Passive Aggressive Negotiations
“Why, yes, Celestia, I think the tea does smell particularly delectable today,” Queen Chrysalis said to her humble host, Princess Celestia herself. “Honestly, you should have my subjects sample such a tea like this.”
“Queen Chrysalis,” Princess Celestia barked to the queen opposite of her. “You know that as a means of diplomacy, we cannot let many of your… kind… in here.”
“My… My kind?!” Chrysalis stammered, breaking her concentration of magic holding her teacup in the air to shatter on the ground. “And what do you mean by that, fair princess?”
“Queen Chrysalis, you know that your changelings are a restless bunch,” Celestia nervously responded. They’d simply cause an insurgence and-”
“I thought that this was a trust-building engagement,” Chrysalis responded with a hint of ire in her voice. “Not a hoof-pointing competition!”
An awkward silence filled the hallowed room, with Chrysalis’s voice resonating through the large and empty chamber. Celestia spent that time of disconcerting silence tending to her tea, while Chrysalis gave a sinister smirk of deviance.
WHAT A WONDERFUL TEA PARTY…
It was definitely a day to be known to every pony in Canterlot that day. Two months after the attempted changeling invasion of said city and the queen of the changelings herself, Queen Chrysalis, made her first appearance to the city since that day. The town was equipped for a changeling army, but she came with an underwhelming amount of changelings to accompany her, having a hoofful of esteemed changeling representatives obediently following behind her like subservient dogs.
Of course, the citizens of Canterlot weren’t at too much of a burden with the changelings as much as the royal guards of Canterlot patrolling the outskirts of the city. Of course, captain of the guard Shining Armor was entrusted to set up another magical shield across the once battle-torn city, along with the countless amounts of guards staying vigilant around the shield all in preparation for a sudden changeling invasion. Risks like last time were not to be overlooked, as Princess Celestia herself administered magical checks on each guard sent to patrol the shield, including the unicorn proxying for the absent Shining Armor, to check for changelings in disguise. Such mistakes as prior were expected not to be replicated.
The changeling representatives were sequestered to an isolated room, away from their queen, as they took their seats and deliberated with the adversarial pony representatives. Endless bickering over changeling rights and reparations for what occurred during their last “visit” erupted, which led the guards guarding the room to subsequently leave, muttering that, to save their ears, they’d have to make some “just” sacrifices, such as “stinking bureaucrats” like those.
At the end of the arrangement, the intimidating Queen Chrysalis was isolated in a grand, opulent chamber with the stalwart Princess Celestia, with the attendance of Celestia’s royal guards secretly monitoring their conversation outside of the grand hall. Of course, with a hall that resonated voices easily through its impressive, grand structure, it wouldn’t be much of a challenge at all for the guards to hear what was going on. Celestia was warned prior to the “isolation” of her safety, but the princess proved to be the foolhardy type, convinced that she could end the negotiations with the malevolent queen with relative ease.
Adorned in her familiar regal garb, Celestia chose to have the negotiation present itself as a cordial event, her having the ultimate goal of reforming Chrysalis through negotiation and alliance-building. So, she felt that a humble tea party would set the stage for a potential alliance with the rival changeling kingdom. However, these thoughts of amiableness and trust did not set herself apart from her prominent memories of the changelings and what they’ve done. She was prepared for almost anything to happen.
The table between the vicious queen and the calm princess wasn’t a relatively foreboding one; it was a pristine marble table, adorned with an opulent, deep purple tablecloth, with assorted snacks like crumpets and small cookies and teapots of warm, rich-smelling tea emanating from their spouts. The table itself was long enough for both leaders to comfortably see each other without the risk of belligerent strangulation. They both sat upon cushiony, fat pillows that matched the tablecloth, providing the hegemons of their societies a comfortable place to wage verbal war against the other.
“Well, well, well, my fair Celestia,” Chrysalis spoke to the princess coyly, circling the mouth of a replaced teacup with her hoof as she gave the princess a crooked glare. “How could I ever trust if this tea is poisoned or not if I just blindly accept the fact that I can trust my potential enemy ‘trusts’ it?”
The princess began to grow annoyed with the queen’s demands. She raised valid points, yes, but Celestia was unsettled by the fact that Chrysalis was so perceptive to any possible tricks she could have orchestrated.
