Cogs & Needles

by Frostmourne

Act: I Chapter One: Ponies Are Strange

It was mid day on the thirteenth of May, and all of the humble town of Ponyville was bustling with the everyday commotion it normally had. Some ponies were doing their daily jobs: from inventing and mechanic work to housebuilding, selling merchandise, and farming; some were enjoying a stroll through town and resting or eating at the park or at restaurants, but then there some ponies who were doing, well, a whole lot of nothing. Blizzard Underwood was one of those ponies, but not by choice. He was sitting in his cushioned desk chair: his throne, as he called it; and most simply just staring at an accursedly blank page in his typewriter. He had a case of Writer's Block, and a bad one at that. His eye that was uncovered by his royal purple mane, which was styled so that it covered just one and went over his glasses, twitched every now and then as his brain tried to process different ways to begin the chaper he was on in his story, but the uncreative blockage in his mind just would not clear out of the way for his creative processes to work. Blizz had worked in Canterlot as a Detective Commander for the Lunar Department not just because it was part of his his special talent, but because he loved doing it. His special talents were writing and detective work: the magnifying glass and letters upon his flank broadcasted that message well.

Eventually, he closed his eye and sighed, giving up on writing for the day, and upon opening it, typed three words, the click-clack of the keys the only sound resounding throughout the room he was in: "Woe, is me." He hopped out of his throne, and looked around the room, his unfinished bedroom. He had just moved into the house a couple days prior, and had not had the time to finish unpacking. There was only the basics: A bed, a nightstand, a birdcage holding his pet raven Nevermore, and a desk with his typewriter upon it. Upon his nightstand next to the mechanised alarm clock he had, was an autographed picture of his favourite show pony, the in/famous Great and Powerful Trixie. He smiled at it, remembering when he had gotten it from her, and the circumstances it was under. He had been in the city of Baltimare, on an investigation to find a chaotic pony who had begun to take his pranks too far, either literally scaring ponies to death, or tricking them into trotting into a deathtrap, finding a sick amusement in all of it. He stopped in a cabaret club to grab a coffee and clear his thoughts to better focus on the case. Whilst he was drinking his coffee in the corner booth table, however, Trixie had come on stage to preform, acting as grand as she always did. She invited a pony up on stage to do an act with, and lo and behold, it was the murderer! Blizz couldn't believe his luck, he had found his suspect, and he didn't even have to try. Blizz let Trixie do her magic trick on the unknowing crook, a classic fake cutting in half trick. Blizz laughed at the irony, knowing that that was one of the ways the criminal had murdered his victims. After the trick was over, Blizz trotted up on stage and held out his badge, arresting the pony and publicly thanking Trixie for her help in a murder case. He then trotted down and sent a message through Nevermore to the Baltimare police department, and waited for officers to show up by watching Trixie do the rest of her act, and forcing the crook to stay and watch with him. After the show was over, and the Baltimare officers came to take the criminal away, Trixie approached Blizz and gave him an autographed picture, telling him that it was so he "Would never forget the awesome show-stopping power of the Great Trixie."

He turned from the picture to some boxes of his clothes and belongings, deciding that if he was going out for a stroll through town, he might as well look good whilst doing it. He trotted over and opened the box closest to him, and upon opening it, was surprised. The set of clothes in the box on top of all the others was his old detective outfit. He hadn't worn it since a month ago when Luna made him come to Ponyville on paid vacation to spend time with his family. The only reasons he bought a house on the other side of town was because he liked the way the area looked, and so that he could have friends over and be out as late as he wanted. Shaking away all those thoughts to focus on the present, he pulled out the old outfit and began to put it on, from the black vest and tie with the white shirt underneath to the black trench, goggles and the clockwork decorated fedora. He put his glasses in their case and put them in one of the many pockets in his trench. Sometimes ponies would marvel at all the things he kept in his trench, asking where it all went when he put it in the coat, to which he came up with the response "It's bigger on the inside." He trotted over to the unhung mirror he had leaning against a wall, and spread his dark sapphire blue wings, remembering his glory days of working nights on end to find clues to catch a crminal and stop a spree of crimes. He trotted out of his room after grabbing his coin satchel, deciding that he would go to Cafe Everfree to grab a cup of coffee and hopefully catch a live broadcast of Everfree Radio. He trotted out into the Living Room/Kitchen area, and upon smelling something ghastly horrible, looked at the burnt mac and cheese he had failed at making earlier. He never was good at mac and cheese, like his old university roomie was. He trotted out his door, making sure to lock it, especially in the hard times Equestria was beginning to go through.

