//------------------------------// // [Eyes of Judgement] Part: 1 (Scrapped) // Story: Chapter: 13 // by Chapter 13 //------------------------------// Edited by: Jeffh4 A lone figure trotted forward, head held high and on alert. It’s body was long and lanky, hair a wispy cyan. Random holes ran up each of the figure’s legs, its barrel covered in solid chitin armor. Paper thin wings protruded from it’s back. The figure’s muzzle was blank, showing no emotion. It’s mouth held large, carnivorous fangs that had been the end of countless souls. This figure was a changeling, a feared creature of legend. They were monsters, angels of death and deception. This one in particular embodied all these dark myths and held them true.   She was Chrysalis, the Dark Queen.   Chrysalis took a deep breath, filling her lungs to full capacity. The air was cold and stale, smelling of damp decay. She let it out, her warm breath turning to steam as it met the cold air beyond. Her eyes followed the mist as it flowed down the long, unnatural hallway before her. She could see no end. Piles of small black shapes were pressed against the smooth, water-hewn walls. She had to be underground.   The layout seemed familiar. It gave the changeling a feelings of deja vous ever since she had first found herself here. She felt no presence, her keen senses picking up nothing, but it did nothing to reassure her.   The changeling continued her trot forward, scrutinizing everything she passed. She was searching for something. What, she didn’t know. Why, she did not know either. The changeling felt that there was something she need to find.   Chrysalis licked the air, only to stop dead in her tracks. Her chitin ran cold, eyes going wide. She licked the air again, making sure she was not mistaken. She wasn’t. She looked around, seeing everything in a new light. She knew why everything felt familiar. She knew where she was.   Panic began to fill the changeling, but she froze. She felt fear, something Chrysalis did not feel often. "No… n-no," Chrysalis stuttered. “I-I can not be here!”   Control returned to the changeling. On frantic hooves, Chrysalis bolted forward. Shapes danced around her in her flight. The endless tunnel began to change; runoffs, side tunnels, imperfection, stalagmites, slime, and other distinctive features began to fill it. Her sprint skidded to a stop as she hit a crossroad two different paths before her. Chrysalis wracked her brain, trying to remember which one to take. She knew these tunnels, having overseen their construction, but was currently drawing a blank. A chill ran up her chitin. She could feel a presence. Without thinking, Chrysalis bolted down the right tunnel, not knowing where it lead. She didn’t care. She needed to get out. She needed to escape. She could not be there.   Chrysalis continued to flee forward, taking random side-routes, twists and turns, until she skidded to a halt once more. She had hit a dead end -- a large cavern that was lit by several sickly green crystals that pulsed with magic. Chrysalis turned around to backtrack, but found a solid wall in the place of where she had entered.   “What…?” Chrysalis muttered, only to shake her head and search for another exit. There was none. She was trapped. “No…”   Chrysalis began to panic. She stood in the center of the chamber, spinning in place. Tears soon began to fall from her eyes as she realized where she was trapped.   “No!” she choked out.   The walls became more defined. Details took shape. The walls that were once bare now held the broken, eroded remains of murals of happy changelings. The crystals began to dim, their color somehow turning an even sicker green. Black blobs that she once believed to be rocks that lined the walls began to take shape. Small limbs began to become defined. Soulless eyes began to stare back at her. Chrysalis dared to look at their little black bodies as she fell to her flank. Her eyes brimming with tears as she let out choked sobs. A sick feeling began to fill the changeling. It felt good, but made her sick. She felt the sensation of love flowing into her. The simplest, purest love she'd ever tasted. She could still taste it. She felt sick! She had to run. She had to get away. She had to escape!   Chrysalis became stiff as she heard something scuffled behind her. It was gentle, like the patter of little hooves. Her tears halted as a feeling of dread filled her. She slammed closed her eyes. Don't look! It crawled closer. She could sense it. Even though she could not see it with her eyes, every other sense told her what it was.   Something small brushed up against on of her hind hooves and shivered, frozen in place like a scared grub. Don't look! She told herself, but her body didn’t listen. Her eyes creaked open. She focused on the sight behind her.   "Weevil?" Chrysalis whispered.   Before her, a grub crawled towards her front hooves. It’s body was shriveled and raked against the floor as it moves. Its eyes, usually full of life, were but empty holes. She knew this grub, for he had been her first child…   Her first surviving child.   "I didn't do this," Chrysalis rasped, taking a step back. "Not to him. Not you. I saved you."   The grub let out a piteous cry. It was dry and gurgled, a perverted version of a grub’s usual adorable chirp. It looked up at her with hungry eyes. She knew that hunger. It shuffled closer.   Chrysalis took a shaky breath, and dropped to her haunches. Her child needed her. The grub crawled closer. She lifted it up to her in her magic and held the phantom of Weevil -- the Weevil she remembered, in her mind. He was so young, so precious. He had grown up to become a strong drone. She would always remember him…   The grub sank its tiny teeth into her neck, and Chrysalis felt an ungodly burning pain. She did not react. She did not scream. She could not. She could only remember…   Three children had survived her deadly feast, all those years ago. Two of them, Naiad and Cicadia, died only days later.   Chrysalis’ strength ebbed as the grub drank its fill, taking back what she had stolen all those years ago. The pain never faded, only growing. She wanted to move. She wanted to remove the perverted version of her child from herself. She wanted to escape.   Only Weevil had survived…   Weevil continued to drink. His body grew, his fangs lengthened. Chrysalis began to sway on her paralyzed hooves. She toppled backward, her skull cracking against the stone. The grub followed her to the ground, his fangs never leaving her throat. All she could do was feel her child feed on her life. The room seemed to grow darker. His legs and neck lengthened.   A ghostly siren resonated from within the void of her mind. The world began to shake and shutter, cracks forming in the walls around her.   Chrysalis felt control return.   Without a second thought, the changeling twisted her body and bucked the false image of her first child free from her. The fangs tear free from her skin. She stumbled to her hooves and backed up against the nearest wall, distancing herself as far as possible from the creature that had once held been her son.   On the other side of the cavern, the nymph began to twitch. It grew, pulsing with stolen love. Chrysalis watched with horror as Weevil continued to metamorphose. Soon, it slowly twisted and rose to its new height. A monster now stared back at the once queen.   Weevil's small body had grown to rival his mother’s. His once bald head was now covered in thick, dark green hair. It pulsed with unnatural energy. His once small maw had grown, now as menacing as a dragon’s. Rows of razor sharp teeth gleamed back at her. His wings grew in with a sickening crack, breaking through his newly grown carapace. On his back grew large, threatening black spikes. It gave her a toothed smile, blood pouring from her mouth.   Chrysalis pressed herself as much into the wall as she could, her eyes wide in fear. “Y-you are not Weevil! G-get back, monster!”   The creature licked his lips, catching the last drops of falling blood. It opened its maw wide, a blood-curdling roar escaping its mouth. The dark walls around the creature continued to crack and shift, sickly black fluid flowing from the openings. The piles of shriveled corpses shuddered and convulsed. One by one, they twisted free and fell to the floor. Dozens crawled all around creature, all looking at Chrysalis with soulless eyes.   Chrysalis felt a sharp bite on one hind leg. She bucked, dislodging the grub's devilish teeth. Snapping out of her fear-fueled paralysis, Chrysalis shot forward, wings extending as she took to the air. The creature reared, clubbing her with her hooves. She ducked her head, her back slamming hard into the stone ground. Chrysalis rolled forward and onto her hooves.   She tried to run, but felt something latch onto her hooves and she fell once more. Blazing pain filled the changeling as more of the soulless grubs began to climb onto her like a helpless animal trapped in a pool of leeches. She screamed, convulsed, and tried to use her magic to rip them free from her. Her efforts were in vain. In her struggle, she saw the creature that had once been her child slowly approach until it stood over her, teeth bared.   “Please!” Chrysalis screamed through the pain. “Have mercy!”   The creature smiled further, then lunged down and bit into her throat…   O O     O   Chrysalis’ eyes shot open, her body reacted on instinct. She tried jump to her hooves, only to get caught up in the blanket wrapped around her. She struggled, her flailing body falling from the bed and onto the floor with a loud thud. Her struggle continued on the floor for a few painful seconds before she finally freed herself from the sheet’s grip, throwing it across the room and scurrying back until she felt the wall. Now freed, Chrysalis frantically felt around her neck as she tried to find the puncture wounds. She could still feel the creature’s bite on her neck and the rest of the little abominations sinking their teeth in her flesh.   She lay shivering on the floor, back pressed to to the wall. She twitched at every sound, every creak that her appartment made. Her fur matted with sweat, her heart threatening to burst from her chest. “Just another nightmare,” Chrysalis told herself with another shuttered breath.   