“Well, I do insist that you enjoy the tea,” Celestia casually pressured her suspicious guest, a notice of slight strain within her voice. “But if you truly don’t trust that tea, I can have a guard sample it for you.”
“You would do that for me?” Chrysalis faked a voice of gratification, clasping her hooves together in false excitement. “Surely you care so much for your guest. Send in one of your peons to test the tea then.”
Celestia let out an exhausted sigh as she called out a name, which happened to have matched the name of the guard that immediately entered the chamber, looking intrepid and obedient. The immediacy of the guard’s entrance proved to only vindicate her suspicions of distrust the princess has for Chrysalis.
“Sir,” Celestia politely but sternly addressed the guard. “I need for you to take a sip of our guest’s tea.”
The guard nodded his head in acceptance and made a slow trot towards the terrifying changeling queen. Changelings weren’t a common sight for a Canterlot guard, so the presence of her long and decrepit figure sent chills down his spine.
“I don’t have all day, peon,” the queen scoffed. “Test it while it’s warm!”
The guard exuded a small level of fear, which Chrysalis could instantly recognize and drink in, letting out a small grin knowing that she could strike fear in Celestia’s most elite guards with her simple presence. The guard finally approached the bothered queen’s cup and, as he attempted to take the cup himself, Chrysalis used her magic to levitate the teacup out of his reach, floating it above his head.
“Here,” Chrysalis spoke to the chilled guard, having a sudden change of demeanor to speak to him coyly. “How about I administer the tea to you myself?”
Celestia nervously watched Chrysalis use her magic to slowly deliver a generous sip of tea to the guard’s mouth, with the guard’s legs trembling before and after the tea was administered. Chrysalis, drinking in more of the guard’s fear as he drank the tea, was agitating Celestia, to the point where she had to break it up.
“Chrysalis!” she fired at the queen. “That’s e-”
“You will use the correct prefix when addressing visiting royalty, Princess Celestia,” Chrysalis calmly interrupted, still transfixed on the trembling soldier and the tea pouring. “Lest you want me to leave before the real negotiations and all.”
The princess remained on her pillow, indignantly staring at her own soldier being used as a toy for her enemy’s amusement. She was earnestly attempting to create a form of trust with the stubborn queen, but spectacles like this were wearing her thin.
“Oh, dear,” Chrysalis stated with faux concern to the thirst-quenched but fear-filled guard. “You drank all of the tea, didn’t you?”
Chrysalis had eyeballed a forlorn teapot next to the center of the table, close to her. A casual flow of steam was billowing from the opulent teapot as it drew to her fancy. She let go of the teacup she was administering to the bewildered guard, balancing it on his head and silently telling him to “hold it,” and used her magic to sway the teapot in the air. She hovered it over the guard’s head, tilting it slightly.
“While I can trust the fact that you’re not dead yet from the teacup,” Chrysalis stated. “Then you wouldn’t mind sampling my next source of tea, now would you?”
Celestia had then lifted herself from her pillow, resting her forearms on the table, focusing on Chrysalis. The agitated princess began to draw breath to bark at the exasperating queen, only to stop dead in her tracks by the queen’s malicious stare. Chrysalis was fixing her eyes at Celestia while tilting her head downward, giving a deviant look and a sly smile that silently read to the princess as “you’re overstepping your bounds.”
“You wanted to say something, Princess?” Chrysalis smugly inquired, nudging the guard to open his mouth. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you, now.”
After a short second of hesitation, Celestia sunk her head and returned to sitting on her pillow.
“Test the tea,” she answered, dejectedly. “But don’t make him drink anything more than just a sip.”
“We wouldn’t have anymore tea if you didn’t say that,” Chrysalis replied, turning her sly smile into a toothy grin. “Safety first, right?”
The guard had closed his mouth during Celestia’s internal deliberation, but with the menacing bark of the queen, he obediently opened his mouth wide, fearing her more than the princess. Chrysalis then slowly tipped some of the scalding tea into the guard’s mouth, having no worries about the temperature of the tea affecting the guard. As soon as the droplets of tea made impact with the guard’s tongue, he closed his mouth and moved away from the queen, howling madly and rushing out of the room under the scornful eye of Celestia and the amused eye of Chrysalis.
“I guess the tea was safe, after all,” Chrysalis smugly stated, tilting the teapot over her cup to refill it, and then placing it back in its former spot. “Your peons need to learn moderation, Celestia.”
