It was stifling in the throne room. hot and humid, and very, very dark.
Water dripped quietly from ancient stalactites that rose like monstrous fangs from the ceiling and floor. The steady drip, drip, drip mingled with a distant, muffle stirring deep down in some molten chasm in the earth.
Thirteen spires of black marble and jagged obsidian rose from the depthless chasm below, crooked and uneven, like the bent spokes of a crown. Thirteen thrones rose from these thirteen spires, each a cold representation of who they belonged to. Some were drizzled with melted wax from countless candles. Some were cocooned in dark green glassy formations, like living nightmares not yet matured. Some were draped in things best left undescribed. All were arranged around a jutting platform that rose well below their lofty perches.
There was no floor beneath that. Just an empty, yawning chasm that plunged down… down… down into noxious depths that rumbled with slumbering earthly fury. Acidic fumes rose from the disquited depths, glowing with the green, copper-fed flames from the deeps. The faint emerald light cast from below was all the illumination granted, and it was too faint for regular ponies to ever make use of.
But for those with sensitive eyes, one might discern the shapes of the thrones, and the predatory glimmer of eyes coming from many of them.
They all sat quietly, with the exception of one - her private tittering and giggling wore on the nerves of the others - and waited in total silence.
The sound of approaching hooves drew their attention. Even the manic whisperer hushed.
From further down, a point of light emerged. It grew and grew until one could make out an entryway far away, and the long staircase that rose towards the thirteen thrones.
All eyes watched as a strange creature made her way up the stairs, escorted by a pair of changeling guards. Their horns lit the way, casting just enough light to show the path and give the shadows definition, but nothing more. Halfway up the stairs, and the walls fell into darkness, leaving only the volcanic stone walkway and the solidified, glassy green mucus reinforcements as the sole object visible.
Their hooves echoed loudly, giving the impression of an immense space, though it was not clear how immense. The light cast by the horns of the escorts cast a faint, reflective glimmer high above, as if catching on some irregular, glistening surface that surrounded the space, just out of sight. A glass dome, perhaps, or something far more abstract.
When the party reached the top, both guards stepped aside, and let Queen Applejack take center stage. She noticed them skirt around her, as if she was physically too hot to be too close to.
No announcement had been made. No messenger dispatched. Applejack had noted all of this. And yet here they all were. It was like they all had been waiting for her. Waiting for this moment all along. Some cynical part of Applejack’s mind wouldn’t have been surprised if that was the case.
Finally, a voice broke the humid, sulfurous air.
“Well, well, well. If it isn't the prodigal daughter, herself.”
Applejack scowled at the voice. It was the same voice she had heard at the royal wedding all those months ago. The one that had started all of this, in a manner of speaking. Hearing it again made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
Queen Chrysalis lounged on the tallest throne spire of all, clearly setting herself as the loftiest of all the queens present. Though no pony would be able to make her out at all, Applejack could just make out her lanky shadow, and the predatory gleam reflecting in her slitted eyes - a pair of greenish stars in the dark. Applejack could not make out her expression, but she had a fair enough idea of what it might be. She could almost hear the smirk on her face with every word she spoke.
“So nice of you to finally pay the rest of your family a visit,” Chrysalis said, a sly grin on her voice. “I was starting to think you didn’t really care about us.”
The mad tittering began again, this time taking the form of barely repressed giggles coming from one particular throne.
“To bad, so sad. Yes, yes… no time to prepare, no time for presents, no, no…” chattered a raspy female voice from the gloom. “Make something special for her next time, yes, yes. Very special… melt the flesh from her bones next time… oh yes, yes… No, no…. Pustules! Yes… yes...”
“Cease your gibbering, Cerbera,” snapped a terse voice from another throne, the one on Chrysalis’ immediate right. “Really, what a disgraceful creature you are.”
The voice belonging to Cerbera quieted, but did not stop. She continued to mutter darkly, carrying on a full-blown conversation with herself.
Applejack eyed the throne Cerbera’s voice came from. She could make out the form of a queen, but she was too shrouded in darkness for any other details. All Applejack could really determine was a furtive sense of motion, a manic sort of jittering that, though she could not make sense of it, caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up further.
Her throne, appeared to be… glistening… as if it were wet, or made from something… fleshy. She very much didn’t want to find out which it was.