She felt silly, cowering like a little grub after a bad dream. If it had been anyone else, she would have personally called them weak, but she had felt the pain. She had felt the fear. The events of the nightmare had begun to fade from her mind, but the emotions it contained did not. She felt sick.   Chrysalis rose to her hooves.   She briefly surveyed her room. Her bed was where it was supposed to be, the small kitchen that bordered it held no signs of changing, her small dining room table still held the scraps of her meal, and her bathroom door was still closed. Everything was as it should be. With a shake of her head, Chrysalis turned towards the opposite wall and peered out the open window, noting the moon that hung high in the sky and the silver moonlight that cast through.   “Looks like I got less sleep than yesterday,” Chrysalis noted before she turned and trotted towards her closed bathroom door. She opened it with a hoof, fumbled for the enchanted crystal, and finally hissed at the explosion of blinding light upon her finding it. “Damn it!”   A few moments of rubbing her eyes and crude curses later, Chrysalis stepped forward and turned on her sink. She set the water to cold and splashed as much she could into her face. It was uncomfortable, but soon washed away the few hours of terrible sleep she had gotten. She reached around blindly to her left with a hoof until she felt one of her towels, then brought it to her muzzle and dried her face. When she dropped the damp towel into the water basin, she looked up and into her cabinet mirror.     An earth pony looked back.   Chrysalis matched the pony’s gaze for a minute. In her mind, she pictured it bursting into green flames and a changeling queen standing in its place. Proud. She smiled for a minute, just a small crease in the corners of her muzzle, but it was soon gone. The earth pony sighed once more.   The mare in the mirror was Crystal Eyeris; a tall, lanky dark grey earth pony mare with glowing green eyes, long cyan mane, and a broken, sickly green heart for a Cutie mark. The queen of many faces was gone, replaced by one. This one. But even with her face was gone, she still kept her own name, Chrysalis, if only behind closed doors. She refused to let her die.   She reached forwards and opened the mirror’s cabinet with a hoof and fished around for a brush. Finding one, she gently pulled it out, only to drop it into the sink with a shaky hoof. Chrysalis only let out a soft grumble, used to her lack of hoof dexterity, then reached forward with her mouth and slipped the brush’s band around her hoof. She closed the cabinet and began to brush her bedridden mane with the aid of the mirror. The action did little to wrangle the unmanageable cyan stands, but she did find the action comforting and soothing.   She returned the brush and regarded herself in the mirror. She smiled at her mostly managed mane, but frowned at the large black bags that hung under her eyes. It had been weeks since she had a good night’s rest. She shook her head, then paused, her skin prickling. She tilted her head and ears to the faint creak of depressed floorboards. Chrysalis rolled her eyes and shook her head again. “Of course she was going to make it tonight,” she muttered, stifling a yawn.   Chrysalis turned around and trotted out of the bathroom, trying desperately to ignore the large midnight-blue alicorn that sat in the center of the room, starlit mane waving in an unfelt wind.   "How is Crystal Eyeris these days?" "As miserable as ever," Chrysalis muttered as she opened her breadbox. The alicorn raised an eyebrow as she shifted to face the grey mare. "Last we met, I was under the impression that you had secured a more comfortable job and were enjoying the many benefits that came along with it. Is this still true?" Chrysalis sighed, spreading some hay on her bread. “Yes, my financial situation is more stable due to my new position, but it makes little difference -- I could be living in a gilded tower in upper Canterlot and I would still despise living as a peasant. Changelings do not belong among ponies. We are too different, too incompatible. I would rather live amongst manticores than your subjects."   “Must you speak so poorly of them? Our subjects may not be perfect, but the do manage to live together in relative harmony, their differences settled by discussion rather than blood.” Chrysalis chuckled, then took a bite of her sandwich. It was dry and tasted like treebark. Everything the ponies ate tasted like treebark. “You speak of it as if it is a good thing. A proper hive lives in perfect harmony; each drone, soldier, builder or broodmother doing their part. Passiveness is for the weak -- what good are one’s words if they are not backed by force? No, only the strong survive. Only the worthy may breed. Only those who prove that they are of value to the hive may be a part of it.”   “Is that why you were exiled?”   