It was clear to Chrysalis that the visiting queens were only here more for show than anything else, and the fact she had felt the presence of a dozen unseen changeling shortly after Violet Emerald’s return to the meeting hall didn’t help matters. Thankfully, she had warned everyone about this possibility. Just because they had a visible guard didn’t mean more were not brought along. However, the absence of staff in the castle meant the extra changelings had very few options in what they could masquerade as. That all said, there were still issues that could arise. She needed to make sure this whole thing turned in the favor of Equestria, if not herself. Even if she died here her daughters would at least have a few centuries of comparative safety, hopefully.
The fact that all the “invited guests” were watching her and her daughter dance as she prepped the meals did comfort her to some degree, it meant they were actually paying attention to her for one reason or another. She caught some movement in the corner of her eye and moved almost effortlessly to stop the intrusion, while still maintaining her dance. With her song fading out, which caused Emerald to change her choice of dance area within the kitchen, Chrysalis looked over to the perpetrator to find Shining Armor of all ponies trying to snatch a carrot that now floated in the mix of his and Chrysalis’s magics, “Is this what you do at home, Mr. Armor?” Chrysalis’s tone was even and only betrayed a sense of non-amusement.
Shining gave a guilty grin from his vantage point outside the kitchen before saying, “Sorry, but Spike’s a pretty good chef and he has made a passing mention of you being an amazing cook in your own right.”
“Yes well, my husband is also prone to a little exaggeration and embellishment,” Chrysalis said with a smirk, the sound of false gagging could be seen and heard from Vespa, Culicidae, and Nymph with Cicada just giving a look of disgust and Arachne a look of disapproval. “Not that I don’t mind, but I’m sure of the girls will easily top either of them in the kitchen by the time we know it.”
“I have no objections to that,” said Spike, “I actually look forward to that day, of course, I also look forward to going on some gem hunts with the bundle of adorableness sharing the kitchen with you.” The visiting queens made more shows of disapproval, with a light showing of minor interest in a microexpression.
It was around this time that Rarity returned with a “few” bags, which she set down near the door, “Sorry for the delay,” she said in her usual refined manner, “but a changeling tried to impersonate my husband on the way back here, didn’t seem to be aware of the truth field surrounding the town.”
“So, shoddy recon from a hive not directly involved in this event,” said Chrysalis with a pointed glare at Shining as she returned the pilfered vegetable back to the unfinished salad it had been taken from.
“I’m guessing the impersonation was not very good,” said Pinkie with disapproval.
“Simply awful,” said Rarity, “had the look down, but the voice and mannerisms were all wrong, and no sign of that adorable tic of his that prompted one of the memorable parts of our relationship.”
Arachne cocked her head at this while Twilight said, “It’s a good thing we were advised to anticipate these sorts of things,” prompting the rest of the visiting queens to cock their heads, “Chrys definitely went above and beyond her warning us of these sorts of things.”
The eyes of the queens narrowed on Chrysalis, their disdain managing to override the attention being stolen by the changeling filly. The scent of meat being cooked came from the kitchen, as did the sound of something sizzling in the oven. The sight, and sensation, of the ponies and Chrysalis being uncomfortable was an indicator what was being cooked was highly irregular or completely absent from their diets. This caused the queens to be very self-assured that things would loop around to their favor for a much greater period of time. In addition to all that, a pot of boiling water with pasta had been thrown onto the stove, it looked like Chrysalis was doing her best to diversify the choices.
About nine minutes after the sound of sizzling had come from the oven Chrysalis turned off the oven as she also flicked the off the stove. Shortly after she had flicked the stove off she took the pot holding the pasta and emptied into a large colander that had been placed there ahead of time. After she had emptied the pasta into the colander she emptied the pasta back into pot revealing angel hair pasta that had been cooked expertly cooked. Chrysalis then reached into cupboard next to the stove and brought out a couple jars of garlic marinara sauce and carefully mixed the sauce into the pasta and pulled out a pasta spoon and served surprisingly equal portions into seven bowls, and a smaller portion into an eighth bowl.
