Pain. Pain, pure, primal, simple, was all she could feel as consciousness returned. Everything beneath her exoskeleton hurt, and she could vaguely feel the cracked shards of it shift and stab into her flesh the moment she tried to move. She gritted her teeth and let out a hostile hiss, screwing her eyes shut.
“Ah, I see that you are finally waking,” a deep but feminine voice said at the edge of her awareness. “I hope that my aid has helped with your aching.”
As the pain made room for the rest of her senses, she could finally make out more pleasant things. She could feel a thick blanket draped across her lower half, though she dared not move her forelegs to drag it across the rest of her. The soft crackling of a fire reached her ears along with the sound of bubbling water, the heat of the flames warming her carapace where the blanket could not.
“Who’s there?” she hissed, her eyes still shut from the pain.
“Just a hermit who lives in the wood, who tries where she can to do a little good,” the voice responded. There was the sound of something breaking the surface of water, and then the sound of it being poured into a cup. “You are quite lucky I found you this morn; you looked quite beaten, your shell cracked and torn. For a while I thought that I could not keep your death at bay, but it seems you will not perish this day.”
She grunted, mentally deciding that this mare was already getting on her nerves. She forced her eyes open and waited for them to make sense of the swirl of color. It soon came into focus and she found herself looking into a pair of dark teal eyes.
She hissed again and tried to back away, only for the hiss to devolve into a howl of pain the moment she moved a muscle.
“Calm down now, no need to fret; I am many things, but I am no threat,” the owner of the eyes advised. She couldn’t get a good look at her host because her eyes were once again shut tight as agony wracked her body.
She panted as she tried to will the pain away when she felt the edge of a wooden cup pressed against her lips. “Here, drink this brew,” her host insisted. “It will help with what you’re going through.”
She lifted a foreleg to smack it away, but screamed again and let it fall limp to her side. She growled as deeply as she could before forcing her eyes open to glare. Beside her sat what looked like a pony, yet clearly wasn’t. Instead of a bright coat and mane, the mare before her had light grey fur with darker gray stripes. An equally strange mane style was perched atop her head, looking almost like a trimmed hedge with how straight and tall it was. A pair of golden hoop earrings hung from her ears, and her neck had three equally golden rings around it. A zebra, if she recalled the name.
Gaudy jewelry, annoying verbal tick… annoyance turned to hate.
She looked down at the wooden cup to see the still bubbling liquid inside wasn’t water at all, but a strange, murky orange ichor that smelled like burnt plastic. She looked up again and glared at her host. “Not feeling up to being poisoned, thanks,” she rasped out.
Her host chuckled. “Please, if I had wanted you dead, I would have left you in the forest, where none dare tread,” she explained. “This potion will help your wounds, you know, though I admit it tastes like pure woe. I suggest you drink it to ease your pain, unless you’d like to scream again?”
She snarled, looking to her host, the drink, then back again. “Fine,” she spat. She closed her eyes and tried to channel her magic, but she just heard it sputter. “Damnation… can’t concentrate through all this pain!”
“Here, allow me.” The zebra raised the cup to her guest’s lips, pouring the potion down her throat. She spluttered and gagged against it, but managed to swallow it all down.
Tears came to her eyes as she choked, knocking the cup to the side with her muzzle. “That tasted like sadness and fear of death thrown into a blender!” she coughed, each heave of her lungs sending another wave of pain through her.
“Health is rarely ever free,” her host chuckled, rising to all fours and turning towards a nearby doorframe. The injured guest noticed that she was in a bed in a small alcove, with a clear view of a bubbling cauldron in the center of a small house. Instead of stone or brick or even wooden planks, it looked to be one of those houses carved directly into a tree, judging by the rings circling the floor and the lack of seams or nails.
Her eyes wandered down to herself. Wherever the pain was at its worst, there were bandages wrapped expertly around the wound, the gauze stained with her sickly green blood. A yellow fur pelt covered in black spots covered her lower half, not a blanket like she originally thought, and she could only assume she was in the zebra’s bed.
She stared at her host’s back and plot as she tended to her cauldron before finally demanding, “Why are you helping me? Don’t you know who I am?”
“The path of knowledge I have not forsaken. You are a changeling, a queen, if I am not mistaken,” the zebra said, wandering out of her guest’s line of vision. “Though I am sure others would bring you before a judge, against you personally, I have no grudge.”
She couldn’t help but laugh, but it turned into a pain hiss. “I’m wanted all over the continent; I’m a villain to everyone I meet. Millions probably want me dead by now. You could easily turn me in or kill me and be a hero. Why aren’t you?” she asked.
The zebra returned to her sight and looked at her with a gaze that she couldn’t read, one somewhere between pity and determination. “Because mercy is something everyone in need deserves. My place is not to judge, just to serve.”
She scoffed, smirking at her host. “How delightfully naïve of you.”
“Call me what you wish,” the zebra said, ducking back out of sight, “but it is I who kept you from being some predator’s dish.”
She shifted slightly, the pain slightly duller. “I think I may have preferred that to being trapped with you. Must you always rhyme?” she groaned.
“Sorry if it irks you, but it is simply my way; thinking up rhymes helps me think about what I say,” the zebra responded. “A loose tongue and hot head can cause no end of grief, and I came to this place to get some relief.”
“About that,” she started with an incredulous raised brow, “where exactly am I? Looks like the middle of the boondocks.”
“There are no docks of any kind; we are quite far from the sea,” the zebra explained. “Right now you are in the grip of the Everfree.”