Chrysalis froze, her sandwich falling from her grasp. She turned to stare at Luna with burning fury. “My exile was due to a coup, not incompetence! Those fools, my children, were blinded. They did not see the big picture. They did not see what I saw. They knew nothing of what I did for them! The sacrifices I made!” The gray mare crouched like a cat ready to strike.   Luna did not flinch. Rather, she seemed to soften. “No one saw what you did, Chrysalis, and I am inclined to believe that even you only glimpsed a peek of it yourself. You were blinded by your ambition, leading your subjects by your greed under the false flag of prosperity.”   “If a queen flourishes, so does her hive!”   “Not if it is at the expense of her subjects, dear Chrysalis. You thought of only yourself, and this is what it got you. You were a selfish creature, and that fact caught up to you. Now, you live amongst those whom you once called weak as their equal. What makes Equestria strong is our ability to tolerate failure and weakness in the hopes of it making us better. Perfection is a myth, Chrysalis -- no one is without their faults. I would have believed you to understood this more than anypony.”   Chrysalis huffed, then turned away and picked up her dropped sandwich. She wanted nothing more than to rip the alicorn apart, bit by bit, but she knew better. Even when enraged she was not foolish enough to try. Chrysalis brooded to herself and took a solitary bite, followed by yet another yawn.   Luna seemed to take note of this. “Chrysalis, are you resting all right? Your eyes look weary and you seem frail, far more so than when we visited you last month.” Luna thought for a moment. “Is it stress of your new position? Insomnia? If so, I can suggest some blends of our sister’s tea that work wonders to--”   “Oh, don’t act all innocent,” Chrysalis cut off, her anger returning. “This is your doing!”   Luna blinked. “Pardon?”   The grey mare grit her teeth. “Your nightmares have been keeping me up for almost two weeks, now. You are the mare of dreams, are you not? I can hardly account for this many in a row as coincidence. Are you convinced my current punishment wasn’t making me suffer enough?” She went to say more, but had to step back as Luna advanced upon her, horn glowing. Without a word, Chrysalis felt Luna cast some sort of spell over her that bathed her in a quick wave of warmth. After this, the alicorn continued to look her over, far too close for comfort. Chrysalis stepped away. “What are you doing?!”   Luna blinked as if snapped out of a daze. She shook her head. “I am sorry, but if your words are true, then they make no sense,” she began, then elaborated, “I have been watching over your dreams the same as everyone else's, and you have not had a nightmare in quite some time. In fact, you have not dreamed at all in the exact period that you have stated. Not dreaming for extended periods of time is normal, but what you speak is simply impossible.”   The grey mare opened her mouth, then closed it. This process continued for several cycles until she shook her head. “Are you playing with me? It this some sort of trick? I have been plagued by terrible nightmares, each one leaving me exhausted and pained, and you are telling me that that you have no knowledge of them? You are either a liar, or a truly incompetent dreamwalker.”   “I speak only truth.” Luna shook her head. “If what you say is true, and you do suffer from these night terrors, then they are not dreams or nightmares. They must be something else.”   “What else could they be?! I go to bed, close my eyes, and am treated to horrors that make my chitin crawl!”   Chrysalis waited for an answer, but Luna did not give one. She watched as the alicorn began to pace, her face scrunched as she was deep in thought. Chrysalis fell to her haunches and waited for a reply, all anger she held replaced with worry.   “I cannot give you an exact answer at this time,” Luna finally admitted, stopping her pace to look at Chrysalis. “There are some creatures that can cause similar symptoms to what you put forth -- a Domovoi, Pesanta, or even Baku -- but none of them have been recorded anywhere near Canterlot for centuries -- my sister’s wards over our capital prevent their advance.” She paused, then looked out the window at the still high moon. “If it is one of them, then one of the wards may have fallen, or corruption is ahoof. Whatever it may be, I will get to the bottom of it.” She returned her view back to Chrysalis, her eyes holding back burning rage. Chrysalis almost flinched. “I must review our wards and inquire if more citizens are affected or if it is distinct to you. Given your true identity, I would not be surprised that if someone were to learn of it, they would send one of these creatures to do you harm.” Luna thought for a second, then shook her head. “Yes, there is much work to be done. I request that you remain awake for your safety and report to my chambers at the rising of the next moon. Be careful, Chrysalis. You may be in danger.”   