The next month passed far too quickly. Twilight returned to the Hive three days after the tournament and personally escorted the researchers to safety through the Scarred Forest. She personally knew a few of them, it was a little awkward at first but they managed. By now they were basically part of the hive. Or at the very least part of the flow. After Chrysalis collected their last supply of Love, Twilight could really start feeling just what the Queen was talking about.
She could feel the little itch of hunger in the back of her mind. It never got further than that, but sometimes it almost drove her crazy. She could only imagine what the rest of her kin were feeling. They were used to it, though, they spent most of their lives starving until recently. Hunger was a privilege.
By the second month things were starting to get Difficult. Chrysalis had recalled all of her non-harvester changelings from their lives in human society for safety. Chrysalis could not calm and comfort every single individual, so they soon succumbed to their hunger and became nothing but drones again. This caused some problems with the research team, but they refused to leave.
Twilight and Chrysalis had to stand between the Hive and the team to get them out of the forest by the third month. It pained Twilight to see her brothers and sisters like this, degenerated and terrifying. Much progress was made on the research, but so little of it was useful. They learned the exact genetic makeup of their toxin and the organic material they could produce. Medicine was even synthesized from it. But only minor breakthroughs were ever made towards the goal of stopping this hunger.
Twilight had spent a lot of time with Chrysalis, but now her chamber was the only place she could safely stay. Due to her special case, she still generated sustainable emotion and love as she normally would as a Human. At one point she made sure to visit all of her friend in the Hive as individuals, even just hug a random changeling every now and then to help. But if she got too close to the more depraved ones they would just outright attack her. They were scared to come up here though.
This is where Chrysalis was, their queen. The last vestige of hope and sanity. Twilight spent most of these days just watching Chrysalis- completely immersed in the hive mind to quell her brood as best she could.Twilight just tried to give her enough energy every day, but it was draining her. Celestia had a small army of mages erect a barrier around the hive two weeks ago, and it greatly helped the containment efforts, but they couldn’t keep that up forever. Something had to be done before Chrysalis lost it.
It was, to say the least, devastating on Chrysalis’ body. She hadn’t eaten or slept in a week, lest she lose control. She couldn’t even take a second to say hello anymore, the concentration it took to even speak was far too much. She was terribly skinny, what features that were left were gaunt and sunken. She looked like she was dead. Twilight wanted to leave, so she didn’t have to see Chrysalis like this. Or any of the Changelings like this. But she couldn’t. There was still hope inside her. Until the day those eyes finally opened again, she had to stay. She had to see for herself if they were the soft green from before, or the cold stones of hunger.
Chrysalis did finally open her eyes, one month after the barrier was erected. Twilight couldn’t even cry she was so devastated. Chrysalis opened her eyes, and they may as well have been empty sockets.
“Twilight… run…” The queen rasped out in a voice that hadn’t been used in weeks. Chrysalis herself did nothing, but there was a great violent buzzing. It was almost deafening. Holding back a sob, she turned to basically blast a hole in the wall and fly out of there, but then Chrysalis sniffled. Twilight turned back and saw a tear running down her face. She could feel the sorrow in the hive mind, the hunger. The anger, everything. All of these emotions, they were like a tsunami crashing against the walls. There was basically a tsunami of changelings smashing against the entrance to the chamber, though, but Twilight stopped. Chrysalis hadn’t moved. She had lost control of her brood, even she was consumed by hunger now. But something was stopping her from attacking Twilight.
Then she remembered, the hive mind. How could she forget, it was gnawing at her sanity even now. Chrysalis must have lost it so suddenly she couldn’t sever it, and even now she could still feel the tiniest pull of something. The tiniest hint of individuality in there, something she hadn’t felt in a long time.
“Please, Twilight… run… get out of here…” Chrysalis bade softly, tears now rolling down the almost cracked carapace of her face. Twilight stepped towards her. She could feel what felt like changeling magic building up, even recognized a spell that was supposed to push her away. The energy slipped out of her control almost immediately, though. Twilight caught the woman as she fell out of her chair, quickly laying her on the ground .Even summoning that tiny amount of energy was too much for her frail body.
