Rage of a Queen, wrath of a Mother

by Askre

Chapter 9. When we find Chrysalis, we’ll find Rabia

Chapter 9

Princess Celestia looked up from her paperwork when Twilight Sparkle and her five friends came into the throne room. She put down the paperstack and quill, and turned her full attention to the six ponies, approaching her seat in a hurry.

“Any news?” she asked gravely with a worried frown.

“None, we have scoured just about everywhere, but this is Queen Chrysalis. She could be anypony, quite literally,” Twilight groaned as soon as she was closer to the throne along with the others.

“Fluttershy, any news on Discord?” Celestia looked at the yellow pegasus. The princess had finally felt this was urgent enough to see if the chaos spirit was willing to render some assistance. It was bad enough that Queen Rabia was planning something and that her son was now out of Tartarus - granted with limitation - they did not need Queen Chrysalis to deal with as well.

The apologetic look Fluttershy immediately assumed told Celestia the answer right away, but she remained silent to allow the timid pegasus to speak, if only to hear the reasons.

“I am sure he had good reasons to say no. He was still a little shaken after the last time we dealt with King Sombra and he does do things his own way,” Fluttershy said quietly. The Solar Princess hid her disappointment as she just nodded with an understanding smile.

“You don’t think it was this Queen Rabia who freed her from Twilight’s castle, was it?” Rarity wondered. So far nobody had really wondered how the changeling queen had escaped. The alarm had just been given that Chrysalis was loose after escaping the secure cell and magic restraints.

“That may well be it, though I don’t understand why. Queen Chrysalis said pretty much that it was Rabia who attacked her, but for all we know this all may just have been planned by both of them,” Twilight nodded to the unicorn and looked back at Celestia. “Anything from King Sombra?”

“I still can’t believe we let him out of Tartarus,” Rainbow Dash grunted, but was ignored for now, though no one could blame her for being bitter about that. She had been both imprisoned and experimented on by the king. The pegasus refused to admit it, but she sometimes had nightmares about it.

“We decided to let him settle in before starting to question him, but with recent events, I may just have to fast-forward the first visit I had planned,” Celestia sighed. She wondered if Cadance would mind joining her. The princess knew her niece was planning to head to Fillydelphia very soon to do the first checkup on the king.

“Maybe we should focus on finding this Rabia? If we find Rabia, we might find Chrysalis,” Applejack pointed out. Her friends started to nod in agreement.

“No!” Celestia said and rose to stand in her throne, her voice was so firm that all six ponies jumped to attention. “Under no circumstances are any of you to engage Queen Rabia or approach her or even find her.”

Celestia slowly sat down and took a moment to compose herself before looking at the six friends with a tired smile.

“I am sorry, I did not mean to be so stern. But keep in mind that we know very little of Rabia’s powers. I’ve been unafraid to have you face our other foes because we knew them and they were a direct threat to Equestria. But Rabia is completely unknown in many aspects, even to me. I have asked Starswirl to come to Canterlot in a slim hope he might be able to share some insights. I know he was around when she was in power and if anypony knows about her, it will be him,” she then told them in a more gentle tone.

“I have no doubt that you could probably face her, but just in case Chrysalis is on the loose on her own and not aligned with Rabia, I need you six to focus on her. Let me and my sister worry about Rabia,” the princess instructed them.

“We understand, princess,” Twilight nodded, although mildly disappointed they weren’t just going after Rabia as well immediately.

Celestia nodded and told them that they were dismissed. As the six ponies turned around and headed towards the exit, Pinkie Pie leaned closer to Twilight.

“Is it just me or did Princess Celestia sound afraid?” she whispered, furtively glancing back to the throne where the princess was watching them depart.

Twilight didn’t respond and did not glance back. It wasn’t until they had left the throne room and the doors had closed that she looked at the pink pony with a grave expression.

“Not afraid, but very worried,” the Friendship Princess responded finally to the question in a quiet tone. Having already been in on a few private meetings with the rest of the princesses, she was a bit more privy to Celestia’s actual feelings on current matters.

“Worried about what? I mean, we have faced Discord, Tirek and even Chrysalis when she still had the entire changeling army behind her. How bad can this Queen Rabia be?” Rainbow asked with a careless shrug.

“Yes, but those were all direct threats to Equestria and only Equestria. Queen Rabia is targeting Saddle Arabia which is to the far south of us. Even if we started off now, it would take us weeks to travel there, even by flight,” Twilight looked up to where Rainbow was flying above the group.

“Don’t forget that Celestia was ruling when the Dark Pony Empire was destroyed. She remembers the flood of refugees coming from the south. The only aid she could render was taking them in. She couldn’t even help them retake their old lands because there was nothing left to retake,” the princess continued as they walked through the long corridor towards the entrance of the castle.

