by Europa
Time passed in monotony. Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months. And through all that, Queen Twilight remained stolid and practically unreachable. She went through the motions to keep herself healthy; she drank, she ate the nutrient-rich slime they made for her. The pony kept her coat clean and exercised to prevent atrophy. But on the emotional side of things, they were making no progress.
Princess Chrysalis could sense her emotions, of course; hateful and vengeful, waiting for the moment where she could break free of her bonds and finish what she'd begun. Luckily, mother kept her enfeebling poison going, so Twilight was never afforded the chance. Whenever Chrysalis tried to speak to her about it, try to perform something at least resembling therapy, the pony just blew her off and retreated into her 'shell'.
But not today. Today, she had had enough. She was going to march right up to that pony and demand answers. She stopped outside her room, took a deep breath to steel her nerves, and then stormed in.
Twilight was in her usual place on the floor, laying on her belly, meditating. Chrysalis aimed to break her out of it. "Alright, enough of this!" she barked. The pony jerked and stared at her with one eye. "We're getting to the bottom of this, right now!" She lifted the pony in her magic and tossed her onto the bed.
"Gah! Changeling, you have some nerve - "
"First, my name is Chrysalis, Princess Chrysalis the Green. I have addressed you by name ever since you came here, you could at least return the favor!" She clambered onto the bed and sat on it, staring at Twilight intensely. The pony returned her glare and then some.
"You have no place to tell me - "
"I have every place to tell you! You tried to murder me, Twilight! Now, I want you to tell me your life story, from the top." Maybe that way she could get to the bottom of it. "You can either tell me on your own, or I can hypnotize you and have you tell me anyway. So which will it be, Sparkle?"
Twilight snarled, revealing very unimpressive herbivore teeth. "Fine. I was born, five thousand years ago to my mother, Twilight Velvet, and my father, Night Light. I had an older brother named Shining Armor. I became an immortal alicorn later. Here I am today."
Chyrsalis snarled, revealing her long, sharp fangs, and let her eyes glow green. "You're going to have to do better than that!" She wove a suggestion spell over Twilight Sparkle.
The pony shuddered and, while Chrysalis hadn't used enough magic to tint her eyes, the pupils dilated slightly. "Fine, fine. If it'll get me out of here sooner. When I was a little filly unicorn, I saw Princess Celestia raise the sun and Princess Luna raise the moon, at the Summer Sun and Winter Moon festivals respectively." Celestia? Luna? That was the first Chrysalis had heard of those names. "I wanted to be just like them, so I researched any bit of magic I could. Eventually, when performing magic test, my horn flared and Celestia noticed. She suppressed my flare and took me under her wing, as her personal student."
"Who was Celestia and Luna?"
"The rulers of Equestria at the time, alicorns. Celestia moved the sun, Luna moved the moon. She taught me so much about magic, and later friendship. But things were always going wrong. Equestria had a history of monsters coming to attack it. Time and again my friends and I helped the princesses fend them off. We reformed Discord, banished a sentient Nightmare that sought to control Luna, and so much more." She frowned. "But they just kept coming! So I got a better idea. Fifteen years after I too ascended to alicornhood, I stole Celestia and Luna's magic, in addition to the ruler of the Crystal Empire, Princess Cadance's alicorn magic."
Twilight grinned wickedly. "With that power, I could stop it. I didn't trust Discord as far as I could throw him, so into the book he went. The other princesses tried to stop me, so I sealed them in Tartarus until they learn that I deserve their power, that as the goddess of magic it is I and I alone who deserves alicorn power."
"You just... betrayed her?" She upped the strength on her suggestion spells. "And then what? Discord mentioned it's been five thousand years, what did you do meanwhile?"
"I... please stop, I'll tell you." Please. Twilight had said 'please'. It was a start; Chrysalis eased up her hypnosis. "Alright. I mostly ruled over Equestria and annexed the Crystal Empire inside. Hardly any country was fool enough to challenge me, and the few that did I erased, from land and history. You know the Glassed Lands? It used to be called Saddle Arabia."
"That's horrible!"
"They brought it on themselves," Twilight defended. "They knew what attacking me and my ponies would entail and they did it anyway." Chrysalis wasn't impressed by her justifications; what of the civilians that had no doubt wanted no part in it? "After that, everypony learned to fear my power. I put into law the proper restrictions and freedoms on the economy to let it flow freely, optimized the military to what would be needed, and so on. That was in the first thousand years, and since then, I've grown bored. Hobbies do not hold, I've run out of discoveries, so here I am." She shrugged. "I figured maybe some genocide would spice things up, I haven't gotten my hooves dirty in centuries."
Almost by reflex, Princess Chrysalis asked, "And what would Celestia say about that?"
Twilight recoiled as if she'd been bucked in the muzzle. She stiffened and looked down. "She'd... she'd be so ashamed of me," she muttered. Chrysalis felt there was still a bit of suggestion spell, making Twilight more open. "Celestia always preached to me patience, understanding, harmony. She taught me the values of being loyal to one's values and generous to all. I... oh Celestia, oh no..."
Chrysalis pulled her hypnosis magic off the pony, but the damage was done. Twilight's head dipped and she nickered sadly. Slowly, her breathing began to speed up and turn shallow, tears flowing from her eyes as the pony queen slowly but surely devolved into wracking sobs, now that Chrysalis's magic had given her the push to really think about her actions.
The changeling frowned, looking at the wretched creature blubbering on her bed. The sudden change in her demeanor was jarring, and for a few minutes she didn't know what to do. Eventually, she moved closer and draped a foreleg over Twilight's withers. Her fur was warm and incredibly soft against her chitin, the skin beneath squishy and flexible. "Um, there there?" What could she possibly say to comfort a being five thousand years old, who had the weight of mass-murder and who knew what else now on her conscience?
Eventually, Chrysalis decided to just hold Twilight into the long hours of the night.
TO BE CONTINUED