Chrysalis shifted restlessly within the velvety darkness of her bedchamber. The sheets rasped with silken whispers as she settled into a new position. She murmured a soft note of contentment at her accommodations—a bit more than one or two steps up from the moldy hay and damp jail cell she had had such a short time ago.
Where is that wretched unicorn? Chrysalis veiled her eyes as she stared at the chamber door, as if she could will it open. She should be—
A knock broke the stillness.
“Are you ready?” Twilight asked, her voice muffled by the thick panels of wood, but low with the sound of anticipation.
Chrysalis rose in a single, fluid movement.
“Yes, yes,” she called out, “hold your horses.” Quickly stepping towards the door, she spared a moment to admire herself in her vanity mirror. Her eyes traced the edge of her slender legs, lingering on the flat of her belly. Her lips curved into a wide smile at the secret thoughts kindled in the back of her mind, and she left them to smolder as she opened the door.
Twilight waited just outside, impatience dancing across her features as she eyed Chrysalis up an down.
“All right, let’s get going,” Twilight said. She took a few steps before realizing Chrysalis hadn’t moved. She peered back over her shoulder, tail swishing to and fro. “You coming?”
“Mm.” Chrysalis smiled, eyes flicking up from where they had been lingering a moment before, prompting Twilight to blush. “Yes. Of course.” She stepped out and closed the door behind her.
They turned a few heads as they walked through the palace, but only from petitioners who had not seen them together before. The guards and serving staff gave Twilight deferential nods as befit her station, but to Chrysalis, they leveled measured gazes that lingered a moment longer than necessary before sliding away.
Despite her royal pardon—pardons, actually, signed by both Celestia and Luna—Chrysalis knew that she was as much a diplomatic prisoner as an honored guest, and the latter only due to Twilight’s intervention. If her superior sense for ferreting out deceptions hadn’t clued her in, she had only to actually reach out and touch the emotions radiating from her constant guardians.
Still, she had Twilight, and that bit of stable ground was all she needed.
For now.
Sunlight washed over them as they finally stepped out into the courtyard, and Chrysalis had to shield her eyes until they adjusted. A muttered curse about Celestia’s sun earned her a stern look from Twilight. “What? Have I offended you by insulting your teacher?”
“No,” Twilight said, giving her a patient look. “I just hate that term.”
“What?”
“‘Celestia’s sun,’” Twilight said. “The sun isn’t hers.”
She moved on without another word, though she flicked Chrysalis with the tip of her tail in passing. The movement brought Chrysalis back from where she had been lost in thought and directed her attention back onto Twilight herself. Chrysalis smiled, licked her lips, and then fell into step beside her.
“So you’re okay with us doing this?” Twilight asked as they passed through the royal gardens. “I know even for you...”
“It’s fine, Twilight.” Pebbles crunched underhoof as they walked, and Chrysalis spared a glance at the numerous statues around them, and toward one cringing in terror in particular. “Nice collection.”
“Mm.”
The garden gates closed behind them. They stepped out into a side-alley and into Canterlot proper. Though the main thoroughfares bustled with activity, the bakery next door abutted the garden walls so closely that nopony else seemed interested in using the narrow corridor. Twilight bade Chrysalis pause a moment.
“I know you have your royal pardon,” Twilight said, craning her neck, “but this might be easier if, for the time being, you... you know.” She made a vague gesture with one hoof.
Chrysalis raised an eyebrow. “If I... what?” She smiled, inwardly, though she wore a perplexed expression for Twilight’s benefit.
“Do your... you know, changeling thing?” Twilight drew her lips into a thin line as she looked Chrysalis up and down. “Not everypony is as accepting as me.”
“No. That, I’ll admit,” Chrysalis said. “Few ponies, very few ponies are as... accepting as you.” And this time, she did grin as Twilight blushed. “Why, are you embarrassed to be seen with me?’
“What? No, of course I’m not.”
But Twilight dropped her eyes, and Chrysalis could smell the truth of the matter regardless.