After checking to make sure the salads were all ready to go, and making some adjustments to a few, Chrysalis loaded up two serving trays with five of the bowls of pasta and all the salads, one of which seemed out of place with fact it didn’t seem to have any fruit or vegetables in it. “I know it’s proper etiquette to serve the guests first,” said Chrysalis, “but due to the current guest size I need to free up some counter space,” she set each of the dishes down before everyone that had now returned to their seats at the table. “For Nymph, a charming seafood salad,” the salad that had looked out of place was placed before Nymph, who just gave the dish a confused look, “Princess Cadance and Princess Skyla get a lovely pair of fruit salads,” this prompted a giggle from Skyla as the dishes were set before her and Cadance, “Shining Armor gets a classic salad with extra carrots and a ring of strawberries,” Shining gave Chrysalis a playfully annoyed look when he saw that said ‘ring’ in fact a heart, “Princess Twilight’s friends get al dente style angel hair spaghetti with garlic marinara sauce,” almost simultaneously Twilight’s closest friends received the five bowls of pasta, “and of course, Pinkie gets extra cheese,” Pinkie giggled as a sizeable package of grated parmesan cheese was set next to her, “I’m sorry, but the rest of you will have to wait for the next load. And none of you better start before everyone has been served, proper etiquette demands it.” This prompted Pinkie to halt her loading and mixing the parmesan and take a look at the bag to reveal she had emptied a quarter of the bag into her pasta, which was now looking more cheese than pasta, said Pink mare gave an apologetic grin and passed the bag of parmesan to the rest of her friends.
Chrysalis headed back to the kitchen, with Emerald following close behind, and took the meat that had been cooking in the oven out on a pan with her bare hands, to the surprise of Cicada and Vespa, but only the interest of the other queens. Arachne and Nymph reasoned that the pan had cooled enough for almost anything to hold it, what was of interest was the four steaks that had a light glaze of some kind of on them. The surprise for all the queens was when Chrysalis took two fist-sized gems and a gem around the size of her thumb and crushed them each over the pasta bowls she had set aside then picked the pasta up and thoroughly mixed the pasta with the gem pieces with her magic before returning it all to the bowls. Chrysalis then used her magic to place the steaks on the plates before expertly slicing the meat into more manageable, and socially acceptable, strips.
After looking over her handiwork Chrysalis returned to the sink and spent almost a full minute washing her hands with the soap and water. After loading the dishes on the trays she made her way back out. Three of the steaks were set before Cicada, Culicidae, and Vespa, the fourth was put before Arachne, who stared at it with an actual vested interest. The gem-filled pasta bowls were placed before Spike and the areas that were set aside for Chrysalis and Emerald to occupy.
“What are these,” said Vespa with a more vested interest than she intended.
“Manticore steaks,” said Spike as he carefully twirled his pasta around his fork a bit, and chuckled a little when he noticed Emerald mimicking the behavior.
“With a light honey glaze,” said Chrysalis, “I also made sure to cook them just enough to be medium rare and a little bloody so as to accommodate all your tastes. I wasn’t entirely sure which steak would go to whom, so I compromised with prepping them all the same way, there’s also a little garlic to hopefully enhance the flavor.”
“Those claws are quite handy for tearing into meat,” said Cicada, electing to leave her food alone until the rest of the visiting changelings had given their food a try.
“We mostly use them for digging tunnels and new chambers,” said Chrysalis, “I nearly dug through a gem in an untapped deposit a short time ago.” Also during this exchange, she set a bowl of stones before Discord, and three royal style salads before Celestia, Luna, and Lucent. Discord's bowl of rocks had a note saying he was free to use his powers on his dish, and only his dish, during the meal. Going through his options Discord turned his bowl of rocks into a pizza with red cheese, an indigo crust, blue mushrooms, green olives, purple strawberries and white anchovies.
“And I’m so glad you found it, darling,” said Rarity as she daintily sipped her beverage, “my reserves were starting to get a little too low for work.”
