The Queen and the Infinite
‘Queen Vistaspa!’ the child cried, excited to meet her for their scheduled study session.
The queen was sitting on a couch, a table partially strewed with paper and books. She laughed. ‘Surely we are closer than the simple relationship between a monarch and her subject.’
‘But…’ The child’s running slowed to a walk. ‘You are my queen… I am your subject. You are not my mother…’
Vistaspa moved books and papers around in useless motions, readjusting and reordering what needed no further arrangement. She looked displeased. ‘And you are my heir. The one I chose to continue my legacy, dear.’
She mangled the child’s mane as the young one came to sit beside her.
‘Why me?’ her voice barely exiting in a whisper.
‘You have potential,’ declared the queen. She took the child with an arm, gently pushing her too close. ‘I adopted you – that is true – and even if only distantly, we are related. I am sorry for what happened to your true mother; maybe she could have been better than I am at being a maternal figure, but I will try.’
‘Can I ask?’ her voice was plain and direct.
The regain of confidence made Vistaspa’s smile widen, recalling the reason she chose this child over others. ‘Of course.’
‘Why no children of your own?’
Vistaspa did not answer immediately; her smile faded away. She caressed the child’s arm in nervous movements. ‘I…’ she made a dry cough. ‘I was not able to. I was starving…’
‘But you are queen… A queen never starves.’
Vistaspa puffed in nervous amusement. ‘I am not immune to hunger. I never had the disposition to have children.’ Her tone suddenly lowered to a painful, rumbling mumble. ‘I wish I could have.’
The child lowered her gaze, feeling embarrassed for a reason that escaped her.
‘Understand what I mean?’
The child only nodded.
‘Anyways.’ The queen caressed the child’s arm one last time. ‘We need to start.’
‘Stay focused,’ Vistaspa ordered.
The child widened her eyes and took a long, deep inhalation. She pushed her exhaustion away, hiding it deeper in her mind. She felt her head ridding itself of an invisible weight. She smiled, but it was only momentary.
‘C-can we stop…’ she failed to make herself not beg.
‘When the topic settles in your head,’ she grunted.
‘Now I get why you have no children…’ the child murmured, hiding her mouth with an upward arm.
‘Watch your words!’
The girl’s head was propelled forward. Her muzzle slammed into the book – a section about the Times of Troubles around one thousand years ago. A period the child was not particularly interested in.
‘Sorry!’ yelled the child, attempting to lessen the pain with her claw by holding her muzzle. She wanted to cry at the coursing pain, but she needed to be strong. Not weak.
Vistaspa judgmentally looked down at the girl. Her scornful gaze shifted to a more motherly demeanor. The queen caressed where she had slapped the child and offered her a treat – a sweet fruit they took from Equestria, one she forgot the name of.
‘I, too, excuse myself.’ She pushed papers away from them. ‘Finish this, and we can go to sleep.’
‘I don’t want to wake up early.’
The queen sighed. ‘Better get used to it now, Chrysalis.’
Chrysalis stayed silent for a minute. The quiet only broke by the sound of rotating pearls hitting its sisters.
‘I am glad you like my gift,’ thoughtfully said Vistaspa.
The child smiled. She did like her gift. ‘Can I get a story?’
The queen smiled back, happy to hear this innocent request. ‘Sure. I doubt you will stay awake, but I will read you a story. An idea of what you want?’
‘Any story. I just want…’
****
‘…a story…’ Her mouth opened and closed. It was awfully dry. ‘… with a good ending…’ she wearily continued, forcing the memory of her mother away, burying it as if it had never resurfaced.
Chrysalis opened her eyes to a bizarrely familiarly tainted darkness. She wore a sad expression, lips corners pulled down, and her stare was evasive. She wanted to return to her dream, to experience that period of her life once more.
She raised a claw to the base of her neck. Nothing greeted her back. She dropped the claw in great defeat, letting it dangle in the cold cavernous air.
She posed on a leaning metal table. Uncomfortable at best, but she did not want to get up. She did not have the strength to do it. She waited for whoever had taken her to that cavern to put her back asleep once more.
A long sigh. She felt losing weight because of it – more than she had already lost.
She bent her arms, ready to get up. She did not. She wanted to sleep. All things considered, it had been a good memory.
As she had always done, Chrysalis pushed the want aside, burying it.
‘Always bottling up, Queen Chrysalis.’
