheerilee mutter an apology under her breath.

And that's when her world went dark.

Starlight began struggling against the bag as soon as she found herself in it. She tried teleporting out, but she seemed to have taken the bag with her through the flash of light, and under something wrapping itself around her. She went to call for help, but her breath drew in a sickly sweet stench like the inside of a dry-cleaner's. She resorted to blasting a hole clean through the bag and her assailant. She made an effort to stand still and focus as she charged a magical blast in her horn and shot it straight up.

She was equal parts horrified and intrigued when the bag resisted the blast, merely heating up as it absorbed the magical energy; the pony directly on top of the affected area wasn't as lucky, however, and Starlight allowed herself a smirk at the dull groan of pain of what must've been a tough blow to the kidneys, judging from the curses coming from behind her head.

The opening of the bag coiled shut as Starlight felt the rope around the brim be yanked, and soon her hooves were bound and she was falling to the ground, devoid of any way to stop her head from crashing against the floor.

Thump!

Starlight allowed herself one more whiff of whatever coated the inside of that bag just to fuel her scream of pain. She felt something warm going down the side of her brow as she was quickly dragged along the floor, her grip on conscience waning. Until she was dragged down a step of a stair and hit the other side of her head on the ground too.

"Oh, shit- Sorry!" Cheerilee choked out despite herself. Starlight felt herself being hoisted up and onto a pony's back, mystified by the voice she heard. Why was Cheerilee doing this?

Starlight decided to meditate on that after she got back to the fading waking world...

The first thing Starlight noticed after waking up was the splitting pain in her head. The second thing she noticed was the blinding light burning her retinas, and the third was the rope she was bound to a metal folding chair with. The fourth and fifth took care of the events leading up to her present situation, and the sixth was the lack of any magical beams zapping the mare across the room from her.

"Wh- mm! Hmm! Whhhhhh!" Starlight wrestled with language as she trashed against her restraints and shot out spell after spell to no avail. A tentative look away from her enemy and towards the ceiling brought attention to a brown lump where her horn was just later today. "Wahhhht thh fhhhk is thhht?!"

"Well, that is, uhm." Cheerilee flinched at the glare Starlight gave her. "R-remember how Chrysalis had a whole throne that stopped all magic other than the changelings' from working? This bag has fragments of it spread in its cloth, so it should keep you from using your horn... at least for a while."

Starlight listened to her explanation with more curiosity than she'd like to admit. "Well, okay, that's quite nice, but why does it even exist?! And why is it wrapped around my horn, while I'm tied to a chair in yourrrr-"

The room she was in had gardening tools spread around the left wall, with a pair of garden shears resting against a large bag of dirt, according to the picture on the front. The right wall had a chalkboard on wheels, in which Starlight couldn't recognize much more than her own cutie mark amidst a sea of lines. The far wall hadn't much of note except for what seemed to be a framed picture of Princess Celestia almost as tall as its subject resting against a corner, surrounded by burnt candles and dry flowers. Light came from a lone bulb hanging from the ceiling, and Starlight and Cheerilee were each two or three steps from the nearest wall, across from each other. Cheerilee was facing her wall.

"-freaky torture cellar?"

"Well, it's not a cellar, for one. And besides, I'm not going to hurt you."

"Oh, yeah, right, totally. How come?"

"A cellar is meant to keep food inside it cool, while a basement is meant for extra living space or storage. And besides," she turned around, dragging herself up to her prisoner, eyes glued to the floor. "I need you to do something for me."

Starlight's brows furrowed, and she trashed around as she said, "I don't care about either of those things! You can go and ask Twilight about whatever you need, not tie me up in your stupid cellar!"

Cheerilee drew in a breath. "Again, we're in a base- okay, okay." Cheerilee raised a hoof to both reign Starlight in and avoid stepping in the bit of saliva she just spat in her path. "Twilight can't help me and I wouldn't ask her for help in a thousand blue moons. I need you and you alone. Remember your, ahem, community, that you used to lead before the Elements of Harmony came along?"