“You will have to forgive Queen Cerbera,” Chrysalis said, her voice filling the stuffy air. “She is… excitable. She’s had a tough run of things, you see. Knocked a few screws loose.”
A startlingly guttural snarl rent the air. At first, Applejack couldn’t tell where it came from, until Cerbera began speaking, her voice low and husky, almost feral.
“Down in the cold dark we fled. Down in the cold dark we bled. Down in the cold dark we fled. Down in the cold dark it fed ….”
She snorted, and was suddenly wrapped up in her own conversation about the pros and cons of tumors, as if not noticing what she’s just snarled out.
Applejack said nothing, but she continued to warily eye the point where Cerbera’s grumbling was coming from. Apparently her own conversation wasn't going in her favor.
“See?” Chrysalis said. “She’s fine. Pay her no mind.”
Applejack wasn’t too convinced by that. But all the same, she redirected her attention back to Chrysalis.
“I must say, I am rather curious,” Chrysalis said pleasantly. “Frankly I never thought you'd muster up the courage to venture out of your precious Equestria. I’m sure your hive has made it plenty clear what awaited you beyond its borders, where all your pretty little safeguards couldn’t keep us out.”
In the gloom, Applejack noticed Chrysalis lean towards her, her long neck craning over her, mane hanging like a torn banner in the open air.
“Which leads me to believe you have some business with me.”
Applejack could feel the tension stirring around her. The queens were all giving her their undivided attention now. Even Cerbera paused to gauge the situation. Of all the gazes she felt the hardest, though, it was the one atop the Queen of Queens’ throne.
“Ah do,” Applejack said. She would not be deterred so easily, not after coming this far, and she was impressed by how level she sounded. She hardly felt the same way.
“Oh?” Chrysalis said back. Applejack just thought she caught the glimmer of a fanged smile. “Do tell, sweetie.”
Applejack’s eyes narrowed. It was clear to her that Chrysalis was thoroughly unimpressed by her. Though she would not admit it aloud, standing in Chrysalis’s presence again was just as nerve-wracking as the first time. She exuded menace, like a hungry panther watching it's cornered prey. This, Applejack’s gut told her, was not someone to be trifled with. And though she had utterly dismissed Applejack as a threat, as evident by her relaxed posture, she was under no delusion that Chrysalis would end her life without ceremony right then and there, if she had half a mind to.
But Applejack was not about the back down in the face of her leer. Compared to Phantasma, and the nightmare she’d been put through, Chrysalis was hardly frightening. Applejack hadn’t come to cower.
“Ah came ta give y’all a message,” she stated.
That got the queens tittering.
“A message, she says!” cried a haughty voice from Applejack’s right, making her start. “Ho ho! Is her hive so incompetent that she must take up such menial tasks as errands? What a dreadful state of affairs. Can’t even muster a messenger to do it properly! Oh dear, oh dear...”
“Ah came because Ah wanted to,” Applejack said, raising her voice to be heard over the murmuring. “If Ah have somethin’ ta say, Ah’ll be the one ta say it.” she added, casting a look around the gathered queens looming over her. “Besides… Ah get the feelin’ this meetin’ has been long overdo.”
Another, bubbly voice cooed from her left. “Aw, isn't that precious. Such a straightforward way of thinking. So very honest.”
“You mean naive,” countered the terse voice again. “Such a simple minded approach is unbefitting a queen of any stature. Even one of hers.”
Applejack glanced at the source of that voice.
Of all the thrones, this was the most angular. It was straight-backed, precise in shape and function. And strangely, it appeared to be… reinforced. Applejack couldn’t make out exactly what it was, but it was not crystalline mucus or stone, but something that glinted with a different, metallic light.
Atop the throne, a queen sat, equally straight, equally rigid and statuesque. Whoever this was, Applejack could not tell, but she could feel her contempt rolling off of her like an arctic frost.
“Ladies, ladies,” Chrysalis sighed, and the congregation of queens fell quiet. “Let her speak. She has come a very long way to tell us something of remarkable importance, I’m sure.”
Applejack started to open her mouth to speak when she was interrupted.
