After a couple days of being in the tree house for a while I decided to check out what I can salvage from my old home. When I got there I searched through the sad and quiet halls of the ruined castle. I found a couple old books, some food, a couple of inkbottles, quills, and blankets. I found a lot more, but I decided that I would rebuild this place after I have built a more suitable home. I got back to the tree house and asleep at the trees base was a little filly in a basket. I shake my head in disbelief; I looked inside the basket to confirm what my eyes saw. I saw what looked like a newborn filly that had a dark green coat, green mane, green tail, a horn, and wings. I saw a note lying next to the filly and it said,
“Dear Alicorn of the Woods,
I humbly request that you would please take a close friends daughter. She has given her to me, but my days are growing short. I want you to keep her and raise her as your own. I wish I could keep her, but I didn’t want her to know that I could die at any time on my travels and that no pony would be able to care for her. She will need help in her magic studies and she will need to be feed only two times a day. Tell her where she came from when the time is right, I hope she will be safe in your hooves.”
Yours truly,
Starswirl the Bearded
I picked up the basket and I flew up, landing on the balcony. I trotted inside and I quickly used my tails to construct a temporary crib fit for the baby alicorn. I smiled as I set her inside of it and I looked her over as she slept.
I looked over the note and I noticed he didn’t give me a name to call her. I though for a while and I said to her as she slept, “Your name shall be Chrysalis. Yes, I like the sound of it. I will care for you from now on. I promise to do my best with what I have to offer for now little one.” With that I sat there and waited for her to wake up.
I smiled as she awoke and looked up at me with her dark emerald colored eyes. She looked around at the new surroundings and then back at me confused as if to say: “Where am I?”
I smiled and I answered seeing the confusion in her face, “You are at my home little one. I am your guardian from now on. Are you hungry?” The filly sat up fast and nodded. I laughed and I go start fixing up some food for the both of us as I let the filly play with my tail, tugging on it and rolling herself up in it. I pick her up with my tail as she is holding on to it with her mouth and I sit her down at the table saying, “You may play with my tail after you are done eating.” I nuzzle her, then I sit down across from her and I began to eat as she used her magic to help herself eat. I am a little shocked at how fast her magic is developing when she uses it. I look at her, “You already know how to use your magic that well? That is very interesting.” She looks up and nods trying to say something, but all that comes out is baby gibberish. “I will need to teach you how to talk… How does me home schooling sound? Having me help you and teach you?” She flies up and makes a little squeeing noise as she flies around me happily. “I’m going to take that as a yes.” I pluck her out of the air and I giggle, “You are a hyper little one aren’t you?” She pokes me with her muzzle and reaches for my tail. I roll my eyes, “Fine,” I set her down and let her continue playing with my tail as she starts to build a little fort out of it.
The next couple of days I teach Chrysalis how to talk. With in three months she is able to talk and walk a little better. Once she is able to walk and talk I her come with me to my old home and she helps me salvage some more books and other things from the castle. Though we worked looking around the castle, we had some fun times playing around the ruins. I started to teach her to read architecture and how to use her magic to pick up heavier objects. When she grew to be two years old she was helping me with the construction of our new home and everyday we would always take a break at the lake that was nearby. Sometimes when it rained we would stay inside and play in a little pillow fort we built, playing hide and seek, or enjoy the view of the landscape from the top of the mountain tops that were nearby. Finally, when she became 8 years old, I started to teach her how to use her magic better and how to use her wings better. I enjoyed helping her out with her magic because she was always so good and trusting of me when she messed up on a spell. She was glad that I was so kind to her with everything we do.
One day she asked me to explain what it was liked to live in that castle that we have visited so many times. I told her that I will tell her when she is older, that it was too painful to explain my past.
She said to me something that I would never think that I would ever hear from anypony, “I can understand that you have seen much pain in your life, I will receive your answer and not judge you when the time comes for you to tell me.”
I started to tear up as she said that and she came up to me, hugged me, and said, “I love you.”
I hug her tightly, “Thank you…”
A couple more days go by and we have the main parts of the mansion built. We have also started to build on a tunnel that will lead to the tree house and the castle. It will take a couple of months to be able to make it, but we will do the best we can to calculate where to stop the tunnels. To be honest I was happy to have somepony to help me build. It was also nice to have somepony to talk to. As the years went by we had gotten far on the construction of the mansion and everything was in the right place. It was nice to have a mares touch on building too. She had put flowers and made a garden in the back so we could grow our own food and a flowerbed to go with it.
We stopped construction a day before Chrysalis’s 15th birthday and we spent that time practicing her magic. We would also be playing around in the fields that were near the mansion. We flew around in the sky chasing each other and having the best time ever.
The day before her birthday, I asked her, “What would you like for your birthday?”
She replied with a smile, “You know, if you don’t mind telling me what you did when you were little then I would like that. Other than that I would like to learn the spell that can disguise me as a different race! That would be very fun to do! Then we could go and find the Unicorn Territories and get new books from them!”
I smile and sigh, “We can do both. I have held my tale from you for long enough. I will tell you my tale and then I will teach you the spell. How does that sound?”
She hugs me tightly and then kisses me on the cheek, “Thank! Oh, I can’t wait till tomorrow! I love the cakes that you make!”
I tilt my head, “There that good are they? Well then you will love the cake I am making this year.”
She starts to wag her tail back and forth with happiness, “Oh please tell me what’s in it!”
I put a hoof up, “Now, now, a chef doesn’t reveal their creations before the big day.” I wink at her and I pat her head saying, “Bet you can’t beat me to that cloud,” I point to the cloud way above us.
“Your on!” She says with a grin.
With that she darts up into the sky and I quickly catch up with her exclaiming, “Cheater!”