“Rabia is promising to do exactly the same to the Saddle Arabians and what their ancestors did to her homeland and unless we can stop her or find out when she’ll strike, we may not be able to render any aid ourselves until it’s far too late. Celestia worries that history is about to repeat itself and…” Twilight halted and glanced back towards the now distant doors of the throne room. “She worries that once again, she won’t be able to help.”

“Then why aren’t we looking for Rabia instead of Chrysalis?” Applejack asked with a heavy frown. It sounded to her like Rabia was the priority target even if Chrysalis could still cause some problems.

“Who says we aren’t?” Twilight looked at the farmer with a knowing look as they exited the palace.

“The uh… Princess did?” Rarity pointed back towards the entrance.

“Believe me, when we find Chrysalis, we’ll find Rabia. I’m sure of it,” Twilight said. There was little doubt in her mind that Rabia attacking Chrysalis, the changeling being arrested near Ponyville, then miraculously escaping from her castle were all connected.

As the six friends continued across the courtyard of Canterlot castle, they were unaware that two hateful eyes were staring at them from the shadows of an alley formed by two guard buildings, carefully watching their every move as five of them walked and one flew.

The pair were soon joined by more neutral eyes, watching with only a mild hint of interest. Slowly they began to vanish until nothing was there. Queen Rabia and Queen Chrysalis appeared in a safer location outside the castle, shielded from view by buildings and the changeling’s disguise as a smaller unicorn and the dark pony remaining as a formless shadow.

“So those were the other wielders of the Elements of Harmony, Equestria’s strongest defensive weapon,” Queen Rabia mused and for a brief moment the shadow became a silhouette of her shape as she rubbed her muzzle thoughtfully.

Chrysalis didn’t respond just then. She was peering out of the alley. They were just close enough to the castle to see the six ponies now heading for the city proper.

“Equestria is full of magic, some ancient and powerful,” Chrysalis muttered and started to glance around. “And so full of love! It’s maddening for a changeling to feel all this food and not be able to taste it. I could have had it all - twice even. But they kept winning somehow!”

“Be careful not to awaken a sleeping giant, for a giant only needs to move one of its great limbs to crush you,” Rabia remarked, causing the changeling to look at her confused.

“Discord, Tirek, you, even my son...you all got too greedy. I’ve seen a map of Equestria. Do you honestly expect a nation that large will just lie down quietly as you conquer it or its closest allies?” the dark pony snorted almost in contempt.

Chrysalis hissed and opened her mouth to very clearly loudly respond to that, but Rabia briefly let her head fully materialize out of the shadow to look at the changeling sternly before pointing with a hoof out of the alley. Then the dark pony quickly became a shadow again. Chrysalis glanced back out and quickly put a hoof over her mouth when seeing that the six element bearers were walking down the street very close to where they were.

“What about you? Saddle Arabia is now allied with Equestria as well and if you were to conquer it, I’m sure Equestria will respond,” Chrysalis snorted.

“I’m not going to conquer Saddle Arabia. I’m going to destroy it; I’m going to leave it a barren wasteland much like they left my empire. I am going to see every stallion, mare and foal slaughtered just as they slaughtered every Dark Pony down to the last child. I will see their ruler impaled on a pike just as they did to my daughter. I will violate him just as brutally as my daughter was. I will make them suffer for every single Dark Pony’s blood that was spilled,” Rabia whispered coldly.

“Makes me wish I’d be there to see it,” Chrysalis grunted and rolled her eyes. “And you don’t think the Equestrians won’t have something to say about that?”

“They will have plenty to say, but be too late to do anything about it. Especially if we delay them,” Rabia said and suddenly emerged from the shadows into her regular form. She peeked out of the alley to see the six element bearers now further down the street. The former queen smiled.

“And how do you propose to do that?” Chrysalis snorted. So far the dark pony had been very scant on any details.

“Let me worry about that. Your job is to find my son,” Rabia looked at the changelings and nodded for her to leave. Chrysalis sneered but said nothing and soon was trotting out of the alley in her disguise.

Rabia watched her for a moment before backing up and turned into a shadow again. Slowly she melded with a shadow of a building and vanished.

---

The doors to the throne room of Canterlot castle opened and a guard entered swiftly. He bowed deeply to the two Princesses now seated on the throne. Luna had just awoken and would in a few hours begin her nightly duties, but there was still a bit of daytime left and there was something both she and her sister had to attend to now.

“Your Royal Highnesses, the Saddle Arabian Ambassador has arrived,” the guard announced and rose from his bow.

