• Published 31st Mar 2012
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This Platinum Crown - Capn_Chryssalid



Only one mare can claim the Platinum Crown of Canterlot.

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Chapter Fifty One : The Blueblood Gambit

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(51)

The Blueblood Gambit

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“The Green changelings… this Biscione Hive… led by Queen Chrysalis. The Red Hive, Zilant, led by this petty Queen Sarai… the Q'uq'umatz, the Brown Hive, led by Queen Tlanextli… we are almost impressed. The sheer scale of such an alliance! How many of your misbegotten kind have you bent towards this invasion, fiend?”

“No, no, we know you cannot answer us, of course. Sister would admonish us for speaking to ourselves.”

“More. You will show us more!”

- - -

“Zebrabar…”

Sarai covered her nose at the sudden stench. It assailed her nose virtually the moment she disembarked.

“…you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy,” Chrysalis continued to say, stepping off the skiff’s gangplank and onto the crowded dock. Her nose twitched, but she hardly seemed put out by the barrage of urban stink. “We must be cautious.”

Sarai scoffed, following close behind her fellow Queen. “Again with that…?”

“At least you recognized the reference this time. Did you read the book yet, or--”

“I listened to a ‘book-on-record,’ I believe it is called.”

“That’s totally cheating,” Chrysalis lamented, pausing to adjust her pith helmet against the flickering light of enchanted blue flames. To Sarai’s lack of surprise, she was dressed much like the pony adventurer from her fictional scribble-books, from said helmet to a cadmium green vest and brown saddlebags. At least the Green Queen had the decency not to completely mimic this ‘Daring Do’ character. Beneath the clothes, she adopted the guise of a tall, long-legged, slim unicorn mare, with a chestnut brown coat and a dark pink mane.

Sarai was also in disguise, but as a zebra.

The changelings of her hive were not as adept at animal or equestrian mimicry as their green or yellow cousins, but that meant less that they couldn’t do it and more than it took more effort and they couldn’t swap disguises quickly. Sarai had needed to practice hers for many hours on the ship to make sure it could stand up to close scrutiny. She knew zebras far better than the other forms of equine, so she had adopted the form and thrown together a random smattering of black and white on her new hide. Mohawks were popular among some zebra breeds, but on this coast braids were far more prevalent, so that a wild mess of long black and white pigtails hung to either side of her neck.

The two mares, one unicorn and one zebra – at least to the outside observer – minded themselves as they advanced down the twisted tangle of piers that was the Zebrabar’s Salt Dock. It was crowded in the extreme, with sailors and fishermen unloading their wares and cargo for sale in the city’s grand bazaars or hawking them here, right on the sea, to travelers and locals. The stink of a hundred roasting, broiling, baking, bubbling foodstuffs, not one of which appealed all that much to a changeling, filled the air like a noxious cloud. So, too, did the flies that accompanied every meal and every food stand.

It was all added to the smell of a dozen different species living in close proximity.

Most of the population here was of zebra descent, but of a sort Sarai was not familiar with. These were coastal and mountain zebras. Their coat colors were black and white or brown, but their eyes were a dozen strange colors: ocean blues and sunset yellows and algae greens. Their manes, too, were dyed and colored and styled in strange ways. Sarai had never seen the like before in the savannah. These strange zebra stood on rickety boats and yelled and argued and haggled in a mongrel tongue that the Red Queen could only understand bits and pieces of.

“Ohh?” Chrysalis murmured, pointing off to her right. “Look at that.”

“What?” Sarai glanced over. On one of the few stone platforms in the otherwise jumbled mess of wooden tiers and causeways somepony or some-thing had set up a pit and arena. A creature similar to the canine beasts in Tlanextli’s lair – a ‘Diamond Dog’ – was wrestling with a mighty creature that stood on two legs. It had the head and legs of a bull. Around the fighters, sailors and other salty sorts cheered and cursed and placed bets.

“What is that great bull-headed beast?” Sarai asked, having to raise her voice to be heard over the rowdy crowd.

“A minotaur,” Chrysalis replied. “Lovely creature, isn’t he? A pity they’re so resistant to our magic. Bipedal species like them will continue to pose a problem for us… at least until one of us breeds a form of ch--” Chrysalis barely kept from slipping and speaking the c-word aloud. “--a form of you-know-what that matches their physiology. In case you’re curious, their emotions have a coppery, sharp flavor, intense but short lived.”

“That hardly sounds very appealing,” Sarai argued, shying away from a vendor waving strips of roasted fruit wrapped in broad-leaf grass.

“It is… an acquired taste,” Chrysalis said with a dark giggle. “Most of us love the sweet stuff, but I’ve gotten a bit tired of it these days. The whole world is our platter, Sarai. You would do well to sample as much of it as you can, while you can.”

Sarai muttered a mostly meaningless sound of agreement.

Flavors of emotion aside, she’d never given any thought on what to do with the other races. There weren’t any where she was from. But Chrysalis always seemed to have her mind set on the future and on the broader picture. Sarai had found it a little infuriating at first, but after months of being around the Green Queen, distaste had turned to silent, grudging admiration. Sarai doubted she could accomplish half of what Chrysalis had in just the last year. Much of it was due to thinking of this ‘broader world’ Chrysalis was so fond of.

After all she had seen following Chrysalis, Sarai actually found herself believing in her fellow Queen’s vision of the future… at least more than she had before. Her acquiescence had originally merely been a means to keep her hive from slaughter, along with a hope to turn the Greens against the Yellows and let her enemies bleed one another dry. She still longed to see the hated Inkanyamba humbled, but more and more… Sarai found the foreign things she had so dismissed growing on her. The luxury of this new life Chrysalis promised certainly played a part as well.

“Look over there,” Chrysalis said, as the pair headed up a wooden incline.

She was pointing across the green water to the Pepper Dock. It was the polar opposite of the Salt. The quays there were straight lines of stone, bedecked with shimmering flags and banners. There were no fisher-folk or common laborers. The Pepper Dock was reserved for the elite of Zebrabar and their personal guests. Majestic barges and yachts from a half dozen races and lands were berthed there, in safety and seclusion from the rough and crude masses. Shaded palanquins escorted the powerful from their ships into the city via a separate gate. Most would likely be Marabian, as Marabian ponies were the predominant ruling class in Zebrabar.

“I recognize that yacht,” Chrysalis went on, explaining just what had caught her eye out there. “The one with the flight envelope over it on wooden struts… do you see it?”

Sarai narrowed her eyes. There was one smaller ship visible. Unlike the others, it had some sort of balloon-thing on top of it. It was berthed next to a large, fat, pleasure barge shaped like a tick. Sure enough, the strange balloon-thing was being held up by some sort of wooden scaffold built into the pier.

“That’s an Equestrian sky yacht,” Chrysalis explained. “The banner looks like a Breezie holding a horn of plenty. That’s House Butterball from Fillydelphia. Earth ponies. Probably the oldest daughter of the family… could be useful to try and replace her out here, far from prying eyes.”

Sarai nodded. That was Chrysalis’ area of expertise. She was always on the look out to replace powerful ponies with her numerous brood. It had been a shock to learn just how many thousands of children Chrysalis had. Sarai’s own swarm had never exceeded six hundred… there simply wasn’t enough food for more on the savannah. Chrysalis had dozens of un-melded changelings back on her ship. Sarai didn’t doubt that, at some point, somehow, they would make the swap. This daughter of the ‘Butterball’ family would end up in the hold of the ship while her replacement changeling went back home.

The Salt Dock let to the Crystal Gate, and from there, into the city of Zebrabar proper.

Inside the walls of Zebrabar, the vast mass of the lower city was a sprawling hive of mud and bricks. Away from the salt air, the urban stink became even more pronounced, flavored as it was with the aroma of waste-water. Overgrown brick and wood buildings covered the streets and very nearly blotted out the sky, growing thick as moss and mushrooms on a dead tree – thick as barnacles on the sides of these great wooden ships Sarai had become so acquainted with. It was vile. Sarai found herself amazed any creature would choose to live in such cramped and bustling squalor.

Were there really changelings here?

Thankfully, Chrysalis soon hired a sedan chair to take them deeper into the city without having to muddy their hooves. It was not the fully enclosed palanquin type she had seen before, however. This was made less for high-class creatures and more as a taxi service. Soon, they were hoisted up and away from the press of flesh by a pair of burly stallions. They were a mongrel zebra breed, from the look of them, with extremely narrow brown stripes and long ears. Leading them was a tall, stately Marabian male with a coiled whip around his neck.

Passing briefly through a crowded marketplace that must have been two or three times the size of the entire village Sarai’s hive had last taken over, before their fight with the newly arrived Greens, their sedan took an abrupt turn. They began to move away from the main body of the city, towards a series of largely desolate looking hillsides. It was notable as the only wooded section within the city walls, though the trees were sparse and their angry crown of branches resembled little more than a huge briar patch.

“The grand lichyard, my sweet ladies.”

Their escort – the Marabian stallion – spoke up as the sedan chair came to a stop in a somber stone square. Resting a slim hoof on the whip coiled around his neck, it took little more than a glare to keep the rabble away from the two disguised Queens. No doubt had any of the beggars or salesponies foolishly persisted in aggravating them the Marabian would’ve demonstrated his skill with the switch. All seemed to know better in Zebrabar, though Sarai noticed quite a few groups in the square take less-than-friendly notice of the new arrivals.

“Come along, my red sister,” Chrysalis announced in a cheery, sing-song voice, “this way!”

