Guilty Hornet [Old Version]

by Zombificus

Chapter Four (Part Two): Necessary Negotiations [REVISED]

-GUILTY HORNET-

-CHAPTER FOUR-

-PART TWO-

"NECESSARY NEGOTIATIONS"

I: OF CAGES AND KEYS

The three of us made quick progress along the labyrinthine passageways of the castle's lower levels; Starlit Scrolls to my right and Princess Maxilla to my left. Though Scrolls did not as yet know where we were headed, she remained silent as I led us onwards, electing to trust my judgement and wait for things to be explained in due course, or perhaps a little intimidated by the grim purpose which had gripped me since last we spoke. Either way, she did not break the hoofstep-punctuated silence, and Maxilla and I were both quite content to leave our thoughts in our heads as well, although the way the unicorn was acting made me wish she would share what was on her mind.

The worried glances towards my fellow royal and the anxiety radiating in waves from the unicorn indicated fear, and I found myself once more attempting to puzzle out what was going on in that head of hers. She had shown some small fear towards many of the other changelings we'd encountered together, but this was something more, perhaps stemming from Maxilla's royal status and accordingly imposing stature.

If it was her appearance which unsettled my unicorn so, then that only made her easiness around me more puzzling: of all the changelings Scrolls had met, Maxilla was by far one of the most pleasant looking, with wide, genuine smiles and bright eyes full of eagerness as opposed to the jaded majority.
I, by comparison, was a downright haggard-looking creature: even ignoring the insectoid features and hole-ridden limbs, there were sizeable bags under my eyes and my body was tall, thin and looming in stark contrast with my counterpart's youthful curves and Prench-taught elegance.
My face, its flaws brought daily to the surface by the mirror in my room, was drawn and lined in such a way as to give the appearance of a changeling many years ahead of my own twenty-six, and my snout did less to suggest delicacy and elegance like Maxilla than it did bring to mind the sharp, angular proboscis of a mosquito.
Complete the image with my lank green mane and one would have a sight that should rightfully terrify a pony, but inexplicably my unicorn seemed to not only not mind this, but take comfort in it. With every passing moment, the theory that her amity towards me was a result of her backfiring teleport gained more and more credence. The idea made sense, but it also saddened me - the unicorn was the closest thing to a friend I had outside of my advisors and guards, and to believe that her friendliness was the result of a mere accident was to write whatever we had off as nothing more than a convenient turn of events, rather than anything more meaningful.

By the time I shook myself out of that line of thought, we had arrived at the third and deepest level of the Royal Canterlot Dungeons, and I had to take a more active role in our navigation, being the only one in our party who knew anything of this final level of the dungeons. Leading my companions left and right, through branching corridors and sudden dips, it was another long few minutes of silent concentration before we arrived at the most heavily-guarded portion of the palace. No less than four full Legionary squads, each led by one of our very best Decani, stood alert and ready for action with glaives drawn and horns lowered in the direction of the one - and only - entrance.

The sight was at once impressive and intimidating: five rows of eight morbidly glimmering blades stretched out from the seamless silver ranks, the coloured, rank-indicating crests on the helmets revealing that the most experienced soldiers formed the front line. The standard formation of Decanus on the left, Sub-Decanus on the right repeated four times across the narrow chamber; a row of grim faces staring out from under helmets, somewhat at odds with the gaudy crimson and azure of their crests. Behind them, two ranks of green-crested shifters levelled their weapons in readiness to use them, horns lighting in anticipation of a fight, and to their rear a further sixteen amber-crested drones adjusted their glaives for improved manoeuvrability. I could not help a grin - these were soldiers I could trust to do their job well.

Near-imperceptibly, one of the Decani glanced without even the slightest twitch of the head towards his fellow squad leader on the left, and a silent conversation took place between the four leaders and their seconds in command.
In combat, a changeling squad did not fight as ten individuals, but rather one ten-cog machine: the ponies had discipline, but we had more than that: advanced mind magic, and the skill to use it well.
Each individual retained their motor control and the freedom to move wherever they needed to, but their minds and their senses all served the Decanus, providing a constant stream of vital information along with the raw brain-power to process it.
Every part of the whole was simultaneously commander and commanded, and the moment one spotted a threat, they all knew - the ten-part squad worked incredibly well, and it would be hard to imagine a better group of fighters without having met the Praetorians.

What was happening here was even more sophisticated: command decisions were spread between not one but four minds, the situation analysed by another four, and streams of input poured in from no less than forty different sources - if someone were foolish enough to take them on, it would be like fighting a sentient sea of steel and magical fire. I knew, the moment it happened, when the decision had been made: as one, the forty retracted their weapons and stood down, a chromatic sea of dissipating magic rising up from the ranks as twenty-four horns powered down.

After a second, the middle-left Decanus marched smartly forwards to greet us, smoothly enacting the simultaneous salute and bow the military preferred to use when greeting royalty and sending a curt nod the way of Starlit Scrolls before opening his mouth to speak for the group.

"Your Highnesses," he barked, "how may we be of assistance?"

I responded with equal conciseness, the to-the-point nature of military speech a refreshing break from the sycophantic warbling of the noble elite.

"We need to speak with the prisoner. You know what to do."

"Understood, Your Highness," acknowledged the Decanus, saluting once more before turning smartly on the spot.

He immediately strode back to rejoin his nine Legionaries, unseen communications flitting back and forth between the amassed minds, and after a moment the entire mass of forty armoured changelings split neatly down the middle to allow us access to the miniscule gateway behind them. As we strode briskly towards our final destination, the closest half of the soldiers turned to face the entrance, glaives forming a crescent of blades behind us while their higher-ranking comrades at the front adjusted their own positions to better cover our way in.

The chamber we were about to enter had been constructed by Celestia as a backup in case the Bearers of Harmony failed to defeat Discord, and it must have taken centuries of research for ponies to even lay the basis for such a powerful magical device. The proper name for it was a State-Maintaining Order Field Generator, and it was worth far more than the palace under which it resided. There had always been the very real risk that the near-god draconequus would have found some way to circumvent the Elements of Harmony, and Celestia had known from experience how dangerous he could get; and so she had prepared, and researched, and finally built something truly incredible in both power and complexity.

In appearance, it did not look like much besides a very large, spherical hole in the rock; but if it had been built for the sake of appearances it would not have been sitting as far out of the public eye as it could get, guarded by the best soldiers its possessor could throw at it. Its actual purpose was very simple: fuel it with magic, and whatever was inside would be affected more and more by the order field it created, the greater the sum of magic fed into it. At low power, all it might do would be prevent any sudden movements, spells or other chaotic happenings, but at the power level it had been intended for, with all the Royal Guard's unicorns giving their all, it would be enough to freeze even a near-god of chaos itself like Discord permanently in place, unconscious and unchanging, and feed off of his own chaotic magic to keep the field running.

In short, Celestia had built a prison for a god... A cage which had become hers, unlocked with a key that had become mine. The irony of the situation was not lost on me, but I did not take pleasure in it: I bore my predecessor no grudge, in fact respecting her a great deal for the unwavering leadership she gave her ponies, and the weight of what I had already taken from her prevented any amusement at her expense from taking flight.

We emerged at last, on the far side of the long, narrow cylinder which we had entered, into the vast spherical space of the order chamber and took a moment to sweep our gaze over the room. We could not see much: the material which lined the interior was utterly black to the point where no light at all reflected off of it, lending the chamber a shapeless quality which did nothing to ease our minds, and everything within it was bathed in brilliant white light, which threatened to blind us. The furious illumination did, however, allow us to see the one thing we'd come here to find; suspended in the very centre of the sphere, curled into the foetal position and with her mane motionless and weightless, was the statue-still form of Princess Celestia, the ever-present brightness making her appear to be made of the very sunlight she brought.

Reaching back into my mind for the stolen memory of the magical code required to operate the device, I lit my horn at the various, very specific frequencies which signified each digit of the great machine's shutdown index. As I worked, Starlit watched wordlessly, waves of interest radiating from her like ripples in a pond; Maxilla stared instead to the sun-goddess herself, slack-jawed and enthralled by the awesome sight before her.

The last digit lit in my horn, and at once everything changed: a contracting, spherical tidal wave of chromatic radiance rose from the once-black sphere and sped into the centre, leaving dull green-grey where once had been ultimate darkness. The sphere of light shrank into Celestia and vanished, and moments later she drifted slowly towards the ground, dropping the last five metres to land in an unceremonious heap as the machine's effect died once and for all.

