Why did I do it?
The question had popped into his head more times than he could count. He felt numb and cold and alone. He had gotten the short end of the stick because he hadn’t understood the concept of letting things go. Be it a desire to prove a fundamentally false truth or a lack of understanding, he struggled, he fought, and he ultimately lost. He wasn’t one of them, would never be one of them, couldn’t be one of them.
If I already know, why do I keep struggling so hard to prove otherwise?
He could hear whispers in the air. He couldn’t see their faces, but he could sense their emotions thick as smoke.
Why can’t you understand?
A creeping darkness grew around the edges of his perception. He should have been in agony, desperately grasping at any energy still within him. Yet, all he could really feel was a numbing frigidity.
I just wanted to help you…
He awoke panting, cold sweat clinging to his body.
His gaze fixated on the ceiling first as his mind played catch up with every other sense. When at last he had his full faculties in order, he sensed the wrongness. Gone was the overbearing love, replaced with a dread he couldn’t describe. He cautiously made his way out of the borrowed house. Rather than setting hoof on familiar soil, he instead found himself standing on a trail of dead leaves and twigs surrounded by pitch blackness.
With no other direction to go, he walked down the road. Every step brought with it a growing unease, as the sensation of a dozen piercing eyes washed over him. Yet he could not see anything. Only the road was visible, its path ever twisting and turning, leading to some unknown destination.
At last, he exited into what he recognized as the center of the village. Only, it was now unrecognizable. The houses looked old, and there was not a single townsfolk to be seen. Save for a single figure standing in the middle of the village—one whose face was both familiar and alien.
He trotted up to the town elder. Eyes shut, dark gray mane overgrown, and brown coat a shade lighter than before. “I had a feeling you would come,” the stallion said in a distant, cold, and empty voice. There was something else too. A familiar honeyed tone that betrayed the elder’s past wisdom.
He took a step back. “You’re not the elder. Who are you?”
“Do you not recognize my voice?” the pony asked. Where there had once been a deep yet soothing masculine voice, there now was a low-pitched female one full of mocking and swagger. “You of all changelings should remember me.”
“Chrysalis,” he whispered.
The elder laughed deeply and darkly as emerald flames engulfed his body. When the flames died away, the tall and slim body of his former queen stood before him, her jubilant grin nothing short of derisive. At once, he understood what it all meant. The love he had felt, the temptation the town had provided, the unnatural dark now accosting his eyes.
“Why?!” he asked, uncaring to the loudness of his tone or the sensation of a thousand figures crawling out from the surrounding darkness.
Chrysalis scoffed, whipping her mane to the side as her glare fell upon him. “A lion cares not what the sheep has to say,” she coldly replied.
“T-then, why the theatrics?” he stuttered out.
Chrysalis’ brow rumpled as the corners of her lips dropped. “Without the hive, you were supposed to be less than nothing! Yet, you have thrived. How? And why do you refuse to accept so much love—so much power—just sitting there for the taking?” She roared out her last question, her eyes growing wide and wrathful.
He did his best to ignore the buzzing of wings and murmuring of a thousand voices somewhere behind him. “I won’t lie. You are like a god to all changelings. Given enough love, your power dwarfs any other on this world. Yet, where it matters most, you fail.”
Chrysalis hissed at his words. Most others would have taken it as anger, but he could see it in her eyes. Something had snapped. It was then that he saw it, felt it. “You think power is everything, and you refuse to grow!” he shouted at his former queen, the veil of darkness parting at his words, a thousand figures swarming within vanishing along with it. Now, where the void had once stood, a path leading to a bright green field awaited. Chrysalis said nothing, but the change in her appearance was unmissable. Her eyes lost their sharpness, her figure slumped ever so slightly, and her breathing became uneven and shallow.
At last, he stood tall before his former matriarch. “There was a time when I gazed upon you with awe and admiration. Now, I can only see a desperate fossil clinging to her tired ways. Unless you change, someday, a ‘ling will stand up to you, and when they do, everything you have ever built on the back of exploitation and conquest will come crashing down.” With those final words, he turned to face the green fields and began his trek towards them.
“Wh-where do you think you are going?” Chrysalis shouted, her once regal voice rutted and imperfect.
He stopped in his tracks. Slowly, he turned around, the corners of his mouth risen as high as they would ever go. He fixed Chrysalis with a soft look, the answer to her question forming on his lips:
"Forward."
Chrysalis snapped her eyes open, gasping for air and instantly turning away from her subjects.
“My queen, is everything okay?” one of the infiltrators next to her asked.
“Y-yes, yes! It’s all okay,” she snapped, quickly running a hoof on her face to wipe away what she would never admit were tears. “What I want to know is what’s the situation?”
At her question, their ears lowered as they pointed their heads at the requested target. Chrysalis followed their gazes, at last seeing what it was that everyling else saw.
Four ponies stood clustered around a fifth figure, one lacking a mane or coat, and instead covered in black chitin. His eyes were shut, his body still as a statue.
“He’s not waking up,” one of the ponies, the oldest colt, said in a hushed voice.
“M-maybe he’s… you know… very s-sleepy,” one of the group’ two fillies sobbed, her tone betraying the fact that was all too clear.
The rest of the group shook their heads in reply.
“Why did he do it?” another of the ponies, a younger colt, asked. “I-I mean, I… I…” He put a hoof on his head. “I’m s-so confused.”
“Wish we could ask him,” the older colt said. “Whatever his reasons, he saved us, and we owe him for it.”
The four ponies all nodded in unison. Using their combined telekinetic magic, they picked the changeling up into the air. Without saying another word, they began their trek back home.
“My queen,” one of Chrysalis’ scouts said, pointing at the group. “They’re taking the body with them.” He turned to his comrades, all of whom spread their wings in preparation to attack.
“No,” Chrysalis said, turning away. “No point in wasting energy on them. We have to regroup with the others and plan our next move.”
“But my queen! We need the energy! Those ponies are radiating love! We’d be stupid not to take this opp—”
“I said, we are leaving,” Chrysalis hissed, instantly shutting up the guard. No more words were spoken as Chrysalis and her group walked away from the scene, trekking deeper and deeper into the Everfree.