She hopped down from the sedan chair and tossed a quartet of golden bits to the bowing Marabian stallion, ignoring the exhausted mongrel zebras who had actually carried them across the city. Sarai spared them a brief look after she descended. The beasts were not as exhausted as they initially appeared, but their eyes were downcast and deferential. They were tired, yes, though perhaps more tired of simply being overlooked for their labors.

“We will need transport again after our business is finished… to the docks or to a well-appointed lodging,” Chrysalis was still speaking to the Marabian escort officer. Tall as her unicorn disguise was, she almost touched noses with him as she sauntered closer. “I do hope you can wait for us?”

She slipped a small bundle of bits into his hoof, and whispered something into his ear.

“Ooh?” the Marabian stallion mouthed, and nodded. A teasing grin pulled at his cheeks. “But of course, sweet lady. It would be this one’s pleasure to assist.”

Chrysalis pulled away and motioned with her head for Sarai to follow.

The square before them was clearly built to accommodate those businesses that dealt with the so called ‘lichyard.’ There were coffins on display, and urns, and all manner of funerary service. There were also saplings of the willowy gray tree that Sarai had noticed growing across the hills. Craning her neck, and getting a closer look, it became clear that the trees were planted in neat rows. They were markers of some sort. Small wonder the wooded hills were so ominous.

“Do you feel a chill down your spine?” Chrysalis asked, trotting slowly up to one of the storefronts. “I think we’re finally at the end of our wild goose chase!”

There was a sign with three sets of scribbles on it. Different words and different languages, Sarai supposed. Just her luck, she couldn’t read any of them. Further proof that reading was over-rated, she thought, bitterly. You learn to read one set of chicken-scratching and then you run into another, and it’s no different than if you couldn’t read at all.

“What does it say?” the Red Queen asked, pointing at the sign.

“Embalming and Good Fortune for the Bereaved,” Chrysalis answered, only glancing at it.

“You can read that?” Sarai asked, incredulous.

“I’m fluent in four languages,” Chrysalis stated, as if it was no mean feat. “The middle text is in Marabic. That language is so widespread here it pays to at least know some of it.”

“Is that so?” Sarai felt an angry blush on her cheeks. “Well, don’t expect me to learn more than one.”

“I don’t. Our future written language will be Equestrian,” Chrysalis replied with a chuckle. “I like it more than the others; knowing just that one will be enough.”

She had it all worked out, it seemed.

Approaching the door, Chrysalis knocked twice, her disguised hoof rapping gently against the wooden door. Sarai waited behind her. A quick look back over her shoulder confirmed that their ride was still lingering in the road of the square. In the shadows of another store’s overhang, a quartet of haggard looking ruffians eyed the two foreign mares. A predator herself, it wasn’t hard for Sarai to identify their looks and attitude. They were hungry, too, but not for affection. At the same time, for every furtive glance they cast towards the pair of disguised Queens they shot one towards the waiting Marabian and the two burly mongrel escorts.

The escort officer smirked, seeing it too, and seeing her looking back in concern. He nodded, his hoof still resting lightly on the whip around his neck. It seemed the Green Queen was always a step ahead. It hadn’t just been her flirting with the stallion for flirting’s sake. For some reason, the familiarity Chrysalis had for these urban cesspools pricked a nerve in Sarai. Not jealousy, surely. It had to be something else. It was unseemly and improper for a Queen to be jealous of another Queen.

The door to the Lichyard Boutique creaked open.

“Welcome,” a voice whispered. The ambiance within the store was dark, alleviated only by flickering, pale blue candlelight. A shadowy shape moved to the side, permitting entrance.

“Thank you for responding to my invitation,” Chrysalis spoke up, her voice cheery and upbeat. She leaned in to initiate the Queen’s greeting. “Yejide, isn’t it?”

“No,” the mare said softly, holding up her hoof. Her face was hidden behind a plain wooden mask with slits for eyes. “I am not Queen yet, nor am I Yejide.”

“Oh?” Chrysalis quickly drew back, her bare hooves making a soft clatter on the stone floor. “My apologies. I’ve been trying to meet with your Queen for some time… I guess I’m a little overeager!”

“Queen Chrysalis. Queen Sarai. This way, please,” the soft spoken mare said, lowering her eyes and leading them through the store’s front room. It was empty of customers, of course, and seemed to stock incense and jars of assorted… substances. Sarai couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it. Except for the heads and tails. Those she recognized right away.

There were literally jars of heads and jars of tails, pickling in clear glass containers.

“Spoiled meat,” she muttered, a little disgusted by the sight. In contrast, the entire store smelled of sharp herbs and smoldering incense.

“The bodies of the dead,” their hostess explained, leading them to a back door. “Once their flesh absorbs the nectar of life, they will resist rot for many years. Most of our customers embalm the whole body, but some are only able to pay for the head or the tail.”

“Why?” Sarai had to ask. The zebra she knew simply threw their dead in a hole in the ground. Her own changelings did the same.

“The head is interred within a cavity in the corpse-tree,” the macabre mare responded, as if discussing something commonplace. ‘Only here,’ Sarai wanted to tell her, ‘only in this vile city.’ “The tail is often hung from the tree as well, to give it… color.”

The image was… mildly disturbing.

“A waste of good meat,” Sarai argued sourly.

“We are not like you,” the embalmer quietly argued, “To us, flesh is but a shell to be filled.”

“Do you have a name, little one?” Chrysalis asked.

“Ebele,” their hostess answered, holding open the door to a back room. It was much easier to see her in full in the hallway behind the store front. The lighting was still the creepy pale blue of before, but the candles filled the smaller space more brightly.

Ebele was a changeling, Sarai was sure of it, though she wore the disguise of a small zebra mare beneath her black cloak and hood. Given her size, she was also rather young – at least two or three molts away from being an adult, if Sarai had to wager a guess. Behind the wooden mask, Sarai could see hints of a face with smoky purple eyes. Strange lines and symbols seemed to be cut into the chitin of the changeling’s cheeks. Were they more words? Why would anyling write words on their face?

Moreover, why would anyling scar up their face like that and then hide it behind a mask?

“My mother waits for you within,” Ebele explained, fully opening the door, “along with Princess Yejide and her daughter.”

“Princess Yejide?” Chrysalis asked, a bit of confusion sneaking into her voice. “I thought…?”

Within the room, three changelings waited for them. The first to catch Sarai’s attention was the least imposing of the lot. She lay, immobile, on a bed in the room. Her color was purple, she wore no cloak, but she was clearly of the same make as Ebele. The bed-ridden changeling was a withered old crone, propped up at a slight incline, just enough so she could welcome her guests. Sarai would’ve thought her dead, if not for the blink of her eyes and the calculated look in them. Like Ebele, she wore a wooden mask that concealed most of her face.

Sitting next to the infirm changeling was a large female, perhaps another daughter, Sarai couldn’t tell. She was old but not crippled, with a wooden shaman mask identical to the others. Like Ebele, she had strange glowing tattoos cut into the chitin of her face, barely visible behind the mask. Her eyes were a solid purple, but where Ebele’s were simply that color, this one’s eyes glowed very faintly beneath her mask. She wore brown rags more fit for a beggar than a daughter of a changeling Queen.

Finally, next to her was another changeling, also wearing a mask, except--

Sarai sniffed the air, and felt her wings twitch instinctively.

“A male!” she gasped, looking to Chrysalis for an explanation.

“I am as surprised as you, Sarai,” Chrysalis replied, but never took her eyes off the three changelings in the room. “Why is a male here? Do you wish to tempt us?” Her tone took on a less amiable and more commanding tone. “Which one if you is Queen Yejide?”

“Ah’ am Yejide, soon-to-be-Queen,” the crone next to the bed answered, inclining her head in what may have been a bow. She extended a hoof, charms and rings dangling and jingling from the holes all changelings bore.

“Thes,” she said, pointing to the changeling on the bed, “is our current queen, Queen Onyeka. Her daughter, Ebele, you jus’ met.” Lastly, she gestured to the well hidden male. “An’ thes is Prince Masego, son of Queen Themba.”

“Just how many ‘Queens’ do you have?” Sarai snapped, still not happy about a male being present. Even hidden as he was from sight, her body knew he was present, and among changelings, males existed only for one reason.

“Ahh. You are confused,” Yejide stated the obvious. It was hard to see much of her face behind her plain wooden mask, but Sarai suspected she was smiling. Or, worse, smirking. “Allow me to explain. From what Ah understand, like most of our race, you pass on royal jelly and the right to reproduce from one Queen to one Princess…”

“Of course!” Sarai growled.

“Sarai,” Chrysalis admonished her fellow Queen, and Sarai reined in her temper. The Green Queen sounded curious. “You have a different means of succession?”

Yejide nodded slowly. “The most senior of our hive is Queen. The jelly is passed from sister to sister, not from mother to daughter. So, too, is the Prince who is our brother. Each of us has the right to be Queen, in turn, and we all have our daughters when the time comes.”

Sarai tilted her head in momentary confusion. Succession from sister to sister, not mother to daughter? What madness was this? These changelings were clearly warped. Even moreso than Tlanextli’s parasitic brood!

“Your hives are populated by drones who serve their Queen,” Yejide explained, speaking more to Chrysalis than Sarai. “We of the Aida-Weddo have no drones and no royal caste, only sisters and equals. For some time now, Chrysalis, you have tried to contact us through one of our drones. Now you understand: we have none.”

“A hive without drones,” Chrysalis didn’t sound as disgusted as Sarai had hoped she would be. She placed a hoof up to her lips and mulled over the concept. “How interesting! I had no idea!”

“How can such a thing even function?” Sarai grumbled, disgusted by the prospect more than any horrible smell she had endured in this city. Zebrabar not only bred foul odors, it tainted the changelings who lived within it.