Glancing left and right at my companions, I gave the silent signal and we advanced as one towards the downed alicorn.

II: THE GREATER GOOD

She rose slowly, visibly pushing through the viscous waters of her magically induced coma to surface, gasping and disoriented, in the cold air of consciousness. The alicorn's eyes were glossy and unseeing for her first fleeting moments in reality, and she staggered to her feet without truly being aware of our presence.

Her vision soon cleared, however, and those drooping eyelids snapped back instantaneously in an expression of simultaneous shock and fury. She frowned in concentration, evidently trying to cast one of the many spells she had leaned over her long life, but no change occurred to the appearance of her horn no matter how much she screwed up her eyes and tried to force out some measure of defence against us.

Shock and rage turned to frustration and desperation as she tried and failed to cast even the most simple spell, and from there; with her attention now aimed at my companions and I; to dread, fear and the tiniest hint of betrayal - directed, no doubt, towards Starlit. She took one hesitant step back, faltered and fell onto her rump, and I in turn took that as my cue to speak.

“Princess Celestia,” I acknowledged curtly. “I see you’ve found that you haven’t any magic at the moment – I’m sure that, looking around, you can guess the reason why – and it must have become quite clear to you that you are at something of a disadvantage. You have no magic of any kind with which to attack us, and I myself am capable of defeating alicorns in a one-on-one fight, even without the trickery I used to take you down. My fellow royal, Princess Maxilla, is similarly powerful and has her own, rather unique set of skills, and my colleague here, General Advisor Starlit Scrolls, is certainly not to be overlooked. Even in the unlikely circumstance in which you defeated all three of us, I have forty of my best Legionaries stationed outside ready to deal with any escape attempts. Furthermore, Canterlot belongs solely and in its entirety to us: your palace has become our barracks, your city our stronghold and your country our dominion. So please, don’t attempt anything… inadvisable; it will only end badly for you.”

She glared defiantly at me and rose into her usual regal posture, limbs rigid and head held high and proud, using the slight difference between our heights to look down at me in distaste.

“If you are quite done monologuing,” she began, not even attempting to hide the condescension in her tone, “I’d really rather you got to the point of why you bothered waking me up – unless, of course, you simply wanted to gloat; in which case I must ask that you consider a less clichéd way of doing so. Evil speeches – especially when you’ve heard as many as I – are so very tedious.”

I sighed, resisting the urge to roll my eyes, and – as Celestia so eloquently put it – ‘got to the point’.

“I need your help, or rather your word that you will help, in a matter of some great importance. Your sister, Princess Luna, has fled the country with a contingent of guards in the rather futile hopes of amassing a more sizeable force: with such a force she would try to counter-invade and expel my kind and I from the country. This plan, we could deal with – if, that is, she wasn’t also threatening to use the sun and moon as weapons against us; an action which I’m sure you’ll agree would be both reckless and very likely to cause collateral damage.

“Changelings are quite resistant to extremes of temperature, and it is no great task for us to adapt to alternate light levels… Ponies, on the other hoof, are far more vulnerable. If she tried to use either the sun or the moon to harm us, either directly or indirectly, many more innocent ponies would die for every changeling casualty. I’m sure she knows this, and I very much hope that this is a bluff, but in the event that she might slip into her old ways and try it, I want your word that you will do all you can to counter such an assault. I don’t like having to cede control to others, and I am very sure you do not like the idea of working alongside those who deposed you, but where the greater good of both our kinds is at stake, letting personal pride affect matters is a fool’s gambit.”

She stared hard at me, her eyes burning into my skin as she scanned my face for deception; finding it emotionless, she snorted in undisguised frustration and instead deigned to turn the tide of the conversation to her favour.

“Why should I believe a word you say?” she asked, her face, though her expression was entirely impassive, having become surprisingly intimidating simply through the disappearance of her usual serene smile.

It was a good question, and one that I would have to think carefully about before giving my answer. I ran my mind over the options I had: short of linking our minds and showing her my memories, a method she was unlikely to agree to, my best bet seemed to be my peculiar unicorn assistant – she had, after all, said she’d vouch for me if I needed her to, and from the looks of things that offer would be one I’d have to take her up on.

“Because she is here,” I said simply, gesturing towards Starlit. “I first met Starlit Scrolls when she attempted to escape the palace via teleport alongside your nephew and very nearly killed the pair of them, along with me, when it went quite catastrophically wrong. This left her with a deep cut in her foreleg and a burnt-out horn: injuries that might have taken weeks to heal on their own or days in pony care, and which I healed at the cost of my own life force for the trivial matter of one letter sent by magic.

“I did not need to help her – there are, after all, a great deal more unicorns able to send letters than Ms. Scrolls, and I was not far from finding a great number of them – but I chose to do so. If my actions in invading your country had been out of a lust for power or hate for your kind, then why would I do something so utterly counter-productive in either respect?

“She works for me, now; not because I forced her to, but because I offered her a job. She could – and still can, should she hand in her resignation – have gone out into the city and found work elsewhere, or even left the country, but she chose to work for me. If I am as hateful and selfish a mare as you seem to think, why would I give her the opportunity of work, let alone a paid job? And why would she voluntarily take the offer I made?

“Today, she stands here not as an assistant, as she once was to you and initially was to me, but as a central and valued member of my own advisory circle. As General Advisor, she – whilst not as knowledgeable in the specifics – is one of the most important aides I have, capable of giving a crystal clear view of the wider situation and suggesting courses of action. Princess Celestia, this mare was nothing to me when we first met – I did not have to heal her, employ her or respect her; but I did so anyway and will continue to do so. I may not be a hero in your eyes, Princess, but I am no villain – you would do well to consider that."

She remained silent for some time, mulling it over, before turning to my unicorn with suspicion in her eyes.

“You, Assistant Scrolls – is this true? Are you really working for this tyrant?”

“…Yes, Your Highness, I am. With respect, Princess, you have to at least consider that all her actions besides invading have been of no negative consequence to Equestria. Nopony’s dead, the only wounded are the ones who hurt themselves trying to escape, and the most oppressive measure she’s taken is rationing food so that everyone can eat. Tartarus, the changelings have smaller rations than we do!”

Celestia scowled at Starlit's last exclamation, evidently unimpressed.

“I do not, Ms. Scrolls, take kindly to voices being raised at me, and I would appreciate it if you would refrain from doing so in future... Now, I can see that this matter – for whatever reason – means a lot to you, so I will consider what you say. Even so, I cannot fathom why you would turn away so willingly from the leadership I offered you – are you so dissatisfied with my rule that you would rather aid an invading foreigner than see me return to the throne?”

Starlit winced visibly under the hard look Celestia was shooting her, but remained, to my pride, resolute in her defense of her views.

“Not dissatisfied, Your Highness, not in the least bit. You’ve kept Equestria safe and stable for more generations than my family has records of, and I have never doubted your rule; I do not help Queen Chrysalis to spite you, even if it might seem so to you. I realise that popular opinion says otherwise, but I consider changelings to be just another race of ponies, equal in importance to the three whose unity founded Equestria, and just as deserving of a safe haven the likes of which I, like nearly all ponies, have enjoyed all my life.

“Their homes are gone, invaded and razed to the ground by the Griffons, so they came here and did what they had to in order to once again have a place to call their own and a steady supply of food. I, like everyone, wish they had not arrived here in such a violent way, but what’s done is done. They have nowhere to go, and there is a way that all ponies – earth, pegasus, unicorn and changeling – can live together as one – it is this path which I am trying to help Queen Chrysalis follow; a path to peace and unity rather than the violence which accompanied the changelings to Canterlot. I just want a happy ending for all ponies, not just the ones who were here first.”

Celestia considered this, snout scrunched up in confusion and doubt, before shaking her head and snorting, a small, somewhat sardonic smile making its way back onto her face.

“How very noble of you. Quite possibly misguided, and probably too optimistic, but noble nonetheless. I am sorry to say that I do not share the same opinion of the changelings as you, nor do I have nearly the same enthusiasm towards working with them, but I am no fool. The changelings, not alicorns are the ones in charge now, and if I want any say at all in how this country is run before I gain another century in age, I too must follow the path you have so nobly set us all on. I will aid your new Queen against my sister, if it should come to that, although I will obviously not be happy if it proves necessary to do so. One thousand years was long enough, or so I had hoped…”

I leapt upon this sudden compliance with no small measure of desperation.

