Princess Twilight Sparkle Versus The Royal Harem Decree

Chapters

Mania
Storge
Philautia
Ludus
Philia
Eros
Agape

Mania

Once upon a time, in the land of Equestria...

There was a magical tree in a magical swamp, at the furthest reaches of inhabited land. It grew against all odds, from a seed that even a squirrel would not eat, spreading its roots through the hostile wetlands that had claimed the life of so many ponies. The tree was a survivor, fighting every day to exist and grow stronger, feeding on the remains of the fallen ponies and the insects that lived within the swamp, with no help from any other plant or creature.

Then the day came when the tree cracked open, and we emerged. Like the tree from which we spawned, we were survivors, a marriage of the shapes of the ponies and the insects, with hard shells and sharp teeth, able to fly and cast magic both. The only thing we needed to continue our existence was love, and so we roamed in search of it, leaving the land of our birth and finding the lands of the ponies.

Ponies, which we'd been molded into the shape of. Ponies, who we could take the form of at will.

Ponies, who were filled to the brim with the most delicious of love. Hoarding it all for themselves, when we were the ones who needed it to soothe our aching hunger.

It was when we stormed the cloud city of Timbucktu, besting King Orion in combat, that I earned my crown and took the title of Queen Chrysalis. I had proven that I could lead us to a victory, and the love of the ponies for their home took the edges off our razor-sharp hunger for a time.

We roamed the land, searching for meal after meal and expanding our swarm. Walls crumbled and armies fell to our might, our power and cunning equal to none.

Until Trot.

After we had rightly bested that buffoonish Emperor Incitatus, the Avatar of the Sun descended. We were cursed, scarred, and sealed within a volcano, brought low by the likes of an alicorn.

The prison couldn't hold us long, but there was no need to let our enemy know that we'd broken free. We laid low and waited, feeding where we could without raising suspicion, until the perfect opportunity presented itself: A royal wedding, right under the sun's snout. By the time anypony had realized that I'd replaced the bride, I'd devoured enough to best the alicorn...

Until we were thrown out of the kingdom thanks to the efforts of the happy couple themselves.

So we did the same thing. Laid low, prepared ourselves, and at the right moment, took our revenge. My drones replaced everypony of note, taking over key positions within the kingdom, placing it under our control in one fell swoop. With them in place, more replacements were poised to follow, and soon our entire swarm would be in position to eat their fill. We had been thinking too small in just taking over places like Timbucktu, Trot, or Canterlot. Now, we would have everything.

Only for me to be betrayed. One of our own had forsaken us, had forgotten his roots, to instead cater to the whims of ponies. To be friends with our food. And despite all I had done for the hive, all I had ever done, no matter how close we were to total victory over Equestria, my hive that I had nurtured and grown from the moment that the first of us stepped out of the tree, they sided with the traitor.

But I was able to look into the eyes of the pony who poisoned him against us, and learn her name.

Our story isn't over, Starlight Glimmer. It will never be over.

The changelings will always rise again.

It'd been a week since she'd stood before the Tree of Harmony, among what was left of her treacherous minions, and once again sworn revenge.

Right now, Chrysalis was still in the forest, but nowhere near that accursed tree. Lingering near such a place made her ears ring and her horn itch--being born of dark magic made being near something so purely harmonious anathema to her, or else she would have stolen the trinkets during her initial invasion instead of just placing her army in between the Elements and their bearers--not to mention that there was a chance that Twilight Sparkle and her friends would come to retrieve the Elements of Harmony for something and she'd be caught right next to the source of their power.

As much as standing in between the six mares and their precious Elements would be satisfying, it would only be satisfying right up until the little alicorn started charging her horn.

Alicorn. Twilight Sparkle, an alicorn. When Chrysalis had first found out that she'd ascended, it'd sent her into a frothing rage, at the sheer audacity of Celestia going and creating a little purple clone of herself, and doing so using the unicorn who had foiled her invasion due to her inability to just let her suspicions go and enjoy the wedding, as well as her inability to stay put in the caverns like a good little prisoner.

Chrysalis hated Twilight Sparkle, almost as much as she hated Celestia for devastating her army and marring her beauty back at the battle of Trot. She'd never thought anypony would transcend her loathing for Celestia, at least until she'd met Starlight Glimmer who had unraveled her hive in an instant.

She'd nearly lost everything at Trot, but she'd rebuilt. She'd nearly lost everything at Canterlot, but she'd rebuilt. She'd truly lost everything in the heart of her own hive, and the ashes of her attempt to rebuild were still littering the base of that crystalline tree. And now she was laying on the floor of a forest, desperately trying to sleep.

Everything hurt. The hunger of the changelings--true changelings, not what the traitor had turned them all into--was constant, even for her, but she'd used to be able to hoard enough love to take the edges off, make it more of an ache that she could ignore if she focused hard enough on her next task. She had grown accustomed to that low-level ache. Complacent, some may have said, if they did so where she couldn't hear them.

Right now the organ that her body used to store love felt more like it was filled with razor wire, a sensation that had embedded itself in every muscle as well, and behind her eyes. The holes in her legs were larger than they had been; that was part of that blasted sun-mare's curse, that the scars that would never truly fade, not for a true changeling, grew deeper when their all-consuming hunger was at its peak. And her magic...

She'd put a lot of herself into that spell, to create those doppelganger ponies. Too much. Trying the spell again--not that she would, after those ungrateful false ponies had betrayed her just like her changelings had--would be life-threatening.

There was dirt in her mane. In her wings. In the widening holes. She didn't have the energy to groom herself anymore, was too malnourished to create the special secretions that would clean her body and mend her carapace. Leaves would stick to her when the wind blew, the chill breeze cutting through her. Animals would creep up sometimes, wondering if she was something dead that they could eat, and she would have to hiss to scare them away.

Chrysalis wasn't dead, but she was dying. Slowly but surely. She could feel it.

Starlight Glimmer. Twilight Sparkle. Celestia. Killers, all. Her blood was on their hooves, even if the bleed was slow.

No. She would get out of this. She would rebuild, as she always did. She just needed a bit of love.

But it was getting harder to even find the energy to shapechange, and animals could barely give her anything. They could love, because nearly anything with a brain could care about something, but it wasn't nearly as potent as the love that sapient creatures felt. It wouldn't save her, just slow her deteroration.

She needed love, and a way for ponies to give it to her. While looking like herself. But why would any creature--

Wait.

Chrysalis's eyes opened, and it came with instant regret, the pain behind them spiking. She ignored it. She needed to get up, needed to move, because she had an idea. A plan.

There were ponies who would give her love. Who would help her heal. There would be no more sleeping in the dirt, and she would rebuild right in the heart of her enemies' home.

She just needed to remember what the right words had been.

"Twilight, we have a situation!"

Twilight Sparkle, for not the first time, considered keeping a running tally of how many times Starlight had burst in on her while she was working through a mountain of administrative paperwork. Becoming a member of the royal family hadn't put much on her plate, but running a school? That had swamped her, to the point where she'd had to push back reshelving her personal collection of books twice, and the stress of doing so had her wings twitching as she slowly set the quill in her magic down.

She took a deep breath. "Did one of the students set off a destructive prank, get in a fight, disappear, or otherwise threaten a diplomatic incident?"

"No!"

"Did the map call on you to a solve a friendship problem again?"

"No!"

"Did you let your emotions literally get away from you again and start infecting other ponies?"

"That was one time!" She lit her horn, and one of Twilight's front legs was encased in magic, which started to tug her off of her sitting cushion and toward the study door. "You need to get outside right this minute! Ponies are panicking."

Twilight closed her eyes, giving a long-suffering sigh. "Okay, fine..." Given that the ponies of Ponyville could react to rampaging bunnies with horror and a rampaging bugbear with indifference, she didn't see their response to a situation as a good yardstick, but if Starlight was upset, there may be something to it. "Hold on."

With a flash of light, they teleported, and her hooves met the path outside of her castle, with Starlight right beside her. It took a moment for her vision to clear, and when it did, she recoiled.

Former-queen Chrysalis was laying on the path in front the castle, one front leg crossed over the other and head held high as if the dirt were a fine silk cushion. Her fangs were bared, but in a smile, and she looked downright serene as she laid there, barely twitching a muscle.

