“I don’t know how to change her back,” Chrysalis said.
Something cracked inside Celestia. “What do you mean?” she asked, a faint quiver in her voice.
“Don’t play dumb with me,” Chrysalis said. “It’s not a good look on you.”
“But… you’ve got to turn her back!” whimpered Twilight. “You did it to her, and…”
“And what?” Chrysalis snapped. “This isn’t some fairytale, Sparky. Some curses don’t get undone. Especially if it’s biology, not magic, that’s at work. I mean, really, you didn’t think...” Chrysalis fell quiet, then her eyes widened. “Oh, you did—” she cackled gleefully. “You thought she was the first one? Oh, that’s rich—”
“Why?” Celestia croaked.
Chrysalis stopped laughing suddenly. “Why?” she repeated. “It’s actually a very simple why. Let me see if I can lay it out for you…”
Chrysalis began to pace in slow circles around them. Celestia followed her with her gaze. After a moment, Chrysalis began to speak to the open air:
"For a thousand years,” she began, “there’s been only one thing that kept Equestria collapsing into sheer anarchy. You,” she spat. “Your ponies looked up to you, adored you, made their perfect little society all sunshine and rainbows because of you. You were the cornerstone that held the whole damn castle up.”
“But did you care about us?” she continued. “Absolutely not. Anyone who wasn’t fluffy and candy-colored got left out in the cold—Griffons, Dragons, Changelings, all of us. You had a perfect, ordered society, one that cared for all your subjects--but only yours. We had to scrape together a living from your table scraps. You have always been greedy and cruel, Celestia—and, for that, you had to go. You, and Equestria with you.”
“But let’s see, now,” she continued, still pacing, “what's the best way to conquer an Empire, hm? Attack from the outside? No, the defending forces are always too strong. Too much collateral damage. Sneak in and topple things from the inside, then?” She cocked her head a little. “Better—but that’s still a costly proposition, and might not even work in the end..”
"No,” Chrysalis said, “the best way to unravel a civilization is to make its own citizens tear it apart with their own hooves. After all,” she said with a shrug, “If I were to simply take things over by forceful means, I might succeed for a little while—but rebellion and civil war would soon raise their ugly heads, and before you know it, pop goes the weasel. Even if I could manage to preemptively beat everyone into submission, ponies would still remember their beloved Princess, their champion and protector. Her name alone would be enough of a rallying cry.”
"But…” she paused dramatically. “What if I were to make them lose faith in their Princess first? Now that's an idea, isn't it? If the ponies of Equestria were to realize that their beloved Princess was not the mare they thought she was... why, who knows what would happen? After all, they don’t exactly have a good track record of dealing with big stresses like that—that’s why they have Princesses to keep the monsters at bay. But, if the Princess is a monster herself…” Chrysalis turned and shot an evil grin at them, her eyes glittering. “Well. Maybe it would be her turn to feel what it’s like to wander the wilderness, alone and unloved.”
Chrysalis shrugged again. “In any case, their precious Princess would be out of the way—and, true, though there are a few backup Royals, none of them can carry the weight that you do, dear Celestia. At first, I thought they would be trouble, but they can’t hold a candle to you. With you gone, it would only be a matter of time before everything falls apart. And then we’d have pure anarchy on our hooves—and I simply couldn’t allow that to continue, could I?”
"You see, then, the plan was blessedly simple: wait for the perfect moment, a public moment, a moment where you were supposed to be showing everyone how good you were at everything—then swoop in and pull the pin. Show that your Royal Guard is just a bad puppet show, and, while we’re at it, have my workers give you a little snack. Sure, you were going to try and hide it for a while, but it was inevitable that rumors were going to leak out—especially if I sent some of my own servants to leak them. All too soon, Equestria would see that their only sure anchor in all the world was a lie, and everything would come apart at the seams. You would try and fix it, of course, but anything you would try would just make it worse. After all, you’ve already shown them that they couldn’t trust you once… who’s to say they could trust you again? Or ever, for that matter?”