Her head snapped in instant awareness. A voice that should not be. Not anymore. The voice of one of the few creatures in this world she once trusted and… valued.
Did she truly hear Coccinelle’s voice? She was dead… It was-
‘Impossible,’ she said aloud, once again forcing the truth upon herself, loathing her weakness.
‘So you care for the Morph, once Unicorn-mare, named Coccinelle?’
The echoing metallic, sarcastic voice did not perturb her much. It was as if she had expected him. She remembered being able to quickly mount a defense against any opponent. All her forces had been extinguished.
‘Surprised to hear her once again, Queen Chrysalis?’ he laughed.
She did not care. The hunched figure, his crooked smile etched upon what seemed metal, his eyes glowing in a color she wanted to forget about, was illuminated by the cursed hue of his staff.
Trazyn the Infinite made small steps, resonating metal hitting the rock with purpose.
Her head felt heavy. The back of her neck was cold now, and she sensed something running down her back, clattering her wings. She was angry. She hated him.
She took a long inhalation. She thought her perennial headaches would have accommodated her to the void she was experiencing.
Chrysalis closed her eyes once more.
‘You won’t experience a thing of what you did, Queen Chrysalis.’
She answered back, slightly opening her eyes to the looming Infinite. ‘Why?’
‘That was how biotransference had occurred – according to some,’ he plainly stated.
‘What are you, thing?’
‘I am the Overlord of Solemnace, the Arch-Archivist of the Infinite Empire, He-who-is-called-infinite, the Preserver of Fragmented Memories, Keeper of Last Moments-’
‘Titles,’ she rasped, laughing at his needless bolstering. ‘Nice titles. Means nothing, creature. I did not get my answer, however.’
He placed his metallic hand next to her. She did not react.
‘I am a member of the Necrontyr race-’
‘You are not from our world, then’ interrupted Chrysalis, totally ignoring his presence. ‘You and those dregs behind you.’
‘You saw them?’ he asked, his interest peaking.
‘I heard them enter. Their warned sliver resembles bronze. A metal that must show how low you must rank in that “Infinite Empire”, creature,’ she made a mockery of the empire’s name. ‘Or your empire is a shadow of its former self, or you fell on hard times. You landed upon me, after all.’
Trazyn slowly lifted himself up. She was sure he did not appreciate her joke. Good.
‘Your enemy – Celestia – destroyed one of my lychguards. She had even managed to kill me.’
‘But you survived, thing,’ she smiled. ‘I guess being defeated by her is something we have in common.’
‘No question on how I survived?’
‘I don’t care. I remember now how she feared green colors.’ She laughed. ‘You left something within her. I bet your guards are quite sturdy also.’
‘Interesting…’ He slowly walked away from her, letting his hand idly slide around her favorite chair at the moment.
‘What?’
‘Interesting how differently you and she have reacted. She was positively stunned. The most out of the many I interrogated.’
She could not help but to laugh at Celestia’s weakness. ‘Her sister surely wasn’t the same.’
‘Her sister is a foul being. Petulant and immature. Undeserving of praise for she only asks for pettiness through callbacks to wrongs of her own making.’
She laughed again. ‘I concur. Both are. Unlike Celestia, I was strong enough to challenge my beliefs. And only in challenging beliefs, to not follow them so dogmatically, is strength born.’ She chuckled dryly. ‘Biotransference… You were not metal, originally?’
He surprised himself with the straightened pose he took. ‘Yes. At first-’
‘Wonderful, creature. I don’t care for more details. By your lack of insistence, I judge that either you are weak of mind or you have already extracted all you wanted from me.’
He let his staff fall on Chrysalis, gripping hold of it just before it could rupture any vital organ or bother to undergo their healing procedures.
‘I recommend that you stop in your pestering,’ his voice boomed.
‘I cannot control my own creations. Do you really think that I care?’
‘Why Cadance?’ he nonchalantly asked.
‘She was the easiest to get a claw onto.’
He laughed. A loud, metallic loud ringing of antiquity and mockery.
‘I think you found some kindred in her.’ Chrysalis frowned. ‘Someone you felt you could relate to, but an emotion you could – and still do – only interpret as envy.’
‘Envy to be a simple piece of furniture. Barely relevant if it or did not exist, or barely mattering if it is replaced by one or another that can occupy the same meaningless, powerless, useless role as a mere puppet? Is that, creature, you that seemingly scried my entire life, think of it being envy?’