“Ah, but do try to pick your words with some care, my dear,” Chrysalis mentioned. She sounded as conversational as before, if maybe a touch derisive. But Applejack heard the threat in her tone loud and clear. “You aren’t wrong. This meeting has been a long time in the making. We do have much to discuss. But sooner or later…” Applejack almost felt the smile slip from her lips. “Even the best jokes stop being funny. So… do mind how you deliver the punchline.”
Maybe it was Applejack’s imagination, but the room seemed to get ten degrees colder all of a sudden.
Chrysalis deliberately crossed her front hooves, taking a moment to study Applejack. “First impressions are very important, my dear,” she chortled. “So please. Continue.”
Applejack tried not to gulp. Her heart fluttered, a chill threatening to crack her composure.
It’s okay…
She took a breath. She steadied her.
’I’m right here… You got this…’, said a small, voiceless sound in her head.
Applejack let her breath out.
“Then, Ah’ll get to the point. Ah came here ta tell ya… Ah am sorry.”
That took the proverbial rug right out from under everyone.
“I'm sorry?” Chrysalis said, blinking once. She even cleaned out her ear with one hoof before adding, “What did you say?”
“Not making sense, no, no,” Cerbera muttered to herself. “Must be touched in the head. Yes, yes…”
“As if you have room to talk,” muttered another queen.
“It speaks to me. Why does it speak to me? Should we make it quiet? Swell her tongue, make her choke on it...”
“Enough,” Chrysalis snapped. Her eyes stayed in Applejack, only now they were narrowed. She wasn’t in a teasing mood anymore.
“You came all this way… to say you’re sorry,” she repeated, deadpan.
Applejack nodded. “Well, that’s the gist of it,” she said. “Cuz of me, everythin’s been gettin’ out of hoof. Ah can't rightly blame ya, not after what Phantasma did. Somepony new comin’ in and changin’ things… after her, Ah understand why y’all are gettin’ yer hackles up. So, Ah’m sorry.”
Chrysalis merely looked at her, inscrutable. What game was this strange creature playing at now?
“But.”
Applejack took a step forward. “We all know things can't stay this way forever. Change is comin’, sooner or later. As scary as it sounds, there ain’t stoppin’ it at this point.”
Applejack raised her hoof - her whole, unblemished hoof - and placed it against her chest.
“We’re all stuck. All this hate and anger… Sooner or later, somethin’s gonna bust.” Applejack looked up towards the glimmer of those eyes high above her. “And that’s what I’m afraid’s gonna happen.”
Applejack could feel the contempt in Chrysalis’ gaze. “And what exactly is your point?”
“Just what Ah said,” Applejack responded. “That things are changin’. Ah am livin’ proof that that change don’t have ta be a bad thing.”
“Debatable,” commented the terse queen stiffly.
“We don't have ta sneak about like no good thieves,” Applejack pressed on, speaking over her. “We, all of us, can stand in the open, in the light. We don’t have ta take. We can receive. We can give. All it takes is a little courage.”
Applejack put her hoof down again. “And that’s what Ah’m here for. That’s what my Ma put me here for: Ta find the way outta this… this… rut we dug ourselves into. Ah know that now.”
“Mighty chivalrous of you,” Chrysalis said. “Coming all this way like some kind of messiah sent to save her flock. Ah… how poetic.”
She rose from her throne, becoming a towering black shadow in the darkness. “Freshly into your adult chitin, and already acting like you rule the world. Still a self-centered brat with no concept of how the world works. Allow me to share a little insight with you, then. Free of charge… this time.”
Applejack heard the buzz of wings, a sudden flash of movement, and then the monster was in her face. Chrysalis was so close that she could see every line on her face, every strand of lank hair, every line of her fangs. Up close, her grin looked as wide as a bear trap.
Applejack took an automatic step back from that gaunt visage. Chrysalis chuckled in response and straightened up from her landing, her expression straightening.
“Your mistake is that you still see the world as black and white,” Chrysalis said. “Us versus them. Good versus evil. Pretty little constructs to keep the safe in and the bad out. But do you know what real calamities are? No, you couldn’t. You and your ponies have been too busy partying - living it up for the smallest occasions! Then take it from someone who has lived on the other side of the fence, where the grass isn’t greener.”
She began circling Applejack, moving slow as a panther. Her eyes glowed in the dark, emerald coals set into a nightmare face.
