//------------------------------// // 2. Oh, the Equinity! // Story: Bug Pony Horse Waifu // by Scarheart //------------------------------// Edited by TuxOKC. “I had a spot picked out for her in the garden,” Celestia told Cadence at the dinner table that night. Pizza had been served, hot and fresh pies were sliced and doled out among the diners. The white alicorn was grubbing on a cheese and broccoli pizza with Hoovian cherries. She chewed and swallowed, took a sip of her cherry cola, and added, “She was going to make a fine planter. Her horn would have made a wonderful perch for Philomena.” “Auntie,” Cadence chided between mouthfuls of pepperoni and mushrooms, “Chrysalis is a lonely mare. Lonely mares do desperate things when they feel they’re not loved. Or in this case, lonely horse flies.” “So you do still hold a grudge against her,” observed Luna. She had hoarded the all meat pizza pie for herself and growled at anypony who even glanced at her pizza. “I can understand that. Let the hate flow through you. Give in to your—” “Lulu, we’ve talked about this before,” warned Celestia as she dabbed the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “Keep your Nightmare to yourself. Save it for Nightmare Night. How can you handle all of that meat?” “Lots of practice. You always start with a little at a time and just keep increasing the amount you put in as one goes,” Luna licked her lips. “I still need an apprentice,” griped the younger of the two alicorns. She tore into the next slice of pie and chewed in a manner not at all suitable for a mare that was a supposed paragon of beauty and manners. “So get one!” Celestia took another bite. “Don’t let me stand in your way. Cadence, I know what you want to do and I appreciate that you have the well-being of one who has done you harm in mind, but even my patience has limits.” She smiled a strained smile. “Oh, I refuse to let you just turn her into an ornament, Auntie. That’s too good for her.” Cadence sat back in her seat and contemplated her drink. It was a Shirley Temple. “Tartarus would be a vacation for what I have planned. Marriage is work! Marriage is dedication! Marriage is about compromise and as Faust is my witness, Chrysalis will know the meaning of compromise! She will learn what it means to tell her stallion to keep the toilet seat down when he’s done using it!” “Dear Niece, your eyes are on fire again,” noted Luna. Cadence ignored the jab and continued eating. After a few minutes of silence (save for the sounds of chewing), Celestia spoke again. “This list. I have not yet seen it. I assume you have chosen potential mates for Chrysalis to choose from?” The pink alicorn nodded. “Would you like to see it?” “If you don’t mind.” Cadence smiled and produced the very same list Discord had seen earlier that day. She floated it over to Celestia, who took it in her own magical aura. As she unfurled and began reading it, Luna spoke up. “Why not confine Chrysalis to Tartarus? If it is good enough for the likes of Tirek, why then is it not good enough for that creature?” Cadence made a face. “All right. You put away the mother of a few thousand recently redeemed changed ‘lings and see how they respect you after that. They want their mother to be with them and they’ve been looking to me to set her right,” she explained, becoming a touch more frazzled as she spoke. “Thorax has been a pain in my flank about it. He’s been using Starlight Glimmer’s turnaround as his argument for not giving up on Chrysalis. And Starlight may or may not have been responsible for the utter destruction of several different timelines!” “I might have dropped the ball on that one,” Celestia admitted, motioning for a serving maid to bring over the brandy. “You’ve dropped a lot of balls, sister,” grinned Luna. “I had to handle yours for a thousand years, sister,” Celestia said as she poured herself a glass. “Pax?” “Pax. Brandy?” “Brandy.” Celestia poured her sister a glass and floated it over. Both sisters clinked their glasses and downed their brandies in one gulp. The white alicorn went back to the list, reading it with the practiced eye of one who poured over treaties with the voracity of a hawkish lawyer. “Cadence,” she said with a frown. “My dear niece, this must be some sort of joke. I mean, are you serious about what you have on this list?” The former foalsitter nodded even as she helped herself to another slice of pizza. “I am.” “These names. They are not Equestrian names.” “No, they are not,” admitted Cadence with a mouthful of food. “Twilight, have you eaten anything yet?” She looked across the table. Twilight was still reading the same book with only her ears and top of her horn visible. “Twilight, reading at the dinner table is rude.” “It’s a good book,” insisted the purple pony princess. “The theories and facts