‘I guess not-’
‘Then, kindly, shut up.’
He slammed the butt of his staff on the rocky ground, shattering in an immense boom the rock beneath. The effect failed to impress Chrysalis as he wished it would. Nevertheless, it made her shut up. ‘But what I can tell, is that no matter how much you debate me or ignore me, you – the Changeling that now is in front of me – is not the great that once was. your recent debacle proves it; they did not even know you had done a thing.’ She grunted. ‘In brief: you have fallen far. You are mad, chasing liberation denied through revenge. Once my kind, during the Times of Flesh, we had been so. We were dying before biotransference. But, the action of Szarekh, the Last and Greatest of the Silent Kings, gave us salvation. For a time, it was so. But we were tricked. And Great Szarekh, in revenge for the wrong he unwantedly brought to his kind, avenged all wrongs. We shattered those beings we once called “gods”, enslaving them utterly to our will.’
He paused theatrically, then continued. ‘We did not go gentle into that good night. We raged, and raged against the dying of the light.’
She passively waited, thinking he might add more. ‘And what are you about, thing?’ she did not feel anger or spite; she felt nothing.
‘It is part of an old Human poem I acquired. I think it resumes yours and our lives quite well.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You raged when your mother died. You raged against the failure of ending your people’s starvation. You raged when both those you trusted the most died.’
‘They were loyal,’ said Chrysalis, the emotion lost to her as she paused a second to ponder. She only snapped back when she felt the leering smile behind that metallic faceplate. ‘I am not sure why.’
Trazyn raised a finger, placed it on the raging Changeling mouth, and proceeded to delete everything she said – nobody interrupts the Overlord of Solemnace. ‘You raged when you deemed the world unjust for plaguing you with nightmares. You raged when you failed and failed, never yielding when everything told you it was over. Some would call it defiance; I call it madness. You strode into oblivion, thinking you could avert it. You could not. You cannot. You deceived yourself into a folly that was all of your own making. You were blind to possibilities outside your own design. When we were flesh, we advanced our science to its apex; we spread across the stars; we became relevant. Your “first ones”, and unlike ours, they would accept to assist. Your encounter with the Two-Souls mongrel is proof of it. You could have used others to bring down the Chimeras and their downtrodden subjects. Bring them nightma-’
‘I was never chased by monsters in my nightmares,’ said Chrysalis. ‘I am not sure normal creatures would have called them nightmares either.’ She paused. ‘But,’ she smiled, showing the Infinite her still immaculate fangs, ‘I was always followed by ones in real life. And I saw the more classic looking awful, to whatever abomination you are, Trazyn the Infinite.’
‘It is funny you think yourself having the upper hand right here.’ He slowly clapped, holding his staff with his inner elbow. ‘Truly you Unclean cannot but grasp life in the weirdest ways possible. When we were flesh, we accepted our lives were fleeting. We tried to make everything second of our existence a piece of the greater whole of our civilization. We fought against constant illness. And yet, we made a place in the stars. And through our genius, we created weapons that can render your world non-extant in seconds. So, kindly, shut your whore mouth and let me speak.’
She made faint of the last part. ‘Commendable. But I don’t see how it differs from our struggles, decrepit buffoon.’ She took a gander at the passively standing Necron guardians. ‘We are meeting nearly similar problems. But, unlike you, we don’t seem to lack the use of magic. By the gnawing headache you subjected me to, I can judge that your advancements lack the means of true control over everything. And you lack the ability to make more of yourselves. So, in truth, you are weak. You are a dying kind that should have never been permitted continuance. You are heading to oblivion. And, dearest Trazyn, as the whore I am, I kindly say: go fuck yourself.’ She got up, resisting through years of experience the wobbling that came with great exhaustion. ‘I am leaving, creature.’
Trazyn let her pass him by. Then, he waved his hand in aggressive dismissal.
‘You will die alone,’ he muttered. ‘Forgotten, ill-remembered, a misère-queen with no kingdom, no people, no wealth, and no support.’
Chrysalis momentarily paused, only a split second, and then moved on.