He trotted down the tan brick road that traversed the town, the section of it in the area of town he lived in a darker shade, almost a dark brown, seeing and listening to Lyra, who was playing a song on her lyre, eyes closed and a top hat next to her on the bench she was sitting awkwardly on. She was wearing a dark red stained leather corsette and a white blouse with a matching skirt. He brought out thirteen silver royals and dropped them in her top hat. Watching the coins fall in, he remembered two years ago back when he had used the old Equestrian currency: bits. They were a precursor to royals, being that they were small copper coins, but their value was too small. Some more fortunate ponies had begun to complain that having to carry so many at a time was becoming tedious, for the weight would begin to add up, and not to metion, you would have to have had multiple things to carry them in. After her return, Luna had listened to the complaints, and suggested to Celestia that perhaps a change in the system would be good to make transactions simpler and to show the advancements they had made in the Equestrian economy since over a thousand years ago. The Princesses had decided upon a suggestion from an inventor to make a three tier system of copper, silver, and gold coins. He went even further so as to suggest the name Royals, saying that hey could be made to show Celestia's sun and Luna's moon on the two sides. Thus, royals were born, and everypony took an immediate liking to them, happy that transactions would be much simpler from there on out. The conversion system was fairly simple, as well: One-hundred copper royals to a silver, one hundred silver royals to a gold.

As she heard the clinking of the coins in the hat next to her, Lyra opened her eyes, halting her playing hoof upon seeing Blizz. She looked in the hat and saw the thirteen silver amongst the small amount of copper. "Blizz, you know I can't accept thirteen silver, that's too much. And besides, you're my friend."

Blizz rolled his eyes playfully with a kind smile. "Nonsense, Lyra. You play way too well for the small amount of royals that ponies around here pay you. You deserve those royals, especially since they are mine. Just promise me you'll buy something nice for yourself with them. And I'm not taking no for an answer."

Lyra smiled at Blizz, setting down her lyre and giving him a hug as she hopped off of the bench. "Thanks Blizz, you're a better friend than I deserve."

"No problem, I'm just that nice a colt." Blizz said as Lyra ended the hug. "You're still up for that party at Pinkie's place tonight, right?"

"Heck yeah, Pinkie throws awesome parties, you think I would miss one of them for anything else?" She put her lyre in her top hat and held it up next to her with her magic. "I'll see you then, okay?"

"'Kay." Blizz said, and Lyra began to trot away, a happy smile on her face. Blizz smiled to himself. Everypony should be happy, no matter what. And if I have to be the one to make sure of it, then so be it. He trotted away from the bench, and towards the town market, the sound of the ponies arguing over prices able to be heard around five yards away.

He trotted around the various stalls of the market, scowling at the greed consumed merchants selling their wares: strange trinkets that supposedly gave you good luck, and poorly built mechanisms said to do various things but to the trained eye were only good for four or five uses, among others; for prices that were higher than the actual values of the items they were selling. Among the voices, however, he heard a friendly one, one that could be distinguished by it's accent alone. "Howdy partner, would ya care fer some apples? I sell for fair and honest prices, as everypony should." He turned and looked in the direction of the voice to see it was exactly who he thought it was: Applejack, the Honest Mechanic. He trotted over to see the customer she had been talking to kindly refuse, apologising as they trotted away. She sighed before she looked around and saw Blizz approaching her. As she saw him, a smile spread across her face, happy to see a friend. "Shoot, Blizz! It's always good ta see a friendly face." She straightened her hat and adjusted her goggles upon her forehead, and held a hoof out. "Ya here fer some apples?" She then patted her satchel with her trusty wrench in it. "Or do ya need somethin' fixed?"