She yells back, "You have done the same thing!” We both laugh and then we go through the cloud. We both land in the lake. We play around until it starts to become nighttime and we both get into our beds to fall asleep for the next day to come.
The next day I wake up to be laying down on a cloud and Chrysalis looks over my head as she flies above me saying, “Hey sleepy head!” I get startled and I pretend to fall though the cloud. She looks to see where I went, I come up from the cloud and I grab her tail in my mouth. I pull her into the cloud as she screams, “Hey!”
I giggle, “That’s what you get for dragging me up all the way out of bed and into a cloud.”
She grumbles and then smiles, “Yes, yes, but it wouldn’t be as fun to normally wake up in bed! Alright, cough it up and tell me your story!” I look at her for a second and then I tell her about my life from when I was small. When I finally finished she had tears in her eyes and I am looking down.
She looks at me, “Why would your parents do that to you… You are such a kind pony and you are so sweet in so many ways… To believe somepony, especially your own parents, would do that to you…”
I nod, “I know… I know… It wasn’t the best life, but I vowed to myself that I would help others and love others no matter what. I will protect others even if it means taking my own life…” She hugged me tightly and we sat in the cloud for a long while of silence.
I finally broke the silence saying, “Hey, lets not get so down on this. The past is in the past and it’s time to look toward the future.”
She nodded and smiled, “Alright.” She hugged me one more time and then we flew home. I landed and ran right in, heading straight into the kitchen and I get to work making the food for Chrysalis and me. She went to her room and started getting ready for her big day.
As soon as she smelled the good smell of food she silently sneaks down to the kitchen and before she can enter my tail holds the door closed.
I smile, “Dear you know you can’t sneak up on me.”
I laugh as she yells, “Aw come on!” As soon as I finish making brunch, I set it down and she darts toward the table. She gets a large plate of food before I can even sit down. I get my plate and I begin eating as she inhales her food.
I laugh, “Hungry are we?” She nods as she continues eating. I sigh, “Don’t eat too fast or you might get a stomach ache.” She slows down so she finishes as I finish.
“Have room for cake?” I say with a little taunting in my voice.
She smiles and nods, “Of course I have room for cake!”
I grin, “Not until after dinner and not until we practice the Race Spell!”
She jumped up, “Let us learn the spell then!” I trot outside and I start up the spell making a circle of magic that goes around me. A four-sided star that has different colors on each point appears on my forehead. I turn it to the left on the purple colored point; my body switches to a pegasus version of my normal self. Chrysalis looks over me with aw and says, “You look like an actual pegasus, but… how do you turn back?”
I smile, “The star that appeared on my head is invisible now, but it is still there. If I want to change again I just turn the star, like so.” I turn the star on my forehead to the white point and I change back to normal. “See?”
She smiles and nods, “How do I do it?”I start to go throughout the steps and finally, after tons and tons of tries, she can cast the spell with ease.
I smile, “You did good! You got the spell down!”
She smiles, “Can we go find the Unicorn Territories now?”
I nod, “Yes, but first lets get some money and a bag to carry our stuff in.” We fly home and we get two big bags, money, and we both change into a pegasus. We start to fly towards the North. We reach the Pegasus Territories and then head toward the Unicorn Territories. We get there and we land behind a large rock so that no pony will be able to see us as we switch to our unicorn form. We trot out from behind the rock and head toward a corner-side store. I buy us some food and we eat up to keep up our strength so that the spell will stay strong.
I turn to her and I whisper, “Don’t use any more magic than we are already using. It could be dangerous if we over use our magic supply.” She nods in agreement and we both head for the castle that is at the top of the hill. Guards at the gates stop us, but I tell them we are only here to look through the castle library to try and find some books on certain spells that I need to “teach in my class”. They look us over then decide that we may look for only a short while. I ask them why and they told us that the princesses were not to be disturbed due to them getting ready for the winter solstice. I tell them that it will only take a short time for us to find what we need and with that they open the castle gates. We trot in and we look around a bit before we get to the library.
I look over at Chrysalis and I say, “Get what ever book you like and I will get some books too. Once we find what all we want lets put it in the bags and we shall change to our pegasus form to fly out of here.”
She smiles, “Got it!” With that she darts off to find some books as I to do the same. After a while of searching we get a total of fifty good books on magic and I even get us some bottles to practice making potions, but suddenly we get a strange tingle down our backs as we hear two ponies are coming toward our location. I quickly throw the bag on and I grab Chrysalis. We both hide behind a book-self as the two mares trot in.
I put my ear up so I can hear in on their conversation and I hear the smaller mare say, “Sister why did we come to the library to talk? There isn’t much to…”
The taller one cuts her off saying, “Do you feel that?”
The younger one looks at the taller one confused, “Feel what Tia?”
As soon as I hear "Tia" I back up a little and I turn to Chrysalis and she looks at me like we were thinking the same thing, but I go back to listening as the taller one looks around, “I swear I know this feeling… I felt it when I went by that room door at home… Like we weren’t the only ones in the castle that wasn’t our parents or guards…”
Luna, or who I suspect is Luna, puts a hoof on Tia’s shoulder, “It’s best we not think of our old home…”
Tia, “I know… it’s just that I know that we can’t be the last of our kind in these lands…” With that they both turn and trot out of the room.
I turn to Chrysalis and I mouth, “Lets go home now while we still can.” She sighs and nods, with that we dart out into the castle courtyard, change to our pegasus form, and fly off towards home. That was our first mistake because as we changed, Luna was looking out the window. She gasped as we change our form and flew away.
She ran and told Tia what she saw and Tia looked back at Luna saying, “I told you we weren’t the only ones.”