“It’s not good and evil. That is something familiar, something ponies can understand. It gives the mewling masses something to rally behind, something to structure their world with. The real threat isn’t good or evil. It’s change. Ah yes, change. The great unknown. Throw a tyrant at someone, and they can cope. Trust me,” she leered, “I know.”
Applejack narrowed her eyes at her.
“Because good is right, and evil is wrong. Black and white. But here’s the thing - no one is evil. No one wakes up one day and decides they’re going to be a monster.”
She leaned in closer. “We’re all the heroes of our own story, are we not? No, what is important is that all things remain exactly how they are. Because it is safe. It is certain. When you throw someone’s place in the world into question, take all they know as certain and safe and fling it out a window, never to be seen again… Ah, that, my dear, is what armageddon is made of.”
Chrysalis stepped up closer and gazed at Applejack, so close they were almost nose to nose again. This time, Applejack didn’t take a step back.
“You say you aren't Phantasma. And yet your promise rings of hers so very clearly. You bring change, a better future… And all we need to do is tear down the empires we’ve bled to keep alive. You bring chaos and upheaval. You would turn our world on its head, again. And all you can think to do is say ‘I’m sorry’. Only, not really.”
She dropped her voice to a chilly whisper. “Does that sound about right?”
The congregation chuckled. Applejack remained unfazed, expression blank. She caught a faint glint of Chrysalis’ grin out of the corner of her eye as she whipped around and started to saunter away.
“Equestria has made you so very simple-minded. All that partying and… whatever it is your ponies do has made you ignorant of the world around you, clawing at your gates to be let in. You don’t know what hardship, what true calamity is. We do. We’ve lived it. We’ve sharpened our fangs on the wreckage of it. We’ve tasted the wet copper in our mouths and stepped over the mangled messes of the ones too weak to carry on. We’ve had our entire world come crashing down on our backs - an entire civilization. And we pitched it back up. Not you - us. Some of us emerged more… disfigured… than others. But we did it - without your little miracle cure. And what have you done? Kicked some trees?”
Applejack’s eyes turned to the gibbering form of Cerbera, who now seemed to be whimpering to herself, curled in a ball on her throne. She was murmuring that guttural phrase again, quiet as a breeze.
Chrysalis opened her wings, brought them to a thrum, and casually lifted herself back up to take her place on her throne again. She turned, sat down, and gave Applejack a cold look, her eyes once again emerald stars in the void overhead.
“So, little foal, how about I throw another idea at you. You barely scraped through a skirmish with a bunch of queenless insurgents. Oh yes, we knew about them,” she added. “quite the amusing show you all put on, scampering about like headless ants without the faintest idea of what was going on. But they were few, with a hastily thrown together plan of attack. Child’s play. And yet, they came this close to toppling you. And now here you stand, in front of not a band of guerrilla fighters, but the apex of our entire race, the heart, mind and if need be, fist with legions at our beck and call and a lifetime of scars to draw upon. And you think to stand before us… and tell us what to do?”
All eyes went to Applejack again. She looked up at Chrysalis for a while, but said nothing.
Chrysalis chortled, and said softly. “How is it, again, you are not like Phantasma?”
She was goading her, Applejack realized. She felt her temper flare, but she fought it down.
Everything she’d been about to say had gone out the window. Chrysalis had steered the conversation far from where she’d rehearsed. So, in times like this, Applejack could only rely on her gut and do what she did best.
“Because,” Applejack said bluntly, “Phantasma didn’t give ya a choice. Ah am, and what Ah’m offerin’, Ah ain’t askin’ for anything in return.”
She took a step forward, staring hard at Chrysalis. “Because, like it or not, we are family. And if Ah’ve learned anythin’ from livin’ with ponies, its that family always looks out fer family.”
Applejack glanced around, observing each of the thrones in turn. “If’n anyone is interested, y’all know where ta find me. If not, yer free ta do whatever ya want. Ah ain’t gonna stand here and twist yer hoof.”
She could feel Chrysalis’ scrutinizing gaze. Applejack could almost hear the unspoken question in her mind - just what game was she playing? What scheme was she up to?
For the first time, a pang of some new feeling ran through Applejack. Looking up at the paranoid creature, Applejack felt a wave of pity wash over her. Chrysalis was so used to ulterior motives and backstabbing that she couldn’t see any offer as being exactly what it was stated to be. And Applejack knew that would likely never change.