The ponies around her were not serene. Twilight's ears flattened as the latest one to wander by let out a piercing shriek, the earth pony stallion managing to high-jump into a nearby tree with sheer fear-borne desperation, and he wasn't the only one. Any pony who wandered near tended to run, fly, or otherwise make an immediate, hasty escape. While the attitude toward changelings in general had become much more positive in town, this wasn't just any changeling, and everypony who spotted her instantly recognized the enemy of Equestria who had, until now, been at large.

Whatever Chrysalis felt about these reactions was hard to tell, because other than a brief sneer of disgust in Starlight's direction, she only had eyes for Twilight. "Ah, Twilight Sparkle. Just the princess I was hoping to see."

Twilight's legs went into a bracing stance, and her horn lit with magic, ready for the moment her enemy would leap toward her. "Why are you here, Chrysalis?"

There was no lighting of horn in return, none of the crawling sensation of Chrysalis's repulsive magic in action. She, instead, slowly--strangely shakily as well--got to her hooves. And then bowed. "I, Chrysalis, hereby pledge mine self, body, heart, and soul, to Princess Twilight Sparkle, to be used in any way that she see fit, as her harem mare."

"WHAT!?"

She didn't flinch at all at that outburst, merely smirking. "I believe your line is, 'We accept, oh humble mare, and place thee 'neath the soft shelter of royal wings.'"

Twilight's horn went dark as she sputtered, unable to hold a spell in the face of her shock. "What in Equestria are you talking about?"

Chrysalis slowly rose out of her bow, and the amused smirk never wavered. "Are you telling me you don't know?" She shook her head slightly. "Shame on you, Princess, not knowing the laws of your own land." She lifted one of her hooves and started to gesture with it a bit as she lectured. "Any creature may approach any princess of Equestria and offer themselves to be in their royal harem, no matter their circumstances, their past, or whether they're even a citizen of the land. It's a law that's existed for centuries."

The hoof lowered again as Chrysalis continued. "And given the state I've been in since THAT ONE--" The serenity and amusement was suddenly shattered, and Starlight jumped at the full force of the royal changeling's fanged snarl. "--Turned my own people against me..." The fury melted away again. Too quickly, as if she didn't have the energy to maintain it. Her posture drooped, and Twilight was taken aback by how sorrowful she looked. "If the choice is between starving in the cold, or being yours, then I've chosen to swallow my pride."

Starlight snorted, even as her tail gave a nervous lash. "Careful not to choke on pride that big."

If Chrysalis heard the mutter, she didn't react to it, her eyes focused entirely on Twilight. "I trust that your royal compassion will have you making the right choice."

Twilight stared at Chrysalis. It felt like Discord had suddenly backslid and gone on a rampage. Up was down, cats were dogs, and one of the most vicious of Equestria's enemies was offering... something she could scarcely comprehend anypony or anyone offering. It felt like it had to be a trick, and yet...

Chrysalis's legs were shaking, like it took an excess of effort just to keep standing. Her mane was disheveled, her carapace had lost its sheen, and some deep instinct of Twilight's told her that she smelled ill. Not having caught any particular sickness, just unhealthy.

Changelings could shapeshift. Could trick. But if she were wrong and Chrysalis was really in such a dire state...

She took a deep breath. "Starlight, find Spike and get him ready to send letters to Canterlot and the Changeling Kingdom." She saw Chrysalis twitch a little at those words, but she also saw her starting to lower herself back to the dirt. "Before we welcome in our new guest... I want to do some research."

Storge

"You have to understand, Twilight. It was a different time..."

Twilight had been invited to Canterlot to speak in-pony with both sisters about the issue, and they'd forgone the throne room for somewhere a bit more private, namely Celestia's personal study. It was a tight fit with three alicorns, Luna having dragged in the star-studded cushion from her own study to sit on and Twilight making do with the plush, sun-emblazoned rug. There had been some humming and hawing before the elder sister had finally spoken, and while her voice was gentle as she did so, it wasn't remotely comforting.

"No no no no no! You can't... you can't be serious." She shook her head rapidly, as if to remove the idea of her longtime mentor with a harem from her grey matter with the force of the motion. "This has to be a prank. Or dream. Or a prank in a dream. There can't really be a law like that."

"Calm yourself, Princess Twilight Sparkle." Princess Luna's voice was cool and steady. "As my sister was beginning to explain, our country had a period of what, I believe in the modern parlance, would be called 'growing pains.'" She started to gesture slightly with her wings as she spoke. "The unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies had different power structures, laws, cultural practices, and taboos, and the process of Unification had turned it all into a net of criss-crossing ideals that could ensnare many unfortunate ponies, and other creatures who called our land home, within it as if t'were a net."

Celestia nodded. "When we came into power, things were still a mess, if not more so thanks to Discord having previously seized control of the land." She sighed. "Trying to change things all at once would be a level of upheaval that nopony would accept, especially when they were trying to find some stable normalcy in the wake of his chaotic rule, and so we found a way that we could help our subjects in the meanwhile."

The oldest mare in the world had a far-off look in her eye, as if her mind were back in that ancient time when she was young and everything was so unstable. "Under the pretext of wanting some stress relief as repayment for our duty of raising the sun and moon, we essentially opened the palace doors to any creature in need. They would have a roof over their head, food to eat, forgiveness of debts or crimes, and would have the protection of the royal guard."

Twilight tilted her head slightly as she rolled the words around, realization dawning. "So it was... a social safety net?"

"It was the first social safety net Equestria ever had," Celestia confirmed. "So you see, none of it was ever about sex--"

"Ahem." Both turned to look at Luna, who was smirking. "I do recall many a night, when I left my quarters to begin my night's duties, finding you aggressively removing a stallion from your quarters who had snuck in with intent to seduce--"

Celestia coughed, her snow white fur doing nothing to hide the rising blush beneath. "Yes, well, it was a different time and ponies didn't realize yet we were immortal. They thought if they sired a foal with one of us, that foal could end up on the throne."

"Which does not explain the crying pegasus mare you once had trapped in a magic bubble, who was begging to be able to 'worship the sun' as you placed her outside the door and then locked yourself inside to get away from her."

"There may have been a few creatures who misunderstood the intent." When Luna opened her mouth to speak again, a great white wing opened and shoved her, silencing the next embarrassing interjection. "But many more came to us looking for sanctuary, and received it. Chrysalis would know that old context, and if she's truly so desperate to survive that she'd consider asking for charity, she may have thought it was the best, and perhaps only, way to get help."

"So take heart, Princess Twilight Sparkle," Luna said with a grin and far too cheery a tone. "There is only a... shall we say ten percent? Only a ten percent chance that Chrysalis has developed a sudden twisted infatuation with you. Fortune much more greatly favours her offering herself to you out of desperation!"

Twilight's eye twitched, and a few strands of her mane began to fray.

"I'm going to go get a second opinion."

"You're sure? You're absolutely, positively, completely sure?"

"It's a miracle she's not dead, really," Pharynx said as he sat less-than-comfortably in Pinkie Pie's crystal throne. The map shone in the centre of the room as always, dormant. "Though we could fix that if you want."

"Pharynx!" Thorax was all the more uncomfortably squeezed into Rarity's seat, and looked scandalized by the suggestion. He shook his head and focused on Twilight again. "What we're saying is, there's a level of self-neglect that a changeling can't hide. Or fake. She's not just been starving, she hasn't been able to take care of herself at all. It's surprising she was able to stand or walk, but that's probably royal resilience. An ordinary changeling would be bedridden."

"So... she really is desperate." Despite herself, Twilight felt a pang of sympathy. "Is there anything I can do for her?"

Thorax hummed in thought. "Well, she'll need love, obviously--"

Pharynx snorted. "She's not getting any of mine. She tried to bite me when we were checking her teeth."

Thorax ignored him. "And she's wasted away enough that physical food would help her too. Lots of protein especially. Things like lentils, beans, peas, brussel sprouts..."

"Raw meat." Pharynx snorted a bit when Twilight stared at him. "What? It's the easiest way, plus she'll need the iron too. Did you think the old fangs were for show?" He rolled his eyes. "Ponies."

"Moving on." She'd already had plenty of new, unwanted information making itself at home in her brain, so that tidbit would have to get in line for processing. "Other than her diet, is there anything else?"

"A lot of rest and keeping her out of the elements, mostly." Thorax paused to think, then added, "Light exercise to help her build back some muscle, like walking around town, but nothing too strenuous."

"Casual walks around a town that's terrified of her." Her eye's twitch was making a comeback. "Great."

"Killing her is still on the table." Pharynx grinned, and his teeth looked pointier than a reformed changeling's should have been as his eyes shone with glee. "We're not Equestrian. You're not assassinating her if we do it."

