Streams of light broke through the hideous dark clouds that rolled across the sky, bringing serenity to the aphotic patches of a depressing and lifeless land. Plants moved their leaves towards the rays, soaking themselves in the heat for this scanty occasion, while insects of various colors and species lazily floated within the brightened shreds of light. Their wings sent waves of gentle buzzes and flaps through the stagnant air, breaking the sustained silence that has lasted for a millenia.
Queen Chrysalis stood on the edge of a rock outcropping, overlooking the vast, decrepit valley that lay before her. Old, crumbling rocks lined the sides of the valley, creating steep inclines that plunged into a deep, jagged abyss that lay below. A single tree sat in the center of the valley; a tree worn from years of cold and darkness, neglect and obscurity, animosity and disgust. It sat alone against the lifeless rocks that had been piled around it.
Chrysalis floated down into the valley, carefully maneuvering her way around the craggy rocks that lay in wait on the edge of the valley, and landed a safe distance away between two large boulders. Her hooves clopped noisily onto the hardened ground below, and once she began to walk towards the tree, her hooves failed to leave imprints in the dirt behind. Instead, she kicked up loose rocks that went skirting across the ground and collided with much larger rocks.
The clouds above soared across the sky with unmatched speed, but as Chrysalis approached the single tree, a ray of light permeated through the punctured blanket onto the deadening timber. The area around the tree was illuminated, revealing a pair of changelings lying limp across the ground. Their bodies were a disheveled and dirty mess, with mud caking their limbs and cracks stretching across their chitin bodies.
Chrysalis stopped before the changeling that was closest to her. Her eyes slowly scanned across her subject’s unconscious body until they finally rested on his face. His eyes remained closed, and the contortions of his jaw signaled pain.
“Love,” Chrysalis scoffed, “a complicated, mortal emotion felt by all those who exist. Something that draws us together in happiness, or duty, or simple pleasure." She rolled her eyes. "It’s not something so easily comprehensible as anger or happiness, as they can be read through one’s physical displays or vocal articulations. No, love is something a little more than just a simple passion or affection.”
Chrysalis kneeled down next to the changeling drone, and she extended one of her hooves around his head. She turned his face so that she could fully gaze onto his facial features. To any other pony, the giant bug eyes, fangs, and gnarled ears are static between each drone, but for Chrysalis, she saw past the physical features that made up each of her subjects. Staring at the changeling’s face, she was staring into a pony that was unique as one of those Elements of Harmony.
“It’s curious, really,” Chrysalis said, smirking. “love is what defeated us this time around. We, as changelings, vie to find a food source that can supply us with enough love to sustain an entire army comfortably, yet the very power we desire also happened to be our subsequent downfall." She sighed, dragging her hoof over the changeling's cheek. "Something so mortal and intangible is what drove us from Canterlot, denying us a source of adequate nourishment.
“What did we do wrong?” Chrysalis looked up towards the sky. The single ray of light still shone brightly onto the tree, while black, thundering clouds flew carelessly across the sky. “How is it that we underestimated our own source of food, our source of power, our source of livelihood? We draw upon the power of love to fuel our constitution and increase our longevity, and in the end, that same power was able to expel us from our plans.”
Chrysalis’s horn lit up in a green hue. Pure magic dripped from it's tip, and evaporated in the air before it was able to splash onto the ground. “The complexity that surrounds such a pestilent emotion is unfathomable. You feel this affection being given happily, effortlessly, to you, and it fills your inner being with a warmth that is indescribable to those who have never experienced it before." Her gaze shifted to the tree that hung over both she and the changeling. "It is not the same feeling as a friend walking up to you and beginning an animate conversation, or a family member commending you for a fabulous job you have just completed. There is something more to this emotion that cannot be simply expressed.”
The queen let go of the changeling’s face, allowing for his head to roll gently back to its previous state. Chrysalis sighed again, and she began to encase the changeling in front of her in a dull, green, magical aura that emitted from her horn. The aura felt warm against Chrysalis’s forehead, and a few sparks started to discharge around the changeling drone.
“This plan of ours was meant to feed our nation,” Chrysalis said, “it was meant to sustain us for a bit longer, yet...” She paused, watching as her magical aura swirled around the changeling. “There was something else that I wanted you to experience. For you all to experience. It was not so easily obtainable in all of our previous hunting endeavors, but within Equestria, the true feeling of love was ever present among all of the ponies.
“I wanted you to all to feel what it is like to be loved, truly loved, by a mother, by a friend, or by a paramour." The magical aura around the changeling began to pulsate, and tendrils of pure energy fused into the cracks in the chitin. "I wanted you to experience the happiness that went along with having felt somepony’s love, or feel the excitement of trying to figure out who it is that is giving the love. I wanted you all to experience the same emotions that I felt over a thousand years ago here in this valley.”
A single tear started to creep down Chrysalis’s cheek. The tendrils in the chitin of the changeling retracted, revealing a smooth and hardened body. “I had forgotten what those emotions were like, and when we traversed back into Equestria, waves of memories started to flood my mind of those same feelings that were ever present before. I knew what it was to be happy again, and in a rush to give you all an equal opportunity to encounter what it was that I was feeling, I failed you.
The mud that caked the changeling's frame slowly slid off, leaving the skin to glisten in the rays of light above.
“I failed my nation, I failed my ponies, I failed my children, and I am so sorry.”
The green aura around the changeling vanished as Chrysalis dispersed the magic from her horn. Slowly, the changeling’s eyes began to flutter open, and Chrysalis smiled.
“But know that although we are defeated, broken, and lost, that you shall always have a mother who will do her best to show you the love that you deserve.”