“Thank you, Princess,” I said gratefully, “If you’ll sign it, I think now’s the time we make a written agreement; just for formality’s sake. Starlit, take a fresh piece of paper and get a quill ready; I want to make this as official and by the book as I can.”

She made no move in objection to this, and I turned away from her to my unicorn, who met my gaze expectantly as she telekinetically closed her saddlebags, the quill and paper wavering a little in her magical grasp at the division of attention.

“Ready? Alright, let’s get this over with… The following, binding pact between Hive-Queen Chrysalis Noxa Prasinus De Vespidae-Alveare and Alicorn Princess Celestia Serena Equestria, its conception witnessed by Hive-Princess Maxilla Succinum D’Aelius-Alveare, and General Advisor to the Changeling Crown Starlit Scrolls, consists of two sections…”

I waited for Starlit to finish writing, then continued. Maxilla stood off to the side, somewhat awkwardly – I suppose she was expecting something more interesting out of a meeting between a goddess-diarch and a changeling queen, or at the very least a more radiant creature than the downright irritable alicorn we’d ended up encountering – but she seemed to be staving off boredom at least a little in her thorough examining of the pony she’d idolised.

“Section One: in the event that the former Alicorn Princess of Equestria, Luna Proxima Equestria, poses a threat which cannot be adequately dealt with by conventional means, Princess Celestia shall use whatever means necessary to ensure that the threat is neutralised, with the minimum damage to infrastructure and injury to other beings being caused in the process. To the completion of this task, she shall receive any and all assistance she requires, except in the case that the current leader of Equestria should veto such assistance for a valid and relevant reason. Final judgement of the adequacy, moral integrity and appropriateness of Princess Celestia’s actions in accordance with this term shall fall to Hive-Queen Chrysalis or the highest ranking member of the Changeling-Equestrian government able to conduct the function.”

With the conclusion of that monolithic segment of legislation, I once more sat back and watched Maxilla’s curious gaze flit over our bored-looking alicorn companion as Starlit painstakingly etched out each letter of the words which would bind the princess and I to our word, though surprisingly my co-ruler did not let her interaction with Celestia remain at mere observation for very long at all.

“Princess Celestia,” she began, bowing respectfully to the alicorn, whose eyes – for the first time since this meeting had begun – sparkled with genuine curiosity. “If I may, I would like to ask some questions about you – specifically your command over the sun – so as to better understand the magic and thinking involved in the tasks you undertake. It has long been a subject which has fascinated me and confused me in equal measure, not to mention closely linked to my former kingdom’s culture, and if you are willing to share any details, I would be very grateful.”

Celestia met Maxilla’s gaze evenly, her expression unreadable save for the serene smile which had returned to her face, and the silence rang out more profoundly than any noise might have. To her credit, my fellow royal did not shy away from the powerful stare of the alicorn, but merely returned it with that same expression of guarded curiosity and respect she had directed towards Celestia thus far, an innocent smile mirroring the princess’s own. After some time, the tension finally broke and Celestia smiled more broadly, letting out a small chuckle as she sat back on her haunches and ceased her confrontational staring.

“Very well… Hive-Princess Maxilla, was it? I will answer each of your questions in return for a question of my own answered – I trust this appears a fair exchange to you?”

“Of course, Your Highness.”

“Then go on and ask.”

“Alright… Is the magic you use to control the sun and moon of the same kind as the usual unicorn magic, or a different kind; much like dark magic and chaos magic are separate from the norm?”

“I’m afraid the answer to that is both yes and no. The magic I expend in the action of moving the sun is entirely standard unicorn in nature, but the celestial bodies themselves have their own kind, unique to each of them as a cutie mark is to a true pony, which plays an equal, if not greater part. Your turn, changeling: through what means are the various castes of changeling able to remain so different in appearance even after centuries have passed in which they should have converged?”

“Pride and tradition, more than anything, are the cause for that. The castes generally keep to themselves, and both due to some misguided concept of superiority over the so-called ‘lesser castes’ and tradition, they default to their own distinctive appearances. At birth there is not all that much difference between foals of differing castes besides their inherent mental and magical states, but as they mature, their growth into an adult body is guided so that they outwardly show their place in the community’s hierarchy. The only reason the deeper mental differences have not disappeared is the strong stigma against ‘breeding under one’s caste’ as they call it. ‘Drone-rutter’, to many an Elite, is a very severe insult and quite often cause for a fight.”

“Interesting… I trust you had more than one question to ask, Princess?”

“Oh, yes… You said that the celestial bodies have their own unique magics, powers that, as much as your own magic, were the driving force behind their motion. Would I, then, be correct in the assumption that they have some form of autonomy or sentience, perhaps even sapience, given that half the process is not due to your own efforts?”

“You… You are quite sharp, Princess Maxilla – more so than I had expected, to be frank with you. Were it not for this conflict between us, and the inevitable involvement of Captain Shining Armour in it, I imagine you and my student would get on rather well indeed. But that’s neither here nor there – to answer your question, I must admit I cannot be sure. Certainly, they possess some limited intelligence and semblance of desire, but whether they truly think and feel is not information even I am privy to.”

“I see,” Maxilla said, disappointment evident in her tone. “And your next question?”

“Ms. Scrolls mentioned that this invasion was an attempt to secure territory and food supplies following the defeat of your kind at the talons of the Griffons. What, exactly, happened in order to bring about such violent events, and why did you feel it necessary to invade a peaceful country rather than discuss the matter of food and housing in a civil manner?”

“Our kind and the Griffonian Empire have always been at odds with each other. They have considered our lands their territory for as long as we’ve been there, despite the fact that they are too barren and inhospitable for anything save our kind to survive in, and our refusals to leave our one-and-only homeland so that they might extend their borders over another thousand miles of dead desert have been a sore point for centuries. Recently, their leadership has taken a more expansionist and xenophobic foreign policy, and we changelings – being not only a near-universally unpopular race but also one with historically bad relations with Griffonia, and one whose homeland is on so-called ‘griffon land’ – must have appeared the perfect target for another campaign of rapid border growth.

“They struck without warning, and in overwhelming force, not producing any official declaration of war until after they had slaughtered the populations of our three greatest cities and brought the bloodstained ruins to the ground. We could not hope to fight them and win, so we engaged their advancing armies with guerrilla tactics to buy time for the evacuations of the rest of the country and then fled into the desert, hoping to find some kind of sanctuary on the other side. Instead, we simply found more desert, and we lost two thirds of our surviving population to starvation and disease before we found Equestria. The farmsteads we initially commandeered helped keep us alive, but they were never going to provide for all of us, so we looked to other options.

“We did try to engage in diplomacy first, but your niece, Princess Cadance, opened fire on our envoy and would have killed his entire group had they not fled. She was quite clear in her intent, and we knew it was only a matter of time before she took more extreme means of driving us off. If we had not moved against her, she would have surely mobilised Royal Guard platoons to drive us back into the desert, and we would all have died either by Guard spear or starvation. We engaged her, and Queen Chrysalis defeated her in a one-on-one fight, after which we imprisoned her and made sure the order to engage us was never sent. We knew that her disappearance would be noticed, so Queen Chrysalis took her form and infiltrated your ranks. Our invasion plan was hasty and ill-conceived, but we did not have the luxury of time to make a better one, so we made our move and… well, here we are.”

Celestia did not look pleased to hear this, not that I think any of us expected her to, given that the explanation painted her niece as a warmonger, but I suppose even she had to agree our reasoning had been solid. Begrudgingly, she nodded at Maxilla, conceding the argument before it could begin. That did not, however, mean she did not have other lines of questioning to pursue.

“That makes a certain amount of sense, but why would you not seek out myself or my sister and request asylum from us? Princess as she may be, Cadance does not have nearly the same power over Equestria. Her hostile actions towards you would have been halted, her mobilisation vetoed and your kind welcomed, had you come to Luna or I.”

“We did not know that Princess Cadance was not your equal, and assumed that her views of us were representative of the Equestrian leadership as a whole. I can now see that we were mistaken about that, but at the time we had no way of knowing, and certainly no real way of contacting you anyhow, with most of our number exhausted and the rest being mobilised to defend against any attacks your niece might launch.”

The frown on Celestia's face deepened further at this, her mouth curling into something of a scowl at the explanation.

“I see. I must admit that I cannot see many alternatives to your actions, but I am still deeply, deeply unhappy at what has occurred. Regardless of your reasons, you have still invaded my homeland and stolen my throne, and I am not so quick to forgive such serious transgressions.”