"Pharynx..." Thorax sighed in exasperation, and slowly got up, stretching the kinks out of his spine from sitting in the crystal chair for too long. "We should get back to the hive, but if you need us for anything else, just send another letter."

Twilight nodded, attempting a friendly smile. "Thank you, I will."

As she watched them leave, the sympathy that had taken root started to bloom. One of her enemies had asked her for help, if in an... unorthodox way. And with how arrogant Chrysalis was, it must have taken a lot to admit to herself that she needed that help. Even without an old law mandating she take her in, her conscience wouldn't have let her turn away someone in such a state.

Maybe some hospitality and genuine care for her wellbeing from another creature would be the thing to help Chrysalis turn things around and rejoin the rest of her people. Twilight could only hope.

It'd taken a while to get herself back into the correct mindset for paperwork. After Thorax and Pharynx had left, she'd placed Spike in charge of making sure that Chrysalis got settled in. She normally would have asked Starlight to, but that felt like rubbing salt in a wound right now. Giving Starlight a chance to try befriending Chrysalis would have to wait until her rehabilitation was a little further along.

Thorax had siphoned off some love energy--being the beloved ruler of his kingdom meant that he was never short of it--and left it for Chrysalis to consume and get some of her strength back. She'd also been offered a shower, and Spike had been instructed to let her use any grooming products she wanted. She'd then been set up in one of the castle's many spare rooms, with one of Twilight's spare sets of blankets.

Twilight Sparkle had also taken some time to refresh the security spells she'd placed on the castle, and added a few new ones; if it came down to it, she could lock the castle down better than any prison short of Tartarus. It would be more so if she were permitted to borrow Cerberus, but after Tirek's escape, any request that involved the guard dog leaving his post was likely to get back a letter consisting only of NO!

It was deep into the night by the time that Twilight trudged her way to her bedroom, pushing the door with her shoulder instead of bothering to light her horn. So fatigued she was, it took several steps into the room before she realized something was wrong.

Rather than her empty bed, waiting for her to collapse into it, it was occupied, with Chrysalis stretched across it. Well, "stretched across" implied that she had room to stretch. The mattress was a bit short for her, and so her back legs hung over the end of it as she laid there, carapace freshly polished and smelling of lavender-scented soap. "Ah, there you are. I was starting to think you'd be up all night."

"Chrysalis." It'd been a long day, and the source of it was standing in the way of a night's rest. Any chance of her sympathy for the former queen dulling her annoyance had passed at least two hours ago. "Why. Are you. In my bed?"

She laughed. "Oh come now." She struck what she must have thought was an alluring pose. "Just because you were mentored by the Princess of Chastity, you can't be so niave that you don't know what 'harem mare' means."

"I know that you know that's just a preten--"

Her protest was cut off by green fire, and the black shell was replaced by soft purple fur. Chrysalis continued to speak as if Twilight hadn't, in an eerie mimicry of Starlight Glimmer's voice. "Besides, I can be anything you could want. Many ponies would kill for the opportunity."

The eye twitch was back with a vengeance. "Chrysalis, stop looking like my friendship apprentice right this second. It's weird."

Chrysalis sniffed, examining one of her hooves. "Hm? Not her? I guess you have a little more taste than I thought, then." There was another flash of fire, and her pelt was now white, with mane of a deeper purple, and Rarity's voice flowed from her lips. "Maybe you prefer a little more refinement?"

"That's not--!"

"Or..." Butter yellow replaced white, and wings spread wide, Fluttershy's soft voice jarringly discordant with the flirtatious tone. "You're more interested in mares with feathers?" Next came blue, Chrysalis's devious smirk looking close enough to at home at Rainbow Dash's snout that it only made it more disturbing. "Or more athletic physiques?" Wings burned away in the flame as orange followed, and in a bid to keep her sanity, Twilight distantly wondered how the mimicry had managed to include Applejack's hat. "Some extra strength?" Then the hat was gone again, in the wake of the bright pink, curly mane. "Or..." Chrysalis faltered, looking down at her Pinkie Pie disguise. "Well, I'm sure she's somepony's type."

Twilight's mane was fraying in record time. "Stop turning into my friends!"

Chrysalis sniffed. "You're a tough nut to crack, Princess. But maybe..." The shape of Pinkie Pie was shed, but in its place came a starry night, and the next words almost sounded at home in Princess Luna's voice. "Is it the gratitude of your fellow royalty you desire? The dark mare who owes you her life, repaid in carnal pleasures?"

Words failed her. The twitching from her eye was spreading through her face, and her brain felt like it was trying to make an escape through her ear.

"Or even..." The younger sister vanished, and the elder took her place, the eyes of Twilight's mentor gleaming with indescribable promises. "If the teacher is uninterested in her student, maybe it's because she prefers to be the student pursuing the teacher?"

Twilight couldn't remember what had happened in the next few moments. All she could recall with any clarity was that Chrysalis's Celestia disguise shattered on contact with the hallway floor, and could infer from her own horn being lit with magic that she'd been the one to her throw her out of the room.

She slammed the door and leaned against it, catching her breath, until there was a firm knock. Thankfully the voice that called through was Chrysalis's natural one. "You can't just deny me your love, Princess. That's deliberately starving your--"

Twilight opened the door, lit her horn, and fired a beam of pure pink magic toward the surprised face that greeted her.

She wasn't as good with love magic as Cadence, and never would be, but just like with Rarity's gem spell, Twilight had the ability to copy some of what she could do. It was essentially a low-power version of the shield that had expelled Chrysalis and her army from Canterlot, that Cadence had fine-tuned during Thorax's stay in the Crystal Empire to allow for efficiently sharing her love. So Twilight focused on her family and friends, and the love she had for them leaped from heart to horn. Then, once the spell was complete, she slammed the door shut again.

As she dragged herself toward her bed and right before she collapsed onto the pillow, she could hear a muffled and dazed, "Did the earth move for you too...?" from the other side of the door, followed by a thud.

She was almost positive she'd set the spell to "give" instead of "bludgeon."

After trying and failing to raise her aching head, she decided that double-checking would be a tomorrow Twilight problem, and fell asleep.

Philautia

Sometime after shuffling her way out of bed in the morning, Twilight Sparkle found out that she had somehow found the setting on the love spell that made it give love and bludgeon with it at the same time. Thankfully, given that royal resilience that Thorax had talked about, that just meant she had an especially grumpy Chrysalis sitting at breakfast with her.

Pancakes made the whole situation slightly better, though it was hard to fully appreciate when the mare across the table was gagging loudly with every mouthful of her own food. Chrysalis finally huffed and threw the spoon down, crossing her forelegs like a stubborn yearling. "This is disgusting. What is it?"

"Quinoa." Twilight added extra berries to her pancakes. "It's high in both protein and iron, which Thorax said that you need right now."

"It's like sandpaper on my tongue." She then smiled cruelly, baring her sharp fangs. "Perhaps I should go out and kill a few rabbits for my breakfast instead, if you refuse to feed me properly."

"No rabbits."

Chrysalis cackled, her voice dripping with mockery "Why? Are the fuzzy-wuzzy creatures of this land all under your royal protection?"

"No, they're under Fluttershy's." Twilight added extra whipped cream as well. She was a princess now. Nopony could stop her. "And she's not bound under an ancient law not to kill you."

Chrysalis sputtered, but before she could come up with a retort for that, Starlight was hurrying into the room. "Twilight, we have a situation!"

"Students?"

"No!"

"Map?"

"No!"

"Anger bott--"

"One! Time! Just get outside, she's waiting for you."

She?

Twilight looked at Chrysalis, who was alternating between glaring at Starlight and glaring at her bowl of quinoa, which seemed to have been upgraded to co-archnemesis alongside the unicorn, and decided that the chances of something terrible happening in here if she stepped out were acceptably low. "Okay, okay... I'm going..."

Through the castle and out the door, the sight that greeted her...

"Trixie?"

It wasn't a sight that she could call welcome, but it was at least an unsurprising one. The traveling showmare stopped by often enough to come see Starlight, and as much as Twilight had had misgivings before, the two did seem to be positive influences on each other slightly more often than they annoyed each other out of their skulls.

However, it being Trixie didn't explain why Starlight had called it a situation or insisted she come out here. Normally when she showed up, Starlight just let her know she'd be out with her friend and then left. It also didn't explain why Trixie was standing there on the path to the castle with a smirk on her muzzle.