“Show him in,” Princess Celestia nodded to the guard who quickly departed. The Sun Princess gave her sister a glance. Luna smiled reassuringly back to her.

A tall horse entered the throne room, clad in finely woven robes of green and white. This was no pony by Equestrian standards, being almost as tall as Celestia herself. He had a grayish blue coat and would have been called an earth pony in Equestria, but the Saddle Arabians used no such distinctions even though they also had pegasi and unicorns.

“Your Royal Highnesses,” the ambassador said with deep respect in his voice as he bowed low before the two royals. “I speak on behalf of my Emir when I say that Saddle Arabia is honored that you have granted us this audience.”

“Of course, Ambassador Saddlefar. I trust then that the Emir Horsefar has received our warnings then,” Celestia addressed the ambassador as he rose. She immediately noticed a tinge of fear crossing his eyes.

“He has, your majesties. I take it then that it is true, the Queen of Rage and Wrath has returned,” his voice lowered and the fear in his eyes was now unmistakable.

“I am afraid it is,” Princess Luna said with a concerned frown. “We did warn you about that quite a while ago. Our second warning was that she’s now confirmed to be on the move against your nation.”

Saddlefar hesitated and for a moment looked almost ashamed. He glanced down for a second and uneasily shifted his weight as if he was trying to find the right words. Then he looked at the princesses, his expression becoming more regretful.

“I must shamefully admit that the royal advisors of the Emir tried to downplay your first warning as mere rumors and hearsay. However,” the ambassador tapped down a hoof for emphasis. “My Emir was not deaf to them and had his most loyal servants be on the lookout for anything and as always we waited for any news from you in case you heard anything more. I must admit, though, after a while when nothing happened, we started to sleep on our guard.”

“I understand,” Celestia assured him. She had to admit that she had hoped that with nothing from Rabia this long, the queen was not going to do anything after all.

“Our Great Shame has come to haunt us again,” Saddlefar sighed sadly and hung his head. “Old prophecies foretold that one day we would pay dearly for our greatest sin we have committed upon this world. Now we must face the wrath of the queen and experience her rage for the folly of our ancestors.”

“Ambassador, you can assure Emir Horsefar that Equestria will render whatever assistance we can. We are already searching for Queen Rabia and we have her son in custody. He’s assured us that he will assist us in figuring out her next moves. I will not see Saddle Arabia destroyed for something someone else did in the past,” Celestia told him reassuringly, however this caused the ambassador to look up with terror in his eyes.

“The Lost Son lives?” he whispered, sounding even more terrified than before.

“He does, but we have him contained,” Luna said arching her brow at the reaction.

“Why would he help? He descended upon the royal palace all those centuries ago, executed the king for his crimes and his entire court. We sometimes say you can still hear the old king’s horrified screams echo through the palace as the Lost Son tortured him and tore him apart and feasted on his fears. We call our howling desert winds, the howls of the Lost Son, for they constantly remind us of that horrifying howl of rage as his shadow descended upon the capital,” Saddlefar was starting to look pale.

“Even today we tell our children not to wander the desert alone or the Lost Son will come and take them away and to listen for the howl to know that he’s near. Why would he care if his mother finishes the job he started, punishing us for our crimes?” The ambassador started to glance around fearfully as if he expected Sombra to pop up out of the shadows at any given moment.

“Because we will give him no choice,” Celestia told him gently but firmly. She gave Luna a glance that was returned by her sister. The two alicorns were stunned at what a fearful hold Rabia and Sombra had on the Saddle Arabians even after all these years. At least the Crystal Ponies had fresh memories of the brutal reign of Sombra, but the Dark Pony Empire was practically ancient history for the Saddle Arabians.

“I apologize for my outburst. I know you would never give us ill council and if you say he will help, I will relay it to my Emir that you are doing what you can to help us to hopefully spare us from the wrath of the Queen. Thank you,” Ambassador Saddlefar said after taking a moment to calm himself down. Then he bowed deeply again.

“There is nothing to apologize for, ambassador. Send our regards to the Emir. We will send you any news as soon as we have some,” Celestia smiled, Saddlefar took a moment to thank them again, bowing once more before departing the throne room.

“Perhaps we should speed up our interrogation of Sombra,” Luna suggested. Celestia looked at her and nodded.

“I’m going to talk with Cadance. I think I better come with her when she goes for the first visit. If this was Ambassador Saddlefar’s reaction to both Rabia and Sombra, I’ve seen that stallion in a staring contest with the griffin ambassador and winning. I can only imagine how the general population of Saddle Arabia will react.” Celestia shook her head. She had expected to be facing the stern and rather unyielding person that Saddlefar was known for in the diplomatic circles, not this meek apologetic and frightened one.