Clearing my throat to draw Celestia’s attention back to me, I proceeded to voice the second half of the treaty, giving a quick glance at Starlit to make sure she was ready.

“Alright, if I could have your undivided attention for a moment, Princess, Starlit… Section Two: in the case that the circumstances detailed in Section One come to pass, and one or both of the signatories does not comply with the terms to which they agreed, to a degree deemed genuinely unsatisfactory to the other party, then they shall forfeit their leadership of the sovereign nation of Equestria until such point as the other signatory deems them fit to rule, or the sum of one hundred years have passed since the agreement was broken, whichever happens first.

“To ensure that this section’s terms are complied with, both signatories shall bind their magic to this agreement so that, in the case that they act in a way contradictory to these terms, they shall forfeit all use of their magic above a power of twelve Volutes. This forfeit shall be lifted in either of two scenarios:
Firstly, if the other signatory wishes to return the noncompliant signatory’s magic to them, in which case they shall rest their horn against the other’s breast and say, clearly and solemnly, “I forgive and return.”
Secondly, if the noncompliant signatory is in a situation where they genuinely believe that they, for the good of those around them or the sake of their own life, require more magic, they may draw upon the amount they need. Desire for more magic will not yield more, even when the limit has been raised; only a genuine belief that a greater amount is necessary shall return the desired amount.

“To determine whether the actions, thoughts and words of either signatory are genuine, two Feathers of Veritas shall be bound to the signatories via the spell sealing this pact, enabling the unbiased, independent determination of whether these sections’ terms have been met. Each signatory signs acknowledging and accepting these terms, and consents to the judgement of the Feathers of Veritas following their completed signature. The terms of this pact may be altered or rendered null at any time, so long as both signatories genuinely agree that the amendment or dissolution of the pact is the correct course of action. The signatories shall sign below, clearly and without obscuring either the words of this pact or the signature of the other signatory.”

The furious scratching of Starlit’s quill upon her scroll of paper continued after I finished, her mouth moving silently around the words she was recording, and for some time it was the only sound to breach the air of the room. Silence never lasts, however, and Celestia was the first to break it, her brows raised in surprise.

“Feathers of Veritas? I did not think that you would take such extreme measures, but at the very least it gives me some reassurance that you are taking this matter as seriously as I am. To have the forfeiting of leadership and magic be punishments for breaking the pact is similarly extreme, but since I do not intend to break my word, I am quite content knowing that you have sufficient incentive to hold up your end of this deal. When your… advisor is done writing, and I’ve had a chance to give it a thorough read, I shall sign your pact.”

Though the slight air of disgust she used when saying Starlit's new rank irritated me, I put on a mask of gratitude and nonaggression; arguments would not help me here.

“Thank you, Princess. I only wish we had met in a manner that would have circumvented all this painful formality.”

Turning to my still-writing advisor, I gave the mare instructions to help prepare the completion of the pact.

“Starlit, when you’re finished, could you please leave the scroll with us and then ask one of the Legionaries to fetch the Feathers of Veritas from the Imperator Emeritus.”

Not pausing for a moment in her writing, she responded dutifully. “Of course, Your Highness.”

A somewhat awkward silence fell over the room as she wrote on, with everything to be said having been done so before, or so I thought. Celestia, on the other hoof, had other ideas.

“Queen Chrysalis – what of my student, Twilight Sparkle, and her friends? What have you done with them?”

The mention of her student caught me off guard, and even as I fought to keep the emotion from surfacing into an expression, I thought I saw Celestia’s impassive mask shift subtly, her paradoxical, youthfully ancient eyes refocusing sharply to gaze into my soul. Forcing an answer out was shockingly difficult, but even under her close scrutiny I managed to prevent the gap between question and answer being suggestive of anything besides a moment’s careful consideration.

“They are currently incarcerated for attacking my Legionaries, but I’ve made sure they are well fed and well treated; prisoners though they may be, I am not in the habit of allowing mistreatment take place under my snout. I also know who they are, and why they are so important to you – nothing save for the Elements of Harmony could have so easily banished the Nightmare’s essence or resealed Discord, and by all accounts your student’s group was there on both occasions. They are the Bearers of Harmony, are they not? I would not be so foolhardy as to allow such important ponies to come to harm.”

“You mistake my concern for Twilight and her friends as avarice, Queen Chrysalis. I suppose I cannot blame you for applying the only mindset your kind has to the situation, but I am, in fact, capable of valuing others for more than their usefulness to me.”

The irritation I had been pushing to one side came back in full force at her insinuation, and I could not help myself from snapping a sarcastic response to her words, not even bothering to hide the dislike which had been building in my heart.

“Well, isn’t this a pleasant surprise? I never pegged you as a closet racist, Princess, but here you are saying such lovely things as that.”

Celestia remained aloof and condescending, attempting to brush off my complaint as my seeing insults where none lay.

“Twist my words to suit whatever viewpoint you like, Queen Chrysalis, but the truth of what I meant shall always remain so.”

Try as she might to cover her intent, I was not having any of it.

“Twist your words? You insinuated – condescendingly so, I might add – that the only value a changeling can give someone is that of their usefulness to them. From your tone and your presentation of a quite frankly offensive falsehood as fact, how could I come to any other conclusion as to your meaning?”

Her expression shifted subtly, and I could see I had caught her off guard, but she recovered with the practiced liar's grace of a true politician, still intent on trying to smooth things over without admitting that she had meant to offend.

“I had heard from some very reputable sources that your kind were incapable of forming emotional attachments to others, and assumed that these sources were correct, as they so often have been. I assure you, no offense was meant.”

With every sugared word, I felt myself getting closer to losing my temper, and it was all I could do not to raise my voice and snarl at her following her latest white lie.

“I see. And pray tell, is it often that you assume such things about other races? Is it just a matter of course for the Equestrian leadership to take the word off the street and use it in a thinly veiled insult towards foreign leaders, before finishing the neat little one-two punch with an insult to their intelligence? ‘No offense was meant’? You must truly take me for a foal, Princess, to think that I’d believe that.”

She blinked, still feigning innocence. “I am truly sorry, Queen Chrysalis; it was not my intention to insult you.”

The snarl that I had been holding back these past minutes came out in full force, and with clenched teeth and my lips pulled back, I all but growled my response, edging still closer to truly losing my temper.

“Were that true, you would surely have dropped this façade of innocence by now. I am sure that a millennium of lying to your nobles has made you think that you can fool anyone, but I am afraid you are sorely mistaken. Why don’t you do us both a favour and cease this charade of insulting dishonesty?”

Her brows went up visibly, before descending into a frown, growing tired and a little irritated in tone herself.

“Very well, I shall be fully honest with you from now on, but do not complain if what I say is not what you want to hear.”

“That is fine by me. It should have been so from the start.”

Truly growing sick of her superior tone, I tersely snapped my reply, before turning myself fully away to signal that I'd had quite enough conversation for the moment. As she, too turned away from me, a tense, ill-natured silence fell, and was not disturbed until Starlit sheepishly delivered the completed pact to us and scampered off to relay my orders to one of the Legionaries outside. When my advisor returned, she too fell silent whilst Celestia and I took our turns reading through her painstaking copywork, and the dank fog of mistrust continued to shroud all our minds.

III: DOWNWARD SPIRAL

Half an hour of disapproving glances, scowls and general unpleasantness passed between Celestia and I before the Legionary whom Scrolls had sent to retrieve the Feathers of Veritas from Marbled Iris returned to us. The armoured stallion, a drone, judging from his helmet’s crest, carried an ornate, rare wood box with him, decorated tastefully with sparing leaf of gold and silver, which he held out to me steadily even as he bowed deeply and saluted me with a flourish of his horn.

I took the box from him gratefully, tossing him a small golden coin with the royal insignia by way of thanks, and made my way over to Maxilla, who’d been preparing the spell that would bind Celestia and I to our pact. Flicking the box’s catch open with a flare of magefire, I offered it to Maxilla, letting my friend and fellow royal pick out and handle the feathers since she would be the non-signatory who’d be sealing the pact.

With a bright flare of her own magic, she teased two shimmering white feathers from the box’s black velvet interior and imbued them with the binding spell, before extending the magefire holding them out, first so that the two were joined by a beam of magic, and then so that each was likewise linked by its own beams to the all-important spell. Her horn ignited in verdant brilliance, and a blinding flash flared out from the objects held in her spell, before her aura receded into a near-imperceptible shimmer, simply holding the enchanted objects in the air.