Trixie looked left and right, seeming to be taking note of the number of ponies who'd slowed down to rubberneck at what looked like it might be the next interesting thing--"interesting" in the old kirin proverb sense of the word, at least--to happen in Ponyville. She then bowed, and her words chilled Twilight to the bone.

"I, the Great and Powerful Trixie, hereby pledge mine self, body, heart, and soul, to Princess Twilight Sparkle, to be used in any way that she see fit, as her harem mare."

"Trixie Lulamoon, are you out of your mind?!"

Yanking Trixie into her study had jostled her hat, and she spent a few maddening seconds adjusting it before she laughed a little and responded. "Why? Because somepony would have to be crazy to want to be your harem mare?"

"This isn't about me!" She reared briefly, her front hooves landing on the crystal floor with a loud stomp. "How do you even know about--"

Trixie wordlessly produced a newspaper from beneath her cloak and tossed in on the floor, the headline of Royal Harem Scandal: Princess of Friendship Now Collecting More Than Friends on proud display. "Relax, Sparkle. The Kind and Gracious Trixie just decided to offer her assistance with your little changeling problem." She puffed out her chest proudly. "With me here, that's one more set of eyes making sure Chrysalis doesn't try any funny business."

Alicorn royalty stared at stage magician, and all the sarcasm in the world could not have been enough for painting her next words. "Gee, Trixie, how can I ever repay you?"

"Oh, think nothing of it." Trixie gave a casual wave of a front leg. "Trixie will just take the free room and board that comes with the harem mare position as thanks."

"Fine! Great! Fantastic! I have one egomaniac in the castle already, why not two?" Before Trixie could voice a protest, Twilight had turned toward the door and was moving at the speed of desire to be anywhere but here. "Make yourself at home. I have princess... things... to do."

It was probably a bad idea to try to ban all reporters from coming anywhere near her castle.

Probably.

She could still fantasize about it.

She'd had some letters sent, and confirmed that the story was all over Equestria. It was the talk of the nation, the idea that the newest princess now had the former leader of an enemy army lounging around in her castle. The situation had led to a lot of curiosity about what other old laws may still be on the books, and the royal sisters were in the process of combing through records to find anything else that might cause trouble if suddenly invoked.

Twilight could question why it took so long for such a combing to take place, but this was Princess "Oh By The Way, There's Another Ancient Villain Who Is Still Alive And Could Still Have A Grudge" Celestia. Luna could at least be excused by the fact that she'd been away for so long that it was reasonable for her to assume it'd all been taken care of already.

It was probably also a bad idea to put together a homework assignment for the sisters to come up with every last thing they could think of from Equestria's past that could rear its head and bite them in the collective flanks in the near or far future. As tempting as it was, it would likely only ensure that the one thing the two had collectively forgot would be the next disaster.

Twilight tried to put it out of her mind. It was time for bed, and she'd placed a spell on the room that would detect any changelings in the vicinity, so if nothing else, she could guarantee that her mattress was Chrysalis-free for the night.

She pushed open the door, walked into the room, and stopped in her tracks.

Without her hat and cape, Trixie looked strangely naked, in a way that Twilight herself, as a pony who went around unclothed more often than not, could not hope to achieve. And this naked Trixie proceeded to stare at her with a heavy-lidded gaze, bounce her eyebrows up and down, and grin around the rose in her teeth.

Twilight only felt slightly bad for the yelp of pain that resulted from Trixie landing on her backside in the hallway before she slammed the door.

An old associate of Trixie's had once compared her to a cat.

It had taken some time to get out of the stallion in question why. At first she'd thought it was commentary on her inherent elegance and stage presence. Then she'd come to the conclusion that it must be due to her intense focus and cunning in achieving her goal of being a famous stage magician. Eventually, however, she'd gotten out of him that it was because she had apparently perfected the art of I meant to do that.

And so, as her rear end continued to throb from the harsh landing, she got to her hooves, flicked her tail, sniffed dismissively, and prepared to go on her way to the room that had been set aside for her, while pretending that the rose she was holding was merely a midnight snack for herself.

She didn't expect a, "Hmph" to come from seemingly thin air, and a unicorn statue she'd earlier assumed was a poor-taste decoration of Twilight Sparkle's to burst into green flame. Chrysalis stood before her, head held high in haughty distain. "A valiant attempt, but if she turned down my renowned beauty, there was no way that you would have a chance."

A lesser pony may have shrunk under that gaze, coming from a creature that looked like a twisted mirror of an alicorn. Trixie, however, had once gone with her closest friend into the heart of the changelings' lands, and so merely fixed her with a smug smile. "So you struck out too, huh?"

Chrysalis sneered. "I can't strike out if I wasn't intending to score." Her expression twisted into a fang-baring grin. "I was just seeing how much I could make the little pony squirm."

"What a coincidence. That's what I'm doing too." She chortled. "The princess could use some shaking up now and again, with how uptight she is."

That seemed to send the mare into deep thought, and Trixie found herself wondering if Chrysalis even recognized her. As painful as the thought of being forgotten by anyone was, she had been rather focused on Thorax and Starlight during the whole rescue-mission-turned-revolution. Her wings buzzed in a way that almost sounded like a hum of thought, and then she spoke. "I have a proposition for you, pony."

"My name is Trix--"

"Don't care." The dismissive wave of her hoof had Trixie fuming, but she ignored it. "I'm supposed to go on walks through town for my health and Twilight Sparkle is duty-bound to come with me." She flashed another fanged grin. "Tag along on tomorrow's little venture and we can combine our forces to keep 'shaking her up.'"

Despite the recent insult, Trixie found herself grinning back. "You've got yourself a deal."

They bumped hooves, and Operation Make Sparkle Combust With Embarrassment was born.

Ludus

"Okay, let's go over the ground rules."

Twilight Sparkle stood outside of her castle, in front of two mares, both looking equally bored in the face of her stern stare. The tantrum today over more quinoa had been minor, and Chrysalis and Trixie had even been... polite. To each other, and to her. Even Chrysalis's snarling at Starlight had been tuned down, which was the biggest red flag of all, short of Trixie requesting to join the two of them on their walk.

Twilight had warned the townsponies as best she could. Any of them who bothered to read the notices would know that Chrysalis would be outside of the castle, which would cut down the screaming by, generously, about thirty percent. Now it was just trying to mitigate the damage of whatever they were up to.

"Repeat them back to me," Twilight ordered, to a pair of eye rolls. "Chrysalis, you first."

"I will keep to my natural form at all times outside the castle," Chrysalis intoned with raw, unrefined boredom. "I will not comment on the love I feel emanating from any ponies or other creatures, including and especially how delicious it is. I will not attempt to eat any love that isn't freely offered to me without manipulation or coercion. I will not kill or otherwise harm any animals, nor openly talk about eating them. And I will stay within your immediate sight and won't wander off."

Twilight nodded. "Good. Trixie, you next."

"Trixie will not use magic other than basic telekinesis unless she clears it with you first," Trixie droned, making a grand effort to outdo Chrysalis's tonal dullness. "Trixie will not use explosives, magical or mundane, anywhere within Ponyville's limits. Trixie will not make any unsettling jokes about conquering Ponyville a second time. And Trixie will also stay close without wandering off."

"Alright..." Twilight turned away, gesturing with a wing for the two to follow her. "We'll go for a short walk around town, get dinner, and then back to the castle."

"Yes, mother," Trixie commented as she moved to follow. Then she paused, smirked, and added, "Or would you rather I call you mommy?"

Twilight froze. Chrysalis giggled. And with the clarity of a pony perched on the peak of a mountain watching a descending asteroid, suddenly she knew the form her doom today would take.

Meanwhile in Canterlot, a different mare was having her own sense of impending doom.

Moondancer had been trying to get out more, ever since she and Twilight Sparkle had mended their rift. She'd come to accept again that Minuette, Lemon Hearts, Twinkleshine, and Lyra Heartstrings were her friends and genuinely wanted her around, and had been getting away from the books more and more to socialize. It wasn't something she could do every day--she was an introvert by nature and needed the occasional day with just herself and the books to properly recharge--but with careful attention paid to her limits, it had been fun.

She, Lemon, Minnie, and Twinkle had all gone out for doughnuts today, just like they always did once a week, and it had been poised to be like any other meetup. They'd all catch up on what was happening in each others' lives, discussing careers, new hobbies, the occasional bit of family drama, along with a bit of gossip about whatever may be happening in Ponyville. Today, however, the last of those would end up taking centre stage.