Blizz chuckled, knowing that back home he had a couple of things in need of some fixing up, but he would never ask Applejack to do such trivial things when he could do them if he tried. An apple or two did sound good, however. "Sure, I'll take a couple." He flicked back his coat to reach for his coin satchel, and in the process, caused something to fall from his coat and onto the ground. "Hold up a minute, what's this?" He picked it up, noticing that it was a black wallet with decorative framing paint arund the edges. Could it be? He thought, opening it up. Upon seeing his silver badge from back when he was on the job, he smiled widely. "Blimey, it is! My badge! I could have swore I left it in my desk back at Canterlot!" He ran his hoof tip across the engraved calligraphic lettering that said his name and rank.

Applejack looked at the badge, reading Blizz's rank with a sense of pride growing inside her for the young stallion in front of her. "Detective Commander, huh? Ya never told us about that."

"Yeah, I never did, did I? I just thought it wasn't that big a deal, I guess." Blizz said, closing the wallet and putting it back in it's respective pocket in his coat.

Applejack scoffed. "Shoot, not that big a deal? Detective work is something ta be proud of!" She patted Blizz on the shoulder. "Detectives always search for the truth, and I admire that." She nodded her head, beaming at him.

Blizz blushed a bit at the compliment, not used to getting any. "Thanks Applejack, that means a lot to me to hear you say that. Not many ponies thank me for the work I do, besides my family and Luna, for obvious reasons." He smiled at her before he reached back towards his coin satchel. "Now about those apples-"

Before Blizz could finish his sentence however, there came a voice from the direction to their left. "Get out of Ponyville!"

Then another. "Yeah, you don't belong here, Solar Legionnaires!"

One more. "Well I ain't goin' nowhere, you moon-loving idiots!"

And finally another. "Neither am I!"

Blizz put a hoof sternly to the ground. "What in Luna's name is all that racket?" He said, turning toward the source of the yelling. The merchants and other ponies around him and Applejack stopped what they were doing to listen to the arguing, some went to go see what it was.

Applejack put a closed sign in her stand, and trotted ahead of Blizz motioning with her hoof to tell him to follow. "Let's go see what the problem is fer ourselves." She sped up to a slow gallop, Blizz right behind her. After a minute, they arrived upon the area around Town Hall, a moderately sized amount of ponies outside the building itself. They were separated into two smaller groups: One holding up flags and signs with a crescent moon with wings and a star on them, the other holding up flags and signs of the sun with rays spreading out from it with a silhouette of Celestia raising it in the centre. "Ah think this is about that Conflict Twilight was telling me about the other day... Ah hope nopony gets hurt, that would be a real shame." Applejack whispered to Blizz as they joined the circle of ponies around the two groups.

So far all that seemed to be happening between the two groups was just a bunch of shouting insults and opinions, but nevertheless, Blizz watched closely. He'd been through some arguments like the one in front of him before, and even had to break up a few. He knew that at any moment, somepony could make a stupid decision, and turn a simply disturbance of the peace into a riot. He looked at the Town Hall, and saw a pair of mulberry coloured hooves close a window, probably trying to block out the noise from the argument. He leaned towards Applejack, and whispered ino her ear. "I think somepony is talking to the Mayor to try and figure out a way to either regulate, or break up this argument." He looked again at the two groups, seeing how riled up they were. "Although, if they think they are going to do either without a little reinforcement from the law, I don't think they're going to get too far." He saw one pony trot forward a bit, pointing at the ground infront of him with a hoof, as if challenging a pony on the other side to fight him. "And that's not a good sign. Wait here, I'll wave you over if I need assisstance. I'll try to handle it for the most part. I've done this before, so don't worry." He made his way through the circle of ponies and into the line of space between the two groups, holding a hoof out to the pony who was making a challenge and making the pony sink back into his particular group. The two parties quieted down a bit, waiting for him to say something. "Good day, everypony. I am under the assumption that this is an argument over who should rule Equestria, am I correct?" Some ponies shook their heads, telling him he was right. He continued, "It is fine if you debate about it in public, so long as you keep your voices down and speak rationally." He pulled out his badge and showed it to them. "I am a Canterlot Officer, and if I see any violence out of any of you, I won't hesitate to place you under arrest."

"Ah, shut up, you stupid official. I see that badge, you work under Luna, and that automatically pits you with them!" A Solar supporter yelled, pointing at the Lunar supporters with a hoof.