presented are fascinating! The arguments are sound and not full of crackpot declarations and assumptions.” Cadence frowned. “Luna, why did you get her that book?” “It was sent to me by my book-of-the-month club,” Luna defended herself, splaying her ears out. She adjusted her wings and squinted at her niece. “Wasn’t it your idea that I should join a club and mingle with other ponies who shared common interests as I?” “Well, yes,” Cadence plucked the book from Twilight’s face and set it on the table next to her plate. She waved off the vocal protest of her sister-in-law, “but you shouldn’t give her books that are going to challenge her intellect. She shuts out the world around her when she has a book like that.” Celestia spoke up, “These are names not of our world.” She held the list aloft, the words facing Cadence as if it seemed the pink alicorn had never read them before. “Love knows no dimensional divides,” said Cadence. “The idea is to get Chrysalis in an environment where she can grow as an individual and cultivate any redeeming qualities she might have. I’ve also listed some places associated with the names as possible places she can be placed while experiencing the wonders of wifehood.” “You mean addresses.” Cadence nodded a ‘well, duh’, nod. “Humans?” Twilight hypothesized in the form of a query. “Been to that world. Kinda nice, kinda not nice. There’s no magic there. At least, no magic that originates from that world.” “Exactly,” beamed Cadence. “Ooooh,” came the collective realization of the other alicorns at the table. “Why send her there?” asked Celestia as she hoofed the list back to her niece. “There, she won’t have her magic demanding she need love to survive. The Dazzlings, if I read Twilight’s report correctly, only needed negative emotions to fuel their magic so they could return to Equestria. That was their goal, after all. They lived for thousands of years on that world surviving off normal food like the rest of the dominant species living there.” Cadence carefully folded up the list and tucked it away. “It’s more of an experiment and I honestly don’t know if it’ll work.” “Then why try it?” Luna asked, arching both her brows in confusion. “Have you considered the possible dangers Chrysalis might pose to her potential husband?” “She’ll be linked to her husband-to-be to prevent any black widow shenanigans,” Celestia said, recalling some of the details of the past three days. “I think you were dozing when we were discussing some of the finer details.” “I’ll need to go over my notes,” Luna muttered with a sigh. “You can borrow mine if you need to,” offered Twilight. She was trying with some discretion to steal back her book with telekinesis. Cadence resisted before reaching over with a hoof and flicking the younger alicorn’s horn with it. “Hey!” “I might take you up on that offer, Twilight,” Luna said. “Ah, did anypony remember to put Chrysalis in her cell?” “Don’t worry about it. She is in her cell.” Cadence helped herself to more pizza. “She’s currently going over her choices. I think it’s nice to let her have some say in her future, so long as she chooses a husband.” Celestia cleared her throat. “What if she decides one of the other two options?” “Not going to happen,” Cadence smiled. It was an evil smile that would have made Chrysalis proud. She slapped a purple hoof snaking its way across the table and towards the book. Twilight yelped and withdrew her advance. “Nope. Not gonna.” Chrysalis fumed. She had been doing that a lot as of late. Ever since she had lost her hive, her amazing throne, and all of her changelings, life had been crap. Watching her children turn into those… those things had broken her heart far more than she would like to have admitted. Then that Starlight Glimmer had the nerve to invite her to be a part of that nonsense! There was nothing dignified about becoming a living, breathing candied changeling. At least there was pizza. No longer muzzled, the fallen queen munched on a simple cheese pizza from her heavily warded cell. She still had a nullifying ring clamped to the base of her horn, but those hideous Clubs had been removed from her legs. Those things were inequine! How could a pony invent such a thing for the sole purpose of crippling the movements of a changeling? She sighed. When she wasn’t fuming or raging, she was sighing. How did her life come to this point? The sigh shifted back to fuming. Chrysalis ate angry. Her teeth tore into cheese and crust and her lips smacked. Her angry glare fixated on three letters. Each one listed a choice she had to make. She could either be turned to stone, sent to Tartarus, or get a husband. “This is sheer idiocy!” she declared, flipping the letters with a hoof. The changeling was far too hungry to put too much effort in her tantrum. “Me? Married? I am bucking