The princess was offended by the queen’s double standards, questioning just where her “use of prefixes” went. Her patience was waning, but she attempted to restore some of it with a sip of her tea.
“Now that you know the tea is safe,” Celestia said through gritted teeth after she took a quiet sip of her tea. “I’d like to point out that the tea was a small token of my attempt to create a more tangible bridge of trust with the changeling empire and you of course, Queen Chrysalis.”
The queen was balancing her head in her hoof, looking blankly at the walls of the opulent chamber. Her eyes were narrowed like her attention span for the princess.
“Ahem,” Celestia loudly grunted, hoping to ignite the queen’s faltering attention with a simple, short sentence. “Do you trust me?”
“What?” Chrysalis asked as she focused her eyes back on Celestia. “Oh, yes, well, I believe I can trust you.”
“Well, that’s dandy, then,” Celestia said, looking less infuriated with her momentary “victory.” “I’m glad we could take care of this as-”
“Are you going to eat those crumpets?” Chrysalis rudely interrupted, staring distantly at the princess. “I’ve run out over here.”
“Aren’t you going to have it ‘tested’ first?” Celestia answered, her inner rage returning. “Like you did with the tea?”
“I could if you really wanted to,” Chrysalis replied coldly, using her magic to swiftly procure a plate of crumpets from Celestia. “But have you already forgotten our little ‘trust’ exercise already?”
Celestia looked dumbfounded as Chrysalis started to casually eat the crumpets with her same insidious grin plastered to her face.
“Well, as you are treating yourself to some of the confectionaries the royal bakers have provided us here,” Celestia said as she tried to keep a calm demeanor. “Perhaps you are now comfortable enough to discuss the events of two months prior?”
“Two months ago?” Chrysalis asked with obvious ignorance to the subject matter. “Do refresh me on what occurred in that time span.”
“You and your changeling forces tried to take over Canterlot and threatened to use us as slaves for love-harvesting!” Celestia barked, slamming her hooves on the table, flabbergasted at Chrysalis’s “faltering” memory. “How could you forget that?”
“I didn’t forget that, Celestia,” Chrysalis calmly retorted, after a short silence from crumpet-munching. “But you needn’t be so pushy, princess. I saw our journey to Canterlot as a riveting catalyst for negotiations.”
“Then why did you imprison me and my subjects?” Celestia inquired, gritting her teeth in frustration.
“It was only to restrain you,” Chrysalis smoothly responded, keeping her cool demeanor. “You were the one to strike first, dear princess.”
“After you revealed yourself to be impersonating my niece!” Celestia responded.
“I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get my way into the kingdom and pass my influential word to you if you knew me as Chrysalis,” the queen eloquently put, looking off into the distance again. “I feel that there is a huge rate of animosity between us changelings and you ponies…”
Simply put, Celestia had grown weary of Chrysalis’s excuses, knowing that with each rational thought given to the queen, it would only be translated into vague, masked excuses by the stubborn changeling. She relaxed herself, allowing Chrysalis to devour more crumpets within her vicinity and to gather herself before she’d advance the conversation further.
“Well then,” the princess began, barely commanding the attention of the queen. “Let me hear your side of the story that day.”
The ravenous queen turned to the princess for a small moment of concentration. She looked dumbfounded that she was able to wrestle the princess into a position of acceptance that fast. She didn’t expect that a few crumpets uselessly shoved down her gullet would be enough to progress her plans further with such expedience. Immediately, she sat up straight on her pillow, letting go of her hoof balance and giving most of her attention to the princess.
“I’m not here to talk about the past; too many fuzzy details,” Chrysalis said with a dismissive flick of her hoof. “But I would like to get to the point of my redress of grievances with pony polices.”
Celestia at that point had finished her tea, and, strangely enough, finishing off the teapot closest to her. She felt an instilled vigor rush through her that regenerated her will to participate in the conversation. Out of a gesture of respect, she gave a weak smile of consideration, nodding her head to allow Chrysalis to go on with her grievances.
“I would like an increased awareness to the existence of changelings,” Chrysalis began, having a sinister smile about her. “The ponies here were awfully opposed to our presence in Canterlot previously.”
“I agree,” Celestia found herself saying, slowly accepting what had just come out of her mouth with second thoughts. “Maybe a drive for changeling awareness is necessary.”