“I won’t let you die like this…” Twilight barely whispered out, putting her head to Chrysalis’. She forced what was left of her energy into the woman, and specifically targeting their mental connection. She would have been overjoyed to see the familiar forest of their minds if it weren’t for the ash and soot in the air. The Scarred Forest that was Chrysalis’ mind was barren and covered in ash. It was worse than when it happened to Twilight, though. There was nothing underneath, no seeds sown. No veins of great energy supporting the land. There was nothing.
Except there was something. One thing. Chrysalis. There was a single tree left standing, its leaves burning. Chrysalis was standing in front of it, watching it burn. Twilight walked over, standing next to her. They stood there a moment before Chrysalis slowly collapsed into the ash.
“It’s all gone, Twilight… Everything… My sanity clings to this last spec, this last gnarled tree. And it’s burning…” The woman said, her voice heavy with sorrow and defeat. Twilight looked up at the tree again and noticed the color of the leaves. This was the single lavender tree in the forest of crimson and black… This was the representation of her… and it was burning… She couldn’t help but let herself fall down next to Chrysalis. They both just stayed there, collapsed on the ground, in silence.
“I… I’d hate for you to see this, Twilight… but I’m glad you’re here… even if it is so selfish of me to think so…” Chrysalis finally said after a while, dragging herself over to Twilight to wrap her arms around the girl. Tears were going down her face again.
Twilight couldn’t even really say anything. She had realized something. This tree was burning, yes, but the flames did not progress. In fact, now that Chrysalis was touching her, it seemed that the flames were almost… receding. She looked hard, and indeed they had moved back up the tree a bit. They left scorched bark and burned leaves where it used to burn, but all was not destroyed under it. It didn’t go far, though, before it stopped again.
“Chrysalis… do you remember the last thing we talked about?” Twilight asked, pulling Chrysalis closer and up almost inter her lap to hold her. She could feel Chrysalis nod.
“The nature of our hunger… We are parasites for emotion, but we must feed from others because we cannot easily generate our own. Love is the strongest, and therefore sates our hunger the easiest. It is also the one emotion we cannot generate on our own…” Chrysalis almost recited. They stayed like that, silent for a little while. Twilight watched the tree intently. She could just barely feel Chrysalis’ grip on her getting stronger, and with it she saw the flames being pushed back just a little bit.
“I think you’re wrong…” Twilight said softly. She seemed surprised she said it aloud, though. Chrysalis looked up at her at that and saw her staring at the tree. She followed the gaze and stared as well. She could see it, just ever so slowly moving up instead of down.
“What?” Chrysalis said softly. Not to anything in particular, really. She was just confused and too weak to figure it out.
“Chrysalis, think back. Think back on everything. Not of the research, just of your time since I became part of the brood. I’m thinking back on it now, and I’m seeing it. It’s not much… but the last few weeks before the degeneration started happening… you really cared about some things. Seemed even passionate about one or two... “ Twilight started, snapping her gaze down to look Chrysalis in the eyes. The Queen did as she was bade and thought and she thought.
“Twilight… I… I don’t even know what love feels like… Even if I could generate it, I have no idea what it is or what to do with it… I can only tell from the outside…” She said solemnly after a while of thinking. The fire started progressing down the tree again, regaining the ground it lost.
“But… But think of your brood. Your kin, your children. All of the changelings, you feel their pain and it hurts you to see them suffer. Is that not love?” Twilight retorted. Chrysalis was silent for a while again.
“I… I don’t know… I was born with that instinct… Is not not just that? Instinct?” Chrysalis asked, tears running down her face again as she felt the last vestiges of herself fading away. Twilight looked between her and the tree and almost yelled out as the fire reached the trunk.
“No… No nononono no no no! Stop thinking like that! Chrysalis, think… think about our times away from the hive. The friends you made. FRIENDS. Friendship is one of the strongest forms of love!” Twilight cried out, desperately trying to take back the ground that was lost again.
“No! No no!” She couldn’t help but repeat as Chrysalis was silent and the fire had all but reached the ground. She looked down at Chrysalis again. She looked almost peaceful, she seemed barely conscious. Barely aware of anything. Twilight felt her heart sink. She felt everything sink, spiraling into darkness. All she could see was herself and her queen, and the tree. Completely blackened and chipping away near the top.