Queen frigging Chrysalis! I don’t need no stallion! I’m an independant mare!” “I raised my babies exactly as I wanted them raised! Momma had good babies! I had wonderful babies! SHE TOOK MY BABIES AND TURNED THEM AGAINST ME! SHE TURNED THEM INTO OVERSTUFFED STOCKING STUFFERS!” Chrysalis pounded the wall with a hoof. He tears were of the crocodile variety, not that she would let the ponies see real tears from her. The Big Mare was always watching and the Big Mare was always keeping her down! “STARLIGHT GLIMMER, I WILL MAKE YOU PAY!” Still, the very idea of being turned to stone sent chills up and down her spine. The way Discord described it, every second was remembered. There was no need for the body to rest, so there was no sleeping. Every waking moment was the eternity in stone, unable to see, unable to speak, unable to feel. Just one lone figure with nothing but her thoughts and apparently, as Discord told her in a bare whisper, there was always the singing of Yoko Ono in the background. Forget that. She wadded up that bit of paper up and tossed it over her shoulder. There was no way in Tartarus she was going to accept that judgement. Speaking of Tartarus… She glanced at the next letter detailing what she could expect in the prison where the worst of the worst were kept. There was a cafeteria, a small yard for exercise, a dilapidated library, unisex showers and bathrooms… Chrysalis shuddered. She had heard the budget for the place had been cut. There were pictures included with the letter, including her future cellmate, should she choose to go with permaprison. The unhappy and unsmiling face of Tirek greeted her, holding his inmate card. Due to overcrowding, she would also be shacked up with the undead Overgoat himself, Grogar. He also refused to smile for the camera and his eyes were filled to the brim with insanity. One girl stuck in a cell with two lonely guys. Two deprived males. Chrysalis pulled up both photographs and gave them both a very hard and scrutinizing search for the most minute of details. What kind of prison tattoos did they have? Sucking air between her teeth, she thought what markings she saw were fresh. Were those black tears in the corner of Tirek’s left eye? It gave her the willies. “Nope. Nopety-nope nope!” she cried. “Ew! Ew! No! Ew!” The photos were flung from her as revulsion pulsated through every nerve ending in her body. “I have standards! What are you trying to do to me, Cadenza? I feel dirty! I feel not pretty! Oh so not pretty, not witty, not gay!” An undead goat? What sort of chicken-poop outfit were they running in Tartarus? Weren’t undead necromancers supposed to be teleported into the sun, or something? What was the purpose of keeping a being interested in wiping out all life from existence in a prison that had many breakouts over the aeons? It was almost as if Celestia was inviting some disaster to happen to unleash the old billy goat upon the world. What good was conquering a world if it was crawling with the undead? “They’re mad! Mad!” she shrieked, stomping on Grogar’s photograph. “He isn’t even photogenic!” There was the sound of a clearing throat, Startled from her mini rampage, Chrysalis whirled, her eyes ablaze. “What?” she demanded. One of her guards was staring at her. “Keep it down, lady. You’re disturbing the peace.” “I’m the only prisoner you have in here!” “Not really,” he said with a shrug. “We got a pickpocket—” “Most of you ponies don’t wear clothes!” “—a drunk mare, and we got a couple of con ponies.” The guard had ignored her, his bored expression shifting to an unamused glare. “Don’t be rude. You’re lucky you got a pizza. It’s pizza night. Everypony gets pizza on pizza night. Evil queens like you don’t deserve pizza. But you got pizza so be grateful you have it.” Chrysalis sighed. “The pizza was good,” she admitted, though she didn’t want to. “Anyways, just… just shut up! We want to enjoy our dinner without you making with the crazy.” The guard squinted hard at her before shaking his head and turning away. As he left, he muttered under his breath, “Ungrateful evil queen, making a racket all because she made poor life decisions and gets mad because she’s gotta pay up. Hope she gets Tartarus.” Chastised, Chrysalis glared beyond her cell bars before letting out a dismissive snort. Flicking her ears, she kicked the offending photos away from her and plopped down on her bed. It was an uncomfortable thing, a straw mattress, a pillow, and a couple of blankets. At least the blankets were warm, even if the wool made her chitin itch. The photos needed to burn in fire. They were hideous! There was the third option, Chrysalis remembered. How could she forget? Cadence wore a rape face when she made the stupid husband proposal! It was an unnerving memory, seeing the Princess of Love look so manic