Blizz sighed, rolling his ice blue eyes behind his goggles, unsurprised that somepony would make such an assumption. "I may work under Princess Luna in the Lunar Department, yes, but I deal out justice in fair measure, never in an opinionated way. Even if the ponies to my right support me," He looked at the Lunar supporters with a stern face to make sure they got his message. "I won't hesitate to place them under arrest as well, should they commit any crimes. Are we clear?" He saw some of the Lunar supporters nod in agreement, listening to him with more respect because he works under Luna. He turned back to the Solar supporters. "I am just here to act as a mediator for this debate, and to make sure that nopony gets hurt under any circumstances."

The same Solar supporter spoke once again. "A debate, that's all you think this is?! This is an outright war! Those moon-lovers want Princess Celestia out of the way so that Luna can rule over Equestria by herself and make it eternal night! If that doesn't go against justice and the Equestrian way, then I don't know if I can even bother to listen to somepony like you who holds the law so highly, you snotty night-defender!"

As the Lunar supporters began to yell in retaliation, Blizz put a hoof up, quieting them down, having a slight degree of control over them. He swallowed hard, fighting back his anger. I hate being called snotty. "Now, now, there is no need to insult an officer of the law, at least not to his face. In any case, now that we've heard plenty of your side of the argument, let's hear what the other side's view on things is." He turned to a Lunar supporter who looked eager and knowledgeable, despite his youth. He reminded Blizz of himself a couple years ago. "You good chap, could you represent the Lunar supporters for a moment, and tell me what you think?"

The young stallion bowed to him, and stood up with a polite smile on his face. "Certainly, Detective Commander." Blizz tried to hide his small smirk, he liked when ponies called him solely by his rank. The stallion continued. "Firstly, that talk of "Eternal Night" while it would be nice, is completely false. There would be no food to harvest without the sun, so we want it to stay in the sky as well. We just believe that Celestia does not listen to the ponies of Equestria enough, and not asking Princess Luna her opinion on something before doing it. Celestia has ruled by herself for a thousand years, and because of it, she has become slightly tyrannical, thinking that only her word is law, and that Princess Luna's word does not mean anything. She sets higher taxes for living, and then adds a tax to the food we buy, all without asking for Princess Luna's opinion on the subject, let alone the six members of the Equestrian High Court. We believe that everypony deserves a say in the matter, not just Celestia herself." The other Lunar supporters cheered for the young stallion, who blushed at the praise.

"Very well put, and without acting rash, thank you very much for participating. You may trot back into your group now." Blizz nodded to the pony with a kind smile, and saw the pony do exactly what he said. When he looked over at the Solar supporters, however, he could see scowls through the whole group.

A different Solar supporter from the one who spoke before, just as stubborn and rude as the one before, trotted forward and spoke. "Oh, so you're just going to believe their lies and slander because they were polite about it? Let me tell you this: We don't need anypony else to decide what's better for Equestria. Princess Celestia knows what she is doing, because she's done the same thing for over a thousand years, and could very well do it again! She doesn't need no help from that crazy sister of hers, or anypony else! She is all Equestria needs!" The Solar supporters cheered for him much like the Lunar supporters did for their representative.

A lunar supporter spoke up. "That is a completely empirical way of thinking! We need equality for this land to function correctly!"

"I'll show you empirical!" A Solar supporter galloped over and began to fight, other ponies beginning to join in before Blizz could do anything about it, and soon enough, Blizz's prediction had come true: a riot had started, and it was only going to grow in size unless he did something about it as soon as possible.

He waved Applejack over, and just as he was about to yell for everypony to halt, a voice rang out over the fighting, as if amplified. "Everypony please calm down! There is no need for violence!" Everypony looked at the entrance to town hall to see Mayor Mare with a megaphone, her mane in a bit of a mess. "I am ashamed of you ponies, starting a fight in the middle of Ponyville!"

A pony trotted out and stood next to her, a mulberry pony Blizz recognised: Twilight Sparkle, the Mechanomancer Inventor. She looked around at the ponies before her, seeing that they had stopped to look at the Mayor and her. "If everypony could please break up this riot and return to your homes and respective places of work, it would be a great show of respect for Mayor Mare and all of Ponyville."

A Lunar supporter spoke up. "Respect, like how you respect Celestia? I bet you lick her hooves, you mule!"

