The cave stank of death and rot. The last time Luna had walked this path the sounds of battle surrounded her and Chrysalis had stood defiantly before her. Now only a few weeks later the rough cries of carrion had replaced those of battle. Swarms of flies replaced the changelings, buzzing about the cave as they feasted on the exotic meal.
With every sight and every step Luna knew that Chrysalis’s black rage was justified. It didn’t matter that she had spared the queen’s life or that she had stolen the broken trophy from Twilight’s basement and brought it to Celestia to be healed. She had orchestrated the destruction of Chrysalis’s hive. She may have personally killed comparatively few in the heat of battle but Luna knew that the responsibility for every life taken was her’s.
Celestia would do what she did best and smooth over relations. she would forge treaties and perhaps even an alliance with whatever remnant of the hive Chrysalis could gather. But the changelings would hate Luna for the rest of time and Luna knew she deserved it. Still Luna pressed on through the morbid testament to her guilt.
“This is the place,” Luna said.
Celestia’s silent nod was diplomatic, warm even, but it could do little to curb the silent hatred of Chrysalis’s glare. Deep, off colored gouges in the stone marked where blades of magic had cut through rock and flesh like butter.
“Will you open it?” Celestia asked.
Chrysalis gave a bitter laugh. “Kind words are of little use to one without a choice, Celestia. I will do as you say but do not mock me by pretending I could say no.”
Chrysalis’ horn glowed a sickly green as she pulled away the wall before them. the dirt glued together and compacted by changeling magic gave way before her and revealed a hidden cavern.
In the darkness soft orbs of glowing green were visible. as her eyes adjusted the changeling queen saw more and more of the countless softly glowing eggs.
“Thank you for trusting us, Chrysalis,” Celestia said.
Chrysalis growled in response as they made their way into the cavern. Luna placed each hoof carefully, making sure that it was stone and not one of the thousands of soft looking leathery eggs she was treading on. Celestia likewise picked her way through the cavern.
“How you ponies are the dominant species is beyond me,” Chrysalis growled in frustration as she turned away from the path Luna and Celestia were using to wade through a large pile of eggs.
“What are you doing?!” Celestia asked.
“My children are not nearly so delicate as you think,” Chrysalis sneered, “Entire clutches have been pulled from cave-ins and hatched into perfectly healthy drones. After all they are meant to be playthings for children. A certain amount of durability is required.”
“What do you mean, playthings?” Luna asked.
“Killing must truly be all you know.” Chrysalis gave a triumphant smile at Luna’s wince. “If it were mere love I sought and I were being so bold as to take the place of a Princess of Equestria why wouldn’t I take Celestia’s, who was so well loved the jealousy drove her sister to madness?”
“Because if you even think of harming my sister you will find my newfound mercy severely lacking.”
“I do not doubt how easily this facade will crumble,” Chrysalis said with a dark chuckle, “but that is not my point. Throughout our lives changelings need certain kinds of love. For me to lay a healthy brood it was the passionate and romantic love of young ones at the height of their bliss that I needed. These eggs will need the simple love a child has for its playthings to hatch.”
“If I have heard you correctly,” Celestia chimed in, “these eggs are nearly impossible to harm and to hatch they need to be played with.”
“Yes,” Chrysalis answered, giving Celestia a questioning look.
Wordlessly the solar princess turned with a wistful smile on her face and wandered deeper into the cavern.
“What will happen to the children,” Luna demanded, “Once they have been fed on?”
“What do you care?”
“If the children of Equestria have come to any harm at your hoof you will find I care a great deal.”
“One day their favorite toy, perhaps a ball that was always a little sticky, will disappear and there will be another changeling in the world. No harm would come to your little ponies,” Chrysalis sneered.
Luna looked away over the sea of eggs around her. There were thousands, enough to replace at least half of the changelings she had killed but how many would survive without adults to care for them. Even if the eggs were near indestructible, even Twilight’s pet dragon had needed care taken of it for a time. How many more of these yet unborn had Luna already condemned?
Luna was so lost in her self condemnation that she did not see the gentle golden glow of Celestia’s magic as she picked up one of the eggs. Neither did she see the shallow arc the egg flew along after Celestia had thrown it.
‘Splat’
Luna shook her head violently, trying to remove whatever cold and wet substance had attached itself to her face and covered half her vision. She reared up, trying to avoid a second impact but the two motions only served to overbalance her. She fell in an ungainly heap onto a pile of eggs behind her.
She felt the slime covered eggs slide wetly out from under her as she began to sink into the pile. It took Luna a few seconds to calm her panicked thrashing and make a bubble of air over her mouth.