“The Everfree Forest,” she repeated, holding back a huff and laying her head back against her pillow. “I suppose there are worse places to end up.” She blinked, a thought striking her. “How far into the forest?”
“The closest town is many a mile. I wasn’t kidding when I said I live a hermit’s lifestyle,” her host explained.
A wicked grin crossed the changeling’s face, her mind racing with even darker thoughts. “I see…”
“But my manners lie forgotten,” the zebra added. “I did not mean for our introductions to be so misbegotten. Zecora is my name; what is yours, fair dame?”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” she snarled. “But I suppose there’s no point in lying, since you already know what I am. My name is Chrysalis. Queen Chrysalis.”
“Flattery was not exactly my intent, but you’re allowed to think what you want in any event.” Zecora trotted back into the alcove with a sickeningly warm smile. “But whether or not you think I lied, is there anything else I can provide?”
Chrysalis frowned and looked Zecora up and down, looking for the slightest hint of treachery, when she felt the gnawing of hunger at her gut. “It doesn’t exactly matter,” the queen sighed angrily. “Unless I get some food, I’m going to starve to death regardless of any wounds.”
“I admit, my knowledge of your kind is quite small,” Zecora confessed, frowning in concern. “Just let me know your kind’s diet and I’ll see if I can find it at all.”
Chrysalis chuckled darkly. “Changelings feed on love, hermit. Really any emotion will do, but unless I have some love to feed on, I won’t recover. Trying to survive on anything but love would be like your kind trying to live on produce from a compost heap: disgusting, degrading, and will eventually end in death anyway.”
Zecora rubbed her chin and hummed in thought. “I have a measure of love for all living things, but I doubt it’d be a feast of kings. I would be happy to provide, but I’m not sure how even if I tried.”
Chrysalis raised a brow and looked the zebra over anew. “You seem awfully willing to be fed upon by the likes of me.”
“It is in my nature to give, especially if it is so another may live,” she said, her smile returning. “Just tell me how I can give you what you need, and I assure you I will do such a deed.”
“Your naiveté continues to astound me,” Chrysalis muttered. “Just lean in and I’ll do the rest. Focus on something or someone you love; it’ll make it much easier to feed.”
Zecora nodded mutely, thankfully, and did as the queen asked, leaning over the bedridden changeling. Chrysalis opened her fanged maw as a green mist started flowing from her host to down her throat. “So sweet,” she purred, closing her eyes and drinking hungrily from the wellspring of love before her.
Her eyes snapped open when she suddenly felt the connection severed. The zebra’s eyes were glowing a bright yellow, but only for a split second before returning to normal. The zebra panted and heaved as she said, “That is enough for now, I think; I did not expect to feel so drained from your drink.”
“How did you do that?” Chrysalis hissed, raising her head from her pillow as much as she dared without howling.
Zecora chuckled as she limped away. “Do not look at me with such scorn; not all magic comes from a unicorn. Just because I am kind does not mean I’m naïve. I always have a trick or two up my sleeve. I could feel you trying to suck me dry, but I’m afraid that I wasn’t about to lay down and die.”
Chrysalis’ eyes narrowed as she eased her head back onto the pillow with a huff. “You’re far more useful to me alive than dead right now; I just couldn’t help myself. Your love wasn’t the most filling I’ve had, but it tasted very rich. Who or what were you thinking about?”
“My loves and my life are my business alone,” Zecora panted, leaning against her cauldron. “I have not prodded you about your own.”
Chrysalis couldn’t help but laugh, though the agony that overtook her chest turned it into a series of pained coughs. “There’s not much to tell,” she said through her hacks. “I love only my children, my hive. I have no room for anything else.” Her eyes shot open. “My subjects! Please tell me you saw some of them out in the forest. There were hundreds with me before I crashed!”
“Sorry to say, but I saw none; you were the only one,” Zecora said sadly, trotting out of sight to the sound of clinking bottles.
Chrysalis tried to rise from her bed, but collapsed with another scream. “You said that gunk would ease the pain!” she snapped. “You really did poison me, didn’t you?!”
“All things take time, and you aren’t exactly in your prime,” Zecora sighed. “Please, do not move about, or your wounds may reopen and make you bleed out.”
Chrysalis snarled and gritted her fangs. “I need to get back to my hive. They’re absolutely lost without me; none of them know how to lead or what to do without a leader. They’ll be hunted down and hanged!”
“I think you think too lowly of your food. I doubt they would resort to killing your brood.” Zecora returned in sight to pour a few things into her cauldron before starting to stir.
“You think too highly of them,” Chrysalis spat. “It’s the nature of prey to fear their predators. They have the numbers and the technology while we’ve had to hide in the shadows for generations until our threat was forgotten. If I don’t recover soon, all my children will be dead.”
“And if you fall over dead, the line finally crossed, your herd will truly be forever lost,” Zecora said back over her shoulder. “Please, relax and let yourself rest. While you’re under my roof, you’re my protected guest.”
Chrysalis growled, but in the end lay back in the zebra’s bed. “Very well, but you better not be leading me on. If I find even the slightest hint of treachery, you’ll wish I cast you into the gates of Tartarus.”
“You’ll soon find your fears to be quite silly. I hold no ill intent towards you, really.” Zecora drank deep from her cauldron, her stance suddenly getting stronger.
“We’ll see about that,” Chrysalis muttered as she looked out the window next to her head. It was dark out, as she supposed it always was in the Everfree. Though through the canopy above she could see the soft glow of the moon and stars peek down at her. The panic and adrenaline of her motherly instincts waning, she felt the pain numbing effects of the brew seep in along with a strong urge to sleep. In no shape to fight it, her eyes gently drifted shut.