Portrait of a Monarch

It was a day before the Crystal Fair, and tomorrow Chrysalis’s crop would be so full of love from this pony festival that she would sneak out of the city to check on her eggs and nourish them.

For now, she was bristling as she watched a very familiar pink-coated pony walk in, accompanied by another unicorn wearing a cloak.

Starlight Glimmer.

It took every ounce of Chrysalis’s strength to not throw herself across the room and tear the pony limb from limb. She didn’t even need the food, now - she would do it just because it was what Starlight deserved. She would make the other pony watch, too, just to dig the knife in a little deeper.

If she did it now, while there was no one else in the library, she would likely have enough time to clean up so that no one would notice when the pair of them vanished.

But if she didn’t?

Any delay would leave her eggs alone in that cave with no queen to support them. It was hard enough staying away for this long. She could never forgive herself if she sacrificed her future hive for revenge on a pony too stupid to even deserve it.

“Ms Maresbury, are you feeling alright?” Starlight asked.

Slowly Chrysalis lifted her head to make eye contact with Starlight. She could feel that her movements didn’t quite look natural and that the real Amethyst was a much better host than this, but the real Amethyst’s life was not built of anything meaningful like Chrysalis’s was.

“Sorry, dear, I’ve had a slow morning,” Chrysalis said. “I remember mornings as being a lot easier when I was your age! What can I help you with?”

Starlight rolled her eyes. “We’re in town for the fair, and Sunburst wanted to check out his old haunt.”

This Sunburst probably knew the real Amethyst well, then. “It’s good to see you, Sunburst. How have you been doing?” Chrysalis said.

“It’s been great! I, uh, didn’t know how well I’d adjust to Ponyville, but it’s really quite beautiful once you’re there, and Princess Twilight has given me access to her library,” Sunburst said.

Under the desk, Chrysalis was making an impatient gesture with her hoof. It was bad enough having to see Starlight; having to play nice with her was like a slap in the face.

Sunburst kept talking. Chrysalis looked at Starlight, thinking of that pivotal moment after Starlight had destroyed her throne, reaching out to her to infect her with the same poison that had claimed her hive. She had robbed her of everything and had the gall to act as though it was a kindness.

The changeling queen’s role was to feed her hive, and any good queen would do anything that it took to secure enough food for her hive to prosper. Chrysalis had cared for them since before Celestia and Luna had ruled, securing them meal after meal and growing the hive to a fearsome size, and they had cast her away as though she had been doing them wrong. Those pocks on her legs were proof of how committed she had always been to her hive; she had gone toe to toe with an alicorn and walked away with permanent scars to try and help her subjects prosper.

Chrysalis realised that she had been looking vacantly at the air between Sunburst and Starlight while Sunburst prattled on.

“Let’s let Ms Maresbury get back to her work, Sunburst,” Starlight said. “Will we see you at the Crystal Fair?”

“Yes, you will. I’m looking forward to it,” Chrysalis managed to say.

“I - I’ll be up with the Princess, you know, Amethyst. As Flurry’s crystaller, I’ve been called as a guest of honour,” the orange pony said, tipping his nose upwards proudly. When he brought his nose back down again he had to adjust his glasses back into place.

Chrysalis calmed herself, let the words flow into her mouth from what she knew of Amethyst. She was an expert. “I always knew you had something special in you, Sunburst,” she said. There. That was the kind of foolish nonsense ponies were always saying to each other.

Sunburst flushed and smiled at her, thanking her, and then left to show Starlight around the library. Chrysalis watched them go. She had decided to let them live, but there was no harm in imagining a world where she had chosen otherwise.

Excerpt: Palaeopony Era Evidence For Interspecies Interdependence, chapter 8

In prior chapters we have described interdependence as primarily cooperative (mutualistic) or commensal. This chapter we will examine interdependent relationships which fall under parasitism or predation.

Evidence for predatory relationships between other species and ponies are abundant. It is not uncommon to find cave deposits exhibiting wear and injuries on pony bones that are consistent with the feeding patterns of dragons or manticores, and coproliths from roc nesting sites provide additional support for the body of evidence that predation by a broad variety of carnivores during the palaeopony period was a significant risk for these early pony societies. This evidence will be discussed later in the chapter.