“It is done,” she said, solemnly. Her horn brightening a little, she coaxed the delicate magical feathers, untarnished in their brilliant whiteness despite the bright green glow of her magic around them, so that one each hung in the air before Celestia and I.

“Take your feathers, they shall act as your quills. Sign, and the pact shall be sealed – if either of you wishes to back out, do so now, before the pact is irrevocably bound to you. Otherwise, step forward and complete it.”

To my right, Celestia swayed a little, making me think that perhaps she was second-guessing her decision to go through with the pact, but shook her head violently after regaining her balance and instead started forwards towards the pact scroll. Taking the feather in her golden aura, she strode forwards and made her mark on the scroll, signing quickly but elegantly in the empty space below the pact’s terms, before stepping back clumsily in surprise when her feather flashed out of existence in a brief, bright white incandescence and her signature burned brilliant white, before fading back to black.

Once she was out of the way, I plucked my own feather from the air and advanced to the scroll, held steady in Maxilla’s aura. As I raised the magical quill to sign, a loud thud from behind pulled my attention away to see Celestia sprawled on the floor, insisting to Starlit and anyone else who’d listen that she was alright, so long as they’d give her the space to get up.

“I’m alright, I tell you; I don’t need your help, I can get up just fine.” Celestia stated indignantly, moving to get to hooves as she continued. “I was just a little dizzy, that’s all. It’s… it’s just a little hard to think all of a sudden. I just need a moment, and I’ll be alright.”

Shrugging off my nagging doubts as to the reality of the Princess’s condition, I turned back to the scroll and signed my own efficient scrawl below Celestia’s graceful signature, noticing that even with all its painstaking beauty, it seemed to have been written surprisingly shakily. Concern began its shift to the forefront of my mind, and I turned back to the Princess just in time to see her attempt a few uncharacteristically inelegant steps.

She managed the first few, before her eyes seemed to glaze over and her limbs went weak, legs splaying out awkwardly as she collapsed again. Starlit caught her, thankfully, and I used the moment to cast some of the diagnostic spells I’d used on Twilight. Bizarrely, she seemed to be in peak health: she had no serious injuries as far as I could tell, and from the looks of things she hadn’t hit her head at all, yet her pulse was moving erratically and she was clearly not in her right mind.

The buzzing emotions coming from her seemed genuine enough: fear, confusion, powerlessness; all of which were perfectly normal considering the situation she seemed to be in. Poison, maybe? I wouldn’t have thought an alicorn would be so afflicted by something like that, but even so I made my way urgently to her side and cast a deep scan, which turned up nothing of interest.

Concern began to work itself up into panic as I struggled to think of what could possibly be behind the princess’s bizarre affliction. She’d devolved into foalish babbling now, and out of desperation I scanned her for foreign magic, even though I knew that no one in the room could have cast such a spell without the Legionaries noticing and notifying me. This wild approach, to my surprise, yielded results: still entwined with her own magical essence was the unique signature of the order chamber’s own magical field.

Astonished horror struck me – the machine had never been designed to hold an alicorn, only a draconequus, and I had just stuffed Celestia in there without even considering the consequences! Whilst similarly powerful, a draconequus’s magic was far removed in nature from the supercharged pony magic alicorns used; who knew what adverse effects her days-long suspension in the machine might have had besides this debilitating mental devolution.

With no other choice left to me but to shield her from the order machine’s field and take the matter of her mental deterioration into my own hooves. My horn blazed with emerald incandescence as I shielded her, before shifting to an even brighter lime inferno which washed over my body, covering my eyes with a solid cyan sheen, even as I held the spell in my horn in search of consent from Celestia.

“Princess, if you can hear me, I’m going to bridge our minds and try to fix this. I’m going to give you five seconds to tell me if you don’t want me to do this, then I’m going in anyway.”

Five seconds of incoherent moans and nonsensical babbling passed, and I touched my horn to her thrashing head, transferring my consciousness into her mind in a bewildering swirl of verdant fire.

IV: REACHING THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

Emerging from the spiral of magefire in the vast spaces of Celestia’s mind, it struck me immediately how pristine the colossal sprawl of her consciousness was. It didn’t make sense – if the issue was not with her mind, then why had she lost control the way she had?

Ice gripped my veins again as another horrific idea struck me: the Nightmare which had possessed Princess Luna until Sparkle's group had cleansed her had not been destroyed, merely stripped of its host. It had infected one alicorn already, what was to say it could not use what it had learned from Luna’s mind to invade that of her sister by way of revenge?

In response to this realisation, I focused my mental magic into a fiery lance with which I could drive out such a threat, the horn of my avatar igniting as I drew strength into my consciousness from my mindless body, and glanced around paranoiacally in search of a potential threat.

“Nightmare!” I yelled, loosing a vibrant beam of green fire at something moving fast in the corner of my eye. “Release this mind at once!”

As I turned sharply to face the threat, I was astonished to see a brilliant golden shield block my fire, rather than the shadow magic which I had expected. Lowering my horn at the figure, I let the fire in it die out at the realisation that it was Celestia, not the Nightmare, which had joined me in the cavernous chamber.

She dropped her shield and laughed, the sound bright and melodious in sharp contrast to the fearful mare I might have expected. She seemed genuinely amused, and her incredulous tone merely confirmed that I had once again jumped to conclusions.

“The Nightmare? In my head? I am flattered that you’d assume that I was under attack, and come to my aid so valiantly, but there is no threat here, Chrysalis. I simply wished to speak with you in private, and given your ability to bridge minds, I thought I’d seek the most privacy I could get.”

My concern for her wellbeing evaporated in the resurgent heat of my anger at the revelation that it had all been a trick.

“That was an act? You lied to me, again?! I thought I’d already made it quite clear how much I dislike deceptions, Celestia. If you wanted to speak mind-to-mind, you should have asked; as it is, I’m not really in the mood for a conversation.”

“We’re in my mind, Chrysalis, you’d do well to do what I ask.”

“And I’m in control of the link. I can leave any time I want, and right now I’m not sure I like your tone.”

“Leave now, and you can say goodbye to any cooperation from me in the future.”

We stared each other down for a moment, before I broke gaze and sighed in defeat.

“Enough of the threats, Celestia; what do you want?”

“I want to know the truth about Twilight Sparkle and her friends. You aren’t the only one who dislikes deception, and I’m not about to let you lie to me about my student’s wellbeing. Where are they, and what have you done to them?”

“They’re in the dungeons, in their own cells. They’re chained up at the moment, but I’m planning on sectioning off part of the palace for them to live in. They’re not going free just yet, but I’m willing to give them a gilded cage at the very least.”

“I don’t see you just leaving them there sitting idle; what have you done with them?”

“I’ve interrogated some of them, if you can even call it that. Mostly, I was just trying to gauge their character; I don’t expect any of them will give anything vital away, and I’m not about to torture them for information I could probably find stashed away in a file.”

“Gauging their character? Alright, if that’s the case, you won’t mind telling me what each of them is like, then? Let’s start with Twilight; what’s she like?”

“I haven’t interrogated her yet.”

“Forgive me for finding it hard to believe that you didn’t interrogate the leader of the Bearers, my personal student and a close friend of both my sister and I, before you moved onto the others.”

“I wanted to hear the others’ opinions of her first before dealing with her.”

“Applejack. Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash. Pinkie Pie. Rarity. Twilight Sparkle. You see, you claim you haven’t had contact with her yet, but out of all of the names I just listed, hers got the most noticeable reaction. What happened between you that you’re struck so hard by the mention of her name?”

“Nothing happened.”

“Don’t lie to me, Chrysalis. I assure you I find it just as insulting as you found my deceptions.”

“Nothing happened, I’m telling you the truth.”

“You are telling me lies, Chrysalis, and if you don’t tell me what you did to my Twilight, my patience is going to start running rather thin.”

“I did nothing to her.”

“I won’t ask you again. What did you do to Twilight?!”

"I didn't do anything to her. In all actuality, I should have done more to keep her safe. She's hurt, Celestia, and badly; but not by my hoof or by that of my changelings. We are working on healing her wounds as we speak, alright?"

"I don't think I believe that. When I mention her name, you look visibly hurt, distraught even, and very, very guilty. No, I think she did something to one of your little bug friends, and you hurt her in retaliation. So, what happened, Chrysalis? Did you lose your temper for a moment and burn her with the magefire you've shown yourself so eager to loose? Because I don't think she got hurt by some kind of accident, not for a moment - why else would you be so evasive about her wellbeing? Why else would you be so desperate to keep me in the dark?"