“Yes,” Chrysalis seductively snarled, sounding accomplished. “We make the initiative to set up the changelings to live within Canterlot and the neighboring towns.”
“That sounds like it would substantially increase awareness,” Celestia droned on, finding that she felt duller, more like she were regurgitating rehearsed lines rather than deliver pragmatic interpretations of her mind. “What else do you have in mind?”
“Perhaps, we could move the Hive to Canterlot,” Chrysalis hissed, extending her hooves to balance herself on the table, giving an even darker grin. “You know, to better acclimate both changelings and ponies to each other.”
“Yes,” Celestia drawled in a monotone fashion, completely losing herself to the queen’s mysteriously increasing influence. “Anything else you desire, my queen?”
“That’s more like it,” Chrysalis replied with sinister delight as she found herself traversing the opulent table towards Celestia, her horn glowing with a wicked aura of green magic. “And then we’ll annex Canterlot for ourselves, considering that we haven’t had any prime territory like that in years.”
Chrysalis had skulked her way towards the broken princess, eventually meeting her muzzle to muzzle, with Chrysalis balancing Celestia’s head with her hoof to have her look up at her. She gave a smug grin and a deviant tilt of her head, her eyes aglow with a green aura that seemed to circle Celestia’s head. Celestia sat there, her eyes looking blank and filled with the same green aura, looking blank and subservient.
“And then you will swear you allegiance to me,” Chrysalis snarled menacingly, her eyes aglow with a more ostensive glow, her face filled with malice. “And forfeit your kingdom, to live in exile for the rest of your days.”
“I… I…” Celestia droned on. “I-”
Suddenly, Chrysalis’s “negotiations” with Celestia were cut short as a changeling representative flew through the giant doors in the chamber, rocketing out of control to the end of the chamber, hitting the back wall with a terrifying thud. The instance of her own changeling hurling through the doors had distracted Chrysalis, her magical influence amplified by the temporary agents in Celestia’s tea to immediately dissipate being cut short by the distraction. Celestia immediately found herself free of the mind control, and awoke to see Chrysalis, her head turned and staring at the hurt changeling in the background. She was flabbergasted to see that she was seeing the queen from a bottom perspective from the queen’s hoof, and immediately swiped it away in her returning anger.
“What are you doing?” the princess roared, unsettling the distracted queen who was terrified to see her captive princess sentient again. “And why is there a changeling at the end of the hallway?”
The queen could only slowly back away as the Princess slowly made her way onto the table, giving a merciless look of pure scorn in the eyes of the now trembling queen. Chrysalis found herself backing herself off of the table, aimlessly reciting her mind control incantation to incapacitate Celestia once more.
“Come on,” Chrysalis muttered to herself, as she tried repeatedly to emulate her spell, only for it to make the princess marching before her even more infuriated. “Why won’t you heel before me?”
“I don’t know what you did to me,” Celestia growled, her eyes glowing with a divine white light in tandem with her horn. “But I figure that in order to rid my kingdom of a pest such as yourself, I’ll just have to squish it like a bug.”
Chrysalis had backed herself so far off of the table that she had stumbled and fell on the pillow she previously sat on, cowering before the foreboding alicorn standing over her.
“All I wanted was to make peace with you, urchin,” Celestia stated, the intensity of her magic increasing, with her voice creating a more prominent echo. “But you’re just too stubborn and insidious to even think of making peace with anypony! That is why I have to-”
The queen has shielded her eyes from the awesome light that nearly blinded her, hoping something would help her last minute. She quivered and braced herself for what Celestia had in store for her, until she realized that the princess wasn’t prattling on anymore. Chrysalis opened her eyes to see Celestia, only without her divine aura about her, but instead her horn being covered in a thick, green glob. Some insectile chittering from behind her had her get up to see the same changeling that hurled itself into the room, standing before both of them in an aggressive stance.
“You pests are all the same,” Celestia barked, transitioning her focus from her captive queen to the removal of whatever was on her horn, inhibiting her magical concentration. “You just bother and bother until you get what you want.”
The chitterings had proven that the changeling was willing to sacrifice itself to allow its queen to escape. Seeing that her peon was doing wonderfully at its job, Chrysalis had no second thoughts about escaping the menacing Celestia and fleeing the kingdom from her botched takeover ploy.