Chrysalis was right. She was disfigured by the abuses her life had inflicted on her heart and mind. In that moment, Applejack saw everything she hated about changelings, and now, everything she felt sorry for, all personified in that lofty throne in a lightless chamber in some shadowed hole in the earth.
But there were more here, some who had stayed quiet, observant. They listened without comment, without voicing any derision or suspicion. It was their silence that Applejack heard the most. Because it was them she spoke to most.
“Ah said my piece.” Applejack said, and turned, preparing to leave. But as she turned, she continued to speak. “But let me make somethin’ real clear ta y’all. Ah said y’all are free ta do whatever ya like out here, and Ah mean it. But from here on, Equestria is under my protection. If ya come lookin’ for a fight… If ya try ta hurt everypony Ah love…!”
She looked back, dead in Chrysalis’ eyes with an intensity that burned with a slumbering, ancient power. Everyone saw it, and for the first time, the contempt dissipated in the room.
“You will lose. Badly.”
Twelve horns erupted to life. Twelve bolts of acidic light were launched through the air, and struck with resounding explosions that shook the chamber to its foundations.
The platform beneath the thrones crumbled, and toppled into the bottomless chasm, creating cacophonous booms and bangs as it went, finishing in a distant, barely audible splash.
As the dust settled, twelve pairs of eyes looked down with burning derision… and then wide-eyed astonishment. Because Applejack still stood exactly where she had been, even though the floor beneath her hooves was gone.
Shimmering holes were blown through her body, but they only distorted it, and in a few moments, they resealed themselves with little pops. She showed no signs of pain, or injury as she turned halfway to face them, indifferent to the warped blotches perforating her body that were already smoothing out.
Applejack glared at Chrysalis. Then, she cocked a smirk. “Guess Ah ain’t as stupid as ya thought, huh?”
And then, with a crackle, her form dissipated into a shower of magical sparks. It wasn’t a teleportation spell, but rather like someone had just turned off a television.
Silence reigned in the chamber. Stunned eyes stared at where the image if Applejack had been. The quiet was only broken when Chrysalis began to laugh. She worked her way up from small chuckled to great peals of laughter, until even Cerbera was giving her a worried look.
Chrysalis sat back down. She flipped her mane out of her eyes, and leered down with a smile full of pointed, savage teeth. She put a hoof up to her face, and gazed through one of the holes to the last place she’d seen Applejack.
“Good. Very good.” she snarled, pleased. “We’ll make a halfway decent queen out of you yet, my dear.”
The horns of the gathered queens dimmed, then went out as her laughter resumed, echoing through the nebula of darkness at the heart of a vast network of chambers.
Thousands of blue eyes opened in the gloom, thousands rousing at the sound of their queen’s voice. Many others stretched in the darkness - things of abhorrent natures, things kept in cages and confined to collapsed lava tubes or chambers intentionally left closed off to the world.
Far from Equestria, far from all things familiar and sane to ponykind, the Shining Throne stirred for the first time in months. Its black shadow jutted up towards the sky, its misshapen form wreathed in sulfuric clouds and the glow of green-tinged fire from deep within its heart.
No living thing stirred in the twisted, dessicated trees at its foot. But the shriveled boughs moved all the same. They quivered as the earth quaked ominously.
~~***~~
Applejack heaved a sigh of relief as her surroundings snapped back into focus.
She stood in a much more inviting location - the crystal throne room atop her spire, hundreds if not thousands of miles away from that dreadful place. The cool breeze wafted over her, replacing the noxious fumes lingering in her nostrils with scents of a pine forest, instead. The stagnant, humid air was gone, and the warmth of a summer’s day surrounded her. Only then did she feel like she could actually breathe again.
On all sides of her, eight changeling drones heaved sighs of relief as their horns fizzled out. Standing in front of Applejack, a little blue in the face from holding her breath, stood Cadance. As Applejack’s eyes reopened, she let out her breath in a big rush, and nearly collapsed.
The projection spell had been a product of Cadance’s spellcraft, the changelings - who had knowledge of where the projection spell was supposed to be directed - acted as aiming beacons, and the vast reserves of Applejack’s own strange magic acted as a battery. Considering the many, many leagues between them and their target, Applejack was only slightly lightheaded, and those around her were quickly recovering from their discombobulation.