---

“Come along, come along, we must make haste to Saddle Arabia with the greatest speed!” Ambassador Saddlefar barked at his entourage as they travelled upon the road. Following him were servants pulling his personal caravan, along with a few guards surrounding them and trotting alongside him was his personal aid, a Saddle Arabian unicorn in a simpler blue garb compared to the green and white robes of the diplomat.

“I must say, sir, you look rather rattled. Did the meeting not go well?” the aid asked. His brow rose a little when a frustrated snort came from Saddlefar.

“It was an embarrassment. I was like a groveling child before the Princesses, but with good reason. They have confirmed our worst fears,” the ambassador glanced back for a moment before leaning closer. “She is indeed back and her son lives.”

The aid’s eyes widened and he carefully glanced back, but none of the guards or servants seemed to have overheard this. It was now a few hours since they had departed hastily from Canterlot. The ambassador has said very little until now, just that they had to leave immediately for Saddle Arabia.

“Are they certain?” he whispered sharply.

“The Princesses are no liars. They would not notify us without reason,” Saddlefar snapped, then he narrowed his eyes on his aide. “The Equestrians are perhaps small of stature, but their rulers are powerful and they have powerful protectors. We would do well to heed their warnings. Do not forget that they have beaten back Discord, Tirek and even that abominable changeling queen.”

The aide knew better than to argue, knowing the ambassador well enough for that. The ambassador was a proud stallion and very dignified, but no fool. If he had felt he was being deceived, he would have called them out. If he trusted the Princesses were telling the truth, that was good enough for him.

“When I get my hooves on those royal advisors! If they hadn’t downplayed the warning the Celestial sisters gave us the first time, we would be much better prepared than we are. Now here I am, far up north with the vital confirmation the Emir wanted to shut them up and at home they still think there is no danger because nothing has happened. They know well the quiet is worst just before the storm hits,” Saddlefar grumbled, his aid only nodded in response.

Then the ambassador and his aid became aware that there was some ruckus behind them. They looked back and saw that the caravan had stopped and the guards were talking amongst themselves and pointing at something in the woods.

“What is the matter?” Saddlefar barked, causing everyone to snap their attention to him.

“Lord Ambassador, one of the guards said she thought she saw something in the woods, following us from the shadows,” a servant explained and looked nervous.

“My lord, there was definitely something following us,” the guard in question said, she pointed to a spot in the wood that looked the darkest. “I could have sworn, on my honor, that these shadows moved.”

“It’s probably just the trick of the light. See? Celestia is setting the sun and Luna is raising the moon. The shadows often move faster during that,” the aid remarked and shook his head. He turned to Saddlefar ready to just laugh this off. The ambassador however was not laughing. He was staring gravely at the woods.

“Beware the dark demons, my child. They move with the shadows. When you least expect it, they leap out and lock their hideous jaws on you and drain all life from your body,” the ambassador whispered, a tinge of fear in his eyes.

“Isn’t that an old propaganda that was said about the Dark Ponies?” the aid furrowed his brow.

Saddlefar slowly nodded. The sun was setting, making way for the night. The stars were coming out and the moon was slowly rising in the sky. A cold breeze blew through the entourage. In the distance they could hear crows cawing.

“Beware the Queen of Rage and Wrath,” Saddlefar began to whisper and slowly started to walk again, but never took his eyes off the woods.

“For deadly are her many ploys,” the aid hesitantly said the next line as he watched the ambassador with concern. The cold breeze grew stronger and the trees began to move back and forth.

“And little pity is in her heart,” the guard who had spotted the movement continued as she glanced around with the others. Slowly they began to follow the ambassador along with the caravan.

“A-as her rage… consumes and…wrath destroys,” one of the servants dragging the caravan whispered and was starting to shiver.

“Sir!” the aid suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes wide open as he pointed further up the road. The young stallion was shaking now.

Ambassador Saddlefar tore his eyes from the woods to see what his aid was talking about. He felt a cold dread, his heart froze at the sight. Behind him the guards and servants all gasped and even whinnied in fear.

Blocking their path was a tall dark gray unicorn mare, clad in a red cape flapping in the cold breeze, regal armor that shimmered in the moonlight and on her head rested a crown. Her blood red eyes stared hauntingly at the traveling group, on her muzzle was a sinister, sadistic smile.

Suddenly the mare started to laugh, softly yet coldly and the last sound of Ambassador Saddlefar heard was a blood-curling scream that echoed through the woods, too far away for anyone to hear except the wild animals and other creatures roaming it. The Emir would never hear his warning.

End chapter 9