I could not respond, gagged and bound by her words; fueled by my silence, she went on.

"Maybe... maybe you even killed her." I flinched visibly, and she leaned her face in to mine, snarling as I had done earlier. "Well, did you?!"

I could not answer, and she continued, incensed.

"Did you?!"

Her mask shattered with fury as I failed to respond, and I could see all her pain and fear and anger as plain as day, radiating out from her in intimidating waves. I could make out tears on her avatar's face, rolling down from increasingly maddened eyes as Celestia finally snapped.

"Tell me, you insect; WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY TWILIGHT?!"

Her horn blazed into life, anguish-driven rage powering her every movement. Even separated from my body, I could feel the sheer force of the psychic blast she was about to release, and as fear for my existence raced down my veins, I regained my ability to act. In the face of such power, and such righteous fury, I did what insects do best; I turned tail and fled.

Snapping the link, I tried to ignore the heat of her magic behind me as I dived headlong into the welcoming emerald flames, shooting along through a tunnel of my magic into my own mind, my own realm. But even as I left Celestia's mind, her magic accelerated onwards, faster than I could manage, faster than I could comprehend; finally catching me as I emerged on the other side of the link and blowing the once-closing tunnel into a vicious tear a mile wide.

The shockwave hit me, and I descended, spiralling helplessly into a mind turned to chaos.

V: BROKEN GLASS AND AMNESIA

It all happened in an instant, and the time it took my returning consciousness to catch up to current events was more than enough for the wake of Celestia's magic to wreak havoc on my mind. Thought, memory and self were torn from their rightful places and tossed around without aim or destination.

I thought I felt a slight buzzing of guilt, of horror in my horn, but I could not hold onto the feeling. I could not keep any thought alive long enough to act on them, nor could I feel my body. For once in my life, I was completely, absolutely alone in my own head, and it was terrifying.

This was why mind-crime was treated with such seriousness - this feeling, this violation of the very concept of self, should never be felt by anyone. Had I been able to focus on anything to truly feel more than abject terror, I would have been furious, horrified that Celestia would do this, but no thought would form; they were all hopelessly broken before they had even been fully made.

Desperately, I tried to hold onto my fragile sense of self, to view my mind as an outsider, but it was in vain. Everything was blurred, even the most simple thought being squashed and dragged across the surface of my brain like an insect being stomped under a city-sized boot, and I fell back on the most simple mental exercise I could remember. It would not save me from having my mind torn asunder, but it would at least let me check the damage. Focusing myself inwards, I began to list.

My name is Chrysalis Noxa Prasinus De Vespidae-Alveare.
I am a twenty-six year old royal changeling and the queen of my people, as well as the current ruler of Equestria.
I have led my changelings across the Griffonian Desert to escape the griffon army which sacked our cities and killed our kin and, out of necessity, obtained the food the only way I could, by invading Equestria.
I have few friends, and none whatsoever outside of my own Praetorian Guard, but I wouldn't trade a single one of them for anything.
Twilight Sparkle is dead because I was too slow, too clumsy to save her, so I have vowed to do what I can to bring her back.
My favourite colour is navy blue, my favourite smell that of lavender.

It was getting a little easier to think now, the scattered papers of my thoughts finally beginning to spiral back down now that the hurricane of the alicorn's magic has passed deeper into my mind. My senses, whilst I could finally feel something, were going haywire, and vaguely I was aware that I was falling, the dull pain of the impact rolling through the spell-blocked passages of my mind to arrive belatedly in the shattered throne room inside my skull. I could only guess that her force was passing through the sensory part of my brain in the same ruthless manner it had traversed my conscious thought, but my head was in such a state of disarray that guessing was all I could do.

Finally, I understood, truly understood, why entering another's mind without consent was treated so seriously: even the guilt of Sparkle's death was a far preferable feeling to the sheer, gripping horror of being rendered powerless within my own head while another ransacked everything that made me who I was. I was afraid, even more than when the griffons invaded and I had fought for my life and the lives of my people in hoof-to-talon combat, even more than when I had thought Twilight Sparkle completely removed from the land of the living, even more than when my mother hung me from the flagpole of our mansion by mane and left me there until the dehydration and exposure had nearly killed me. That was nothing by comparison - this was true terror.

I could no longer feel my body. The detachment hit me like a tidal wave, and I am sure that if I'd had any control left over my physical self I would have curled into the foetal position and wept. As it was, I had no idea what my body was doing, only that I could no longer control it: briefly I considered that if I could not control my body, then maybe my heart would stop beating and my lungs cease to open, but the icy stab of fresh fear was enough to scare me away from that particular line of thought. Eventually, I clawed my way back to a semblance of sanity, and as I finally convinced myself that if I could not change the outcome, then there was no use fearing the inevitable, a peculiar flood of calm rose up and submerged me in its warm waters.

Out of curiosity more than fear now that I had so fatalistically detached myself from the events overtaking my mind, I started to list the same things I had done the first time.

My name is Chrysalis Noxa Prasinus De... D'Aelius-Alveare?
I am a twenty-eight year old - wait, shouldn't that be sixteen? Or was it twenty-one?
I am a... fourteen year old changeling royal.
I will never be queen; Tegimen will be king, and even if he doesn't, Cormetit and Tela will be on the throne before me. I suppose that's a good thing: the only orders I give are to my toy Legionaries, and look what happens to them.
The worst sorts of winds fly in from the Griffonian Desert; everything gets covered in sand and Mother will just make me clear it up again. I wish I lived where Clover the Clever and Star Swirl the Bearded did, Equestria: I bet they don't have to clear up sand over there.
I don't have any friends, but that's okay because Tela says they're only trying to use my power for their own benefit or something. I don't know how they're supposed to 'use my power' or anything, but it can't be good.
Besides, who needs friends when you have Legionaries? I get to play with them, and they never call me names or try to use my power. Maybe I'll become a Legionary too, one day, like Daddy.
Twilight Sparkle is a funny name. What sort of a changeling goes calling herself silly pony names like that? Weird...
My favourite colour is red, like roses, and I love the smell of coffee.

Briefly, I wondered what the point of checking my memory was - how exactly was I supposed to know if I was remembering the right thing if I couldn't be sure any of my memories were right? Still, something about those thoughts didn't seem right. Maybe she was in my memories, maybe she was somewhere else, but for now all I could do was list endlessly until something else happens. And so, I listed on...

After a while, these lists became - although I had no way of knowing at the time - much further removed from the truth, and looking back it is quite easy for me to assess Princess Celestia's ruthless path though my brain. The closer or further she got from my most recent memories, the more I listed what I might have done at those points in time, and if I had had any recollection of what was correct for the present and what was simply the result of dredged-up memory, I would have known ahead of time that the alicorn was growing closer and closer to the one memory which I wanted her least to find.

My first and only warning, had I been in any state to understand it, was my final, increasingly incoherent list:

Her name is Twilight Sparkle.
She is a unicorn, personal student of Princess Celestia, and rumoured to be the Bearer of the Element of Magic.
She is onto me - I have to deal with her before she dooms us all.
She is out of the way now, and unharmed unless she did something stupid like trying to escape the portal sphere.
She might be a danger after all - if she frees the alicorn, everything will come apart.
She needs to be stopped.
She has gotten quite far since I set her down here: I'm impressed - she works fast.
She is not, apparently, one with a cool head in a crisis. This is just too easy! I'm almost disappointed...
She is... What is she doing? Is she going to leap at me? Is that her plan? Really?
She is falling! Shit! I can't let her fall!
What do I do?!
The silk, of course! Pleasedon'tmisspleasedon'tmisspleasedon'tmisspleasedon'tmisspleasedon'tmisspleasedon'tmisspleasedon'tmiss...
Oh, thank Phlogiston - I caught her!
What just happened? Oh, no, please don't tell me it snapped!
It snapped! Buck!
She has stopped screaming.
She has stopped feeling.
She can't be dead.
She can't be.
She isn't moving.
She can't be dead.
Please, dear Phlogiston please let her be alive.
She can't be dead.
She isn't breathing.
She can't be dead.
She can't be...
She can't...
She is dead.
Oh, Phlogiston, she's dead.
I did this.
I was too slow.
I did this.
I failed her.
I did this.
She is dead.
I did this.
It is my fault.
I did this.
It is all my fault.
Wait, is that...
It can't be...
Please let it be...
Her heart is still beating!
She's not dead yet!
I can save her!
I will save her!
I will... Oh, Phlogiston, it's gone!
What did I just cast?!
I killed her...
Oh, buck, I killed her!
Why?!
Why did this have to happen?!
I could have saved her!
I could have saved her!
Why?!
I'm so sorry.
I can't...
What did I cast?
It wasn't a lethal spell, was it?
I wouldn't have... Would I?
I didn't!
She is frozen, not dead!
Not dead!
I can still save her!
Twilight Sparkle is nearly dead, but I will save her.
She is not dead yet.
She is almost certainly doomed.
She is not dead yet.
She has a family that loves her.
She has friends who support her and care about her.
She has a mentor who is almost a mother to her.
She has a life.
I will not take that from her, or her from that.
She is not dead yet.
She is almost certainly doomed.
She is not going to die.
She is going to live again.
I will make that happen.
I have to make that happen.
I vow to make that happen.
Twilight Sparkle is my greatest responsibility.
I will not let her down.