With that said, Luna’s horn lit up briefly in a violet glow and her body dissipated into a starry purple mist that matched her mane. The mist wasn’t stationary for long as it crawled into the air and shot out the open window. Chrysalis, for her part, blinked. She barely registering what had just transpired. With a shake of her head, the gray mare finished her sandwich and trotted over to her bed. She poked her muzzle over to the nightstand and retrieved one of the books, hopped up onto the bed, then opened it and began to read by the moonlight, waiting for the sun to rise.   She hadn’t planned on going back to sleep anyway...   O O     O It was now hours later. The sun had come and gone. The moon was just starting to raise. Chrysalis had just got off work. The grey mare trotted down the still busy streets of Canterlot, her cyan hair still done up in a neat little bun and was still wearing her secretary uniform. For the first time in seemingly countless hours, a large frown was plastered on her face. She had gotten good at pretending to care about ponies while working at her job, having to smile the entire time, but that never made her like it. Far from it. As soon as she walked out the door, a huge angry frown became plastered on her face. Chrysalis made her way down Canterlot's main street, pushing past all the other passersby with no remorse, and headed towards the castle. Part of her wanted to ignore the princess and just go home, but when she remembered that there could possible be a creature that was trying to kill her, that changed her mind. She didn’t like it, but she actually did need the princess’ help. Hopefully, when she did whatever she had to do to fix this, Chrysalis would be able to have a good night sleep and never see the lunar princess again. She would be content with at least one coming true. Chrysalis smiled at the thought, but it fell as soon as she found herself at the footsteps of castle. Canterlot Castle was, well, a castle. It was grand, imposing, and everything that a castle was suppose to be. She thought it would look better as a pile of rubble. She ascended the steps, made her presence and intent known to one of the guards, and soon she was being ushered forward by one of the lunar guard. Apparently they had been informed of her arrival, and thus the whole mess had been a whole lot easier. Hopefully everything else would go this quick and painless and she would be out of this place before no time. The palace reeked of failure. Chrysalis soon found herself standing in front of a large door with a crescent moon expertly crafted into its front. She assumed that this would either be the night princess’ study or bedroom. She would find out which soon enough. The guard opened the door and ushered her inside. She followed his command, but was surprised when the door was shut behind her and was not followed in. Chrysalis had not been expected to be ushered to the princess’ private quarters and merely left alone. Either these ponies were too easy to trust, or she was not considered a threat. She hoped it was the former -- she had already lost enough dignity. The room itself was actually larger than she had expected. Back when she was queen, her personal chambers were more akin to a broom closet in comparison. The room was large and circular, with a lower inset level in the middle. The walls that were not lined with bookshelves held large clear windows. The ceiling was in the shape of a dome with a large telescope sticking out of the top. The rest of the room was covered with open books, tables, and other random assorted junk, and a single hearth that burned with purple fire next to the bed. It was surprisingly unorganized. Part of her wanted to do some snooping, but another part told her no. If she had been in Luna’s place, the entire chamber would be tamperproof, with more than one deadly ward thrown in for good measure. It felt like an out of character thing for the princess to do, but nothing she did made sense to her. She agreed with her gut and did not take the risk. Chrysalis walked around the perimeter of the room, taking care to keep a safe distance between her and everything but the floor, and sat herself down next to the burning hearth, basking in it’s warmth. Luna’s quarters was noticeably colder than the rest of the castle. It would be some time until Chrysalis felt another presence enter the room. If she wasn’t actively waiting for someone to enter, she would have missed the soft hiss from the ending of a magical teleport. The earth pony rose to her hooves and turned around. She noticed that Luna now stood in the middle of the large bedroom, nose deep in a book as if she had been there the entire time. Not one to be ignored, Chrysalis made her presence known with a loud cough. To her surprise, Luna jumped, dropping the book she was reading and turned to face Chrysalis, who looked back with a proud smirk. “Did I scare you?” Luna, who took a few deep breaths, calmed herself before responding. “I would be lying if I said no,” she began, then picked up the book she had dropped and levitated it back into one of the bookshelves. “My mind has been at its end with our