The Queen of Canterlot

“You aren’t happy.”

In the alleyway behind the old grocery store, where Chrysalis and Cadence came face to face for the first time, a sudden stillness broke the scene. On some unspoken cue, no drone moved, no drone spoke, they didn’t buzz or laugh. They accentuated their queen’s words with silence, that Cadence should have no shelter to hide behind.

“Well, I appreciate your concern,” Cadence said, after a stiff silence. “But really—”

“Tell me,” Chrysalis chuckled, and her smile showed her fangs. “Have you ever had the urge, the desire, to do something you know society wouldn’t approve of? I don’t mean petty disobedience. Something your elders really wouldn’t like.”

“I don’t have a problem with graffiti,” Cadence attempted to steer the conversation back on topic, “if you want to tag buildings you—”

“If you won’t answer, Princess, then I will answer for you,” Chrysalis’s voice downshifted, detached and dour, the tone of one observing upon a tragedy that it is too late to prevent. “The answer is yes, you have, but you’ve buried those impulses, somewhere so deep and dark you’ve been able to convince yourself they never existed. Your parents wanted a traditional marriage, so you’ve forgotten that your first crush was a mare and you pretend that the lingerie magazine you kept hidden under your mattress was a phase.”

Chrysalis locked her slitted eyes upon Cadence, and by that gaze alone, pinned her to the spot: “You tell yourself that the path Celestia laid out for you is right and true, you tell yourself you’re happy, over and over again in your head so you won’t think about the fact that you’ve never known anything else. You tell yourself you never stare at Canterlot University, and wonder what it would be like to be a student, to be different. To study something other than politics and magic and royalty. You tell yourself you don’t get angry. That a princess is never sad.”

And with a hiss, she finished: “And when Celestia told you alicorns can’t have children, you told her you never wanted any, because you couldn’t face the thought that this path laid out for you wasn’t what you wanted. You are unhappy, Princess. You are desperately, desperately unhappy, as we were unhappy in our fancy homes and with our adoring families. We come here because we can admit it, and you go on your little night walks because you can’t.”

Cadence stood fixed to the spot for the eternity of the monologue, and as it went on, her body language grew stiff and her eyes wide. Fear showed there, as this creature before her rattled off details of her life, things it shouldn’t know. Things it couldn’t know, that she’d never told anyone, and those old legends that changelings could read thoughts bubbled up in her mind.

“I’m feeling unsafe now,” she said. “And I’d like to leave.”

Chrysalis gestured. The drones parted to let her go, and as Cadence stumbled out, Chrysalis called: “You can always come back if you change your mind.”

The hive sat in silence until Cadence was out of sight, and it was only once they were sure she was gone that one of them said: “Wow, that was badass.”

“Super badass,” another agreed.

“Thanks,” said Chrysalis. “Sorry, I… kind of panicked there. I…” Her wings buzzed against her shell. “I’m going to go home.”

“Yeah, actually,” one of the drones said, “she’s like, a princess? She could call the police. We should all go.”

“Oh fuck, yeah,” another agreed. “Let’s get out of here.”

They all turned back into prim and proper Canterlot children, and Shining went home. And when he returned home, he found Cadence already sitting outside his parent’s house. It was their night out, and Twilight was with Celestia, so the house was dark. The princess of love sat on the steps.

“Cadence?” Shining called, picking up his pace to a trot. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I just need my special somepony to hold me for a while.”

He told her he loved her, and they lay there on the couch together until Twilight and his parents got home.