Due to the lack of hard tissue such as bones in the anatomy of parasites the preserved evidence for parasitic behaviour is more difficult to analyse. The abundant history of protozoan diseases such as marealia and myoencephalitis in preclassical and ancient pony societies would likely indicate that these parasitic relationships stretch further back than historical record. Furthermore, in finely preserved sedimentary fossil beds it is possible to find evidence of protozoa in the bodies of preserved insects and in coprolite specimens from transmissionary animals within the range of pony habitation at the time.

Eukaryotic parasites that affect ponies vary from the smallest internal worms to botflies all the way up to changelings. Evidence for the smaller parasites such as nematodes and arthropods has been found on some early pre-pony fossils and it can be safely assumed from the presence of these same parasites in related species such as kirin and zebras that this relationship precedes the evolution of the pony species.

Changelings, being a magical predator that does not remove tangible resources from their prey, can be considered in a class of their own. This can be reflected in their size, being of the same or larger size than their prey, and by their eusocial organisation which allows them to attack wider populations of prey rather than target a single organism.

The first known conclusive evidence for the presence of changelings in or around any pony civilisation is the remains of an early hive that was discovered in the San Palomino desert. The dry and natron-filled sand of this desert provided a unique preservative environment for this hive and it has proved an invaluable resource for researchers wanting a safe analogue of a living hive to study.

The nearest settlement to this hive in San Palomino was the trading hub of Burro’s Tail, which experienced its peak in habitation shortly before the course of the Fountaingrass River changed, bringing the majority of the river into underground cave systems and preventing its use for drinking and irrigation. However, clay tablets recovered from Burro’s Tail indicate that the impact of the local changeling population on the town was significant, with rises in town population associated with increases in changeling population, and significant population troughs following these rises. This can likely be attributed to the lower reproductive rate and the increase in child mortality seen in populations drained of love by changelings.

Chrysalis had to admit that she had not before considered that a changeling population might dip when they ran out of food. There was always more food, or there always had been, and keeping a hungry hive working was the best way to keep all eyes on the target.

“Hiya!”

She startled and bared her teeth for just a moment before affecting Amethyst’s weak smile. A pale yellow pegasus pony with a shock of brown and neon red hair was leaning on the counter and casting his eyes all around the library.

Chrysalis wondered if real pony librarians ever got tired of the fact that ponies were always coming in to talk to them.

“I’m looking for a book my friend told me about,” the pegasus said.

“What is it called, dearie?” Chrysalis said.

“I don’t remember, sorry. It was about …. Uhm……” The pegasus retrieved a note from his saddlebag and read it out. “Inbuilt weatherproofing in Crystal Empire architecture.”

Chrysalis had been asked about the crystal buildings by one of the children yesterday and was able to fob off the pegasus to the architecture section to have a look around.

Ponies were so disorganised. If such information was needed in a changeling hive, Chrysalis would deputise someone to gain and hold the knowledge, not spread it out with whichever of her subjects felt like learning about it.

When Chrysalis had been a worker in the hive, she had been chosen by Alate to teach the newly hatched grubs how to defend themselves. Camouflage lessons while they were still larvae, and once they pupated, she had taught them how to fight. Other workers took care of the feeding and cleaning and medical care for the grubs, and another set of drones decided which grubs were to be culled.

Alate’s death had led to a temporary chaos in the hive until Tarsus’s body had told her she was to become their new queen. Tarsus hadn’t been interested in organising the hive and keeping everyone to their assigned tasks, so Chrysalis taken charge, and the hive had flowed smooth like honey ever since.

Until Thorax. Thorax was another Tarsus, really; a weak leader popular only because he was too soft to enforce any of the rules that would keep the hive productive. Chrysalis had heard and seen from afar his new hive overgrown with choking plants and with no dedicated nursery or food stores. It was only through the goodwill of his new pony allies that his hive would survive, and all of Chrysalis’s foolish prior subjects with him.

This library in itself was a symptom of pony weakness. The one benefit was how much easier it was to keep all this information in order when it was organised in writing. When Chrysalis’s new hive was up and running, she would teach some of her subjects to read and write, if only so they could record her deeds for all of history.