“You are,” Chrysalis purred. “How quaint.” She tapped her chin in idle thought, though her decision had never been in question. To let the little unicorn decide for her, that would be the day that she renounced her throne. “No. No, I think I will retain my form for our little... adventure together.” Twilight began to protest, but Chrysalis clicked her teeth together, once, and Twilight fell silent. “Now be a good little pony and tell me where we’re going and why you felt the need to be so secretive about it.”
“Well...” Twilight cast her gaze left and right before leaning in to whisper, “You know how you said you’d been wanting to try new things?”
“Yes...?” Chrysalis cocked her head. Twilight had had her full attention already (in some shape or form anyway), but now it felt as though every sense sharpened, focused on her every word.
“Well I found somepony who’s, well... he’s good, all right? Like, really good. The rest is a surprise.” Twilight dipped her head and gave what she no doubt thought was a lascivious smile. “But I think you’ll like—no, love it.”
“Mm. We’ll see.” Chrysalis placed a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder and gently spun her around so that she was facing out of the alley. An errant guard seemed to be watching them. “Very well then. Lead on.”
Daylight broke over them again as they stepped out of the shady alleyway. The hum of conversation paused as ponies stopped to glance their way, but the noise resumed a moment later.
“Huh.” Twilight looked around. “Really?”
“What?"
“No one’s panicking.”
“Did you expect them to? It’s not like I have my army here.”
“Honestly? Yes.” Twilight shook her head and then started her way down the street, and Chrysalis followed after.
They wended their way through the streets, having to push through an occasional crowd of gawking colts and fillies, but nopony seemed to care overmuch that the queen of the changeling army was casually taking a stroll through the city.
Pleasant as the day was, Chrysalis couldn’t help but stifle a sense of disappointment. Magnificence and grandeur she had in spades, but it was almost as if these ponies were used to such things. Hardly anypony seemed to even notice her as the day wore on, at least until they turned a corner around what Twilight assured her was “almost there.”
“You.”
The word sliced through the air like a dead pigeon shot out of a cannon, and Chrysalis checked a flinch before it gave away her surprise. When she saw the pony waiting for them in the middle of the alley, she smiled, her fangs dimpling her lips.
“Well, well, well,” Chrysalis said, flaring her wings. “Long time no see, Mi Amore Cad—”
“Cadance will do fine,” she said. Her eyes turned from Chrysalis to her companion. “Twilight, what are you doing?”
Twilight gave a nervous chuckle. “Well, actually I—”
“We’re having a day out,” Chrysalis said, and gave Cadance a broad smile. “Together.”
Cadance gritted her teeth, seemingly unsure of what to say or how to say it, so Chrysalis spared her the trouble.
“And what of yourself then, hm? Lurking in the shadows. Were you actually waiting here for us?”
“No! I mean, Yes!” Cadance drew back as she spluttered. “I mean... I was just out for a walk.”
Ears pivoted forward, Chrysalis drank in the sight of Cadance trying to straightface her way through an obvious lie. Her eyes drifted away from the princess and up to the darkened doorway not ten paces behind her. Wooden, nondescript, and wholly out of the ordinary for the ornate architecture of Canterlot.
“And where, pray tell, is your husband?” Chrysalis lingered on the last word.
“He’s—”
“Guard duty?” Twilight asked, drawing both sets of eyes to herself. “What?”
“Yes, guard duty,” Cadance said too quickly. She licked something thick and white off of her lips and moved towards Chrysalis, though it was as if she were edging away from the doorway more than making a bold approach. “But that’s beside the point.”
Cadance drew her brows down into a determined expression. Wings flared, she stepped forward in a low stance. “I’m here to claim what is mine,” she said. “Twilight.”
What?
“What?” Twilight said. She looked back and forth at them, though Chrysalis never broke her stare with Cadance. “No, really, I’m sorry, but what?”
“You were mine by marriage rights!” Cadance snarled and leapt into the air. “Your brother promised you to me.”
“I... wow, okay,” Twilight said, backing up until her rump struck Chrysalis’s foreleg. “I don’t think that’s really what he meant.”
“You are a fool to have come here, Princess.” Not one to be cowed by lesser mortals, Chrysalis mantled her own wings, though she did not deign to take flight just yet.
Instead, she drew upon her magic, willing dark shards of chitin into existence and forming them into a blade the length of her foreleg. Its long, slender curve held an edge on only one side, but it would be more than enough for the likes of this stripling upstart.