Thousands of years of life had done a great deal to curb any squeamish tendencies but there was a certain amount of disgust she couldn’t help but feel at the prospect of one of the eggs slipping into her mouth. Finally she came to rest on the stone floor. The viscous slime that covered the eggs and whose origin was best left unconsidered made it easy for her to turn herself over to her belly and rise to her hooves out of the pile.
Chrysalis was rolling on the ground laughing uproariously while Celestia hid a grin behind her hoof. A few eggs conspicuously hovered beside her in her golden glow.
Luna shot her sister a glare and with a wave of her horn shot a dozen eggs back. Celestia hefted a hundred more in return and the game was on.
Chrysalis sat perched on a high mound of eggs watching the two sisters make fools of themselves. She wasn’t worried about her clutch, the eggs were near immune to physical trauma and the two alicorns were nowhere near testing those limits.
For a moment Chrysalis let herself pretend that this was her gladiatorial arena. That the two conquered princesses were spilling one another’s blood for her amusement. Eventually one would stand victorious with a blade at the others throat and they would look to her. Would she let the loser live to fight another day or would she be greedy for blood. She shivered with imagined power that could bring gods to their knees.
The sisters fell on each other but not with blades and violence, they were laughing. There was some joke Chrysalis had not heard. They laid in the center gasping for air and laughing together. It became quiet for a few moments and as one the two sisters looked at her with glowing horns.
Her perch opened up and swallowed her. Chrysalis did know the origin of the slimy substance that coated the eggs. The fact that it had come from members of her species was of little comfort.
She wrestled her way out of the writhing mass of eggs to find the two sisters laughing at her.
“Enough!” she shouted. “These are not your playthings!”
“Aren’t they?” Celestia asked with a raised eyebrow as she held up an egg swollen with love and ready to hatch.
Chrysalis forgot her reply as she held the egg close to her. Her senses reached out to the clutch around her, at least twenty were ready to hatch and a few hundred were well on their way. With their game the sisters had saved the hive months of work.
The egg squirmed in her grasp as the tough membrane finally broke and freed the new life within. The tiny drone chirped happily as it crawled out of the egg and stood before her. It fanned it’s tiny gossamer wings as she inspected it for defect.
It was healthy and strong. Its will slipped easily into the hivemind. Chrysalis released a breath she didn’t even know she was holding. This one tiny life filled the void left by thousands of voices gone silent. She reached out and pulled the child close who had ended her solitude. It returned the embrace and poured its excess emotion into her, nurturing her. She held it all the tighter as she cried in joy and loss.
One by one other little sparks of life began to light up the lonely space in the back of her mind. They were far too young to understand what she was feeling but their mere presence was more than enough comfort.
Chrysalis heard the soft click of hooves on stone and felt a warm presence settle beside her. She looked up from the tiny drone in her arms to find Celestia laying beside her. The solar princess had erased any traces of the game from herself. Her mane and coat were perfectly clean and even on her belly she held a high and noble posture.
“Thank you,” Chrysalis said.
Celestia looked down on her with a single pink eye. “I did not do this for you.”
Chrysalis blinked. She still felt solar magic coursing through her, repairing her battered body. Luna had been apologetic and ashamed since she was brought out of her stasis while Celestia had offered mercy and even friendship to the defeated changelings.
“Then why?”
Celestia simply gestured to her sister. Chrysalis turned to find Luna in the middle of a group of her changelings. In a panic she probed the hive mind and found a spike of thrilled fear. One of her changelings was tossed into the air by a field of blue magic. The fear spiked even higher as minutes old wings tried and failed to keep the infant changeling in the air.
Chrysalis only had time to rise to her hooves before it had fallen. Instead of pain or even silence she felt giddy happiness and warmth through the hivemind. The changeling was gently put on the ground where it jumped side to side playfully.
Again! Again!
Chrysalis watched as her despised enemy leaned down to give her child a warm nuzzle and a doting kiss below the horn.
“She adores children of any kind.”
Chrysalis’ head whipped around to find Celestia looking at her sister. The words had been dripping laden with love so potent it hit the changeling like a physical force.
“It is a side of her I have not seen in… Nightmare Moon did not come about in a single day. Her grip on my sister will not disappear so easily either.”
The changeling queen steeled her will. Celestia’s love for her sister was infectious. The children poured their affection for the one playing with them into the hivemind. A queen was as much the expression of a hive’s will as she was its leader. She hated the mare who had slaughtered her hive with everything she was yet her hatred was swept up so easily in the warm tide around her.
“I will not forgive her,” Chrysalis growled through gritted teeth.
“As I said,” Celestia replied, “I did not do this for you.”