Starlight's expression went from "petulant" to "horrified" in a single bound. "Y-you- you- how'd you even- I-I-i..."

"You changed the ponies under your control, didn't you? At least for a little while... Twilight told me all about it. Do you think you could do something like that again... but on a smaller scale?"

The horror and rage fighting inside Starlight reached a consensus. "What the- fuck you! Who do you even think you are?! I'm not going to help you enslave some innocent foal, you bastard!"

Cheerilee recoiled both at her choice of words and the force behind them. "Wait, wait, that's not what I meant! I just-"

"I don't care!" Starlight began throwing her weight in the vague direction of the wall behind her. "The moment I get this stupid bag off of me you'll be sorry!"

"Look, I'm sorry if I touched on something sensitive, but-"

"Sensitive? 'sensitive'?! You bashed my head against the fucking floor! I could be DEAD now! Why didn't you try to drug me first or something?!"

"I did! The cake was laced, but I used too little because I didn't know how much you weighted and I was afraid I'd poison you!"

"Oh, of course you did. And next you'll say that you were going to pay me for my 'services', yeah? GET LOST!"

"I AM going to pay you!" She ran off towards the bag of dirt, grabbed the shears in her mouth and slashed the side of the bag; bits came pouring out, clanking against the shears she spat out. "I'll give you as much as you want, okay?!"

Starlight paused halfway through getting ready to crash against the wall. "Ha ha ha ha. You really think I care about bits? I'm living in a castle! I could just go and ask Twilight for anything I want! In fact, I think I'll go and ask her to banish you someplace on the other side of the world for this once I get this stupid sack off."

Cheerilee suddenly bolted toward Starlight. Starlight flinched and slammed her eyes shut, found a rather odd lack of pain, and was struck harder than any hoof could manage when she opened a single eye and witnessed Cheerilee kneeling at her hooves.

"Please please please please PLEASE don't! I'm begging you! PLEASE! I NEED YOU! I have no hope left but you!"

"Wh- well I'm sorry, but I have no reason to do such a horrible thing against some random po-"

"But I need you to do it to ME!"

"...Come again?"

Cheerilee got up on shaking hooves, and slowly lumbered over to the shrine in the corner as if she herself was currently lowering the sun and raising the moon. "Okay, okay, okay." She tapped repeatedly against her cheek, slowly growing from lightly rapping against the skin to slamming full force against her skull. She drew in a breath like a heavy sword out of its scabbard, then dropped it right through her hoof and started sobbing against the wall.

Starlight, worried despite herself, squinted to try and if the quivering pile of red fur was okay. "Are, you, uhm, alright?"

Cheerilee violently shook her head. "N-not at all, thank you for a-asking." She forced herself to face Starlight and began to march towards her, body stiff as a nail. "Starlight Glimmer, I'm going to tell you a secret. This is something I've hidden away from everyone- pony or not, and you're about to find out why. So I need- absolutely need you to wait until I've told you the whole thing. Can you do that for me?"

The standoff between Starlight Glimmer's curiosity and sense of self-preservation came to an end.

She nodded.

Cheerilee wiped the chalkboard clean before pulling it up to Starlight. "I, uh, think this might help. Give me a moment..."

She grabbed a piece of chalk between her teeth, and sketched out a house and four ponies; Starlight, her analytic skills sent into high gear by stress, guessed this was a representation of her, her parents and a younger sibling along with her childhood home, and thus she studied every detail given to the drawing- from the spires marking it as belonging to Canterlot, through the lack of cutie mark on the flank of the chalk drawing of cheerilee, and to the smiling sun surrounded by triangles. Wait, what?

Cheerilee seemed as surprised by the sun as Starlight. "Sorry! Force of habit, oops!" She scratched the eraser against the chalkboard like she was trying to dig out of a coffin.

She stood beside the board, facing the wall behind starlight, cleared her throat, and began narrating.