The first sign of doom was when Minnie showed up late, racing into the doughnut shop with wide eyes and holding a newspaper in her magic. "Girls! We've got a Code Bugbear!" With everypony sitting up, ears perked at the words that meant something is going down in Ponyville, she tossed the paper onto the table, the big, bold headline drawing every eye.

"'Royal Harem Scandal: Princess of Friendship Now Collecting More Than Friends,'" Lemon read aloud, and then her eyes widened. "Ohhhhh, that's why Princess Celestia and Princess Luna seemed a little jumpy lately. Must be another old law coming back to bite them in the flanks."

Twinkle tilted her head slightly. "Another? This happens a lot?"

Lemon laughed a little. "Every other week. It just usually doesn't make it into the papers. Turns out that Princess Luna coming back set off a whole cascade of things coming out of the woodwork. There's a lot of old laws that were written before she was banished that nopony ever took off the books." More laughter bubbled. "There was this whole thing with owls during the first year. I swear sometimes that I can still hear hooting if I go down this one hallway--"

"Fillies! Focus!" Minnie jabbed at the paper with a hoof. "This isn't about the big mares in charge, this is about our little Twilight. And you haven't read who she's gotten herself entangled with."

"Well don't leave us in suspense, Minnie," Twinkle said as she pulled over a doughnut and took a bite. "Either let one of us read it or tell us yourself."

"It's the changeling queen. The one from the wedding."

Horror fell over Twinkle's face and the half-eaten doughnut fell back onto the table. "The bug who replaced Cadence and mind controlled us?"

"The same."

"I thought she was overthrown and she fled into the wilds?"

"Oh she did." Minnie tapped the paper with her hoof again. "And it sounds like the wilds were pretty bad to her. She apparently showed up at Twilight's castle half-dead and said she was starving."

"Good!"

"A bit harsh, Twinkle?" Lemon asked as she sipped her hot chocolate.

"Minnie, Lyra, and I were brainwashed by her. I'm allowed to be 'a little harsh.'"

"I'm only saying, the rest of the changelings turned things around and are allies of Equestria now. Maybe Twilight's trying to see if she can be reformed too."

Twinkle huffed and grumbled to herself, then eyed Minnie. "Why aren't you freaking out too? Like I said, she used her powers on both of us."

Minnie grinned. "Mostly because the idea of Twilight with a harem is the most hilarious thing ever. Like, can you imagine?" She waved her front hooves around as she spoke. "I'm pretty sure just thinking spicy thoughts too hard at her would make her hide in a broom closet all day. If her former majesty is trying to seduce her way into power with this, she's going to hit a brick wall of awkward nerd."

"Speaking of awkward nerd..." Lemon turned to look at Moondancer, who abruptly remembered what breathing was. "You okay, Moonie?"

A squeak comparable to a deflating balloon was the only response, as Moondancer tried to take in and let out air at something approaching normal intervals.

Confused blinks were had around the table, until Minnie glanced from the paper to Moondancer and back again before letting out a knowing, "Ohhhh..." She patted her shoulder with a hoof. "Hey, like I just said, this was clearly a political thing. For all intents and purposes, she's still single. You've still got a shot."

"...What...?" Air was still having some difficulty, and so words were in limited supply.

"I mean, it's not really a secret, Moonie," Twinkle added. "The way you went off at Twilight at the party read as a teensy bit more than a disappointed friend would do."

"I..."

"I think you two would make a really cute couple!" Lemon added with a smile. "You should totally go for it and ask her out next time we visit."

Words vanished and squeaking returned. They weren't wrong, and she knew they weren't wrong. While she hadn't consciously realized it at the time, that snub of her party long ago had cut so deep for a reason, and when everything had spilled out during Twilight's visit, it had all clicked together. But just asking her out? That wasn't going to happen. She'd just patched up her friendship with her.

Putting herself out there so soon, to see if that mended friendship could be the foundation for a romantic relationship, was a terrifying idea.

Besides, sure, the changeling queen was just trying to survive, but now that those floodgates were open, how long before a mare with genuine romantic intentions showed up and swooped in? What chance did she possibly have, when ponies started lining up to surround a princess?

Of course, she could always... try to beat those ponies to it. Just... place herself in Twilight's orbit, give her a chance to maybe start to think about Moondancer in that light, if she hadn't already.

She was dimly aware of Lemon trying to change the subject as she ran her hoof along the newspaper. When it came to weighing the scales between confronting her own social anxiety, and being in proximity to a villainous former queen, it was a tough call.

Innuendo was no longer a word. Innuendo was no longer a linguistical concept. No, it had transcended such things, to become a force beyond all magic and science, weaving instead into the fabric of reality until nothing was left untouched. Everything was innuendo. Existence itself was innuendo.

No matter what Twilight had said during the outing, or what she'd done, one or both had found a way to twist it around on her. What had started with wordplay had soon devolved into complete non sequitur, Chrysalis or Trixie simply able to repeat a word or phrase with a tone and eyebrow waggle and suddenly, no matter how innocent the words, Twilight felt like she needed a scalding shower. It was a talent somehow deeper than one of a cutie mark, a horrible skill that she could only imagine both had made dark pacts to acquire.

The worst thing of all is how they'd kept working together. When one didn't seem to have a quip planned, the other stepped in to provide it. She'd briefly left during dinner for a break from the onslaught, under the pretense of using the little fillies room, and come back to hear them talking about keeping score.

It'd been horrible. Parents kept covering their foals' ears and glaring at her. Teenagers kept breaking into riotous laughter. One stallion had fainted.

At least it was finally over.

She'd managed to unwind some of the stress with an after-dinner book--obscure magical texts from centuries past never failed to relax her--and now she finally felt like she could rest without her mind conjuring nightmares filled solely with Trixie and Chrysalis's smirking faces. Her hooves dragged against the crystal as she moved, mind only able to focus on her soft pillow, with even finding the strength to pull a blanket over herself optional.

She only realized that she'd forgotten to check the integrity of the changeling alarm spell when she saw them.

It was a nightmare. A waking nightmare. Two Trixies, with identical expressions of allure exaggerated to the point of caricature. Not just roses this time, but rose petals, all over the bed and floor, the kind of thing that would have Twilight cleaning for days and still finding them.

For a few moments, all she could do was stare in horror. Then a different feeling replaced it.

The two got up and started to run when they saw her mane burst into flame.

"OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT!"

The door slammed behind them, and the pair of blue unicorns waited for any sign that the beast of rage and flame was going to throw it open again, before both of them fell to the floor in a hail of giggles. Chrysalis shed her disguise, but still laid there on the crystal, forelegs laid across her barrel as she laughed so hard that she struggled to breathe.

Trixie had tears in her eyes as she gasped out, "Th-that was beautiful. You'd think that the gates of Tartarus had opened in her room." She rolled over, smiling and holding out a hoof. "You're not half bad, Chrysalis."

Chrysalis's lip curled in a sneer as she got her mirth under control, and she tossed her head with a huff. Not half bad? Well of course not. She was Queen Chrysalis, bad right down to her core. There would be no 'half' about it. Still, she eyed the offered blue hoof with something a little less than contempt.

She did remember the little unicorn. She was one of Starlight Glimmer's associates. Still, they had a common enemy in Twilight Sparkle, and the enemy of her enemy had just proven to be a passable minion. Perhaps that had been what had went wrong. Creating ponies to be her servants had backfired, but maybe all she needed to do was find ponies who already had the proper deviousness. Especially when she could steal them away from Starlight.

Yes, this could definitely work. Besides, the friendly admiration she was starting to feel being sent in her direction was surprisingly filling.

The sneer eventually turned to a smile, and raised her own hoof to bump the offered one. "Neither are you...Trixie."

Philia

"Twilight? We've got a visitor."

One day. She'd like to get through just one day of work or research without an interruption. She slowly looked up from the book, looking at Spike as he lingered in the doorway to her study, openly eyeing her with worry. The yelling last night from the vicinity of her bedroom had had him more than a little worried, and she'd had to reassure him before breakfast that she wasn't going to go on a rampage.

At least it wasn't Starlight announcing a situation, but she wasn't holding out much hope. "Oh wonderful. Who is it this time, Spike? Tirek? Sombra? The Flim-Flam brothers?"

"It's Moondancer."

Twilight blinked. "Oh." She gave a small smile, starting to get up and shake the encroaching sleep out of her legs. "I guess I can do this another time. It'd be nice to see an old friend, with how stressful things have been." She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen her Canterlot friends, now that she thought about it; she'd tried to catch the other girls more often when they came around to visit Lyra, but she'd been so swamped with the new school that it'd gotten harder to make time.