Blizz had had enough. Nopony insults his friends. "That is quite enough!" He galloped up onto town hall, spreading his wings, Applejack galloping up next to him. "You have two choices, either break up this fight like Twilight asked, or I will personally arrest every single one of you for not only disturbance of the peace, but assault as well!" Sweat was on his brow, which was arched in anger.

Applejack patted Blizz on the back, calming him down. "Relax partner, ah got your back." She whispered to him before she turned to the crowd with a condescending look. "An' ah won't be afraid ta help him, either! So if any of y'all want ta feel my hindhooves in your face, ah suggest you leave here right now, quietly, and peacefully." She spoke in a way that got her message accross, but didn't make the ponies want to retaliate.

Ponies who had their hooves up for punches and their rears up for bucks stopped and stood up straight, scowling at the members of the opposite factions, before all trotting away, the fight over and the perpetrators dissipating from the area. Twilight sighed with relief, turning to see Mayor Mare head back inside town hall after doing the same. As Mayor Mare closed the doors, she mumbled something about getting too old for her job. Twilight looked over at Blizz: who had calmed down a bit, his wings folded; and Applejack, who gave her a kind smile. "Thanks for the help you two, I don't think that situation would have ended too well if you hadn't shown up."

Applejack chuckled. "Shucks, no problem, Twi. I'll always be ready ta help ya out when ya need it, ya just gotta ask me."

Blizz sighed, still blowing off some steam. "I'm sorry that that pony insulted you like that, Twilight. Next time I see him, I'll be sure to buck him in the face for you."

Twilight was surprised, blushing a bit, and her eyes fluttering behind her goggles. "Blizz, you don't have to do that, that's highly unnecessary." Upon seeing Blizz hang his head in shame, however, she spoke again. "But thanks for the offer." She said it with a mischievous giggle at the end, a smile upon her muzzle.

Blizz smiled at her, and got curious looking from her to Applejack. "What do you think about the Conflict, you two?"

Applejack spoke first, her mind already made up. "Ah think all this fighting and arguing is just down-right ridiculous. Ah think the Princesses should rule together, like they did before, and a thousand years ago." She placed a hoof down getting her point across.

Twilight hummed, considering Applejack's point of view. "I agree with you Applejack. But I also think that some of the accusations of Princess Celestia being tyrannical and misguided ideas deduced by uninformed ponies."

"Well, if Princess Luna wasn't there with her, I'm sure she might be a bit." Applejack stated, hoping Twilight wouldn't take it the wrong way.

Twilight was taken aback. "Applejack, Princess Celestia is in no way empirical or tyrannical, she-"

Blizz interrupted her. "Y'know what, let's just forget I asked. We don't need something as ridiculous as the Conflict tearing us apart. Especially you two, Elements of Harmony and all that..."

Applejack sighed with relief. "Blizz is right, Twilight. We shouldn't fight over something like the Conflict."

Twilight smiled at her two friends. "I agree. We should just let other ponies fight over it."

Blizz chuckled. "Now how about we all go have a nice chat over food and drink?"

Applejack lightly hit Blizz on the shoulder with a chuckle. "I'll take ya up on that offer partner." She started to trot away, Blizz trotting next to her.

Twilight smiled to herself, seeing how well Blizz and Applejack got along. "That does sound good right now." She trotted a bit fast to catch up to her friends, trotting over a feew of the signs and flags that the supporters were holding up. She didn't pay them any mind, and did not want to. Her friends were more important to her than any Conflict or ponies who insulted her could ever be. As she caught up to Blizz and Applejack, all that she could focus on was one thought: I have amazing friends, and I will never let something trivial get in the way of our friendships. Even if it is a civil conflict.