There was no other explanation for such a perversion of the natural order.

“As Ah said…” Yejide chuckled, no doubt at the Red Queen’s intolerance. “The oldest Aida-Weddo changeling passes on her jelly to the second oldest. Her Prince accompanies her at all times, overseeing the transfer of authority from one sister to the next and helping to rear her daughter or daughters until they are old enough to venture off on their own. When the Prince dies, that Queen produces a new one. In thes way, in thes great cycle, all daughters and all sisters have a chance to rule and reproduce.”

She added, in a smug concession, “Ah don’t expect other hives to mimic the practice, but that is why there are four of us here. Ebele, as the daughter of the last Queen, is the youngest of our hive and last in line. Ah am the second oldest and will be Queen in a matter of days. When I am Queen, Prince Masego will become my consort. He won’t leave either of our sides, so please bear with his presence and that of Ebele, as she needs to translate for her mother.”

“That is a very egalitarian system,” Chrysalis said with a smile.

Sarai was still gawking and trying to properly express her disgust.

“Every changeling has a chance to rule,” the Queen of the Greens went on to say. “And every Queen produces a daughter or two. Rather less strenuous than the thousands I’ve birthed! And your males actually help in rearing your daughters? Very interesting indeed!” She spread her forelegs in a welcoming way, laughing happily. “I’m more convinced than ever that you should join us!”

“You wish us to gather and travel as one with you to this… Equestria,” Yejide stated, a hoof caressing the coiled snake cut into the forehead of her wooden mask. “But we are quite happy and safe here in Zebrabar.”

“Surrounded by corpses?” Sarai asked, sniffing disdainfully.

“Surrounded by corpses,” Yejide confirmed with a rasping laugh. “Yes. Exactly.”

“How much do you know of Equestria?” Chrysalis asked. Ebele, Sarai noticed, quickly whispered into her bed-ridden mother’s ear. The male simply stood, silent as a statue, though with a degree of boldness and threat that Sarai’s own sons lacked. Could it be that these Aida-Weddo males could do more than just mate? Could he actually… fight? It seemed impossible, but Yejide did say that he assisted the Queen.

Either way, all seemed content to let Yejide speak for her hive.

“Some,” Yejide’s answer was evasive. “Little. But we have met Equestrians before.”

“Really?” Chrysalis asked, smiling even more broadly. She began her sales pitch, “Then you know the power that can be drawn from them! There are millions of ponies in Equestria, most so tame they can be herded like cattle. I mean to end our race’s food crisis permanently… I mean to create a new changeling nation! Yejide, your poisons and your mastery of thanatology can go a long way to making this dream – our collective changeling dream – a reality!”

Sarai rolled her eyes, having heard much of those before.

- - -

Princess Luna, however, listened very closely as the memory unfolded.

- - -

“That is… enough… for now…” Luna said, raising her head and her horn. “We have learned much and more. The rest will come with time.”

A cool smoke billowed around her horn along with a sense of numbness from plumbing the dreaming depths of a foreign mind. For all that changelings could and did mimic equestrians, their minds were very different. The difficulty was compounded by the Princess’s other plights as well.

Turning around, Luna sat in front of her three would-be partners. It was time to fill them in. They had been waiting patiently for some time, she knew.

Well… two of them had been waiting patiently.

“It’s the End of the World! We’re all gonna die! The moon is going to crush us into dust! The shockwave will blow the oceans into space! The magnetic poles will shift! All the laws of the universe will be repealed! Dogs and cats will live together! The Mayan llamas were right! The Mayan llamas were RIGHT! OW!! Hey…!

Rainbow Dash grumpily rubbed the back of her head, her panicked exposition coming to a sudden and abrupt halt. “What was that for?”

Applejack sighed, cradling her sanity-restoring hoof post application to her friend’s cranium. “Calm down, already. The Princess is back. Ah’m sure she was just about to explain what she meant earlier.”

“You guys are no fun,” Dash grumbled under her breath. “Just wait’ll the sun explodes. Then you’ll see. Then you’ll all see.”

“Princess Luna?” Rarity prompted, sitting down on top of a bound and still unconscious Queen Sarai. Applejack joined her a second later, dragging Dash along the way. “You were saying?”

“First, let us thank you,” Luna replied, nodding respectfully. “This Queen Sarai will be a vital source of information into the disposition of the enemy. It demonstrates auspicious and assiduous foresight that you three subdued this villain without killing her.”

“Actually, that was a total accident--” Dash’s torso bent as Applejack gave her a less than subtle nudge. “--I mean just as planned, yer Highness!”

“That was the plan alright,” Applejack agreed, eyes fitting conspiratorially left and right.

“Things worked out, suffice to say,” Rarity concluded.

“Yes,” Luna said, coughing into her silver-gilded hoof. “Well. As we had begun to explain earlier, our connection with our heavenly partners has been severed. In the short term, there is no real danger from this. The sky will not fall; the moon shall not go into free-fall; the sun will most certainly not explode… any more than it is constantly exploding already.”

“But won’t one of them end up fixed in the sky?” Dash asked, speaking quickly and, to everypony’s surprise, rather astutely. It was commonly thought that the Princesses needed to move the sun and moon incrementally, every second of every day, like the forelegs of a ticking timepiece.

Luna shook her head. “We do not, in fact, micromanage the movement of the sun and moon. We are more akin to…” She struggled to find the proper analogy for a few seconds. “Ah! Yes! We are like custodians!”

She pantomimed taking a wrench to a large bolt to tighten it.

“We but maintain the proper orbital motions of both sun and moon! Without us, they will simply revert to what they were in times long past.”

“So you’re space janitors,” Dash went on to say.

“Rainbow!” Rarity objected, scandalized.

“Please don’t call the Princesses ‘janitors,’” Applejack added, nudging her friend.

“Fine!” Dash relented, holding her hooves up to forestall more argument. “Sanitation Engineers. Or Space Secretaries!”

“Our duty is the critical maintenance of the celestial clockwork!” Luna explained, a trace of annoyance in her tone of voice. The three mares quickly gave her their full attention, sans interruption or commentary.

Luna raised a hoof, conjuring up an image of Equestria and Equus Entire, floating in the aether of space. The blue and green marble shimmered within the empty sea of magic, containing all their world’s hopes and dreams. Hugging the perfect little world in close, like a lover or partner, was the lifeless orb that was the moon. Beyond that there was the burning orb that was the sun, only slightly larger than the moon.

“The mysterious flow of the aethereal currents shall continue to set all three of our heavenly bodies in motion, yet it will not be the motion to which you and yours are accustomed.” Before Luna’s hooves, the regular, circular motion of the moon and sun shifted, becoming more erratic and uneven. “The Old Order will return, before our unicorn ancestors made contract with the sun and moon.”

“It doesn’t look like much of a difference,” Applejack observed, looking up at the magical display, “if you’ll pardon my sayin’ so.”

“The climates of this world were radically different in the distant past,” Luna continued, zooming in on the twinkling planet. “Just as the pegasi tamed the weather, so, too, did the unicorns tame the heavens. Though some would call it hubris, this was their gift, and it was their sacred responsibility to mitigate the harshness of our winters and the cruelty of our summers. For more than two thousand years, we have all worked in concert to make our world habitable and harmonious, free from the scourge of famine and drought… and greater dangers still.”

Luna lowered her hoof, and the images evaporated into shadow and smoke.

“Believe me, you shall notice it when the Old Order returns,” Luna assured Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity all. “Not today, or even tomorrow, but within a week. My sister and I were tasked to manage and maintain the sun and moon for good reason. You cannot comprehend how fickle and cruel the Old Order of this world can be.”

“I don’t pretend to understand the broader cosmic or ecological significance of all this,” Rarity wondered aloud, delicately tapping her hoof to her chin. “But what I would like to know is why this is happening now, of all times. The timing cannot be a coincidence, with the city in such turmoil.”

“We imagine not,” Luna replied, folding her hooves over in front of herself. Taking a breath and glancing upwards to regain her proper royal composure, Luna took a moment to ponder over just how to explain what she suspected to have transpired, and the history behind it.

“You must have some context, first,” she finally said. “When my sister and I first came to this part of the world, we were not with your three tribes. Think on it. Your Hearth’s Warming tale. Is it not curious that there is no mention of an alicorn amongst your founding mothers and fathers?”

The three mares exchanged looks, clearly not having put much thought into it.

“No matter,” Luna went on to explain. “We will summarize. In the distant past, as we have said, unicorns learned to manage the sun and moon to benefit all ponykind. To this end, they formed a sacred compact… a contract… with the stars in question.”

“A contract?’ Rarity inquired, narrowing her eyes slightly. “Antimony and Lady Star Light mentioned that before… in the context of summoning spells.”

Luna nodded. “Yes. Understand this: sapient, thinking creatures and entities can and often will resist a summoning or a magical command. Greater beings will take offense and seek revenge on the mage who so dares to command them. When one progresses beyond the level of a basic animal summoning, a contract is essential. This gift, as with so many others, was bequeathed to pony-kind in the most distant past, most likely by the Heavenly Mare, Pegasus.”

“Hold up a second! Pegasus is… real?” Rainbow Dash asked, unabashedly awestruck. “The Pegasus. She’s real?”

Luna bit back her initial answer, instead settling for, “She is, most assuredly, real. As real as the sun and moon.”

Rainbow Dash fell back on her haunches, putting all her weight on the unconscious changeling Queen beneath her. For once, she actually seemed to be struck speechless. Unsurprisingly, the constellation Pegasus was still held dear by pegasus ponies, even centuries after all other ponies had eschewed the starry, empyrean pantheon.