Applejack relaxed her stance, and wobbled slightly. That hadn’t taken as much out of her as she’d expected, but she definitely felt like she’d sprinted the length of a hoofball field. Her balance returned quickly, and her sight cleared.
Standing not far away, Rainbow watched apprehensively. “So?” she asked.
“Did you see them?” Cadance added, inquisitive despite being drained, physically and mentally. “What was it like?”
Applejack shook herself. “Y’all know a word stronger than spooky?”
She winced. “That, bad, huh?”
“Duh!” Rainbow interjected. “Of course it was bad! They’re bad guys. Super creepy is kinda what they do.”
Bad guys…
Applejack frowned to herself, then shook her head.
Rainbow turned to Applejack then. “What’d they say? It was kinda weird seeing your side of the conversation only.”
Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Before or after they tried to blast me to bits?”
Everypony present winced now. “Well, I’m not that surprised,” Cadance admitted. “I was actually impressed that they didn’t try to blast you the moment you walked in. The important thing is you had a chance to speak, which means hopefully someone was listening.”
“We’ll have ta wait and see,” Applejack said. She let out a breath. “Probably won’t have ta wait long.”
Cadance nodded, frowning. “Knowing them, word will spread fast through their ranks. Worst case scenario, the border’ll have its hooves full very soon.”
She looked at Applejack, worry in her eyes. “I guess all we can do now is pray.”
Applejack nodded.
“Do you know if Aconita was there?” Rainbow asked suddenly.
Applejack looked at her, then shook her head. “No. Too dark. But… Ah think one of the thrones was empty. Only saw twelve blasts aimed at my face, not thirteen.” She eyed Rainbow. “Why?”
Rainbow shrugged. “I dunno. I just thought, if anyone would listen, maybe it'd be her. I know it sounds weird, but… I didn’t get the same vibe from her as Chrysalis. I thought, maybe... But maybe I'm just being silly.”
Applejack didn't say anything. She’d heard about the queen’s involvement in the Crystal Empire. She wondered about Aconita’s motives, but since nopony had seen hide nor hair of her for some time now, she could only guess that her mission had been completed, and she’d gone home. Perhaps, she was hot on the trail of Agave and Cassava - another train of thought that twisted Applejack’s insides into knots.
Applejack caught Rainbow’s eye. She saw how troubled she was, and was sure the same worries were bothering her, too.
What they did know for sure right now was this: Applejack had drawn a line in the sand. She had to hope there was someone on the Council whom Chrysalis had not been speaking for, someone willing to listen. They were who she’d been speaking to. But for the rest… her visit likely would have amounted to a threat. There would be many restless nights to come until they knew what kind of answer they would get.
“So what do we do now?” Rainbow asked.
“Wait and see,” Applejack said back. “Not much else we can do, sugarcube. Ah’ll bet bits Ah know what Queen Chrysalis will want done. But there has ta be someone on the Court that’ll wonder. And if enough of the Court don’t agree, things won’t get any worse. Fer us, anyway.”
Applejack sighed. “At least, that’s the idea, right?” she said, and turned to Cadance.
“It’s the best I could think of,” Cadance said, though she looked uncertain. “If the Court’s united, they’ll certainly try to come after us again, and so far our track record hasn’t been the best when it comes to their incursions. But if there’s no consensus, maybe it can buy us the time we need to reach a few of them. If we can turn even one queen to our side...” She sighed. “It’s a longshot. And it kind of feels like we’re fighting dirty. If we do accomplish that, it’ll mean the Court will be in upheaval again. It could mean civil war. But we need time. Equestria needs to prepare, your hive needs to reorient itself, and we need to get a handle on this new magic of yours. I know,” she added patiently, seeing Applejack about to speak, “I’m not asking you enroll in magic school. But understanding this pure changeling magic will be instrumental in the days to come, I can feel it. And I’m not sure how much longer Twilight can control herself,” she added with a glimmer of humor in her eyes.
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “Well… I still think we should go down there and lay the smackdown on some of them. Ponies like that won’t learn their lesson until they get punched in the face a couple times.”
Applejack nodded in agreement, but her face darkened. “Thing is, that’s exactly what Phantasma would’a done.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Rainbow sighed. “And Phantasma’s way - bad. I get it.”
