"Ow... what... how did they do it? I... ow..." Queen Chrysalis moaned, rubbing at her head with one desiccated hoof. She glanced around the barren desert she had crashed into after being blasted by love. Honestly, it was insulting that a beam of affection brought her down, when she was a creature who fed off such feelings.
"How could this have happened? My plans were perfect! I can't believe I was defeated at my own wedding!" Chrysalis shouted, then gasped. Her wedding? Had she said that aloud? A quick glance showed not a single other Selkie in sight, and she sighed in relief. Her minions could never find out the truth about her past, she would be a queen no longer if they discovered that she had once been a regular unicorn filly, with the dream of getting married and having foals of her own someday.
Chrysalis dragged herself to her hooves, and walked to a small cave she had spotted when checking her minions were not nearby. Her whole body ached, and she nearly collapsed in the cave's mouth, but managed to make it to a flat rock and laid herself down upon it, groaning. She buried her head in her hooves, and sobbed gently. She didn't understand how her life had gone so wrong. Eventually, she fell into a fitful sleep. As she slept, her foalhood memories resurfaced in her mind, and took the stage in her dreams.
Princess Crystal, how long it had been since she had been called by that name...
Image by me, showing Chrysalis crying. She lost her crown in the crash landing.
"Mummy! Mummy! Look at what the spell I invented does!" A young filly chirruped happily, fluttering her newly cast butterfly wings. They were the prettiest thing the filly had ever seen, and she was proud of them. "Mummy! Mummy, are you coming?"
The filly sighed dejectedly. Her mother never wanted to see her new spells or anything she made anymore. Her mom used to love to see her creations, but ever since her dad died, Princess Crystal had been mostly on her own. She knew why, she looked so much like her father, which made it hard for her mom, but still... She was just a filly, she shouldn't be alone like this! She missed her mother's stories, baking cookies when it was rainy together, having her mum call her 'My little Gem' fondly.
Kris (as she preferred to be called) left the palace for a walk in the woods. Just sitting in a meadow full of wildflowers deep in the woods, which she had discovered shortly after her father's death, was calming for her. As she walked slowly down the path, her mind wandered to her parents. When she lost her dad, she lost her mother too. She wanted nothing more than to see her mum as she had been before.
When she reached her meadow, she tripped over the roots of a plant that wasn't there before. "Oof... what's this flower?" Kris muttered. She smelled the flowers, and her eyes went wide. It smelled delicious! She licked a petal, and quickly ate the entire flower, and rapidly moved on to the next, until she had eaten all of them. She sighed contently, she was happy for now. Kris began drifting off, and soon fell asleep in the shady meadow.
As she slept, the Heart's Desire began to work itself. Everywhere sunlight broke through the tree cover and hit her body, that part of her began to fizzle away...
After a few hours, Crystal came to. She felt... different. Shrugging it off, she got to her hooves. She stretched out her legs, and gasped. They had large holes in them! Her lovely white hooves had holes in them! She turned to look at her hind hooves, and gasped again. In addition to her hind hooves having holes, her tail had holes in it too, which made no sense, the hairs had been cut, but the cut off part was still connected. "Mirror! I need a mirror!" Kris shrieked and ran to the lake that lay within the forest. She saw her horn, elongated but with holes carved out. Her mane, with holes like her tail, and both of them looked like they were soaking wet. And her wings, oh her wings! They were mostly gone, with holes all through them. Kris stared at her reflection in shock, what had happened to her? She began to sob, and with each tear, the water's surface began to change, becoming murky, and eventually, a strange pony began to rise from it.
"Who are ye, one who has disturbed my slumber?" Demanded the pony-thing, its voice holding an echoed quality, as if the creature was in a cave. It glared at her, its eyes scary, with a feline pupil within a regular pupil. It looked similar to how she did now, holes everywhere, mangled horn, cobweb like wings... the only difference was this pony was dark as obsidian, its entire body was as black as the volcanic glass, its mane and tail somehow darker, but its eyes... the strange eyes kept getting to her, they were red like blood. Crystal gaped at the creature. She was certain she was doomed.
"I repeat, who disturbs my slumber? Who are you to bother me?!" The pony demanded.
"I am Princess Crystalline Geode-Song, of the..." Kris began then stopped. After a bit of thought, she steeled herself and said, "I'm Kris, okay? I don't know who the buck you think YOU are, but this is NOT A GOOD TIME TO BUG ME!!!" Punctuating her statement by stomping the ground with what was left of her hooves.
"Well well, aren't we spirited. I will humor you, my name is Queen Cocoon, and I rule the Selkie race. You seem to be well on your way to joining us, Crystalline. Look at yourself, the holes in you hooves, your twisted horn. You are surely the filly meant to succeed me. Odd, I was certain one of my changelings would have been my successor. Tell me dear, do you crave to take the love of somepony?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Why, food of course. The Selkies feed on love. They change into a loved one and feed on the love somepony else has for the one they took the place of."
"I don't want that! I just want my mum to be happy again!" With that, Kris ran home, the Queen watching her leave, amused.
"Good bye, my little pony. I can hardly wait for us to next meet."
Kris was trembling by the time she got home. What was that... she called herself a Selkie? What was the Selkie talking about? Eating love? What the hay did that mean? She was terrified, she didn't want to be one of those things! She just wanted to be Kris.
Once she reached her room, she had calmed down slightly. Until she saw her reflection in the mirror, that is. She began sobbing anew, her eyes looked like the Selkie pony's, only blue green instead of the blood red. And was her fur turning gray? She was too young for that! She closed her eyes tight, not wanting to look at the new her, and thought back to that morning, before it all went wrong. When she opened her eyes, she gasped. She looked normal again! It must've been a nasty dream! She pranced in front of her mirror, but slowed to a stop. Her eyes flashed to show they had the feline pupil inside them still. She skittered away from the mirror in shock, and the facade her changeling powers had put up dropped, returning her to looking like Swiss cheese.
"If I think about it, I change back..." Crystal muttered to herself, concentrating on how she had looked that morning, and then changing back, repetitively for a few minutes. "I wonder if I can do other ponies..." She thought about the scary Queen Cocoon, and saw herself change to look like her.
"Amazing!" Crystal said, then her eyes widened. She had Cocoon's voice too! "Ooh hoo hoo hoo!" Kris laughed gleefully. So many possibilities!
"Um, Aunt Ruby!" Poof! "Cousin Jack!" Poof! "Ummm, Old Mare Jenkins!" Poof! Everypony she chose, and she became a perfect copy! She faded back to her true forme as she thought. Could she maybe... "Daddy." She closed her eyes, and felt her forme change to her father's, and then looked in the mirror, and she wept with joy. She had her father back, sort of. Maybe she could get her mother back too, if she did a little practicing...
After a few days, Crystal could imitate her father pretty well. Now to put it to the test.
"Sapphire darling, I'm back." She said, after steeling herself to really meet her mother again.
"O-Onyx?! You're alive?! YOU'RE ALIVE!!!" Her mother teleported herself to her 'husband' and embraced him.
Kris drew in an inaudible gasp as she was flooded with... light. Warm, soft, gentle light. It made her feel better than she had ever felt in her life! Was this what the changeling Queen meant? She could get used to this feeling, she really could.