Luna found herself secretly rather amused. A great many things had fallen into legend over the last thousand years, herself the least of them all. It was… unfortunate… that ponykind had forgotten the being that created it, that gave it magic in the first place, but given the events of the past, perhaps it was for the best. Pegasus was entirely unique in her life-giving nature, but even that nature was incomprehensible and immoral by mortal standards.

“A contract in this sense is not written on paper,” Luna continued, in no way intending to explain more of that part of her past. It was irrelevant anyway. She held out her hoof and conjured up an image of a thick document before crossing it out with a big red X.

“An empyrean contract is sealed in the sacred script that is magic, writ on the parchment of night-iron. Art any of you familiar with night-iron?” Luna noted the three mares shaking their heads. “We thought not. Night-iron is iron, but bathed in aether at the forge. Iron as a metal absorbs any form of magic readily, conducting it. Though I know not the details of the ancient process… night-iron absorbs and retains the aether in the forge, becoming nearly indestructible. The contract is so transcribed and sealed--”

Luna summoned another image, this time of twisted gold and iron.

“--most often in the form of a ritual torc or crown,” the Princess concluded.

Rarity leaned forward, her eyes wide. “I’ve… I’ve seen one of those before! In Twilight’s library! She… we… fixed one! It was missing aqua jewels, and I helped Twilight find a way to replace them in the settings. There was old magic in the torc as well!”

“That is a surprise,” Luna replied, frowning slightly, but then turning pensive. “But perhaps not as much of one as I thought. We brought many artifacts with us when we came to the New World that became Equestria, and there were many more left in the permafrost of the Old Kingdom.”

“So these fancy crown thingies are some kinda contract, and you sign yer name to it in magic, right?” Applejack asked, pointing up at the image Luna had conjured.

“Very well put!” Luna answered, nodding excitedly. “Before even our time, the First Crown was created.” In the air, she created an image of a horned crown, far less elegant than the ones most ponies associated with royalty. No less than four golden horns arced from the metal band, studded lightly with strange clear-blue jewels around the base.

“It linked the royal family of the Old Kingdom to the Sun and Moon, but therein it created a problem. The original family of two multiplied, until, generation upon generation; there were many hundreds of ponies who could potentially access the power of the contract. Much conflict resulted and the royal family adopted draconian methods and restrictive breeding laws to monopolize the power of the heavens. This persisted until the chaos of the Great Winter, when the windigos were released upon us.”

“Eventually…” Luna touched the crown, and it shattered. “The First Crown was taken and briefly reforged. It was in this time that the honor of partnership with the sun and moon passed to Celestia and myself… by right of birth. We came to Equestria, some-things-happened, and a new crown was forged by Princess Platinum. This one codified a new contract, signed not on behalf of a family and its descendants, but by two mares, made immortal in the process.”

“Why do I get the feelin’ ya skipped a bunch of stuff in the middle there?” Applejack asked.

“The crown made you immortal,” Rarity focused on the final and most pressing point.

“Yes.” Luna hung her head. “Without it, we will continue to age as we did when we were young. Unless it is remade and the contract restored, we will grow old… and die… and the sun and moon will revert once more to their natural state. More importantly: thousands… more likely millions… will die in the upheaval that will result, not just in Equestria, but across the entire world.”

“But why?” Rainbow Dash suddenly yelled. “Why would anypony do that!? Why would the changelings do it? Nopony wants wild weather going crazy! Nopony wants wild animals running around! Nopony wants a… wild sun and moon! If this is anything like when the weather goes bad…” She shook her head, angry and upset. Better than most, a pegasus weathermare would know what an untamed hurricane could do to a town. “I don’t get why anypony would do that!”

“Nopony should even be able to break the night-iron seal to begin with,” Luna thought aloud, and snuffed out her remaining illusions. “Even we are not sure how it would be done.”

“But you said they could be, and had been, reforged,” Rarity reminded her.

“Tis… true,” Luna admitted, nibbling her lower lip as she recalled that fact. “You told us that Twilight Sparkle was restoring a broken torc. Is that to say she had a means of reforging it herself?”

“No,” Rarity replied, also thinking on the matter for a few seconds. “No, I don’t… not at the time I visited her and saw it. At the time she mentioned night-iron and not being able to fix it. But… but that was before…”

“Before what?” Applejack asked, her eyes drawn down into a frown. “Somethin’ about this smells like a rotten apple.”

“Call me inquisitive, or even nosy, but I just so happened to listen in once while Twilight was muttering to herself,” Rarity explained, well aware of her reputation as a snooper. “She mentioned finding an Archive. Knowing Twilight, this could only mean a library of sorts. I had assumed she meant the Royal Archives in Canterlot... but…”

“Art thou suggesting Twilight Sparkle could reforge the broken crown of Princess Platinum?” Luna asked, more than a little hopeful.

“Maybe?” Rarity answered, but clearly unsure. “She was studying a broken torc, and now we have one that needs fixing. It sounds like a good bet, I should think.”

“Indeed?” Luna stamped her hoof on the floor, a decision made. “We shall have to seek her out, then, when the time is right. Finding her will be more trouble than finding the crown itself. Platinum’s magic still sings within the etching of the crown. It will be easy to find, even buried in rubble like we suspect it to be.”

“Wait, Platinum’s magic…?” Rarity felt a sneaking suspicion enter her mind. “Princess, why does the Duchess of Canterlot wear this crown? It makes no sense that anypony wears it when the contract is between yourself, Princess Celestia, and the sun and moon.”

For the first time since she had begun to explain things, Luna clearly and uncomfortably hesitated to answer. Her nose scrunched up as she held back her words, a phony-pony’s face that Rarity recognized all too easily. Indeed, with a face like that, few ponies would be surprised if Luna had been an Element of Honesty in some past life.

“We, uhm, we…” The Princess of the Night stammered, breezily waving a hoof through the air. “We, that is--” Luna suddenly laughed, holding her hoof in front of her mouth. “--we hardly see how that matters now! Ah ha ha ha! Truly, there are much more pressing matters before us! Let us attend to them!”

“If I were to marry Prince Blueblood, and I intend to do just that, then I would be the one wearing that crown,” Rarity insisted, and Princess or not, alicorn or not, she demanded an answer. Leaning forward, she all but dared the Princess to brush her off again. “Why does the Duchess of Canterlot wear this crown? What aren’t you telling me?”

Luna’s laugh petered off and her hoof slowly lowered back to the floor.

“Princess?” Applejack asked, also siding with her friend.

“See? Unicorn guys always come with baggage,” Rainbow Dash added, raising an eyebrow and smirking at Rarity’s annoyed pout. “But I’d like to know, too. What’s up, Princess?”

“If… if you all absolutely insist on knowing,” Luna finally relented, a sigh escaping her lips. “I will ask that you keep this a secret.”

The three mares, all a little more interested in juicy secrets and rumors than they normally cared to admit, leaned forward, ears twitching in excitement. From the looks on their faces, Luna could guess that they thought it would be something scandalous. Little did they know. Little did anypony know.

“The Crown of Princess Platinum isn’t just the contract we described earlier,” Luna explained, shuffling uneasily in place and twiddling her hooves. “It has a second function. But first, we should tell you the great flaw in the design of the crown. We must tell you why only a mare can wear it…”

- - -

There were only two of them.

Against a thousand or more, it had been decided to send just two.

Prince Blueblood trotted slowly up the white marble steps of the Grand Palace of Canterlot, taking in the façade of the Capitol of Equestria with a familiar, appreciative eye. He knew this place well. The columns were imported from Bitaly; the delicate statuary and artistry from the master artistes of Prance; the great arched tympanum over the main gate, surrounded by decorative archivolts and reliefs, was a local product; the breathtaking windows of murrine glass came from an island of monks off the shore of Reinice, set in Germane stonework clerestories. The high oriel windows drank in light all throughout the day, filling the halls within the palace with a delicate rainbow glow. The Palace was more than a home for the royal family and the Princess, now Princesses. It was a display of all the vigor, diversity, and unity of Equestria as a whole.

The stained glass windows were crusted, now, in changeling wax. The marble and granite stairs up to the door were littered with hexagonal blocks of green and black, where the changelings excreted barricades to hide behind. A dolly trailer rested atop a wooden ramp, a few empty cocoons left behind on top, a few others stacked up against the wall.

Two insect-like changelings sat behind each barricade, glaring down at the two ponies with suspicious, slit eyes. A cannon’s brass barrel stuck out between each pair, pointing upwards in the hope of picking off any foolish pegasus who dared to fly too close. Not that any would dare. The skies were literally choked with formations of buzzing changelings assembled into neat squares and rows.

Blueblood schooled his expression, but glanced discretely to his right, checking on his partner.

Night Shade. It would be quite the polite prevarication to say she was his favorite pony at the moment. The master oneiromancer, or dream mage, had tormented him all throughout his captivity, working ceaselessly to turn him against his Aunts and reveal the secrets of the family Archives. He had very nearly shown her the secret of the Phlogiston, the one spell he would never forgive himself for letting loose on the world a second time. On the other hoof, she was fairly easy on the eyes when she wasn’t frothing-at-the-mouth mad and under the thrall of murderous changelings. Her mane was lustrous pearl white and her coat a midnight blue like Aunt Luna’s, her eyes a deep and piercing violet.

‘I never could stay mad at the beautiful ones…’

Not that it stopped them from getting mad at him when he failed to remember their names the next morning. Mares. Go figure.

Still, Night Shade had his respect as well. She needn’t have come along. Her bat-winged husband Moonshine had all but demanded she find somewhere to hide, what with her still recovering from being freed of changeling mind control. By Tartarus’s revolving door, freeing her at all had been a fluke, and like any husband, Moonshine just wanted to keep his mare out of further danger.