Cadance looked down upon them as a cold smile graced her lips. Her horn ignited as she bladecast™ her own weapon: a rapier-thin blade—
“Is that a rapier?” Twilight asked.
“Yes,” the others chorused.
—with a heart-shaped hilt that matched her cutie mark to a T.
“Do you really think your pathetic blade stands any hope against mine?” Chrysalis asked, drawing her blade through the air in a lazy arc that still sent the air whistling.
“It’s not the size of the weapon that matters, Your Majesty,” Cadance said even as she swooped in for the first strike. Sparks clashed as the blades met between them, held in place by the force of their wills. Nose to nose, they smiled at one another. “It’s how you use it.”
Cadance somersaulted backward, wings outspread to slow her descent as she vaulted over a gaping Twilight Sparkle.
“Pithy words and sharp phrases!” Chrysalis roared, crouching low as she charged forward. “But know this: she is mine, and no words of yours will change that!” Green light flared as Chrysalis drew in a breath of magic and spat it out as a sickly green fireball, hissing its way through the air as it tracked Cadance in mid-flight.
“You know, this is really un—” Twilight said, but she yelped as the fireball passed close enough to singe the tip of her nose. “Would you please stop!”
“I will never stop, Twilight!” Cadance erected a shimmering pink shield, watching with grim amusement as the fireball washed over her and disappeared. “Not until you’re mine.”
“No, really, I don’t think my brother meant that.”
Cadance rounded on her, tears of rage in her eyes. “Are you saying he lied to me?”
“I...” Twilight swallowed. “Maybe?”
“Liar!” Cadance frothed at the mouth and charged Twilight, plummeting in a meteoric dive that would have cratered the unicorn had not Chrysalis bolted across and intercepted her in midair. They landed together in a heap, blades discarded and forgotten as Cadance lay beneath Chrysalis, pinned to the ground.
“Yield!” Chrysalis said, spittle dripping from her fangs.
“Never!”
“This is completely absurd,” Twilight said to nopony in particular. “Are you two done yet?”
“Not until you swear that you’ll be mine,” Cadance said. Her hair splayed across the grimy alleyway, but the rabid determination in her eyes gave Twilight pause.
“You know, actually, I think maybe the three of us could...” Twilight glanced up and did take a step back from the force of Chrysalis’s stare. “Sorry, definitely hers.” She hastened to add, “All hers.”
Dejected, Cadance struggled to rise. Knowing her rival to be defeated—for now—Chrysalis stepped back and watched. Her eyes trailed after the princess as Cadance walked slowly out of the alleyway and disappeared around the corner.
“Well.”
“Well,” Chrysalis said. Her heart had calmed down from the madness of the fight, but it still beat a quick clip in her chest, and her blood sang with anticipation.
“Well,” she said again, “time for you to show me just what it is I’ve been fighting for.” A wicked smile curved her lips, one easily met by Twilight’s own.
Twilight went to the shadowy doorway and beckoned Chrysalis to follow suit.
A bell chimed as they stepped inside. A wash of smells rolled over them, and Chrysalis spent a moment breathing it in while her eyes adjusted to the dim lights overhead.
“Close the door!” a voice called out from the far side of the room, and Twilight obliged.
As her light-blindness faded, Chrysalis blinked rapidly, turning her head this way and that to survey the room. Twilight ambled over to speak with the proprietor, and they huddled together in quiet discussion.
“Huh.” Chrysalis let her gaze drift over shelves piled high with goods, some in jars, others in loose piles or hanging out for all the world to see. She smelled fruit-infused syrups, cloying in the tiny parlor and aching to be drizzled and lapped up; rows of tiny vials glittered on a rack, the colored liquids inside promising pain and pleasure in equal amounts. The bite of exotic spices nipped at the inside of her sinuses, and her mind filled with vague but limitless potential at what they could offer.
All around her, a wealth of pleasures had been arrayed for her perusal, and she wondered how much she could take in at once. “Not what I had thought it would be,” she said as Twilight returned, horn lit.
“Really?” she asked, taking a sip of her milkshake and offering another to Chrysalis. “What were you expecting?”