She galloped with ferocity to the exit, thrusting the doors open with her magic and crashing into a group of royal guards. Fortunately for her, one of the guards was the changeling spy impersonating a guard; the one that had “tested” her tea for her. She knew that a long-term spy like that could easily administer her mind-wipe serum to the princess over the month of its employment. Unfortunately for both of them, her collision had resulted in the changeling losing focus of its transformative spell and reverted to a standard changeling in royal guard uniform.
Chrysalis stood up from the pile of discombobulated guards, cruelly using her changeling peon as a support to get up. She rose to witness a miniature war between her changeling representatives and the royal guards, inferring that the representatives’ negotiations didn’t pan out as smoothly as she expected. From changelings hurling magical globs of green slime at the guards to the guards themselves charging at the changeling elites, Chrysalis felt that she could again sneak her way out of this situation.
As she began to gallop out of the scene, dodging stray globs of goop, a guard from the collision had come to his senses and lunged himself at her hoof, grabbing it firmly.
“Stop, changeling scum!” the guard bellowed, effectively stopping the changeling from galloping away by making himself into a makeshift ball and chain. “You’re not getting away from this war!”
“Get off of me, you insipid being!” Chrysalis shrieked, hovering in the air to let gravity take care of the guard while swatting the guard. “You are not fit to-”
Her defense was cut short when she didn’t notice a stray glob of slime hurl towards her, smacking her out of the air and careening her towards a nearby wall, cementing her to the wall with a mighty thud. Luckily for the guard hanging onto her, he was knocked to the ground from the impact of the blast.
“You idiots!” she hissed with a visceral shriek, quickly shaking off the intense pain of the impact. “Release me! Release me before-”
Her snarling demands were cut short when her eyes locked onto the emerged figure from the negotiations hall, the white alicorn that she was attempting to escape from.
“…she gets here…” she reduced herself to a whisper.
Celestia had emerged from the hall, in a stance reminiscent of a bull. Her rage was fueled by the sudden incursion going forth in her castle hall, and she was dead-set on finding the renegade queen and imprisoning her for good. Celestia had turned to see Chrysalis plastered to the wall near her,
“Well,” the princess snorted, sauntering over to the trapped queen. “It’s as if this was almost too easy for me to accomplish.”
The princess’s eyes were aglow with the same white magic as before, as the white magic began to emanate from her horn. She prepared to knock-out the queen for transport to the dungeon until she was blasted with a stray glob reminiscent to what hit Chrysalis. The glob hit Celestia at full impact, slamming her hard, face-first, into the wall directly next to Chrysalis, severely hurting her.
Chrysalis had gathered a meager amount of strength to try and break the slime with her magic, but the slime began to enclose around her, forming a changeling pod.
“No!” she shrieked, having it subsequently muffled by the enveloping cocoon. “Break me out, you fools!”
Unfortunately for her, her representatives were too busy fighting the royal guards to tend to their queen, for which the pod had fully engulfed the changeling queen in a cruel bit of irony. The pod had formed in a banana shape, dangling from the wall, as it encased the queen herself. As for procedure, she started to smell the intoxicating knock-out fumes that were filling the pod. Belting out a huge scream to signal her ignorant peons, she was able to catch a glimpse of Celestia suffering the same as her. Celestia had come to from the impact of the wall, but was caught off-guard by the knock-out fumes. The monarchs had then been put to slumber in the cocoons while the mini war raged on.
* * *
Celestia had awakened with a groggy start, clearing out her lungs from an excess amount of phlegm caused by the knock-out fumes, unbeknownst to her. She realized that she was immobile, and with the strained twitching of her limbs, it instantly came back to her about her mysterious imprisonment in the changeling pod. She had to turn her head from facing the wall to scan her eyes feverishly through her translucent prison, setting her eyes on a battle-scarred castle hallway, it being evident that it was nighttime.
“Are you amused that you’ve found yourself in this kind of predicament again, Celestia?” she heard a familiar voice rattle through her ears, looking to her left to see Chrysalis in the same trap she was in, staring at her with a bored demeanor. “Because we’re not getting out for a while.”
“What’s going on, Chrysalis?” Celestia demanded, fidgeting even more within the confines of the pod to no avail, with Chrysalis lazily dangling within the pod. “And why have you befallen the same fate as me?”