“But that’s not all,” Chrysalis continued. “After a few years of chaos that would make even Discord proud, I would step in. By that time, the ponies would beg me to lead them—me, an outsider, a dependable and fair one, with enough workers and warriors to restore order again. I wouldn't have to break the door down, I wouldn't even have to pick the lock. They would throw the gates wide open for me—me, their savior, delivering them from the tyranny of a monster who couldn’t even protect them from themselves. And, though moving the sun might be problematic, the unicorns did it themselves before you came on the scene, and I’m sure they’d be happy to do so again—” she grinned wickedly “—if their new Queen demanded it.”
There was a moment of silence. Chrysalis looked smug, Rarity horrified, Twilight frightened, and Celestia angry.
“So,” Chrysalis said brightly, breaking the silence, “Whaddaya think? I’ve been working on that particular scheme for over two hundred years...”
Rarity stepped forward and shouted something angry. Chrysalis shouted back, and Twilight stepped between them. But Celestia heard none of it. Instead, echoing in her ears, was Chrysalis’s voice:
...alone and unloved…
And Celestia suddenly realized something. Something that had been bothering her for almost two full weeks. Something that had been tickling at the back of her brain, searching for a moment to get out.
“I’m not hungry anymore,” Celestia said quietly.
All three of them fell silent, then turned to stare.
“I’m not hungry anymore,” Celestia repeated, louder.
“What?” Chrysalis barked disdainfully.
“I’m not hungry,” she repeated again. “And that means I have something you don’t, Chrysalis—” she draped her ragged wings over Rarity and Twilight, then pulled them close. “—I have friends,” she cried aloud.
“So what?” Chrysalis snapped. “All that means is that there will be two more of you to—”
“It means,” Celestia said, “that your plan failed. Turn me into a monster and turn all of Equestria against me? Won’t work if my subjects—my friends—still care for me.”
“And we do,” Rarity piped up.
“Always will,” said Twilight.
“You see, that’s your trouble,” Celestia said, her eyes shining. “You don’t have friends. You have slaves. You think of ponies like tools, to be toyed with and manipulated for your own uses. And that’s why you’ll never win.”
Chrysalis snarled. “Very poetic, I’m sure,” she sneered. “But there’s one one thing I’ve got that you don’t.”
“Oh yeah?” Rarity cried. “What?”
Chrysalis grinned and looked up. “Them.”
There, clinging to the ceiling and peering out from every nook and cranny, stared back thousands of ice-blue Changeling eyes.
“It always pays to have a Plan B,” Chrysalis said mildly. “By the way, it was awfully generous of you to bring yourselves right to my doorstep. Saves me the trouble of having to go find you. And now I can send back the three of you, perfectly obedient to all of my whims. Having slaves instead of puppets would be so much more convenient, don’t you think?
Twilight stepped forward and tried to light her horn, but the light sputtered and went out.
“Don’t even think about it,” Chrysalis hissed. “Unicorn magic won’t work here. You’re unarmed and outnumbered. The best thing for you to do is to come quietly.”
On some invisible cue, Changelings began to slither down the walls and ooze out of cracks. They closed in on the three ponies, who huddled close together.
“Princess-s-s!” Twilight shrieked.
Celestia looked up at Chrysalis, a glint in her eye. “Well, Chryssi,” she said, “seems you finally got the upper hoof.” Celestia’s twisted back horn began to glow red. She felt the clay under her hooves shift beneath her, and she grinned. “Your plan worked,” she continued a little louder, “you got us cornered, and you got to call me all sorts of nasty names to boot. Greedy, cruel, monstrous—”
Chrysalis raised an eyebrow. “And?” she said quizzically.
“You forgot one,” Celestia said, grinning.
“What’s that?”
“Resourceful.”
And, with that, Celestia reached out and pulled Twilight and Rarity close. She flashed a grin at Chrysalis, then dove into the hole that she had opened below her hooves.
Chrysalis’s eyes widened. “Stop her!” she howled. The roar of buzzing wings filled the air—but the three of them were already gone. Chrysalis howled in rage.
* * *
Twilight Sparkle peered out of their little cave, then dragged down some brush across the entrance, barely screening the setting sun.