My mind became very still, all of a sudden, before a fresh burst of magic, not violent this time but desperate, rocked my unsteady mind. The foreign presence of Celestia's mind in mine had gone, and at last the final remnants of our link were torn asunder. Slowly, horribly, I began to wake up.

VI: DELIRIUM

Thought and memory swirled like the tumultuous tumbling of the river at the bottom of a waterfall as my bubble of consciousness fused into place amongst the poorly reassembled pieces of a lunatic's jigsaw puzzle, into the Frankensteinian bastardisation of thoughts and memory that had once been my mind. Feeling rushed back into my body, the reunification of body and mind nearly complete, and with a sickening feeling of sudden acceleration I lurched awake, eyes opening involuntarily and remaining pinned back as wide as they could go, my newly regained vision swimming with tears and lurid, blurring colours. I was conscious, at least, but I was still damaged beyond the limited capabilities of my self-repair - I had thought Celestia's mental invasion more terrifying than anything, but this nauseating blend of familiarity and alienation within my own body produced its own kind of horror.

Even as hooves touched my body and voices rang incoherently in my ears, I was alone, my barely-functioning husk of a body my only companion, a companion whose usual comforting responses had disappeared completely in favour of fresh nightmares of twisted sensation and shattered comprehension.

Even as those same hooves lifted me, the voices asking what, exactly? Could I move? No, no I could not, despite how much I might crave the return of control over my body. And so, as the stone corridors passed in a dizzying blur, I did the only thing I could: I cried for everything I had lost, and tried to ignore the humiliating sensation of hot liquid trickling down the insides of my thighs, yet another bludgeoning reminder that I controlled nothing in this horrible new reality besides my lungs and my tears.

When, at long last, we stopped, I took a long, long time indeed to notice it; lost as I was within the broken labyrinth inside my head, and no longer caring about the world which no longer belonged to me. Voices; calm, soothing, but still incomprehensible, cooed this and that and tried to soothe the unsootheable. I was right in the middle of one in a series of fragmented, raging rants about their - to me, incredible - inability to do anything of use besides talk, when I felt a sharp, stabbing pain in my left foreleg and the world turned to still, comforting blackness.

Unconsciousness enveloped me like a blanket, and I flew into its embrace with open hooves. For now, at least, the nightmare would be over.

When I dreamed, I dreamed in memories.

END OF CHAPTER FOUR (PART TWO)

Author's Note:

It's been a long time coming, but here it is. I may come back at some point and add a little more to the ending scene, but I need a little time to figure out exactly what else I want to do with it. I've edited as best I can, but if you see any errors, please tell me and I'll try and fix them as best I can using mobile FimFic.
Thanks for reading!

Comments

[D48]

That was much better than the first run, although I did still notice some minor issues. Celestia felt much more clumsy in this version's mental magic exchange, although you could still accentuate it a bit more by adding words like "chaotic" to the description of the magic to make it more clear that she is acting in a blind rage rather than a practiced mental assault. Her overall attitude was also much better, although she did still come off as a bit overly aggressive in the racism section because she was actively hurting her chances of success by antagonizing Chrysalis which feels very out of character for her even when she is under a lot of stress like this. It also felt a bit odd for Chrysalis to blindly shoot in Celestia's mind because she knows how much damage that can cause if she misses, and it also works against your goal of making Celestia feel unfamiliar with mental magic because she demonstrates the ability to successfully defend against that attack so I would either delete that bit or make it more of a grab intended to pin the Nightmare that catches Celestia head on because she does not know how to stop it (that would also go a long way towards making it clear Celestia does not really know what she is doing).

Now looking back on my comments from the old version, I definitely like the addition of the medical magic to the start of the mental magic section because it hints that Celestia is trying to trick Chrysalis and makes the next section feel much more deliberate, although it does seem a bit strange for Celestia to look for that kind of contact if she is unfamiliar with mental magic. Another huge area of improvement is the backstory which went from a quick, hacked together mess to a brief explanation of a clear cut and perfectly logical diplomatic disaster which wraps up the setup beautifully and resolves all the concerns I had with that. The addition of the mental confrontation is also definitely a big improvement because it sets up a logical reason for what happens there, especially because Celestia was looking to talk and did not know what the consequences of her outburst would be. Another huge improvement is the removal of the post-mindrape conversation because it makes far more sense this way with Chrysalis being in no condition to talk and Celestia needing time to process everything she learned.

One other major thing my old comments brought up is forgiveness. Celestia is a very forgiving pony so I would have expected her to loosen up more after speaking with Starlit Scrolls and Maxilla. It is understandable for her to still be wary of Chrysalis and the changelings in general and be displeased about the whole "deposed" thing, but their testimony should have made it clear to her that they were not bad ponies and that working with them could be very productive so the smart thing to do is try to work past her negative feelings as much as possible. I think it would be good if you could go reword her lines a bit there to make her more understanding and accepting while still making it clear that she does not fully trust them in the most diplomatic way possible. Remember, Celestia is an expert diplomat and very good at doing what needs to be done regardless of her true feelings on a subject or individual and this is exactly the kind of situation where that would be at its most prominent. I would also make a concerted effort to show this acting by having Celestia smiling while Chrysalis can feel her true emotions come through underneath.

There were also two little typos that look like they slipped past you due to your very tight schedule.

I bore my predecessor no grudge, in fact respecting her a great deal for the unwavering leadership she gave her ponies

"in fact respecting" should be "in fact I respected"

I’m going to give you five seconds to tell me if you don’t want me to do this, then I’m going in anyway.”

The word "anyway" should be deleted because it makes it sound like Chrysalis will go in even if Celestia says no.

Ok, now that we are through all that, I do want to make it clear that despite my complaints this was still a very good chapter, it just had some of the same issues as the last one and you will never improve if you do not get good, honest feedback on the issues.

[Cross Lament]

6193620 Yeah, I'd suggest changing "then I'm going in anyway" to something along the lines of "otherwise I will proceed."

I'm a bit bewildered by Cadance's (reported) characterization, here. She never struck me as the "shoot-first, don't bother with questions" type. Then again, Alternate Universe...

I do like this chapter rewrite better; the lack of end conversation (and Chrysalis' condemnation of Celestia's actions) makes the changeling queen seem less hypocritical, which is good 'cause I want to sympathize with her at least a little.

[Zombificus]

6193620

Thanks for the feedback!

Could you be a little more specific about what exactly made Celestia feel clumsy? I think I know what parts could have given that impression, but I can't be sure I haven't missed the main problem.

I do agree that Celestia's use of mental magic needs a little more description to emphasise the chaotic nature of what she did.

I was trying to move away from the previous version, where her destruction of Chrysalis's mind was deliberate (which didn't fit with her character or her abilities with mental magic), to a version where the damage seemed unintentional.

She wanted to hurt Chrysalis, yes, but assumed that so long as they were in her mind, then only Chrysalis's avatar would be harmed (which is more or less true - while the blast would have obliterated Chrysalis's avatar, she would have reformed after a while since her mind itself would have remained untouched).

She had not expected Chrysalis to flee, nor did she have any idea that her magic could flow through the link and into Chrysalis's mind. Both of that needs more emphasis, I think, as well as Celestia's unfamiliarity with mental magic being part of the reason her mental blast was as powerful as it was.

Celestia's mind is ancient and, as we saw, huge; as a result (along with her being an alicorn) she has a lot of power to draw from when using mental magic. She hasn't been trained in its use, though, since all mental spells for unicorn use have been the work of dark mages and as such not the sort of magic she'd really want to delve into, especially with how delicate the mind is.