and deranged. With nervous anticipation, she took up the third option with a hoof, exhaling in a slow, steady breath. There were names for sure, but Chrysalis blinked, confused. These were not pony names. They weren’t minotaur names. Griffon? She gave the names a hard look, only to make an exasperated grunt of frustration. She looked again. There was fine print. off to the side, as if scribbled on at the last minute. The paper was inches from her muzzle now and she mumbled the words under her breath. She dropped the paper and stared at the ceiling. “What in the world is a human?” After dinner, the girls had retired to Celestia’s study for a night cap. They were lying upon thick, plush cushions of Saddle Arabian silk in front of the large hearth. A blazing, cheerful flame lit the room, bathing the alicorns in a warm and welcoming light. “Why a human?” Luna asked Cadence, genuine curiosity in her eyes. A glass of wine floated at her side. “They are hairless apes and are constantly bickering amongst themselves.” “True,” Cadence replied as she swirled her own class of Chardonnay. She examined the liquid before smiling and looking at the elder blue alicorn. “But they are capable of great acts of love and compassion. I’m banking on it. Humans are stubborn, they are territorial, but they are also not averse to new things, so long as you don’t give them time to object.” “That doesn’t make sense,” muttered Luna. Twilight, in the meantime, had her book returned to her. She was making mental love to Stephen Hawking at this point, if her reading eyes were any indication. “The plan is crazy,” she said. “Chrysalis married? You’re proposing something of a shotgun wedding, if you think about it. Discord is right; this is a train wreck waiting to happen. Just turn her to stone and put her in Tartarus with Tirek. I hear he’s on estrogen pills now.” She went back to reading, her brows creased as if irritated with herself for interrupting her own reading. Scoffing, Twilight declared, “Chrysalis married to a human. How stupid! She’s not going to do it.” There was a polite knock at the door. It opened and a servant hurried in, wearing a most apologetic expression as she went straight to Celestia. “Word from the prison, Highness,” she said in a quiet and reserved voice. An envelope was given to the princess and the servant left just as meek as she had come in. “An answer already?” Luna inquired, her ears perked forward. Celestia opened the envelope. “So it would seem.” An eye flicked up and over at Cadence, who was paying rapt attention to her. The eldest alicorn quaffed the remainder of her raspberry wine and opened the letter with a flick of the paper. Giving it a quick read, she assumed an unreadable expression before lowering the letter and staring at her niece. “Huh.” The letter was floated over to Cadence. The younger alicorn snatched it from her aunt’s magical grasp with a hoof and devoured the words with eyes filled with greed. Her grin started small, but by the time she was done with the letter, it was massive. “Well. Well, well, well! Well, well, well, well!” A manic giggling followed. “Cadence, you are giving me a frighten,” said a worried Luna. “She’s accepted the marriage proposal,” the Alicorn of Love said. Her words came complete with an I-told-you-so expression to all of her fellow alicorns. “She’s even picked her future husband!” “Well buck me sideways. There was only one name on the list,” sighed Twilight as she glared over her book at her former foalsitter. “You really herded her, manipulating her choices and even having Discord give his little,” —she made air quotes with her hooves— “‘my time as a pigeon poop magnet’ speech to her.” “So?” Celestia blinked. “Why that one name, if I might ask?” she asked Cadence. “Chrysalis is not the only one who needs to be punished,” Luna piped up, wearing a small grin of her own. She was in the process of refilling her wine glass. “There is another who must suffer. Cadence and I had a small discussion last night just before you raised the dawn.” “Is Chrysalis aware of this human?” Cadence shook her head. Twilight shrugged and retreated back to her book, shutting out the outside world with expert skill. “Don’t know. Don’t care.” She held up her book. “Stephen Hawking! He is my waifu!” proclaimed the purple alicorn. “So, what did this human do?” Celestia asked. She already knew the answer because she was mother bucking Celestia. “He wrote a terrible story,” answered Cadence. “Is it the story I think it is?” “Yes.” Celestia became thoughtful as she regarded her niece. “You’ve come a long way, girl,” she said with a wink. “I had a good teacher,” beamed Cadence. “So, the manure hits the fan tomorrow?” Luna asked in a hopeful tone. Her sister nodded. “Indeed. The sooner we get this train wreck over, the better!”