“There,” she said. “It’s not much, but that should throw them off if—”
“Twilight,” Rarity hissed. “Shh!”
Twilight turned and immediately shrank away. In the back of the little cave, Rarity and Celestia sat facing each other. By the dim light of Rarity’s horn, Twilight saw Celestia staring at her one remaining white hoof. But, in all the excitement of the day, none of them had noticed that the creeping black plates had swallowed it nearly whole.
All that remained of their Princess’s original color was the fleshy frog in the center of the hoof, and a tiny sliver of the keratin around it.
“Princess—” Twilight began.
Rarity turned to shush her again, but she had already fallen silent. The three of them could see, even in the half-light, that the inky blackness was creeping inward. Twilight walked over and sat beside Celestia. All three of them watched in silence as the black chitin ate up what was left of the shining white hoof, hesitated a little, then, all at once, swallowed up the frog.
Twilight let out a little gasp, and Rarity started to cry. Twilight considered herself smart—very smart, in fact. She would have easily made valedictorian of Celestia’s school if it wasn’t for all these friendship problems—and, even then, she was going to give second place a run for their money, at the very least—but still, with everything she’d ever read, with all the research she’d done, with all the thinking and writing that she did every day… she had no idea what was going to happen next. They had crossed a line, and, if Chrysalis was being honest, there was no going back. When there was still at least a little bit of Celestia’s pony-self remaining, there was a sliver of hope that, if they were smart or strong or clever enough, they could have their Princess back the same way she’d always been. But now, even that had slipped away.
Whatever was left of Celestia was dead. And with it, more likely than not, would follow all of Equestria.
Twilight looked up and saw Rarity dabbing at her tears. Rarity looked up at her, then glanced away—but, in that splinter of a second, she saw the heartbreak in her eyes. Twilight swallowed.
After three months of watching Celestia struggle… we failed.
Twilight snuck a glance up at Celestia—then openly stared. After a moment, Rarity looked up too, then followed her gaze. She stared for a half-second, before a supremely undignified “Huh?” escaped her lips.
Celestia was staring down at her own hoof—but with a little half-smile on her lips. She turned it over to examine the other side, then back again. She set it down, then let out a long sigh.
“Well,” she said at last, “at least that’s done with.”
Rarity looked up at her in frank astonishment and utter betrayal. Twilight swallowed several times.
“Princess…” she said, “You can’t just say that…”
Celestia looked over at her, and her eyes suddenly bulged.
“Nonono!” she yelped. Holding up her hooves defensively. “That’s not what I meant! It’s…” she put her hooves down and sighed. “Sorry, it’s just…”
She looked up at the entrance to the cave, at the sunset still peering through the branches. “I… I thought that… I thought this was going to change me, somehow. Make me different. But now…” She picked up her hoof and examined it again. “Sure, I prefer my coat to an exoskeleton, but I don’t feel any different. On the outside, I’m a changeling, sure… but on the inside…” She took a deep breath. “I’m still me. I haven’t changed any… not in any way that matters, really.”
Rarity squinted up at her. “Madame Maquillage,” she demanded. “What’s your number?
Celestia looked up at her, her expression surprised, but not angry. “No. 7 Flat White,” she said, “with one-to-twenty parts of of Burnished Gold and Sunset Ruby. And—” she added, with her crimson eyes sparkling, “unless I miss my guess, your favorite designer is still Dress Form, Twilight’s favorite Daring Do is Emerald Skull, as much as she hates to admit it.”
Rarity looked over at Twilight. “Emerald Skull?” she repeated. Twilight simply nodded, dumbstruck.
Celestia grinned, then held her arms wide. “Come here,” she said, then pulled the two of them close.
“I’m still your Princess,” she said, “same as ever. And, as long as I have friends like you—” she squeezed them a little closer “—it’ll all be alright.”
Twilight chuckled, the sound muffled by Celestia’s side. “As long as we can make it back to Equestria in one piece,” she muttered.
“Enh,” Celestia replied, “that’s the easy part.”
And, despite themselves, all three of them laughed.