It'd be lovely to be away from Chrysalis and Trixie's heckling and spend some time with somepony more sensible.

Twilight held onto that thought, that hope, even as she stepped into the map room and found her old friend standing there. She wasn't wearing her usual sweater, and she'd done something different with her mane. It looked like she'd even gotten new glasses recently, the sleeker frames better complementing her face. It should have registered as strange, but she had been putting more effort into taking care of herself since coming out of her shell, and Twilight was desperate for a life raft amidst the insanity of the recent few days.

"Moondancer, it's so good to see--"

The sweater-less mare bowed, and Twilight's heart sank with dread. "I, Moondancer, h-hereby pledge... myself... mine self... b-body, heart, and soul, to Princess Twilight Sparkle, to be... used in... a-any way that she see fit... as her ...harem mare."

Moondancer couldn't breathe.

Breathing had been a constant difficulty, it felt like, since she'd first read the newspaper headline. As she'd stumbled over each word, she'd feared that Twilight would just go back in and close the doors, leaving her standing there like a stupid, heartbroken filly.

Instead, Twilight started leading her through the castle. She hadn't gotten to see the inside before, beyond the map room--Twilight seemed to want to hang out anywhere but at the castle during her visits, and so Lyra usually ended up hosting them all--and she found herself awestruck. It had been huge from the outside, but seemed even bigger inside, and she found herself wondering about its magical properties. It'd sprouted out of the ground from a piece of the Tree of Harmony, and she had no doubt that a researcher could spend a lifetime unraveling the mysteries of how it worked.

Even a marvel like this couldn't take up her attention entirely, not when Twilight was striding ahead of her with purpose, and when she stopped in front of a door and opened it, revealing a cozy-looking study, Moondancer followed her in on increasingly-shaking hooves.

Once the door shut, Twilight's horn flared with light, and a glow covered the whole of its surface. She then let out a relieved sigh. "Okay, I set up a lockdown spell. Nopony will overhear anything that happens in here."

Moondancer's eyes widened and her ears stood up. "Tw-twilight? Right now?" Took a breath, trying to steel herself even as her face started to burn red. "I-I mean, it would be my honour as your harem mare to--"

Twilight shook her head gently. "It's okay, Moondancer. I just said no one can hear. You can drop the charade."

"Wh-what?"

Twilight's voice continued to sound so soft, so gentle, so caring. "What happened? Did you lose your archivist job? I can put a word in around Canterlot to help you--"

"What, no, that's not--"

"Did something happen to your home? Kicked out? Burned down? Eaten by parasprites?"

Eaten by what? "No! Twilight, what are--"

"Is it your family? Did something happen with them that you need help?"

"No!" She stomped a hoof, tears of frustration burning at her eyes. "What are you talking about?"

Her hoof was suddenly being lifted by one of Twilight's, and their forelegs together like that would have normally had her overjoyed, if not for what she said next. "We're friends, Moondancer. You can just ask to stay with me for a while. You don't have to be underhoofed about it like Chrys--"

A series of polite knocks at the door cut off her words and forestalled Moondancer's next frustrated reply. "...One second." The hoof left hers far too soon, and the door swung open to show Spike standing there, arms crossed across his chest. "How did you know we were in here? The spell would have kept you from hearing us."

"That doesn't stop it from being the only door in the castle that's glowing." He jerked a thumb-claw toward the glow in question. "Starlight needs you to go over some school budget stuff."

Twilight flinched. "Right, today's budget day..." She glanced back at Moondancer, their eyes meeting far too briefly before she focused on Spike again. "You help Moondancer get settled in, okay? Make sure nopony bullies her."

Spike gave a brief salute. "Threaten to set Chrysalis on fire if she looks at her wrong, got it."

"You're spending too much time around Pharynx." Another glance back, with that concerned look that Moondancer wasn't sure if she wanted to smack it off her face, or kiss it off. "I've got to go. We'll talk later."

Twilight wasn't surprised by what she saw when she set hoof in her bedroom. Hours going over the books with Starlight, and then sending them off to Princess Luna for her to check the math, had left her tried, but not too tired for basic pattern recognition. She'd made sure to refresh the now-improved enchantments, and while the changeling detection had turned up negative, the unicorn detection hadn't. It wasn't the unicorn she'd most expected, but, again, she couldn't quite muster surprise as she stared at Moondancer laying in her bed.

The lack of sweater had looked odd when she'd shown up, but it was Moondancer having set aside her glasses that truly made her look naked. Though, if she'd been attempting an alluring look, the fact that the lack of glasses had her squinting dashed any hopes. Her legs kept fidgeting, as if she couldn't figure out how to best to drape them, and her tail kept giving nervous flicks.

There was another creature in between her and a night's rest, for the fourth night in a row. Moondancer was above average in magical talent, but only above average, which was a blip on the radar compared to an alicorn. She wouldn't be able to resist being removed from the bed and shoved out the door, and so taking away that obstacle would have been trivial.

Moondancer continued to squirm nervously and squint at her.

Twilight's horn lit, and a pillow and blanket rose from the bed. Then she turned around and walked out of the room again, both in tow.

Then she teleported.

"Now, Twilight, I enjoy a sudden appearance of one of my dear friends as much as any draconequus, but did you just say you were looking for some 'peace and quiet'?"

"Yes."

Discord stared past Twilight as she stood in his doorway, out at the warping landscape of screaming horrors and swirls of impossible colours. A pink elephant in a tutu and a writhing mass of black tentacles bowed to one another before beginning an aggressive tap-dance competition, while sock puppet judges in bowties held up signs with imaginary numbers. "In Chaosville?"

Twilight didn't look back, even as her feathers continued giving off clouds of green-purple smoke, the blanket she was holding briefly lost its third dimension, and her horn rapidly changed to, and back from, a foam pool noodle. Her eye gave a single twitch. "Yes."

"Well, you're always welcome in my home, of course." Discord stepped aside to let her in, then shut the door behind her just as the tap-dance contest was interrupted by a chartreuse mer-goat singing in five long-dead languages with seven voices. "But I do wonder what could be going on back in Ponyville that you'd need to get away from it all."

Twilight looked at him, and seemed to be seriously considering her life choices, with a look on her face that told him that she'd been doing so very frequently in a short length of time. "If you don't already know, I'm not going to tell you."

Discord gasped, putting a hand to his chest. "Twilight Sparkle, I thought we were friends. You don't trust me?"

Her eye twitched again. "Plundervines."

"That's hardly fair. I planted those well before I was reformed, and when they sprouted I simply saw an opportunity to help teach--"

"Blue flu."

"That's--"

"The Grand Galloping Gala."

"Well, Celestia had a good time."

"The in-jokes prank."

"I--"

"Tirek."

Discord huffed. Now that was a low blow, but she seemed a bit sleep-deprived, so he'd forgive the rudeness like the good friend he was. "Touché." He crossed his arms, then vanished from by the door and reappeared on the couch, holding his copy of 101 Ways To Prank A Pony Princess upside-down. "Now what can I do to help you with that... peace and quiet you so dearly wanted?"

Twilight sighed, wings drooping with the weight of relief. "Do you have a guest room I could use?"

He snapped his fingers, and his house gave a little shimmy-shake as it expanded without taking up any new actual physical space. "I do now. Just mind the dust bunnies and the boogeymares. They're having a garden party, but I'll ask them to keep it down."

"Thank you." She shuffled toward the twisty-turny steps, which obligingly un-twisted some for her. "And I'm sorry for snapping at you. It's just... been a long few days."

Discord surprised himself with how much his own voice softened. "Water under the bridge, Twilight. Go get some rest."

She nodded, took a few more steps, and paused. "Can I ask for one more favour?"

"Go right ahead."

"Would you like to do a guest lecture at the school?"

Discord blinked furiously. "Me? Lecture your friendship students?"

Twilight nodded. "I think you'd provide a unique perspective on friendship, and I think it's a good idea to not just have ponies doing the teaching." She then gave a sly smile. "Unless you think you can't handle the responsibility?"

Oh that little... "Well played, Miss Sparkle." He chuckled and slithered over to pat the top of her head. "You can be downright manipulative sometimes. Makes an old chaos spirit proud." He casually took the pillow near her head and fluffed it before letting her magic grasp it again. "I'd be honoured. And I promise I won't meddle in whatever it is that has you stressed."