The result is someone with a metric ton of power and no idea how to use it safely - she's the equivalent of pre-cutie mark Twilight Sparkle in regards to using mental magic, and we all know how much damage Twi caused when she got her mark.

Celestia was furious, and instinctively called on her magic in much the same way Twilight did when Dash's Rainboom shocked her. Celestia had never used her mind magic to any real degree, and as such, when she called on it instinctively via emotion rather than rational thought, she had the equivalent of a magic flare because she had no idea how to control it. Twilight was a unicorn filly when she had her magic flare; Celestia was a 1000+ year old adult alicorn when her mental magic flared - the damage she caused was massive largely due to the sheer amount of power she had on tap, along with very little ability to control it.

I do agree about Chrysalis's magic use in Tia's head being uncharacteristically risky. I was thinking of emphasising Chrysalis's mastery of mental magic by having her conjure up a set of armour to protect her from attacks, along with a melee weapon to use (since it's a lot harder to damage anything you're not trying to hit when you're not shooting projectiles), both of which would emphasise the finesse she has with it, since it's equivalent to summoning those items out of thin air in the real world.

Celestia shouldn't have had anywhere near the control over her magic it would take to shield herself, being the equivalent of a pre-flare unicorn foal in regards to mind magic, so I'll definitely take that out. I didn't really think it all the way through, to be honest.

Tia has very good control over her apparent emotions, to the degree where the emotions her body radiates match what she wants others to think she feels as much as what she really does feel. She did genuinely believe that she'd been correctly informed about changelings, and was sincere in her apology about them, but since she was also instinctively trying to give off an air of calm superiority, what Chrysalis felt from her was muddled enough to make her words seem hollow and insincere.

Celestia wasn't in her right mind when she made the comment, either, since the order machine did have a genuine effect on her mind; ordinarily she'd be more careful than to make such a gaffe. There's also an element of unreliable narrator going on with regards to Chrysalis, and a lot of the way Celestia's described is down to Chrysalis's own suspicious nature and personal mistrust of Celestia as much as any real hostility of Tia's.

Tia is inexperienced at using mental magic, but she is quite knowledgeable about it, as with everything. She knows enough about changelings to know they're capable of linking minds and of using mind control. Of course, the changelings have always been isolated and secretive, and anything she has heard about them has come through an extensive game of Chinese whispers, which is why she also has false information like the rumour that changelings don't feel emotion.

Her suspicion of Chrysalis even after meeting Starlit stems from her knowledge of their abilities - she suspects that Scrolls, who had always seemed a happy and loyal subject, must have been brainwashed for her to be so supportive of Chrysalis, and this suspicion prevented her from truly trusting what they tell her.

That first typo is actually a remnant of the first version, and I must have missed it the second time round. The section it was in was one of the stronger ones in the original so I was less concerned about improving it than the later parts of the chapter.

The second one is also very valid. I'll get to that ASAP.

On a final note, Chrysalis was less trusting of Tia because her control of her emotions muddied what Chrysalis could sense from her, thus making her seem insincere to Chrysalis in a lot of what she said. The control of her emotions did help Tia's case later on, though, when her faked fear and confusion blended well with her own anxiousness about her whole plan.

I'll probably give it another run through and add a lot of these little details later, since I've realised a lot of it is less clear than I'd like.

[D48]

6199976 I am happy to help as always.

First, I thought Celestia feeling more clumsy in the mental exchange was a good thing. It helped to break the expectation that she knew what she was doing and was in full control of the situation which is very important for what you are trying to do. I think it was really the presentation of her emotional state that did it, although I think you could still stand to add the word "chaotic" to the paragraph where Chrysalis is running from Celestia's magic to really drive home the point that she does not have any real control over it.

The one thing that still did not really come across properly is Celestia's lack of understanding of what is going on, but her rage is more than enough of an explanation of what happened for this chapter so I think you are fine. You will just have to make it clear that she is unaware of the magnitude of what she did later which is not a problem. As a suggestion, I would have the changelings make the assumption that Celestia knew what she was doing and deliberately tried to hurt Chrysalis because that is a perfectly reasonable thing for them to think. It also means that no one will answer her questions because they think she is a monster who is just trying to rub in what she did which will make her increasingly worried and amplify her reaction when Chrysalis blows up at her about what she did. That will also be a good way for them to start laying the groundwork for future cooperation because it will get Celestia feeling like she owes Chrysalis for her mistake and Chrysalis will realize this was an accident which makes it much easier to forgive.

Moving on, it sounds like we are on the same page with what needs to happen in the first section of the mental meeting, just make sure to clarify the extent of what is going on with Chrysalis because she could easily make it look trivial.

Tia has very good control over her apparent emotions, to the degree where the emotions her body radiates match what she wants others to think she feels as much as what she really does feel. She did genuinely believe that she'd been correctly informed about changelings, and was sincere in her apology about them, but since she was also instinctively trying to give off an air of calm superiority, what Chrysalis felt from her was muddled enough to make her words seem hollow and insincere.

Celestia wasn't in her right mind when she made the comment, either, since the order machine did have a genuine effect on her mind; ordinarily she'd be more careful than to make such a gaffe. There's also an element of unreliable narrator going on with regards to Chrysalis, and a lot of the way Celestia's described is down to Chrysalis's own suspicious nature and personal mistrust of Celestia as much as any real hostility of Tia's.

Ok, I think you need to rethink this section because it fundamentally contradicts itself. The only reason Celestia would ever have for learning how to control what emotions she radiates is to deal with changelings because they are the only creatures that can observe her internal emotional state rather than having to guess it from external clues. This means that she would not instinctively do what you are saying unless she was used to dealing with changelings on a regular basis which makes it a critical skill to ingrain like that, but if that were the case then she would have more than enough direct experience with changelings to know that what she said was complete and total xenophobic bullshit so she would not have said it.

I think what you need to do here is dump the emotional control unless she is making a concerted effort to project artificial emotions, and even that would be tainted by the stress of maintaining the mask (although that would actually be beneficial in this chapter). That means Chrysalis will be getting a bit more information on Celestia than she means to share, although her emotional state can be easily deduced from context in most of this chapter so it will not really change anything. You will just need to go back and edit in Celestia's emotions which should not be too big a deal.

Her suspicion of Chrysalis even after meeting Starlit stems from her knowledge of their abilities - she suspects that Scrolls, who had always seemed a happy and loyal subject, must have been brainwashed for her to be so supportive of Chrysalis, and this suspicion prevented her from truly trusting what they tell her.

Yeah, I figured that was the case, although I also considered the possibility of a disguised changeling as well. There are lots of ways that could have been manipulated and Celestia was right to be suspicious, although I think this is a perfect example of why you need to be having Chrysalis pick up Celestia's emotions. Chrysalis will know Celestia is suspicious of Starlit and be able to immediately deduce that she suspects foul play, although there is not really anything Chrysalis can do about it.

Hm, come to think of it, that would be a good thing to add throughout this chapter in general. Chrysalis should really be analyzing Celestia to get a political leg up on her throughout their entire meeting which will let you slip details like this into the story and help show that Chrysalis is a very capable politician when she wants to be.

I'll probably give it another run through and add a lot of these little details later, since I've realised a lot of it is less clear than I'd like.

Sounds good, and feel free to ask if you need my help with anything.

[Laluzi]

Oh, hey, a rewrite. I have to say, I like the change in events here; it doesn't make Chrysalis into a massive hypocrite and doesn't paint Celestia as being skilled enough in mind magic to understand the consequences of what she's doing.

[jbwjr]

ok 2 or 3 things if I remember what that one is

1. while im sure its obvious, these are "Roman" changeling's yes? just asking for my own clarity

Princess Cadance, opened fire on our envoy and would have killed his entire group had they not fled. She was quite clear in her intent

2. Cadence a warmonger.....yaaaaa unless she has a irrational fear of bugs id like an explanation for that.

3. since I cant think of what I was going to say now, good rewrite, though I must admit that Tia seems to agree to this a little too easily all be it she is given plenty of reason to: no one's dead yet check, backstory check cadence as pointed out early, suspect in my mind but check. to be fair thought I found that moment at the end of the old chapter about Tia finding about Twilight to be more fitting for what you were going for from my point of view that way Celestia Knows Chrysalis is sinser (I forgot how to spell that) about what she's say's and hay gives her reason to like I said believe her.