‘Answer me this,’ she shouted with all the authority she could wield, surprising the Infinite for its compelling force. He laughed to himself, amused by her fit of anger. He saw her frown. ‘If you are so powerful, why bother taking time to talk with me? With others? I can understand the way you might see us as simple animals.’ Trazyn perceived the faintest sight of a leering smile being drawn on the Changeling’s expression ‘But, I know of the loneliness superiority brings. And you, Infinite, you and your kind, are equally mad. Through eternity, I believe you have turned more dogmatic, dissolving all your beings into what had once brought you solace. Trazyn the Infinite stands in front of me, but I am sure nothing of what was remains still. Call me mad, but I am not lost to passion turned into obsessions. In that thought, aren’t we all equally mad?’
At this, the Overlord of Solemnace offered no verbal rebuttal.
The two lychguards turned in unison bringing their might into the corridor Chrysalis took, alighting it with their range weapons. Trazyn heard Chrysalis stumble and run. He turned his scanners, projected the reading into moving light, and laughed at the running Changeling, wrongfully thinking her end had come.
****
‘Finally, someone that made you shut up!’ cheered Orikan. But Trazyn remained evermore quiet, and that worried him. ‘Did she harm you with her magic?’
‘No,’ he grumbled, showing his back to the Diviner. ‘But she’s a whore,’ he concluded.
If he could still smile, Orikan’s would have been one of pure enjoyment at the thing unfolding in front of him.
‘Old Trazyn likes an Unclean,’ teased Orikan.
Trazyn stayed quiet and silently headed to the bridge.
Orikan turned to the collection of flying sapients captured, frozen in time in hard light.
The Infinite’s expedition to that cursed world brought many of the incalculable myriads of creatures that have somehow risen to sapience. Trazyn had categorized them into groups of their different kind. However, it was obvious that the Infinite had a preference for a particular group. One of the few lacking the damned psykana of others.
‘Your opinion on that uncouth behavior?’
Of course, no one answered. Orikan stared at the blank stares of the group, delighting in the quiet despair radiating out from the silence of their eternal prison.
The Diviner crooked his head, wondering if he should bring them some food like the Pest-humans would do to their own pets. In fact, he imagined many to fit quite nicely in enclosures. With an outwardly unspoken order, Orikan ordered part of the hard-light field to be dropped. The override cryptek followed the command.
‘I-’ a blue-feathered male Griffon responded in a loud, agonizing grunt. He grasped onto an air too pure to be natural. It burnt his lungs like fire and seethed his eyes. The Griff stumbled, limping in stubborn defiance to the illness that hunched sorcerer-mage did to him. Orikan stopped his forward march with the butt of his staff. Then, in a movement too quick for the Griff to notice, Orikan made him fall on his face.
‘And please,’ Orikan studied him with a long look with his single eye, musing at the cowering look it drew on his animal expression, ‘do not answer with a song,’ he laughed, the laughter gradually fading as he heard back his own echo and a thought came to him.
‘Now, I am curious, Unclean.’ Orikan mimicked a sitting position with his serpentine body. ‘Why do you people sing that much?’
‘A-ask-’ He coughed, disgusting Orikan. ‘Ask this to the grass-eaters…’ the answer was agonizing.
‘Ahh!’ laughed the Diviner. ‘But, you see, I don’t like those rogue witch-mages. In turn, even speaking to one brings me the unnatural urge to kill them. And sullying myself with their entrails is not something I particularly wish for.’
‘I…’ the Griff swallowed, scared to raise his head. ‘I can understand the sentiment. I guess…’
Orikan laughed even more.
The Diviner grabbed the Griff by the back of his neck, effortlessly lifting the creature into eyesight.
The Griff was a miner. For a full decade, he had shaped crystal jewels for the ever-hungry, ever-demanding, ever-veracious Pony bastards of Equestria. He had taken the job from his father, and he from his. One family amongst many. Families to feed the capricious Equestrian nobility and arrogant populace for what they saw as more earnest trinkets than those twisted by spells. He hated them. He wanted to leave but he could not return to Griffonstone; there they were making a good buck. However, breaking the tight net forged in the Kingdom was impossible. His father, and he, in turn, taught his son to stay strong. To use the spite brought by the toil to add to the family’s chest and use it to build something new in Griffonstone.
Mustering the hatred in him, he opened his eyes only to shift into a look of terror as he looked into the cyclops’ eye.
He heard the cyclops almost chuckle. And when Orikan took the Griff between his arms, petting his back and letting the creature take a look at his surroundings, the Griff only hoped his son would do fine.
‘I know of your history, Galleon,’ maliciously said the Diviner.