Blueblood had agreed with him, too.

From the moment the mad plan entered his head, Blueblood had intended to head to the Palace himself, and if things went flanks-up, then that was one pony lost, but only one pony. Instead, Night Shade had berated both her batpony husband and her rightful Prince, reminding them that there was a better chance of success if she came along, even if that meant risking her life. Watching her brow-beat her ferocious-looking significant other had been rather amusing. Cadance had even laughed, despite voicing her own concerns and worry for them.

‘You know, if we’re really going to be brother and sister again,’ she had reminded him, with a playful swat of her wing. ‘You’re going to have to stay alive for more than just a single hectic afternoon.’

It had been good to hear her laugh again; given the state they had all been in upon seeing their city and their world in flames. Trotting slowly alongside Night Shade, Blueblood took a moment to wonder how they were doing, all the ponies they had left behind.

Cadance was a far stronger mare than her delicate appearance indicated… as would be expected of an alicorn with the strengths of all three pony races. Yet it was her mind and her resolve that truly impressed him. Despite the months of torture, mental and physical, and her own burning desire to see the changeling menace undone, such thoughts did not drive her alone. Instead, it was the thought of her precious Shining Armor and saving him – oaf that he was – that kept her sane. How quickly and easily she extended her caring and her affection towards all those they had rescued. The little pegasus filly had become a fine alicorn mare. The stars had chosen well, making her a Princess.

She had somewhat poor taste in guards, however. That Flash Sentry fellow had about as much taste for combat as Blueblood himself did, which was to say none whatsoever. The difference was that he recognized his own distaste for hooficuffs and all things sundry and young Sentry still desperately wished to prove himself as a worthy Royal Guard and earn that coveted white dye-job.

It was Blueblood’s own opinion that young stallions “proving themselves” tended to get them killed in situations like this. It just seemed far wiser to enjoy one’s youth and spend it wrestling with pretty young mares in bed, as opposed to wrestling with dangerous beasts and monsters in the bloody mud. After all, a pony could risk his life anytime. Enjoying life’s pleasures was a far rarer and more precious thing.

Not that young Flash Sentry listened. Just like Shining Armor.

Perhaps that was why Cadance favored him like she did? Sentry was like Twilight’s noble brother, writ small, in orange instead of white, with feathers instead of a horn. They were both fearless, helpful, genuinely nice young stallions, instead of craven, self-important jerks. And if both were very lucky, they might even survive this madness. Too bad for Sentry and Shining both, life often favored the ones who ran over the ones who fought.

Fortunately, Princess Cadance still had the cadre of experienced guards they had liberated from changeling cocoon-captivity. Just as vital to their survival, they still looked fabulous. Blueblood knew the mane-glamour would fade without him nearby, but the spells to enhance the sparkle of their teeth, the luster of their coats, the brightness of their eyes, and the sparkles – oh, young mares did love the sparkles – would remain in place, making them impossible for the changelings to completely mimic. All things considered, Cadance was some ten or twelve times as safe as Blueblood himself felt at the moment.

Lastly, there was the fair Lyra Heartstrings and her otherworldly magic that had apparently been amped up from ‘tickle’ to ‘pimp slap’ to ‘backhand of an angry god.’ She was the one he had been most tempted to initially bring along. Lyra had been a bridesmaid, so there was a chance that Chrysalis would still believe her part of the changeling fold. It was a small chance, however, given all the recent fighting and the magically enhanced harpist would be needed if their group encountered another bridesmaid. Blueblood understood that he and Miss Night Shade were far more expendable as actual combat assets. Such was life.

It was a shame, though. Miss Heartstrings tended towards empty chatter but she still would’ve been pleasant company – and, of course, very easy on the eyes as well. Blueblood chuckled to himself, shaking his head in amusement. Was it so wrong that that was important to him? Rarity would probably give him her version of Miss Fluttershy’s much vaunted STARE, but it wasn’t like she didn’t gawk at handsome stallions from time to time. They were just two ponies who loved beautiful things, be they gems or artwork or statuary or the opposite sex.

Alas, to leave all that behind, walking right in to the lair of the great beast itself!

“Getting cold hooves, Your Grace?”

“Not at all,” Blueblood replied, fixing Night Shade with his most suave smile. “Merely taking in the sights one last time. Sadly, I can’t say I approve of the new décor.”

“That makes two of us,” she said, sotto voce. “This is really our last chance to turn back…”

“No. No turning back, I’m afraid,” he answered in the same whisper. “As a stallion, Miss Shade, I do dislike commitment, but once I do commit, there is no option to waver. There is only pressing forward.”

“The only thing we can do, as ponies, is move forward,” Night Shade quoted, softly. He was reminded that this mare had seen into his mind and his experiences like few others. She knew much about the loops, and she knew the words of advice his Aunts had given him that changed his life.

“Exactly so,” he agreed, sighing and listening to the tak-tak of his once well-manicured hooves on the palace steps.

“Do you think all that really happened?” Night Shade asked. “Time loops like that… it seems impossible…”

“Oh?”

“It could’ve been a psychotic episode,” she suggested, and he laughed in a genteel way, not offended in the least. Night Shade still clearly felt a bit ashamed of phrasing it so bluntly and quietly explained, “No offense intended, Your Grace. But you could have set much of it up, learned those spells on your own, and subconsciously invented the time loops as a way to reconcile what you had been compelled to do with your existing worldview. I once cured a housewife who had been subconsciously losing her own keys and blaming her husband for it… the mind can be a very twisted thing…”

“Wise words, and true,” he admitted. “If so, then my mind is twisted beyond belief or recovery. Why do you think I kept such knowledge from those close to me?”

“But you’re still willing to bet your life that it was real?”

“Absolutely.”

Night Shade shook her head, still unable to grasp his reasoning… or maybe unable to grasp her own, for following him this far. The mad time-looping Prince of Canterlot. A Mad Blueblood was hardly a historical anomaly, but a mad time-looping Blueblood? Ah, that would be a first! It wasn’t exactly the distinction he had planned for in the great family archives, especially since he had never expected to distinguish himself in the first place, but it would do.

“We’re here,” she whispered. “You’re right. No turning back now.”

Night Shade walked slightly ahead of him, giving the impression of leading her willing captive back to her master. Like so many other changelings they had encountered on the walk over, the ones guarding the front of the palace glared at them warily, but let them pass. Purposefully entering the palace proper, the pair passed by yet more changelings, many either dragging or checking on captured ponies. There were cocoons aplenty, and though he never let his thoughts show on his haughty expression, Blueblood took some small comfort in the fact that most everypony who was caught was also being kept alive.

That positive impression soured instantly as they entered the hall leading up to the throne room. Two small piles of bodies lay to either side of the carpet, guarded by menacing, scowling changelings with cloth tied around their snouts. Blueblood’s nose twitched at the smell. It was easy to notice a pattern among the piled bodies: the horns. Unicorns.

They were killing unicorns.

He watched as a changeling roughly stripped the armor off of a dead guard, the slate-gray coat and pale mane that was their uniform appearance reverting to natural colors of white and brown as the magical barding came loose. The body was thrown onto the disposal pile. The armor was probably being taken for repurposing. Blueblood could already see more than a few changelings in blackened, corrupted plate armor. One smiled as he walked by, her mouth stocked full of sharp, wicked teeth.

Blueblood turned away from the sight and focused on what lay ahead.

Queen Chrysalis reclined lazily on the Gold and Rose Throne, where Celestia had sat and ruled for a thousand years. A subservient changeling brushed her loose membranous mane and another oiled the holes of her hooves to a fine luster. Rank after rank of changelings stood in audience with her, assembled to zealously carry out her merest whim.

Night Shade didn’t miss a step, despite the horror they had witnessed, despite the fear she had to feel, and Blueblood made sure he did the same. The façade of being aloof and unconcerned could not falter or fail, not when they realized just how overwhelmingly surrounded they were, and not when they saw the body at the base of Chrysalis’s new throne.

Celestia.

The Princess was sprawled out over some sort of waxy changeling tarp, a broken cocoon discarded off to the side and a new one readied nearby. If he didn’t know better, Blueblood would have felt compelled to joke that they were having some trouble finding a pod to accommodate his Auntie’s incomparable and inimitable plot. More likely, however, they had put her on one pod and then removed her from it.

Something was wrong, then, but it could work in their favor.

“My wayward draumr returns,” Chrysalis announced with a sweep of her hoof. “Welcome, Night Shade. Welcome… Blueblood.”

Night Shade stepped forward and bowed deeply, her nose to the carpet. Blueblood did the same, a heartbeat behind her. Eyes downcast, they heard rather than saw Chrysalis step down from her dais.

“We have heard certain rumors of a jail break in the crystal caverns,” the Queen went on to say, her hooves disappearing from view as she slowly circled the pair. “Two of our bridesmaids do not answer our summons. And now you come here, to me? What interesting timing you have.”

“I have broken the resistance of Lord Blueblood as commanded of me, my Queen,” Night Shade answered, her nose still to the floor.

“I wanted to know about Cadance and my bridesmaids,” Chrysalis hissed, a note of impatience in her tone. “Perhaps you have done as asked. If so, you will be… rewarded, but for now, tell me: what happened in the crystal caverns?”

Night Shade was suitably obsequious.