current situation, so your apparent scare wasn’t much of a notable event.” Chrysalis thought elsewise, but dropped the topic for something more important. “Speaking of which, what have you learned? Am I being haunted, or is this just a show of incompetence?” “What I have learned only adds more questions than it answers,” Luna admitted as she trotted up towards the earth pony and sat beside her. “No wards have been broken. The guard reports no breach. And none of our other subjects appear to be affected by what ails you.” She paused, then looked towards Chrysalis sternly. “With what has been presented to me, I am inclined to believe your claims to be false. Fabricated.” She growled. “A waste of my time.” For the first time since they had met, Chrysalis felt anger radiating from the alicorn. Luna’s calm, forever-forgiving attitude, was gone, replaced with pure anger. All confidence drained from the earth pony. “I-I am not l-lying!” she stuttered, shrinking back and away from the alicorn. Though she could not see them, Chrysalis felt Luna’s eyes burn into her. She feared for her own safety. This was the alicorn that she knew Luna to be; the face behind the facade. She waited for her wrath to strike, hoping it would be quick and painless. A sigh. “As I feared, you speak the truth…” “What?” Chrysalis’ body stopped shivering. She lifted her head and turned toward the alicorn. The anger in Luna’s eyes were gone, once again replaced with neutrality. “As I feared, you tell the truth. This only means that I am completely clueless to what ails you.” The anger in Chrysalis surges. “What in Tartarus was all of that about, then!” she screamed. “Are you playing with me?” Luna shook her head. “No, I only wished the truth. You do not make retrieving such a thing easy.” “You enjoyed my fear,” she spat. Luna’s eyes fell, of only for a moment. “Once, I may have, but not now.” She sighed. “I do not take pleasure in your fear. I despise it. But, if fear is needed to gain the truth, it is a necessary evil.” Chrysalis wanted to respond, but chose to stay silent. Her eyes left the alicorn and back toward the floor. “So that’s it, then. You’re just going to give up.” She let out a forced chuckle. “I do not know why I expected anything else.” “Far from it,” she heard Luna speak up. Chrysalis looked up from the ground to see a strangely optimistic Luna. “Just because I do not know the cause does not mean that I will not search for it. Yes, what ails you does seem unique, but that only makes it a puzzle -- a challenge -- and all puzzles have a solution.” The former changeling cocked an eyebrow. “And how are you going to go about that?” Luna smiled, her horn glowing. “By gathering up all the pieces.” Before the grey mare could act, Luna placed her glowing horn to her forehead. The alicorn kept it there, her eyes closed. In that moment, she felt a warmth flow around her like the embrace of a warm blanket. She smiled, closing her eyes to enjoy the moment. It did not last. Chrysalis opened them violently to the sound of shuttering breath. Luna, horn still to her head, was gasping. Her eyes were still closed, by the former changeling could see tears flowing freely behind them. She then began to scream, both in seemingly pain and fear. Chrysalis watched in horror. Luna’s eyes shot open. The alicorn instantly shot back, using her wings in a desperate attempt to get away from what Chrysalis believed to be her. Luna’s panic ended when she backed into a bookcase with such force that books it held began to rain down off the shelves and onto poor panicking alicorn. After that, Luna didn’t move, looking at Chrysalis as if she had seen a ghost. Both were silent. “T-that was no dream,” Luna finally managed to stutter out through shaken breath. The alicorn then shook her head and rose to her hooves, the books cascading off of her as she rose, then trotted briskly towards another book shelf and began frantically searching. The stunned former changeling eventually shook her head, snapping out of her haze. She rose to her hooves and marched towards the alicorn who continued to frantically search the bookshelf for something she knew nothing about. For a moment, Chrysalis just observed the frantic alicorn, trying to figure out how to word the questions that had begun to build up in her mind. Eventually, she decided to give voice to all of them. “What did  do you just do? What just happened? What are you looking for?” Luna didn’t even flinch. The former changeling began to get frustrated. What was she searching for? What had happened? Why wasn’t she saying anything?! “Hey!” Chrysalis cried out in anger, then headbutted the alicorn in the side. “Stop ignoring me!” After this yielded no response,  Chrysalis huffed and trotted back over toward the fire. She was getting nowhere. She gave up her pitiful efforts and decided to wait the mare out, hoping that she’d give her answers when she was ready. Sure enough, the alicorn eventually trotted over to meet Chrysalis over by the fire. She sat opposite her, head buried in a book held in her magic grasp. “I believe I have an idea,” Luna spoke as she closed the book and looked up toward the grey mare. Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “Great. Now, can you fill me in on what happened prior to your little meltdown?” “Yes, that…” Luna bit her lip. “Well, I attempted to read your dreams with an… unexpected result. I saw… things that I would rather not remember. It did not give me much, but it did confirm that this is not a dream, but something else entirely.” “And that ties into your idea how?” “I was getting to that,” Luna huffed. “Although it is not a dream, it seems to have some of the characteristics of one. Which ones, and to what extent, I am not entirely sure, but I do believe that I may be able to enter whatever it is like I would a dream.” “You want to go in there?!” Luna nodded. “Yes. In order to see what this is, and figure out a way to get rid of it, I need to examine it. So, I shall approach it as if it were a nightmare and react as such.” Although she was still confused, Chrysalis nodded. “Okay, I guess?” Luna nodded. “Indeed.” Her horn began to glow, and once again she lowered it toward the former changeling. “Now, hold still. And, please, try not to panic…” Her horn made contact. Chrysalis felt her body begin to tingle, followed soon after by her vision flashing red, then black... O O     O Chrysalis groaned. Her head hurt, pulsing as if it were filled with newborn grubs, and she was lay on her side on a floor too hard and uneven to be that of the castle. Had she passed out? Had she been moved? Figuring that laying there would yeild her no answers, she rose to her hoove. To her surprise, she found her vision blurred. She blinked; it began to clear. For some reason, her vision remained it was thickly clouded, fogged. She blinked again. To her surprise, the fog wasn’t in her vision, but all around her. Her head swiveled as she surveyed her location. She wasn’t in the castle. She was outside of it. “Did that stupid pony eject me from her castle?” She sat in the middle of downtown Canterlot, from what she could see through the thick fog, but it was different. The street she was in was devoid of life. The shops were closed. Everything around her was covered in a thick layer of omnipresent fog, much thicker than anything she had seen during her stay in the city. Everything seemed… decayed. The ground was covered in a layer of what looked like grey snow, that still fell from the sky. Why was it snowing midsummer? It had been warm when she had entered the castle! Chrysalis reached out a hoof to grab one of the fluffy grey flakes, but paused. Her hoof was not grey, it was black. It was holed. It was… it was her real hoof. She looked down at the rest of her body and found that, like her hoof, her real body had returned. Frantically, Chrysalis stumbled to her hooves and ran toward one of the closed shops. To her utter annoyance, the shopkeeper had deemed it proper to board up their windows. Had there been a blizzard? Chrysalis shook her head, then ran to the next shop. Like the last, it was completely boarded up. This cycle continued. Five shops later, Chrysalis found what she was looking for: an intact window. The changeling -- yes, changeling -- looked at her reflection in the dirty window. She raised her holed hoof, the reflection mirrored her movement. She was… she was back. She was Chrysalis. She was… whole. The reflection smiled, then frowned as she shook her head. No, something was still wrong. Why was she back? What had happened? What was wrong with Canterlot? Having gotten a closer look at the shops, she had notice more that was wrong. They weren’t just closed, they were abandoned. What she could see past the boarded up storefronts looked to be completely abandoned interiors. The exteriors appeared to have been unmaintained for some time; paint chipped and peeling, windows broken, walls cracked, and so on. This was unheard of for the pristine city, and was not so the last time she had visited the district for her basic amenities. Chrysalis also noticed that it was not cold. Changelings were particularly sensitive to the climate. She dipped her hoof into the grey snow and inspected it. It was not snow. “Ash?” Chrysalis muttered. “Why is it raining ash?” Her first thought was fire, but she could see nor smell any smoke or visible source. Something large enough to produce this much would easily have been seen from her location, if not smelled. Her heightened senses had returned with her visage. “Something is wrong,” the changeling spoke again. “This is not right.” She looked around cautiously. She was on alert. Something had happened. Something big. She needed answers, and she knew the first place that she had to check: Canterlot Castle. With luck, Luna would still be in her chambers, and she would get answers. With her form returned, she would get them. The former queen trotted down the middle of the street, heading toward the castle. Her ears swiveled like duel sentries, yet she heard no sound but her hooves crunching through the soft ash. She was alone. A single entity within the silent Canterlot.