Applejack smiled at her. Deep down, she agreed with Rainbow. Words alone would not reach the Court, she was sure. Most were so aligned against her that she doubted anything she said would make a difference. She’d thought to include Cadance after all at the last minute, because frankly, she knew the Court was not something she could outsmart, or outmaneuver. She was starting to miss the days where her problems could be solved by a swift kick to a tree.
But Applejack also wondered how many queens were taking Chrysalis’ side because they had to, as a matter of survival? How many clung to the concept of the Court like drowning rats cling to flotsam, doomed to eventually sink, too? Maybe none, and maybe she’d just opened Equestria up to a whole new wave of catastrophe by even giving them the chance to come.
But Applejack had to try. What she’d seen in Chrysalis’ eyes that day during the royal wedding… It’d been the same malignant darkness that had nearly consumed her. Who had Chrysalis been before that? Had she been like Rainbow to some extent - brash, overconfident, and wily? Had she been someone sweeter, kinder, like Twilight? The way things were now, no one would ever know. But surely someone had to be intrigued. Surely...
A nudge against her side got her attention. Applejack turned to find Rainbow prodding her wordlessly with her muzzle. A question was in her eyes, one she didn’t say, but the look she was giving Applejack was one of private worry aimed her way now.
Applejack smiled back. It was the best reassurance she could offer at the moment. No words felt suitable, as if anything she said would be only half-truths, or flat out lies. It was a complicated feeling, and she was sure Rainbow could see right through her current facade.
Deep down, she was worried. Worried about a great many things, and the pile was only growing larger. She didn’t have time to wait for the Court’s response. She didn’t have time to figure out these new powers she’d been saddled with. She didn’t have time to establish her hive anew. But somehow, she had to make time.
Just another day in this crazy, out-of-control ride that’d become her life.
~~***~~
Roseluck sighed as she sat down. For the first time in a very long time, she found herself in the uncomfortable situation of having nothing to do. The houses were being relocated without any real incident. Drones were settling in to their new home, some already piddling about with growing flowerbeds and scrounging for paving stones for the roads.
By all rights, right now should be a very busy time for her. Hectic, even. Normally work had a habit of manifesting itself in her mind’s eye, like moving along a train and finding one car attached to the next, over and over. When one was a changeling, one didn’t need to think too hard on what needed doing next. Roseluck never had to.
But today, that usual process was not manifesting like it was supposed to. Drones weren’t coming to her for answers as much as they had in the past. Drones were just… doing things. Or else, like her, looking for something to do.
Roseluck couldn’t put it into words, but it felt like she’d been… cut from something. A voice inside her that had whispered directions to her subconscious her whole life had, for the first time ever, fallen silent. There was no imperative anymore. No drive. Roseluck knew she wasn’t alone - changelings all around the forest basin were taking to just sitting in the shade and looking around as if to find some direction.
The last of the houses had finished ambling over the rise a little while ago. So much work remained to be done - mountains of paperwork the ponies will undoubtedly want signed and reviewed, considering the mass relocation without going through any official procedures. They’d have to figure out what to do with the land given to them for the changeling district. And the newborn hive itself… they’d need to cultivate it, nurture it into a final form. That would take days, maybe even weeks of hard, meticulous work.
Her mind could conjure it all. But the drive to do it…
She turned her gaze almost straight up. Through the fir tree boughs, she could see the shape of the crystal spire looming overhead. Applejack was still up there, conducting her own business.
Applejack… whatever had happened to her, Roseluck was certain that the cause of her listlessness stemmed from that. The strange new form, the strange new magic… Roseluck was happy she was okay, without a doubt. But this new change… she couldn’t help but worry over it. On a very fundamental level, everything was different. The whole paradigm of the hive had been set on its head. It was like they were all falling, but had no idea in which direction, or how to catch themselves.
Roseluck bit her lip. No, if she was honest, she wasn’t really worried. She was scared. Scared because for the first time in years - since that night she’d stumbled, half-starved out of the Everfree - she had no idea what came next. And remembering that feeling was… terrible.
A cool wind rushed through the trees. As it passed, something in the wind grabbed Roseluck attention. It was a voice, calling from far away. Or… maybe it was a memory. It was so faint…
Roseluck looked around, not sure if she’d actually heard what she thought she’d heard, when her eyes fell on a pair of ponies trotting down into the basin.
