The Queen of Canterlot

Night Light and Twilight Velvet had a life plan, developed as they lay tangled in each other's embrace in Velvet’s college dorm room. First, they were going to screw like rabbits. Then they were going to finish their degrees. Then they were going to get married right out of college, and move into the old house Velvet’s family owned in Canterlot. Night Light was going to become a lampmaker, and Twilight Velvet was going to become an author. Then they were going to have two children named Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor and live happily ever after.

They did screw like rabbits, much to the irritation of the students on the other side of Velvet’s thin dorm room walls. Methodically impatient, they planned their wedding for the day after graduation, and Velvet carried her husband over the threshold into their new home. He found employment enchanting magical lanterns that glowed without flame, and she got two short stories published in respectable periodicals. And in time, she became pregnant with twins -- a colt and a filly -- and all was well.

Until, one night, Twilight Velvet complained of a dull pain in her stomach, which turned into a stabbing pain and cold sweat. Night Light rushed her to the hospital, where she was swarmed by so many doctors he could not see her. He could only hear her screaming and see the blood running down the operating table onto the floor.

As the result of the heroic efforts of many doctors, Twilight Velvet survived, and after several weeks she left the hospital with her children. Twilight they moved into a crib in the master bedroom, and Shining they buried in the yard under the lemon tree.

Their relationship was cold, for a time. They made excuses that they were dealing with a newborn, who often cried and needed attention. It was common, they said, for new parents to find less time for intimacy. Yet though they could not admit it, each understood the truth, that they could not look at the other without being reminded of what had happened, and what would never happen. Twilight Velvet touched the scar on her belly and cried, and Night Light rolled over in bed and looked away.

“We should adopt.”

They would later argue about which one of them said it first, but in time they appeared at an orphanage for children in need of loving parents. The civil war in the Changeling Nation had filled orphanages around the world with little black-shelled insects who would starve if they were not loved. The orphanage staff hugged and sang to them and cared for them as best they could, but the little things were obviously malnourished.

The one they picked was non-verbal, a little changeling drone the size of a two-year old who couldn’t say a word. She hadn’t said a word, the staff explained, since her birth family was gunned down in front of her. She wore dog tags, listing her health information and providing her name: Chrysalis.

Perhaps they picked her out of pity. Perhaps they picked her because to pick a pony orphan would have felt somehow negligent. Perhaps the thought of a creature that would die if it was not loved was simply too tragic to bear. It was an emotional decision, and neither Twilight Velvet nor Night Light would later recall exactly how they made it. They brought Chrysalis home, and set her up with her own bed across the hall.

For days, Chrysalis didn’t speak. She obeyed every command given to her, was quiet and helpful and meek, and nuzzled against Velvet’s leg like a cat. But no matter what Velvet said, in Equestrian or out of her Vespid phrasebook, the little changeling would not say a word.

Until the day Velvet showed Chrysalis Shining’s grave, and told her about their dead son, and that even though she never met him she missed him very much.

That night, Twilight Velvet was awoken from her sleep to find her dead son staring at her.

It was Shining Armor, just as she’d imagined -- a rambunctious little colt with a white coat and his father’s blue mane. He looked up at her as she’d always imagined her son would, eyes full of familial affection and a need for his mother.

In the darkness, she froze. Dark thoughts flitted through her head, and many other ponies would have acted upon them, lashed out at the monster before her, who wore the skin of her dead child.

“Chrysalis,” she said. “What are you doing?”

She hadn’t expected an answer.

“I’m Shining Armor,” he replied, in an impression of a young colt’s voice that was not particularly good, an uncanny valley hybridization of the voices of the other colts they had met in the orphanage. “I’m sorry. I can feel you loved him a lot.”

“I did love him a lot,” Twilight Velvet said, voice thick. Tears welled in her eyes. “But you don’t have to pretend to be him. We’ll love you for who you are.”

But the little colt in front of her put both hooves up on the edge of the bed and said. “I’m sorry. I promise I’ll be a good son.” And in a voice that was ever so faintly frightened. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Velvet said. “It’s okay. You can… come here. Come here.”

She pulled him into bed, and hugged him until they both fell asleep.