***

Oh how revenge will taste so sweet upon my tongue when I am sitting upon Celestia's throne. I will find a way to make every last one of those ponies feel my true furious wrath. Perhaps I could take a look through some of their literature and museums. There may be old treasure or spells, the kind of which would grant the holder or caster with an incredible amount of power. Chrysalis thought to herself as she trotted through the Everfree Forest at near midnight, tired from hiding so long in the forest and avoiding towns. All since her last feeding in Appleoosa. That fool with the ridiculous hat did not give me as much love as I thought he would, only as much as I needed to get by. However, my mortal form grows weak, and I desire sustenance. ...I may not find some anytime soon, however. This forest it much to large in size to trot through, but I must, for I am too weak to fly in my current condition, and do not feel like shifting unless I know I am sure to find either love or kindness nearby. 'Tis the curse of being shunned by an entire race. Confounded ponies... She looked around her, and stopped in place. Her wicked horn began to grow the sickly poision-like harlequin green of her eyes, which promptly closed. She focused on scrying the sounds around her, trying to conserve her energy, for a visual scry would be too draining to do with the state she was in. She heard voices not too far off from her position to her right, about a quarter of a mile away. She opened her eyes, her horn's glow dissipating, and licked her lips and her fangs hungrily, a sinister smile spreading across her muzzle, a small evil chuckle escaping her throat. Where there are voices, there are ponies, and where there are ponies, there is love to be drained.

She went into a gallop towards her right, and as she dodged branches and bushes, shifted into the form of a pony, specifically one she had not used for quite some time. She shifted into a pony with a long straight and layered jet black mane and tail, a royal purple coat, and eyes the same colour as her own but more pony shaped, and unslitted. It was a simple shift form, one of her very first. Upon her flank was her favourite part of it, a fake cutie mark of a broken heart, a drop of blood dripping from it's tip. She burst through a tangle of branches and out into a small open field of grass, the light of Luna's moon shining down on her from above. To her right was a small cottage, a chicken coop outside. A road led from the cottage to a town not too far away. She could practically smell the love coming from the town on the wind, and it compelled her to keep her hooves moving. She galloped down the the brick road that led to the town until the town border was in sight, at which point she slowed down to a trot. She looked at the aesthetics of the buildings around her. Pipes on the rooves of some emitted steam, and upon the porches of most were clockwork tools and machines. She looked at the lamp posts on the sides of the road, seeing that the lit up lamps upon the were most likely powered by an oil, probably gasoline. Her eyes then wandered towards the ponies around her, their faces as ugly as monsters to her. The females wore fancy decorative dresses for show and poise, to tight fitting cloth and leather outfits with some decorative clockwork on them for manoeuvrability and style. The males either wore dress suits with pocket watches in their pockets, or cloth and leather outfits, both for much the same reasons as the women wore theirs. She was on the side of town closest to the forest, and as such, a few ponies carried small weapons: clockwork or flintlock pistols; to defend themselves against the creatures of the forest if they ever needed to.

The ponies seemed to be eager to get inside their homes and places of rest, the sky above growing dark as the pegasi began to move dark stormclouds over the town, a scheduled storm ready to take place. The light of the moon was blotted out from the sky as if it had been painted black, and the only light left was that from the windows of homes, and that of the gas lamps on the edges of the road. Chrysalis stood still in the light of a lamp post as she looked up at the clouds that had caused the inky blackness around her. Suddenly, a drop of rain fell upon her muzzle, and soon after another and another. Before she knew it, a light rain began to pour, which then progressed into a moderate downpour. The fake mane and tail she wore became wet, loosing their volume, and became completely straight. The false coat she donned was wet as well, it's purple even a deeper shade than it had been before. She trotted forward once again, trudging her dark form through the rain, the dark alleys and melancholy roads around her creating a sombre scene with the droplets of water falling from the clouds, cracks of lightning the only thing lighting up the alleyways she passed. Everything seemed to become diverse shades of black, grey, and white, as if she had trotted hoof into a gothic storybook. Through the pattering of the rain hitting the road and the slight whistle of the light wind, a kind laugh could be heard, the laugh of a pony trotting out of a building ahead of her, saying his farewells to the ponies who lived within. She tried to focus her sight through the rain, trying to get a glimpse of the pony in question, but the only thing she had been able to see before he closed the door behind him was a mane that was a carbon-copy of her false coat, the colour of it exactly the same. After the light of the building had left it's place around him, he became as dark a figure in the night as her. She followed him near silently, not only trotting lightly, but matching the stallion's hoof falls to mask the sound of her own. She was disconcerted by the leisurely pace he was trotting at, considering the weather they found themselves in. It was almost as if he was enraptured by the gloomy ambience he perceived around him. Chrysalis couldn't condemn him for it, the tenebrous and the funereal had a fascinating enchantment to them that near nothing else in the world could hold, in her mind.