“Yes, my Queen of Queens,” she groveled. “As you know, I am not involved in the handling of the petty alicorn Cadenza. I had just completed my work when she broke in, possessed of a great and towering rage. I am ashamed to say that her powers proved greater than my own, and as I had just acquired the secrets of the Blueblood Archives, I did not wish to die or fail to bring this knowledge to you. I awoke Lord Blueblood and we pretended to follow the Princess. There was nothing we could otherwise do. When we reached the surface, we distracted the mob Cadenza had freed and made our escape.”

Chrysalis hissed, lifting Night Shade’s chin with her hoof so the mare could look her in the eyes.

“Is that so?” the Queen asked, tilting her head. She didn’t mention the fight that they had orchestrated to give credence to their leaving the group they had freed. Some-changeling must have seen it… or maybe not. Chrysalis made no effort to reveal how much she knew. A lie, Blueblood knew, couldn’t just be told. It needed to be sold.

“I believe she used her love magic somehow,” Night Shade tried to explain. “She found a way to usurp control of your bridesmaids, my Queen. The green one was with her.”

Chrysalis glanced away at that suggestion, her mind momentarily preoccupied. “Such a thing… could she really be capable of it? Seizing control of my bridesmaids? Ohhh… Brass, you lied to me, you bastard…” She shook her head and stood up straight and tall, towering over lesser beings. “No matter! I will deal with Mi Amore Cadenza in due time, and Heartstrings, too!”

Her serpentine eyes narrowed, and drifted slowly over to the stallion of the pair.

“So, Blueblood has been broken, then? This is good news…! But almost too good. I believe I would like a test of loyalty, to me, specifically.” Chrysalis snickered, and tapped her hoof against the stone floor. “Lord Blueblood, who is your Queen?”

“You are,” he answered, glancing up at her. “Chrysalis is Queen of Queens.”

“I am,” the arrogant shape-shifter agreed with a girlish titter. “As your Queen of Queens, I command you to break every single one of Night Shade’s legs, one by one.”

Night Shade spun around just in time to be knocked over. Blueblood lowered his leg from the backhoof he had just delivered. The dark coated unicorn mare who had tortured him endlessly in his dreams lay before him now, helpless and on her side, nursing a welt across her cheek. She looked up at him, into the emotionless blue eyes he struggled to maintain. Not even shedding a tear, she willingly extended her right front leg and set it on the ground. Her eyes closed, as she waited for what was to come.

A large unshod hoof lifted to deliver the blow.

“On second thought, nevermind,” Chrysalis’ last-second response was just enough to keep him from putting his weight into the stomp. Instead, Night Shade merely winced as he stepped on her leg, enough to hurt but not enough to break.

‘Thank Celestia,’ he all but screamed in his mind. ‘Oh, Auntie… I was about to… about to…!’

“Can you stand, Night Shade?” Chrysalis asked, and followed it immediately with, “Well, come on, then. Stand up.”

“Yes, oh Queen of Queens,” the hurting dream-mage rolled onto all fours and stood, albeit uneasily. Blueblood wished for only a moment that he could express his apologies to her with thoughts alone, but Night Shade didn’t even turn her head to look at him. His admiration for her grew.

She was ‘in for a bit, in for a bridle,’ as the old saying went. They both were.

“Your Queen is pleased to see her prize returned to her in good condition,” Chrysalis went on to say; now focusing her attentions on the subservient unicorn Prince.

Blueblood found his own eyes, without really meaning to, wandering up to the side of the Solar Throne. Shining Armor sat there, like an obedient dog, staring blankly ahead. His horn was still aglow and still maintaining the Canterlot city shield. The stallion’s magical stamina was incredible, but he didn’t look good. How long had he been maintaining that spell? His magic looked to be enhanced with love, like Cadance could do, which made sense as Chrysalis would haves mimicked all of Cadance’s abilities, but how long did he have before he burned out completely?

“Mmmmm,” Chrysalis cooed, her hoof playing across his chest. “You’re bigger than my Shining Armor,” she remarked with a smug laugh, reaching under him to shamelessly pat his stomach and undercarriage. “I like my males strong and well sculpted, did you know that…? Like pieces of art. Have you ever defaced a piece of art, Your Grace?”

The tone was mocking; the touch humiliating, but Blueblood fixed his eyes forward. “I am afraid not, my Queen.”

“There’s few things better,” Chrysalis assured him, rubbing her cheek to his and nipping at his ear hard enough to draw a trickle of blood. “Your Aunt is watching us. Look down at her.”

Blueblood did so. Princess Celestia was still helpless on the floor, her breathing labored. Her orchid-violet eyes met his for just a moment before closing in shame at being unable to help him. That one act alone nearly pushed him to slap the changeling queen away. The thought that she blamed herself…? It filled him with an unexpected black rage.

“Oh?” Chrysalis glanced downward with an amused laugh. “She closed her eyes! Now I know this will be fun. Plus, there’s the irony. Canterlot’s infamous ladies’ stallion… broken utterly to my will. But what form would be best to use?”

Chrysalis circled around him, and when next she trotted by, it was in the form of Princess Cadance. Her hoof gently teased the underside of his jaw.

“A good response,” Chrysalis gauged, sucking in something in the air. “Not great, however. Let’s try another.”

She walked past him again and then turned around, shifting form a second time. She shrunk down, her lithe alicorn figure becoming softer and more generous, her mane and tail taking on purple curls.

“Rarity is this one’s name, isn’t that right?” she asked as she sauntered past him. “Oh, yes… yes, I can feel it. Your love for her. Sweet and ripe like strawberries on chocolate. This form would probably do… if I were a normal changeling seeking a lovemeal. But I am not. I am Chrysalis!”

“…And my tastes,” she explained, rounding on him to look him eye-to-eye, “are more exotic than that! Simple romantic or platonic love just doesn’t wet my palate like it used to. I seek a more complex flavor.”

Still holding his chin, she morphed, growing taller like with Cadance, but her colors shifting to midnight blue. Blueblood remained stock straight as Chrysalis transformed into Luna. She leaned in and teasingly licked his lower lip. Her tongue was black and barbed, like sandpaper. The Queen of Queens took a step back to relish in her handiwork.

“Ohhh, yes,” she muttered, licking her lips hungrily. “Yes! Flavors of fear and shame and self-loathing, like sour grape candy! I worried you wouldn’t have an emotional response to this body at all… but if this one works, then what about…?”

Chrysalis laughed as she grew even more, her mane and tail lengthening and rippling with a rainbow of colors. She craned her neck, clearly putting a little effort into this transformation, and then used a hoof to move part of her mane over her left eye for effect. For the first time, as Princess Celestia, she was able to truly look down on her soon-to-be-victim. Her visible eye widened with a sick grin.

“I think this one will work best, don’t you?” she asked, leaning down and stealing his lips with her own.

It was no gentle, fleeting, teasing kiss. Her teeth bit down in his lower lip, and her hoof seized him roughly by the ear. Panic and helplessness flashed through Blueblood’s heart at the sudden, violent, violation, lingering there only a moment before Chrysalis tore the emotions free, leaving ragged holes behind. His head swam, not just from the domination at her hooves, but from having his emotions unceremoniously wrenched out from within.

Blackness crept around the edges of his vision.

“More!” Chrysalis demanded. “Open your eyes!” she commanded, and against his own will, his body obeyed. His eyes shot wide open, blue and full of terror. “Look at me! Look. At. Me. Look! At what. I AM!

Blueblood whimpered, his mind floating away from his own body, divesting itself of the sensations. Drawing out his tongue, she bit onto it and the pain forced him back. With mounting horror, he realized this wasn’t just a passing flight of fancy for her. Chrysalis knew exactly what she was doing. She knew just how to keep her victim from zoning out. She knew how to milk a stallion of the emotions she craved.

Celestia’s face filled his eyes, the loving, caring violet eyes he had looked into all his life warped by malice and cruelty and hunger. Great white wings, wings that had comforted him in the worst moments of his life, jabbed nimble primary feathers into his mane, holding his head in place like a vice. Chrysalis drew back, blood dripping from her mouth, an ecstatic look clouding her stolen features.

“Superb! Most changelings can’t even imagine… what two at once feels like. A Princess and a Prince. The sensation is fantastic!” Chrysalis moaned, pausing only to glance back at the prone Celestia at the base of the throne’s steps. “Like jets of pure pleasure across my entire body! This…! This has to be why your race really exists. What other reason could there be?”

She released him and Blueblood very nearly collapsed into a boneless heap. All cognizant thought fled from his mind for a few seconds, leaving only the base instinct of fear to fill the mental holes the changeling Queen left in her wake. Then he gagged, his throat retching, the taste of blood filling his mouth. Losing his balance and stumbling, he barely caught himself.

‘Suns and stars,’ the first few thoughts returned to his damaged mind, ‘what have I gotten myself into?’

“Apologies… my sincere apologies,” he heard Chrysalis say in Celestia’s voice, though she didn’t sound like she meant it. “Napkins, please.”

Head still blurry, he was presented with the feeling of a delicate silk napkin dabbing at the blood to his mouth. Just the same, Chrysalis-as-Celestia had her lips in a pout while a small changeling reached up to clean her of the mess. Like a servant would after a meal.

“That was a wonderful appetizer,” Chrysalis said, licking her lips and dismissing the napkin-bearing changeling. “But I fear I drank a little too greedily. I’ll go slower… in the future. This was my first sampling of both a Prince and Princess at the same time. Your emotions combined were everything I’d expected.”

“Zzch,” the changeling tending to Blueblood’s wounded mouth admonished him to keep still. Two more came forward, presenting tiny plates of mint sorbet ice cream.

‘To cleanse the palate between meals, of course,’ Blueblood’s reeling mind explained, almost hysterical. ‘A madhouse it may be, but a refined one, oh yes!’