"Thank you, Discord." Twilight smiled as she ascended the steps, and he smiled after her.

It was a good promise to make. He might have liked to mess with Twilight occasionally, but right now that'd just be kicking her while she was down. Until things were resolved, he'd leave her be to sort it out without his brand of help to drive her even more batty.

However, he'd made no promises about Starlight, and given that he'd be visiting the school soon...

With Twilight well out of earshot, Discord gave a dark chuckle.

Eros

"I d-don't know what I'm d-doing wro-o-ooong."

Chrysalis watched one unicorn cling to the other, and Trixie's slow, awkward motions to try to pat Moondancer's back. After being told, bluntly, that she would be set ablaze if she "bullied" the newest addition, Chrysalis had naturally decided that she would size up the mare and figure out how easily she could make her into a second minion. What she'd found, however, was one of the most painfully awkward attempts to look seductive that she'd ever seen, and given that she'd once overseen infiltrator training, that was a high bar to clear.

And now the potential minion was crying all those disgusting pony tears everywhere, the taste of her heartbroken despair a discomforting bitterness on her tongue. It had Chrysalis wanting to wallop her over the head until her mood improved, but she was relatively certain that that counted as bullying and so merely sat gloomily nearby.

She and Trixie had taken to using one of the many empty rooms of the castle as a meeting spot, and so once Moondancer had started blubbering, they'd invited her to come do it there instead of on Twilight Sparkle's mattress. And through the sobs, they'd managed to get a rough idea of what had happened between the two, along with learning more about Twilight Sparkle's foalhood than Chrysalis would have ever cared to know about.

"Uh, there there..." Trixie's awkward patting continued. "Trust Trixie, it's nothing you're doing or not doing. Sparkle's just like that."

Chrysalis gave disdainful sniff. "Exactly. The princess is being aggressively celibate about the whole situation. Though..." She gave a fanged grin, placing a hoof to her chest. "As a master of seduction, I'm certain I could improve your approach, if..."

The clinging changed targets, and suddenly the tear-streaked face was buried in her mane. "Please! I'll do anything!"

As potential minions went, Moondancer was close to the bottom of the barrel. There was no inherent deviousness to fan the flames of, and while bitterness and resentment could be useful tools, most of that had been alleviated long before due to she and Twilight Sparkle having already mended their friendship. Gratitude, however, could be an incredibly potent tool, and in a pinch, it was even edible.

Besides, getting Twilight Sparkle into a romantic relationship would result in plenty of ambient love for her to feast on as she recovered, and would provide a good distraction for one of Chrysalis's enemies. So many birds, killed with a single stone.

Chrysalis forced a smile as she offered Moondancer more back-pats. "Fear not, little pony. The magnanimous Queen Chrysalis and her minion--"

"You mean the Great and Powerful Trixie and her assistant--"

"The magnanimous Queen Chrysalis and her minion--" She glared at Trixie before smiling down at Moondancer again. "--Will take your gratitude as payment enough. So dry your tears... preferably on something other than my carapace... and we'll ensure that the princess melts into your hooves."

She sniffled, then hiccupped. "Thank you. Thank you so much..."

It was a beautiful, sunny day at Ponyville's park, and Twilight Sparkle was already panicking.

She'd updated the ground rules for Chrysalis and Trixie, making sure to outlaw, in detail, the array of things they'd done to attack her sanity on the last outing, as well as add several that circled around being nice to Moondancer. Not that either of them had shown any hostility to Moondancer over breakfast, which was concerning. Breakfast itself had been horribly awkward, with Twilight pointedly not talking about where she'd gone last night, though after the sapient dust-bunny had hopped out of her mane and started sweeping the table, she was relatively certain they could guess.

Today, the agenda had been going to the park and having a nice picnic lunch. However, she and Moondancer had barely gotten the blanket set up before Chrysalis and Trixie had vanished without a trace, leaving Twilight running in frantic circles. "Oh this isn't good this isn't good this isn't good... I told them to stick close. It's one of the rules."

"Calm down, Twilight. I'm sure they'll be back soon." Moondancer was laying on the picnic blanket and had already pulled out a pair of daisy sandwiches, looking completely unperturbed by the two AWOL mares. She patted at the blanket. "Now come on. You were going to tell me about your advances in time magic?"

She paused and looked at Moondancer. Despite the intense awkwardness of the previous day, this was still her friend, and the promise of talking magic with a friend was enough to get her to step onto the blanket and start to settle down. "Well that's... that's more of a group effort. My apprentice, Starlight, made the initial breakthrough." Any attempt at a smile turned to a grimace. "Whiiiile she was still a villain and trying to rewrite the timeline to get revenge on me--"

"She what."

"--But the whole thing involved tapping into a little-understood magical artefact, so there's a lot about how it worked that we still don't totally understand." Twilight lifted one hoof, moving it in a quick circle as she spoke. "So we've been trying to kind of... work backwards and figure things out. My current theory for what went on is that it wasn't time travel at all, not really, and more like--"

"Welcome one and all!"

The hoof dropped, and Twilight's eyes went wide. "Oh no..."

"To the most spectacular, marvelous, and fantabulous show you will ever see! Starrrring, the Grrreat and Powerful Trrrixie, alongside her new assistant, the Marvelous Morphing Mare!"

"I thought we agreed that I would get top billing, minion," Chrysalis hissed in a stage whisper.

Getting the makeshift stage set up in the park had been foal's play, once they'd managed to slip away from Twilight Sparkle's watchful eyes. Trixie had even provided a spare hat and cloak for Chrysalis to wear, though an outfit made for a pony was less than a perfect fit on a royal changeling, and she'd been adamant about doing this show in her natural form.

Ponies all around the park were whispering, a few of them wandering closer to get a better look. It was a far cry from the welcome she'd gotten when she'd first arrived at the town, but perhaps the ponies here were starting to believe she was... tamed, not unlike what that disappointingly softhearted Discord had become. All the better, really, since they would be caught all the more off-guard when she struck to take her revenge.

"Trixie agreed to no such thing. Now..." The infuriating little mare raised her voice again, her horn lighting with a voice amplification spell. "Trixie and her assistant will need some volunteers from the audience." She outstretched one of her front legs, pointing her hoof at where Twilight Sparkle looked to be about to explode. "Why, those two little lovebirds there would be perfect. Come up here on stage."

The little princess was on her hooves, wings spread. "Oh I'll come up there all right. And put a stop to it!"

"No!" Moondancer hastily hopped to her own hooves, then shrunk down a bit when Twilight looked at her. "I-I mean, aren't you working on reforming Chrysalis? Maybe this is a good sign, that she's helping Trixie put on a show for everypony. You don't want to discourage her."

Yes, that was it. Somepony so close to Twilight Sparkle would be able to smooth over Chrysalis's transgressions against her precious rules so very easily.

Twilight sighed deeply, and clenched her teeth. "...Fine." With a flash of light and a surge of power, both appeared on the stage, Moondancer looking slightly dazed from the sudden teleport. "Here we are. What do you need us to do?"

Trixie grinned, and with a wave of her horn and puff of smoke, a wooden box decorated with chunks of dark stone appeared. She casually pushed open the door with a hoof, then bowed with a flourish. "The both of you just step in here, and the show can begin."

Moodancer trotted in through the door without a moment's hesitation. Twilight glared at both of them, then followed suit. She turned around, opened her mouth as if to say something, and Chrysalis took great enjoyment in slamming the door shut.

"Behold, everypony!" Trixie went on. "This is the ancient Box of True Feelings. Once locked inside, it can only be opened again by True Love's Kiss." She smirk, and struck the box with a flick of her tail. "So our volunteers better get to kissing."

There was a long beat of complete silence from within the box. "...I'm teleporting us out."

"Wait!"

Light was faintly seen through the seams of the box's door, right before a satisfying fizzle sound and it faded again. Chrysalis started to cackle, sidling up to the box. "You remember my magic-negating throne, Princess?" Her voice broke into mocking sing-song. "Your stu-dent never got all the pie-ces."

There was a sharp crack from inside from an attempted kick, but the box still held. "Is that your plan? Lock me in a box and then somehow take over Equestria?" demanded Twilight's muffled voice. "Because I'd love to know what step two is."

"Oh nothing so droll." She rolled her eyes as she leaned against the box, unable to hold back a few more giggles. "I'm just doing a little good deed for a pony who desperately needs my help." She gave it a bump with her hip. "Your cue, Moondancer."

Another long beat of silence. "...Moondancer?"

"Yes?"