“And the main reason I cut your steaks was because if I hadn’t you would have torn into them in what the ponies, and dragon, here call socially inappropriate, especially for events such as this. You can feel free to eat your meals like rabid monsters when alone, but when you are guests or entertaining guests you must be a bit more dignified in your approach. To changelings, queens are free to do as they please due to the fact the bulk of their populace are barely a step above mindless. But in the case of ponies and several other cultures, the populace all have free will and operational higher brain functions. Not all the members of these cultures have the ability to utilize this, as is seen in the case of many fools over the course of Equestria’s history alone that showed their approach to things is rather lacking in any real substance. Fools and idiots are constant in these cultures, just as much as geniuses and wise ones,” this got a chuckle out of Spike and the ponies out of the table. “There is a belief among these cultures, that should also rightfully be held by Changelings, that those who rule reach their greatest effectiveness when they allow the potentials of the populace to thrive with a little guidance and almost no personal interference. Which is basically the exact opposite standing changeling philosophies. I have chosen to allow my hive to operate on a similar premise to this, made all the more important with the fact all the standing members of my hive are fully self-aware and have distinctive mental properties that set them apart as individuals more than just another one in a swarm.”
“You have chosen the path of weakness,” said Cicada she watched Vespa and Culicidae eat a strip from their plates, to the revulsion of the ponies and dragon which gave her some measure of belief she and the other visiting changelings would succeed in their goal of terminating everything to do with Chrysalis. The two showed a sense of enjoyment of the food, as did Nymph with her odd looking salad.
“This thing you did to the food, what exactly is it?” Inquired Arachne, with genuine interest.
“It’s called cooking,” said Spike before taking a careful bite of his food and giving a bit of smile, “Chrys picked it up from me, but she does it with a flair that’s all her own. If I had made any of this I would have made the food very differently.”
“Yes, you would have pan-seared the meat, but with it being so close to the pasta some seasonings could have cross-contaminated unintentionally, and by cooking it in the oven I could get more of the steaks cooked at around the same level of evenness at the same time.”
“Case and point,” said Spike, “cooking food allows for it to last longer and a little healthier by removing potentially dangerous microbes.”
“And prep work allows for additions that can influence the aspects of the food itself to for better or worse,” said Chrysalis, “dragons have a diet that includes gemstones, as such certain mineral compositions found gems and stones have their own distinct impressions on a dragon’s pallet. This big dork,” she gestured to Spike, “has a preference for emeralds and amethysts, while I prefer the consumption of aventurine quartz and iolite. As for dessert, the both of us will be working on it together.”
“After things have wound down a bit first,” said Spike. With that everyone ate in relative silence for several minutes. The queens were used to the silence, it was common among Changeling meetings if you omitted the ambient sound of buzzing wings and moving about, but everyone else it was an uneasy sort of silence. To changeling queens, silence has no real meaning beyond queens potentially speaking with their hives via their link, and was a bit of Chrysalis’s mindset for the first few months of her first year with Spike. For ponies, dragon and Discord different silences had different implications, even weights, and it was something Chrysalis had managed pick up on after it was explained to her.
Without a word, other than the subtle one made through the simple gesture of kissing the crown of Emerald’s head, Chrysalis got out of her seat and made a show of checking the door, making sure to steer clear of the other queens. On her way back she unintentionally passed by Cicada and Vespa, both took the opportunity to assault her. “This farce ends now,” said Cicada menacingly as she stabbed at Chrysalis gut at the waist while Vespa attacked Chrysalis's back just beneath the base of the neck with one of her stingers. To the surprise of everyone, Chrysalis didn’t respond beyond stopping to take the blows. The end result was… Chrysalis still standing like it wasn’t even an issue. All that was there to show that Chrysalis had been attacked was the needle sized hole in the back of her dress and gaping hole with torn fabric around it where Cicada had assaulted her.
In a surprisingly calm voice, Chrysalis said, “I was really hoping you’d make this sort of move later, I rather liked this dress and now require it to have a mending. Damaged attire is usually seen as poor form for a meeting, but for guests to cause it is just rude.” She then used her magic to remove the dress to another location to reveal that underneath she was wearing a peach blossom colored two-piece swimsuit that did a commendable job of covering her bosom and had its bottom that resembled beach shorts whose top stopped short four inches short of where from where she Cicada had attacked. In addition, the top was partially bare in the back with a rather large window that surrounded where Vespa had attacked. “As always, a parent should set an example for their children.”