She had gotten too ensnared by her own thoughts, however, and had off guardedly trotted upon a stray tree branch that had been placed before her by the wind and the current of the water. As the crack of the wood resounded through the cold night air, the stallion she was pursuing stopped in place, forcing her to do the same. He turned around to see nothing of her but a silhouette in the blackness. In the area betwixt them, a lamp post stood seldom from the rest, as if the world around them had ceased to exist, the lamp post the only source of light in a dark world. The stallion took a trot forward, and as did Chrysalis, following the lead of the somehow entrancing pony before her who seemed to enjoy the dismal and the dreary as much as she did. They shared trot after trot, until finally, as if in a peaceful climax, they had trotted into the light of the gas lamp, illuminating both of their forms for each other to see. She looked at him as curiously as he looked at her, if not more. His dark sapphire blue coat gleaming in the light from the wetness it had accumulated in the rain. Chrysalis swore she recognised the stallion before her, well-nigh seeming to remember him. The mane he had under his hat drooped over one of his eyes, which were both concealed by a pair of goggles. His hooves grasped the sides of his goggles, and pulled them down, allowing his eyes to get a better view of the sight before him. Letting his goggles hang around his neck, he opened his eyes, allowing them to adjust to the light by opening them with lethargy, and when they were finally open wide, that was the second Chrysalis revived in her mind the memory of who he was. She could never obliterate the vision of those ice blue eyes from her mind. The eyes that lied. The eyes that had snared her heart, and then slain it. The piercingly frostbitten ice blue eyes of the first stallion who she had ever loved, he who had not loved her after all. It was him, the stallion from Trottingham. He stood before her, mouth agape, summoning his voice from his throat, the voice that had not changed at all since she saw him last. "Excuse me, but who might you be?" He didn't remember her form, the same form she had lived in the whole time they had fallen in love together. A fact that would make it that much easier to fool him once again, like the imbecilic stallion he was.

Chrysalis cleared her throat: stuffy after such a period of being unused; assuming the exact same voice she had adopted back then, back in Trottingham. "I'm just a stranger here, I arrived in town around ten minutes ago, before this rain started." She gestured to the falling rain with a hoof, before taking upon a look of weakness by bending her legs. "I don't really have anywhere to go, and no one to stay with."

The stallion smiled warmly at her. "No worries, you can come stay at my place for the night. I've got plenty of room, seeing as I just moved in." Chrysalis could feel the kindness coming off of him beginning to strengthen her, making it not as much of a toll on her to stay in her false form no longer.

"Thank you, you are too kind to a poor down-on-her-luck pony like me. My name is Hollow, Hollow Heart." She put on a face that almost seemed ready to become a pout, striking at the stallion's heartstrings.

The stallion put a hoof on her back, and did not stop smiling the whole while, almost beaming at her. "The name's Blizzard, Blizzard Underwood. But you can just call me Blizz for short. I swear to you, as long as you're with me, you'll be safe. I promise." He took off his detective's coat, and wrapped it around her cold form. He took off his fedora, and placed it upon her head, so that the rain would not wet down her mane any more than it already had. "Just follow me, and we'll be there in no time." He began to trot ahead of her, and Chrysalis soon followed in his hoof trots. Unknown to Blizz, Chrysalis wore a dark and mischievous smile as she trotted behind him. She couldn't believe the absurd amount of luck she had somehow attained. She had found a tool. An instrument in her grand plan. She would drain the love out of him just like she did that troublesome fool in Canterlot. He would be the crux in her vendetta against all of those accursed ponies who stand against her when they should revere her as a Goddess amongst them all. Throughout her mind, as present as it always was, was one constant and unending thought, the thought that she had never stopped keeping ensnared amongst all others and above them all.

Revenge.

Comments

[AzureSkies]

yaaay first
also, great story :D

Edit: daw, fack non automatic uptades

[Frostmourne]

553829 Why thank you. I thought it would make the impact of her race becoming extinct that much more hard hitting.

610564 Oh, but remember, you have not heard Blizz's side of the story yet. Don't you wonder why he doesn't remember her?

610639 Thanks, and I absolutely love your avatar!