“Thank you,” Chrysalis-as-Celestia sampled the sorbet from a tiny silver spoon. “As I said: a delightful mix of emotions. Your fear and her horror complement each other perfectly. In the months to come, you will ravish this form in a hundred ways, and in your waking, thinking moments, each one dwindling day by day, you will hate yourself more and more. And so shall she. Until you no longer even know who you are. Until you can no longer tell her from me. Until you no longer even care!”

Blueblood closed his eyes, finding a calm place in the storm of his emotions kicked up by the changeling Queen. He found it in a memory of waking up, for the first morning in thousands, no longer alone. He clung to it, and his mind sharpened and gained focus.

“Such a complex emotional dish…” Chrysalis sucked the last sliver of sorbet from the dessert spoon and handed it back to her changeling servant. “My mouth is watering… just thinking about it.”

“Yes, my Queen,” he whispered, bowing his head obediently.

“But indulging in such delights is really for another time,” Chrysalis mused, reverting to her changeling form and turning around to trot back towards the throne. “Let me see. I do want to know where your precious archives of magic are… but since you are here, now, you can also help me with a problem I’m having.”

She kicked the prone body of Celestia as she trotted past her.

“I would prefer to have my prize intact, despite her wounds, but something else is wrong with her,” the Queen explained, and took her seat above them all. “I have brought in medical unicorns… even an Aida-Weddo death witch--” She gestured towards a purple-colored changeling who stood a good distance away, her face hidden behind a wooden mask. “--and all for naught. Not a one could figure out what was wrong. Perhaps you could help, my pet Prince? She is your flesh and blood, after all.”

“As you wish it, my Queen,” Blueblood replied, walking forward. His heart nearly broke at the sight of his Aunt, helpless as a newborn foal, patches of changeling wax over multiple stab wounds across her body. When her eye opened and she glanced up at him, he could see first hope and then despair. Every fiber of his body tensed to act, to grab her and try and run or teleport, but he restrained it. He fought it down. Even as it tore him apart, he fought it down.

Ducking down, he ran his hooves over his Aunt’s beaten body.

There were two rather horrific gashes, entering at each shoulder and terminating more shallowly out the chest. Another similar wound crippled the left leg, cleaving clean through muscle. More worrisome still was the hole ripped into her stomach and out her back. Any other pony – almost any other being in this world – would be dead from these wounds. Most would be dead from just one of them.

Yet Celestia clung to life, her alicorn and earth pony constitution not only allowing her to survive, but heal, even through all this. It was astonishing.

But … Chrysalis was right. There was something wrong. Celestia was hot; her body was hot to the touch. More than even that, he could feel magic flowing around her. His first thought was that she was clandestinely healing herself. She was certainly keeping herself alive somehow, and even mending the otherwise mortal wounds. But that wasn’t it.

Even though the changelings had been smart enough to wax-up her horn to prevent unicorn spellcasting, like all alicorns, Celestia had earth pony and pegasus magic as well. You could cover up a horn or even a pair of wings, but an earth pony’s magic expressed itself – though focused on the hooves – across their entire body. He momentarily allowed himself to hope that, just maybe, her Auntie was cleverly biding her time and that, before anypony knew it, she would bounce up fully recovered and sweep into and through the changelings around her with righteous fury, smiting and cutting them down like wheat before a scythe.

It would’ve been pretty convenient, too.

Except this wasn’t any kind of magic he had felt before… not that he was much of an expert, admittedly. Then there were the worrying lines on her face. Princess Celestia simply didn’t have lines on her face. As far back as Equestrian history went she had flawless skin and a flawless coat, the envy of mares everywhere (to say nothing of a great many stallions). Gently brushing part of her mane aside, Blueblood frowned. There was no mistaking it. They were wrinkles. She was showing her age. It was a condition no doubt worsened by her terrible physical beating.

On the off chance that Chrysalis knew this already, he stood and told her the truth. “Princess Celestia is dying, my Queen.”

“Your Queen already knew this,” Chrysalis answered with a dismissive gesture of her holy hoof. “The question is why. Why is she dying?”

“You impaled her several times, my Queen,” he said, and at the pallor of her cheeks, guessed, “You also poisoned her, I believe.”

Chrysalis scowled. “It was a paralysis poison, specially crafted for her. Don’t tell me this all it takes to kill your vaunted Princess of the Sun?”

“No,” the Equestrian Prince replied, authoritatively, “However, so much damage in such a short time has destabilized her connection with the Sun and Moon. This is not widely known outside the royal family, but the mechanics of controlling the sun and moon mean that neither of my Aunts can use all their magic. They must always have a certain amount in reserve to hold their bodies together. Celestia’s level of magic is currently below that point needed to survive.”

“Ohh?” Chrysalis mused, rubbing her chin contemplatively. “Is that so?”

“Yes, my Queen,” he responded mechanically.

“Celestia’s death is not acceptable to me,” the Queen of Queens stated, as if her wanting it to be so meant it would be so. “Not until she has seen Equestria die and given me a taste of her true despair. More importantly than even that, I need her alive for my future Princesses and successors to imprint on. How do we go about reversing this condition?”

‘Assuming right away that there is one. You really aren’t used to hearing ‘no’ are you?’ Blueblood wisely kept the thoughts to himself. “A diffuse magic infusion will almost certainly fix the problem.”

“Explain,” Chrysalis commanded, holding out a hoof for one of her changelings to rub clean.

“We do not want her to assimilate a large amount of energy,” he said, and Chrysalis nodded in ready agreement. “Only a small amount is necessary, just enough to bump her above that ‘red line,’ so to speak. A diffuse cloud of magic will most easily accomplish this without risking giving her too much magic.”

Chrysalis’s ears twitched and she seemed to ponder what he had said for a long moment. Blueblood felt a trickle of sweat inch down the back of his neck. Finally, after an interminably long couple of seconds, Chrysalis laughed and stamped her hoof in approval.

“Yes! I like it!” she declared, and the assembled horde of changelings hissed and chattered in approval of her approval. “Perhaps I will have to keep your mind somewhat clear for the next few years, Prince Blueblood! You have your uses! Unlike this one…” She reached over to playfully tousle the mane of the insensate Shining Armor, like one would with a favored pet dog. “A virtually limitless font of love to eat, my Shining Armor, but not much in the way of brains, you see? The poor colt’s about as sharp as a brick.”

“As you say, my Queen,” Blueblood droned. Not that he would’ve disagreed, even if he was being honest. Shining had academic smarts aplenty… and a complete lack of anything else.

“Yes! As I say!” Chrysalis snapped, suddenly, pushing away Shining Armor with a rough shove. He barely maintained enough presence of mind to prop himself up and keep from falling onto his side like a piece of furniture.

“If my Queen wishes, I can produce the diffuse magic you require,” Blueblood suggested, and hastily added, “Though it is best performed at a minor lay line, such as the one in the gardens outside.”

The Queen smiled graciously, and with little more than a wave of her hoof, set things in motion. Blueblood heard Night Shade take a few steps closer to him as changelings flew down to surround them and gather up the fallen Princess. They lifted Celestia into the air, partly wrapped in a waxy tarp, to keep from further agitating her injuries and made clicking noises as they set out. Chrysalis floated down from her throne and motioned for the two equestrians to follow her.

Maybe by accident, maybe by design, Chrysalis and her entourage paused at the outer cloister of the main hall, where the two piles of unicorn bodies had been stacked up before. Already, changelings were working on a third pile. Unlike the others, made up almost entirely of fallen guardponies, Blueblood could see that this pile already had a few courtly mares and stallions gracing it. Their stained finery made for a macabre juxtaposition, and no longer hidden behind the anonymity and uniformity of the guard, the Prince recognized one or two of their faces. He forced himself not to look away.

Chrysalis, however, laughed mockingly, whispering something spiteful into Celestia’s ear.

That was it, then. They had stopped simply to torment her. To rub it in her face how those around her were suffering and dying. An ice cold hate Blueblood had in his heart solidified then, not just at the slaughter, but at how the slaughter was just a means to an end, and that end was torture. He let none of what he felt show, however, and only blinked dumbly when Chrysalis turned around to stare at him. Keeping close by, Night Shade coughed, growing sickened by the sight and smell.

“Come along,” Chrysalis sang, cheerfully leading their procession into the gardens beyond the three great palace menageries. She seemed to be in high spirits, and those spirits were not soured by the sight and sound of distant fighting elsewhere in Canterlot.

“We need to reach the center of the maze, my Queen,” Blueblood spoke up, as they approached the entrance of the great hedge maze, “by the large obelisk.”

“That old thing?” Chrysalis asked, and motioned to her swarm of minions. “You heard the Prince. Quickly now!”

Blueblood felt two changelings swoop in on either side, and, wings buzzing, they lifted him into the air. The others were already taking to the sky, and soon they were flying low over the maze, skipping over the deceptive and ingenious tricks and turns. The garden maze stretched over two hills, across a large field, with large gazebos interspersed in quiet cul-de-sacs and dead ends. Other sections were covered in thick ivy, growing like a roof over wooden and metal arches. Blueblood couldn’t recall ever seeing this view of it, flying overhead as he was now. He could see much of it from his room in the palace, and he knew the maze inside and out, but he had never actually flown over it like this before. It was mesmerizing.

Truly, the maze was a fitting tribute to Bluebelle the Twenty Third’s madness and genius both.

They landed by the Blueblood family obelisk, but Chrysalis seemed to pay it no mind. Instead, she motioned for a dozen of her changeling guards to remain in the air and then another dozen perched on the hedges all around. The rest dropped Celestia down where Blueblood indicated. Their job done, they buzzed over to wait behind their Queen, now watching the two ponies with what Blueblood could almost guess to be curiosity.