The surprise was present on the faces of several individuals, including her two assailants, in the room. Spike and Rarity were just smirking, as were Luna and Discord. “Well,” said Celestia after coming out of her stupor a few seconds later, “It seems we have some dissenters, and early than anticipated. What do you want to do about it, Chrysalis?”
“Nothing much,” said Chrysalis, “just send them far away for an extended period of time. But honestly, I doubt I’m powerful enough to do so on my own. Besides, this is Princess Twilight’s domain, it is her final say that determines what happens next.”
“Oh, yes of course,” said Twilight, having just gotten over surprise during the exchange between Celestia and Chrysalis. “A believe they just committed multiple taboos, something extremely serious. The disdain shown is mostly forgivable, assault on guests and family is not. The same can be said about your casual disregard of the fact, but that is one fallacy I can’t hold as a crime no matter how much I want to. Chrysalis and Spike have been married for the past five years. All those articles aren’t something that were faked up, they are real. That you are unwilling to get outside of your own preconception is a terrible thing, culture advances with the advancements of ideals. I won’t say much in the way of your culture, on account of having little to no in-depth knowledge regarding your culture. Regardless, acts of malicious attempt and nature are not tolerated in Equestria, this especially true in my home. We do not believe condone or practice malicious behavior in this place, it is supposed to be somewhere that safety is encouraged and enforced. Your actions have made it clear you have little to no intent on working things out peacefully and instead have a very narrow mindset that had you come here with a singular goal in mind.” Twilight’s horn lit up and without a word, both Cicada and Vespa were hit a burst of energy, when the light died down the two were white and pink bracelets around their wrists.”
“Is this some sort of joke? Because I find very little humor in it,” said Cicada.
“Chrysalis has been more than gracious to work with Twilight,” said Luna, “those little accessories can only be removed by either an alicorn or Discord…”
“Which isn’t likely to happen,” said Discord, “as much as I enjoy making things less predictable and more fun I still have some lines I will not cross.”
“Your current accessories,” continued Luna, “which were developed with the aid of Chrysalis herself, immensely restrict your magical capabilities and even nullify all magic of a similar type around or aimed at them, in short, changeling magic has been removed as an option for you.”
“You’ll be serving time in the supermax prison in the Badlands that we established for the more...troublesome law breakers,” said Twilight, “and the facility itself has magic dampening technologies that operate on a similar premise to your bracelets. In fact, they are used as identifiers that you are convicted to serve time there. Thankfully for you, you will be serving a light sentence of three years at the facility, and as per protocol your transit to and from the facility will be blacked out from all your senses, magical variety included.”
“A little something we decided to work on,” said Discord, “it was actually my idea, Chrysalis actually suggested a few things that made into the finished product. Granted it only went up three years ago, and currently is housing one inmate but he’s a bad cookie that just refuses to reform.”
“I was against it at first,” said Twilight, “as were my fellow princesses. Chrysalis, interestingly enough, actually didn’t give any input until the final consensus was made on the facility. Probably a good choice on her part, but after a certain somepony made another return with a bit more substantial staying power we were pretty much forced into okaying the project to ensure the safety of everypony.”
“It’s hard to believe it took a little under two years for a facility of that scale to be built.”
“But that’s what happens when you have four alicorns, a changeling queen, Discord and a team of highly capable construction workers,” said Rainbow Dash, “we were pretty evenly split on the whole Super Maximum Security Penitentiary. The facility makes sure you stay in decent health, that’s about as far as it goes in a few ways. Granted, you will be getting professional help for some of your problems and issues, you can even file complaints if you like.”
“Just because you’re visiting dignitaries doesn’t mean you’re exempt from the entirety of the nation’s laws,” said Rarity, “the diplomatic matters banner can only cover so much. And it would be uncouth of us to allow you total immunity to our legal system. Since you are high profile individuals you will be given the right to a court case in the highest court in the nation, but seeing as literally all the judges of that particular court are present here and can mandate your case be bumped up to them if you request the case in a lower court I have my doubts it will do you much good.”