But she saw the roots.
She saw how far they spanned. How much ground they covered.
And she saw that the ground had smothered the flames. The roots were untouched, alive. She thought of their time together again, it almost played in the empty black abyss of their minds like projector movie.
“Chrysalis… Think of us. Think of the times that we spent together. Just the two of us, it was nice wasn’t it?” Twilight started, looking up at the images. Chrysalis’ breathing had slowed, or at least this mental projection of her personality was. But it was still there, just barely. Twilight gently moved her head towards the sky, so the half lidded eyes could stare up and see their memories.
“Our training, you watching over me. Everything…” She continued failing to hold back ever more tears as she watched the memories come and go.
“But.. you know what the best parts were?” She almost whimpered, her voice cracking as she was now fighting back sobs.
“The best parts… were… when we could just sit together… We didn’t have to… talk about anything. We didn’t have to do anything. Just… be together… I just want that… one last time…” She could barely get out as she couldn’t hold back her sobbing. She just held Chrysalis, staring at the sky. She watched as from her own perspective she saw Chrysalis slowly degenerate. It was the same thing every night for a month. Twilight would wake up, or look up if she couldn’t sleep, and just watch Chrysalis. It was strange and terrible watching Chrysalis wither away, almost literally, through this memory. She looked down at Chrysalis again, her face was nearly as wet as her own was. But that was mostly due to Twilight’s own tears falling. She tried and failed to wipe her own away, but wiped her tears off of Chrysalis’ face. She pulled the unresponsive woman even closer, digging her face into her shoulder to cry.
And she cried. She cried for a while until she was out of tears. She couldn’t see the sky any more, but it had frozen on one thing. It wasn’t a static image, occasionally it’d move or twitch. It was a memory from months ago, not long after Twilight’s first memory resurgence. Twilight had spent most of an entire day just watching Chrysalis, the tiny movements she made. The little twitches of her facial features. Just watching. She looked happy.
Twilight was finally going to sever the link and let herself fade away with her Queen, but before she could she found that her face was wet again. She made to wipe her tears once more, but found that they weren’t her own. They were falling from Chrysalis’. There was still just a trace of life left in those eyes.
And then she remembered the roots.
She had one last thing to try, one last thing to say and do. She once again pulled Chrysalis close, this time putting the Queen’s lifeless head in her shoulder.
“We never did get to talk about… that thing we felt… Rainbow Dash and Spike and everyone else even teased me about it… but then all of this happened and… I’m so sorry… I never got to tell you…” She started, her voice raw after crying. She looked at Chrysalis again, at her unresponsive face. Even in this starved and degenerated state the Queen was quite beautiful- though now it was an almost morbid beauty.
She kissed her.
“I love you, Chrysalis… You are my teacher, my friend… my… I… I love you…” She shakily whispered out, pulling the Queen back into her neck. There was no movement, nothing. She waited like that for a long time. Seconds. Minutes. Hours. She had no idea, it felt like an eternity until she finally felt something.
It wasn’t what she was expecting. It was… wind…
She looked up at the wind and she could barely make out the forest that represented her mind in the distance. It looked... different. She got to her feet, carrying the lifeless form of her Queen with her, as she slowly made her way back towards her own mind. She quickly realized what was different.
Her trees had gnarled into the black ones of the Scarred Forest, the leaves all either crimson or a royal purple. Not quite the same color as her signature lavender though. These were just saplings before, sprouts. This was a true forest now. She turned back towards Chrysalis’ mind, but found nothing there. It was gone.
She walked through her forest for who knows how long, carrying Chrysalis the whole way. It was almost like a sick mockery of the last time they relaxed together, though she couldn’t think of it like that.
Then she found it.
The young tree, only as tall as she was. The branches even more gnarled, almost as if they were burned. There were only a few sparse leaves, but they were a unique color.
They were a soft blue-green. The color of the head of hair leaning against her shoulder.
Twilight laid her queen down, resting against this unique tree. She cupped her face and kissed her again.
“I’ll be back.”