‘They aren’t animals,’ he had to remind himself sometimes. ‘They’re intelligent creatures… just… they’re using their intelligence to kill us. Maybe all this would be easier to understand if they were just mindless bugs.’

Seeming to realize she had been set down, Celestia groaned painfully.

“Go ahead,” Chrysalis said, holding out her hoof graciously. “Do it.”

Blueblood started over.

“Or, rather, don’t,” the changeling Queen suddenly countermanded, and Blueblood froze in place. His blood turned cold and he pivoted to face the glaring alicorn-imprinted Queen.

“Is something the matter, my Queen?” he asked, deferentially lowering his eyes.

“A diffuse magical cloud,” Chrysalis stated, and held up the hoof she had extended a moment before. “Like… this?

A puff of magic from her horn summoned up a hazy green fog.

Blueblood blinked, not letting himself do anymore to express his surprise.

“It is like this, isn’t it?” Chrysalis asked, lowering her hoof and letting the faint magical cloud disperse. “Then I think I’ll do this myself, if you don’t mind. Like you said, we wouldn’t want the Princess sucking up too much magic and turning violent… now would we, Prince Blueblood?”

“No, my Queen,” Blueblood answered, turning to stand next to the stoic Night Shade. The dream mage was also sweating slightly. Her tail flicked her side, a sure sign of anxiety among ponies, but one that Chrysalis didn’t seem to see. The Queen had eyes only for Celestia.

“It probably won’t,” Chrysalis said, standing over the beaten Princess. She held out her hooves and began to cast the spell. “But I do hope this hurts.”

Blueblood’s horn flashed the moment Chrysalis conjured up her magic.

- - -

The wailing screams were the first thing to pierce the darkness. The second was the realization that it wasn’t just darkness. It wasn’t a spell to drown the maze in shadow.

Queen Chrysalis howled in pain as her hooves flew to her blinded eyes.

“MY EYES!” she screamed, her voice nearly breaking. “It hurts! IT HURTS! What have you done to MY EYES!

Hers was only one pained cry of many.

A dozen changelings had been in the air, watching over the maze below. Every single one of them had turned to watch their exalted Queen of Queens cast her spell. Another dozen had been perched on archways and hedgerows, ready to pounce in case anything went wrong. They, too, had turned their attention towards their precious Queen, to see her work her magic.

Lastly, Queen Chrysalis herself. She had naturally been looking down at her hooves as the magic coalesced into a diffuse cloud. The intention had been to conjure only a tiny amount of magic… to leave no possibility that Celestia could power herself back up to full or even to a fraction of full. To be absolutely sure of this, she had opted to perform the magic herself.

The last thing Chrysalis had seen was another flash of magic and something dark wrapping around Princess Celestia’s face and eyes. After that…? After that, there had been only an agony of white and then the primal terror of black.

Purest, deepest, blinded black.

“Get them!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, horn ablaze and firing wildly into the air and into the bushes of the maze. “FIND THEM!” A vicious green blast tore a blinded changeling out of the air, ripping it nearly in half. “FIND THEM!” Another blast turned a statue of a merpony into smoking rubble. “FIND THEM!!

The blinded changelings crashed into one another and fell from the sky, sobbing.

“MY EYES!!”

Another blast of green magic blew the Blueblood Obelisk apart at the base, sending the huge block of stone crashing down on top of two other frightened, cowering changelings.

“WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO ME?” Chrysalis’s tortured shriek could be heard all the way inside the palace throne room. “I CAN’T SEE! I CAN’T SEE!!

- - -

Blueblood pushed open the sliding stone face with a muffled grunt, ushering in Night Shade and then the large, limp body of his Aunt with an unceremonious shove. As quickly as he could, he pressed the trigger to reset the hidden door. There was more to the Palace Maze than what could be seen aboveground. Flying was nice… true enough, but it was no substitute for experience, and he had explored the twists and turns of this maze since getting his cutie mark. He suspected he could navigate it with his eyes closed.

In the dark of the hidden alcove, built partly into a hill near one of the gazebos, Night Shade tore off the summoned blindfold around her face. In the faint light of his horn, he could see, for the first time, just how terrified the dream-mage actually was. Her eyes were wide and brimming with tears, and he could still make out the painful looking swelling of her cheek where he had struck her. All for the illusion. All of the deception. The violence, too.

It was all for this.

Blueblood promised himself to send Night Shade a box of chocolates when all was right with the world again. He’d never actually struck a mare before, but that seemed like adequate recompense, given the situation.

Not wasting any more time, Blueblood removed Celestia’s dark-black blindfold and wedged himself under her to roll her on his back. The stunned and hurting Princess muttered something as he accidentally brushed one of her wounds, but otherwise made hardly a sound. His beloved Auntie was heavy for a mare – he was a little shy to admit – but carrying two drunk (and lively) ladies on his back wasn’t exactly outside his exhaustive area of experience. It was less trouble than those two rodeo twins he had spent that one night with in Dodge Junction… those girls had worn spurs to bed. Yowch.

“Nephew,” he heard Celestia say, as she tried to move one of her legs.

“I have you, Auntie,” he said, softly. She grunted in pain and finally relaxed on his back again, letting one front leg fall to either side of him across the front of his chest.

All three could still hear muffled Chrysalis shrieking, until, descending down a long slight of winding steps, the banshee’s screams finally faded away. There was no light, save that provided by his horn and Night Shade’s, and neither wanted to risk giving themselves away with anything more than a dim glow. The steps soon gave way to an underwater canal of well-cut stone. Squat pillars emerged from a slowly moving pool of water, thick with spiderwebs.

“That was suitably terrifying,” Night Shade broke the silence, though only with a whisper. “I mean, back up there. I thought… by the Princess, I thought we were going to die…”

“Hmm,” Blueblood grunted, noncommittally. There had always been that possibility.

“What did you do?” she asked quietly. “What was with that light?”

“That wasn’t my doing,” he answered, just as softly. “As you might recall from the loops, there is an inactive spell matrix in this maze, originally constructed by Bluebelle the Twenty-Third. It gathers energy at that one spot and then gradually releases it. Quite harmless. Harmless, that is, unless you set it off with a diffuse cloud of magic, which is a bit like throwing cotton and sawdust into a fire.”

“So you really gambled everything on the loops being real,” Night Shade realized, and shook her head in dismay. “And she knew you were planning to betray her…”

“And I knew she knew,” he whispered. “Or, I suspected that she would suspect. This way. Watch your step.”

He waded into the water, and rather than sinking in to his barrel, the Prince barely got his hooves wet. Night Shade squinted and looked in the water. There was some sort of concealed walkway under the surface. Following close behind the Prince, they forded the reservoir; occasionally making abrupt ninety degree turns along a winding, invisible path.

“And if Chrysalis hadn’t come forward to use that spell?” Night Shade asked, at length.

“I’d have used you,” Blueblood answered honestly as he waded through the water. “Or myself... or anything.” He turned slightly to look back at the dream-mage. “Nothing personal, you understand. But Celestia is more important than you or me. She is Equestria.”

Night Shade would’ve been well within her rights to be offended. He had just admitted she was expendable. He had just told her, outright, that he would use her to accomplish their objective. He had stated quite clearly that mattered to him, first and foremost, and it was not her. He would’ve understood perfectly her resulting outrage and indignation.

Instead, Night Shade smirked, no complaints or invectives forthcoming.

“I don’t mind,” she admitted, shrugging, “In fact I agree, but that’s rather selfless of you, isn’t it: a Prince of the Realm calling himself expendable?”

“Only idiots risk their lives,” Blueblood told her, Celestia’s weight heavy on his back. “But some things… make idiots of us all the same.”

Blueblood tried to keep his mind on navigating. Contrary to his very healthy ego, this wasn’t something he could do in his sleep, and failing now was not an option. The sound of soft breathing on his neck earned a quick peek over his shoulder. Auntie’s eyes were closed. For a moment, he was afraid she had lapsed into unconsciousness or worse… but then he realized she was sleeping. Good. She would heal faster that way.

They were just to the other side near a sluice gate when a tremor shook the walls.

“Was that Chrysalis?” Night Shade asked, ears flat against her mane with worry.

“We’re too far down for even her to blast us,” Blueblood reasoned, looking up at the sturdy stonework ceiling overhead, and then at the similar masonry below. It had survived hundreds of years without being touched by pony hooves. “Besides, I think that tremor came from below.”

“Below? What in Tartarus is below?”

“...Tartarus.”

“Funny. The mountain exploding out from under us wouldn’t surprise me at this point.”

“Don’t be silly. First the meteor hits us then the mountain explodes.”

“After the tidal wave?”

“Naturally, after that.”

Author's Note:

As someone said after reading this chapter, "thank God Chrysalis didn't know about Sweetie Belle." lol. Eyep.That would've been beyond squick.
Anyway, Chryssy gonna Chryss

Also, I think, unless people want more of them, I may try to shorten-up the remaining Chrysalis-gathers-her-allies scenes. There's a few hives left to go, and there does need to be some background established for them and for their Queens (the big ones being the Inkanyamba and Ichchadhari Nagin, the Nidhogg and Ramidreju being less significant), but it ended up crowding out another scene I'd planned to include in this chapter. Mostly due to Zebrabar, which itself has some relevance beyond just being an exotic locale. No matter. I'll just have to cram that scene plus some others in between all the accumulated Luna next chapter.

I'm thinking the title for the next chap may be "Turn Up the Night"
Also, I rather enjoyed this week's episode. Oh, Rarity! You and your marshmelodrama!

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