“Because I was blasted with the cocoon-creating substance my changelings make, as well as you were,” she stated dejectedly. “The slime worked like quicksand does; the more you try to escape, the more you sink in. In this case, it used whatever magical focus we were able to conjure to feed off of, rapidly accelerating the process used to create our infamous changeling pods.”
“How long are we going to be stuck in these, then?” Celestia asked coldly. “And how do I know that this isn’t a trap?”
“The fact that I can’t escape should be a clear indicator that I am indeed in your predicament,” Chrysalis hissed with a twist of scorn. “And don’t try to use magic to escape. You tried two months ago, and you know how well that turned out for you.”
Celestia looked dumbfounded at the changeling queen, but then quickly accepting her fate in the cocoon.
“So, what do we do then?” Celestia begrudgingly asked her nemesis. “I don’t suppose we’re waiting for anyone in particular to save us.”
“Shouldn’t your lapdog Twilight be at your perpetual beck and call?” Chrysalis jeered. “You should punish a peon like her for not immediately being able to serve her master.”
“She’s my student, first off,” Celestia snapped back. “And second off, I sent her to the Crystal Empire to tend to Shining Armor and Cadence in dealing with a dark being known as Sombra. She has her hooves full in pressing matters right now.”
“Sombra?” Chrysalis asked. “Never heard of him. He’s probably unimportant right now, anyways.”
“Hopefully, for our sake,” Celestia wearily answered. “She’ll be able to rid the Crystal Empire from Sombra’s stench.”
She remained silent, contemplating the task set forth for Twilight, until she realized that she dispelled this fact to her very enemy.
“Wait!” Celestia shrieked. “Why did I tell you that?”
“I’m not sure,” Chrysalis sneered. “Probably because of your insipidly crippling ties to your lapdog.”
“She will soon become more powerful than you’d expect, changeling,” Celestia solemnly stated. “And she’s not my lapdog.”
Normally, the princess wasn’t so talkative, especially in the presence of an adversary like Chrysalis, but it seemed like the circumstance of the moment had unleashed her hidden inhibitions of ascetic close-mindedness to better level with an open ear, to lessen the pain of her circumstance. And it seemed to be rubbing off on Chrysalis.
“Then what is she, then?” Chrysalis snarled.
“She is my pupil,” Celestia answered quietly. “I took her in to better educate her in magic.”
“A pupil?” Chrysalis repeated, cackling from the apparently funny subject matter. “How could you trust one of your peons to learn such an advanced level of magic that could someday replace you?”
“I have no doubts that she will replace me someday,” Celestia said. “But she won’t try to forcibly usurp my throne. I’ve connected with her enough to form a chain of respect with her. Neither of us will ever wrong the other.”
“How could you even trust a pony like that?” Chrysalis asked, lowering her sneering demeanor and replacing it with a more curious one.
Celestia took a minute to force a smile upon her face, turning to the bewildered queen to show her a weak grin.
“The power of friendship,” she cheekily stated. “Take that as you will.”
“Friendship?” Chrysalis muttered. “With a mere peon?”
“Is this something foreign to you?” Celestia inquisitively asked.
“Peons are just tools for the proliferation of your own goals,” Chrysalis stated. “But the fact that they can be used like that to benefit both parties…”
The hall was filled with a strong silence as Chrysalis pondered about what Celestia had said.
“Chrysalis,” Celestia asked softly. “Why do you hate us ponies?”
“Hate?” Chrysalis turned to the princess, filling with rage. “We absolutely despise you creatures! Hate doesn’t even begin to describe out feelings for you!”
“I know that,” Celestia said, ignoring the queen’s rising anger. “But why do you ‘despise’ us?”
“Well,” Chrysalis began with an angry snort, but suddenly changed her tone to be more concerning. “We’ve hated you for a while, now, if one could truly say that.”
Chrysalis took in a deep breath, realizing that she had someone to vent to; someone to actually talk to about her quandaries and tribulations to. Someone to actually redress her grievances with.
“It’s just that… We are virtually vilified by you ponies,” she softly stated. “Since we aren’t technically ponies, we can’t perfectly blend into pony society and try to be normal. We feed off of love, which we have to harvest from ponies that are always unwilling to give us some. And our physical aesthetics don’t necessarily appeal to the general pony populace. Have you ever tried to get to know an insect with holes in their limbs? It’s not a pleasurable experience.”