"I've had a rough several days and not a lot of sleep. So I apologise if I seem a bit peeved. But..." There was the sound of a deep breath. "WHAT IN DISCORD'S BEARD IS GOING ON?!"

It took a moment for Moondancer to reply. Presumably because it took that long for her ears to stop ringing. "When I first showed up, you kept asking me what had gone wrong that I'd come and offer myself as your harem mare," she started, softly, and her voice started to shake. "A-and the truth is... nothing was wrong. I just thought..." A strained tone, reminding Chrysalis of when she'd been crying. "I just thought, i-if that was what I needed to do to be with you... then I'd do it."

Twilight's voice was barely above a whisper. "You... I... Moondancer..."

Trixie leaned toward Chrysalis. "Are they kissing?"

Chrysalis lit her horn, examining the emotions of the ponies within at length, then shrugged. "Hoofholding. At most."

"Close enough!" She leaped over to one side of the box, then reared up to pull a lever down. The door sprang open, and Twilight and Moondancer tumbled across the stage. "Behold, the greatest trick of all! Two awkward nerds, transformed into a royal couple!"

There was cheering. Confused cheering, but cheering, and once a few ponies started, it spread through the small crowd in the park, until Chrysalis was sure that many of the ponies stomping the ground and hollering had no idea what was going on at all. And yet, the elation was genuine, members of a herd species coming together to share in a moment of pure joy. She let it wash over her, a unique blend of flavours she had never experienced before.

Stronger still, however, was Moondancer's overwhelming gratitude, and she found herself assaulted with more tears, this one the unicorn's tears of joy as she was grasped in a fierce hug. "Thank you thank you thank you!"

This was so much. Especially after she'd teetered so close to the brink of starving to death, this was so much to feed on that she could hardly keep up with the flow. The edges of her hunger dulled, then seemed to vanish, and there was a point where she had to stop feeding, because her internal storage was too full to draw in more.

Ponies were such loving creatures. So overflowing with it. She wouldn't need to feed for days, maybe weeks. If she kept Moondancer around, she wouldn't have to rely on just ponies to rebuild her power. She'd be able to lay eggs, raise up a new generation of changelings. She'd have enough love to share with all of her offspring, and ensure they grew into the most powerful, fearsome drones she could create.

All the power she could ask for at the tips of her hooves, and all it had taken was one act of kindness.

Chrysalis grinned, and made an effort to hug Moondancer back. "Yes, yes, I am magnificent. I--"

And then the world vanished into white.

The stage beneath her drifted away, along with Moondancer's hug, as Chrysalis was lifted into the air without any use of her wings. The love that she'd stored seemed to flow through every inch of her body, every small pain that she'd grown accustomed to vanishing in a flood of comforting warmth. She could feel the holes in her legs closing, her horn repairing, so many scars from ages past mending and fading away at last.

She lost herself in the sensation of healing, and for a precious few seconds, her heart finally felt at peace.

Her hooves met the stage again at last, and the cheers were suddenly back in her ears as the ponies below radiated euphoria and awe. Her mane was a mass of resplendent curls, and bounced around her neck as Chrysalis looked down at herself, slowly, taking in a still-black carapace that faded into a royal purple at her hooves, along with the set of purple gemstones embedded at the base of her throat. Her elytra were purple as well, while her wings, as she buzzed them, revealed themselves to still be teal.

Tearing her eyes from her own form, she looked out at the ponies sharing the stage with her, and found Twilight's smirking face, looking every bit the usual self-satisfied pony princess.

She scowled, jabbing her hoof toward the alicorn before she could open her mouth. "Not. A. Word."

Agape

The legislation had moved at the speed of royal desperation.

After the mess of the Mandatory Owls Decree, Celestia had seen the way that this could spiral out of control the moment that it occurred to ponies that all princesses were covered under this law. The memories of chasing creatures out of her bedchamber with increasingly forceful methods centuries ago had her acting at a breakneck pace and invoking clauses and loopholes, the likes of which she normally only utilized during wartime or other crises, to get the patch job through.

During the process, she would find seven more old laws that would likely be trouble in the near future, and set the wheels in motion to quietly remove them as well. Luna, who'd been terribly amused since Twilight Sparkle first sent them her letter about the law, watched the entire process with increasing mirth and took comfort in the fact that, for once, her elder sister being the more popular one brought not sorrow and bitterness, but a ideal place to sit and munch on popcorn.

When the law was officially removed, they informed the newspapers and Princess Twilight Sparkle both, in that order.

The letter they got back from Twilight led to some very shocked congratulations for her grandest accomplishment. It was beyond what either could have anticipated for her, for this whole harem situation to result in such an achievement.

And once they were finished congratulating her for getting a marefriend, they patted her on the back for her successful reformation of Chrysalis, too.

"I am not reformed."

The words were spat as Chrysalis walked down the road, away from the castle and toward the train station. She'd been sent with several bottles of shampoo for the road--a much fuller mane and tail were going to require it, especially since no other reformed changelings had manes and so they had no supply of their own--as well as a bag of quinoa, which she had been spotted trying to "lose" several times during packing.

"I have not given up taking my throne back from you, traitor!" Chrysalis continued to hiss at Thorax, as he walked next to her, carrying her saddlebags himself with nary a complaint. "And I definitely haven't given up on taking my revenge on Equestria!"

"I know, but it'll be nice to be able to scheme from back in the hive now, won't it?" he responded gently, with a patient smile. "There's a lot of changelings who'll be happy to see you in such good health."

"Happy? Hmph." She bared her teeth, which had retained their sharpness despite her transformation. "They should be quaking in fear." She paused to thrust a front hoof at him forcefully. "I will have my crown back, you so-called king."

"Of course, of course." Thorax nodded agreeably. "But first, I want to show you all new things we've done since you were gone. I think you'll really like the flowers we planted..."

"Hurmph. Flowers. They had better be carnivorous. Or poisonous. Or both."

"Well, no, but they'd go very well braided into your mane..."

Twilight Sparkle watched them both go with a proud smile, and resolved to apologise to Trixie. She should have taken her statement of wanting to keep an eye on Chrysalis more seriously. Clearly all the humour at her expense had been part of her plan to befriend the former changeling queen and speed up her rehabilitation, and it'd worked like a charm.

Now, thankfully, the rest of the process was Thorax's problem.

"Well, it looks like the Great and Powerful Trixie's work here is done." Trixie pranced over, wearing a look of raw smugness, and Twilight found herself rapidly rethinking that apology, especially as she flicked her tail and batted her eyes. "I'm going to miss staying in the castle, but our little fling was nice while it lasted, Sparkledork."

Twilight sighed heavily, but held back the sarcasm that was on her tongue as Trixie also trotted off and vanished down the path. She owed her enough to let her have the last word, as much as it physically pained her to.

The pain was eased when she felt Moondancer lean against her, pale cream fur meshing with purple. "I guess, um... I guess I should be going back to Canterlot?"

"Well, you don't have to go right away." Twilight smiled gently, and opened a wing to drape around her. "Why don't we have a nice lunch first? As a proper first date?"

Moondancer smiled back. "I'd love to."

The moment lasted for exactly three and seven-eighths seconds before it shattered with the light of a teleporting Starlight. "Twilight? We might have a situation."

Moondancer reflexively started to move away, but Twilight gave her a reassuring squeeze with her wing, even as she let out a deep sigh. "What happened?"

"Did you ask Discord to come for a guest lecture?"

"Yes. I thought he'd provide a good, new perspective for the students." She suddenly saw where this was likely going. "Why?"

Starlight gave a wide, strained smile. "I miiiiiight have fired him with a banishing spell because I thought he was playing a prank?"

"You what."

"And now he's terrorizing the school in some kind of incorporeal form like a poltergeist?"

"He's what."

"Can you help smooth things over? Please?" The strained smile widened further, paired with a set of puppy-dog eyes that Twilight was certain Spike had coached her on.

Twilight Sparkle's horn lit with magic, preparing to teleport all three of them into the school so that she could unravel whatever spell Starlight had cast and talk Discord down from the no-doubt-furious state he was in. Along with apologising for forgetting to inform the staff about the plans for the lecture.

By the time she was finished, it would be past lunch, she'd be famished, and she'd have the two along for the ride on what had been supposed to be a date... but that was okay. It was the life she'd built for herself, bit by bit, in all its chaos, from the moment she'd first set hoof into Ponyville on that first Summer Sun Celebration.

The duties of the Princess of Friendship were never done, even for love.