“I believe that we truly didn’t like your kind because of some past resentment, which I can’t even recall,” Celestia replied, consolingly. “But since then, you’ve been perpetually assaulting us, wanting to take over Equestria.”
“We also want more stake in territory,” Chrysalis replied, defending herself. “We have only the badlands relegated to us, which is a hostile environment that doesn’t generally breed a nice changeling. We want more to live from, but our presence in the social food chain is abysmal.”
They both left themselves to silence, pondering what had been exchanged, uninterrupted by the peristaltic motions of the pods that held them. As they left the eerie silence in the wrecked hall speak louder than them, they squirmed further, wishing for freedom.
Finally, after what felt like forever, in flew the familiar face of Princess Luna, whom Celestia was glad to see, unlike Chrysalis, who only instinctively sneered at the blue alicorn.
“The guards alerted me here, sister,” Luna stated to Celestia, ignoring the captive Chrysalis next to her. “They should be here shortly with the changeling insurgents responsible for the carnage.”
The princess eventually made her way to Chrysalis’s cocoon, shaking her head in disappointment.
“How is your own cage, fiend?” Luna aggressively assaulted the queen. “Get used to it; it’ll be reminiscent of your subsequent prison cell.”
Chrysalis was fuming with unmitigated fury. She began to draw breath to tell off the princess until the grunting of Celestia had interrupted her thought process. She looked at the princess and noticed a smile of acceptance fill her with confidence.
“Easy, Luna,” Celestia lightly scolded Luna. “Lessen your animosity for her.”
“But why, sister?” Luna asked with shock as she released Celestia from her cocoon and helping her up from her subsequent fall. “She imprisoned you and led an assault on the castle!”
“I’ll tell you in private, sister,” Celestia consoled Luna, trotting off down the hall, forgetting the captive changeling queen in their custody. “There’s something different about Chrysalis that I just learned.”
* * *
The sun had barely risen in the sky, creating a beautiful sky of dark purple blending with light gray clouds, peppered with a sprinkle of bright stars. For most ponies, they would still be slumbering around this time, but the royal guards, the princesses, and the changelings were awake, dealing with the recent insurgence. All ponies met in the hallway where it all occurred, surrounding the still-encased queen. Begrudgingly, as a sign of good faith from Celestia, Luna had freed Chrysalis from her cocoon. The captive changelings remained obedient, not drawing near their weakened queen to help her, in fear of incurring her wrath.
“Chrysalis,” Celestia began, slowly trotting up to the beleaguered changeling, towering over her. “Despite what happened yesterday, I still have the room in my heart to forgive you.”
She extended a helping hoof to help her off the ground, to which the troubled queen took, to the surprise of her changeling delegates.
“But why, princess?” Chrysalis whispered, hoping for her changelings to not hear.
“Count this as a part of our prior negotiations,” Celestia answered, consoling the curious changeling. “And a step toward a blossoming friendship.”
Chrysalis stood up straight, looking bemused by the alicorn’s actions. She took a second to register what she exactly said, and returned a smile. However, the smile quickly turned into a sinister one, as she used her magic to destroy the shackles imprisoning her changeling delegates.
“A sign of weakness, of course!” Chrysalis cackled. “This will be the one that you’ll regret, Celestia!”
The queen gave a wink of appreciation to the princess before quickly commanding her changelings to fly away, the sound of wing flittering filling the hall as they made their daring escape. Celestia held off the guards and Luna from stopping the escaping changelings before they disappeared from sight in the skies.
“Sister!” Luna cried, unsheathing her wings. “Let me go after her!”
“Relax, sister,” Celestia said, successfully holding them off long enough. “I’ve got a feeling that she learned her lesson in friendship today.”
Remembering what Celestia has spoken to her about earlier, Luna kept her mouth shut, knowing what she’d exactly say to her. Both princesses ushered the guards away, letting them have a moment to themselves to discuss.
“Are you sure she’d reformed?” Luna asked, sounding concerned. “Sometimes you can be rather… unorthodox with your judgments.”
Celestia gave a moment to rub her eyes from sleep deprivation before responding to her sister with a confident smile across her face.
“I’m sure that we’ve gained an ally already,” she said confidently to Luna. “Now, we have Discord to reform!”