It was Daisy and Lily. They were looking this way and that, calling out periodically. “Rose! Rose, where are you?”
It had been two days since she’d seen them last. Much longer since she’d had an actual conversation, she realized. Thanks to the Summer Sun Celebration, she had barely said two words to them.
Two days. But it felt like years. The aching listlessness inside her seemed to morph, and suddenly she realized how badly she’d missed them. Suddenly, that nebulous sense focused like a lens.
She was still in her changeling form. She hadn’t even thought about it until then. It still didn’t occur to her as she spread her wings and took flight, zipping down from her perch, around a bend in the newly built roadway, over a house… and right down in front of them. It was so sudden, Rose nearly missed them.
What was this feeling? Why did it feel so… strange? Like she was lost in a dream? Like she wasn’t really… there?
Daisy saw her coming first. She nudged Lily and pointed, and the two turned as Rose settled down on the ground again. With a flash of fire, she was once again her usual pony self.
“What’s wrong?” Roseluck asked. “Did something happen?”
Lily gaped at her. “What’s wrong? You are gone for two days without any word and wonder what’s wrong?”
Daisy was a little more direct. “Rose!” she bawled, and launched herself at an unsuspecting Roseluck. She tackled her to the ground, and proceeded to smothering her under a nuzzle assault.
The jolt of her head hitting the ground. The spots of light dancing before her eyes, the crushing pressure of a tight, tight hug. No, she wasn’t dreaming. This… this was real. She was here. They were here.
“I missed you so, so, so much!” Daisy cried, and locked her hooves around Rose’s neck tighter still. The more she talked the more she blubbered, until she was an incomprehensible bawling mess. “Y-you were always so super busy, and then, and then the district get’s c-closed -hic- Th-th-then there wa-wa-was this hu~uge explosion and you weren’t th-there and I re-re-really missed yo~o~ou!”
“Calm down, Daisy,” Rose struggled to say, but it was no use.
“A-and the petunias are w-wilting! I d-did everything like you d-do, but they just keep wilting! I’m sorry!”
Rose sighed, and resolved to let her wail herself hoarse while patting her back.
What was this feeling? What was this viceral thing that didn’t feel real yet was simultaneously the most acute sensation she’d ever felt?
Lily came to sit next to them, smiling. “She couldn’t sleep last night,” Lily explained. “So she’s a little strung out.”
Daisy turned to glare at her sister. “You couldn’t, either!” she accused.
Lily turned away, suddenly really interested with a distant cloud formation.
Rose sighed. She kept one hoof around Daisy, and held the other one out in Lily’s direction. She reached down and took it with a smile. “I really am a horrible ‘sister’, huh?” Rose said with a weak smile.
“No!” Daisy gasped, sitting up.
“Yes,” Lily said.
“Lily!” Daisy gasped disapprovingly, but Lily just continued looking the other way.
“It’s okay,” Rose said. Daisy looked down at her, worried, and found her smiling back. “I haven’t been there for you two lately.”
“Th-that’s okay!” Daisy burst out. She abruptly sat up, flailing her hooves. “Miss Applejack needed your help! We understand, really we do!”
“But it’d be nice if you were around more,” Lily commented. “Like before.”
Daisy shot her a disapproving look. “It can’t be helped! Rosie has a really important job, too! A lot of changelings are counting on her, so we can’t be selfish!”
Selfish? Rose blinked at the word.
Selfish. Was that it? Was that this feeling now blinding her from the inside? No… no it wasn’t, but it was close.
Roseluck noticed Lily looking at her. “Are you alright?” she asked, frowning.
Roseluck blinked, opened her mouth, but said nothing.
Why could she not understand it? Why couldn’t she make sense of the message her heart was telling her? Why did it feel so overpowering, blinding, deafening.
And then, it occurred to her, and she became still.
Her heart had never made sense to her. She’d translated it, she’d put on the show to fit in. She’d done it so convincingly she’d even fooled herself.
A changeling will always be a changeling. A slave. A willing zealot bound to nothing and no one except their queen. Only the queen’s impetus defined the boundaries within which a drone could develop and understand. Had she not been living exactly as Applejack had wished? Hadn’t all of them?
Now the impetus was gone. But it was more than that. The invisible cage was gone, too. The boundaries and rules that defined what her world could be had all been torn down. And the world was rushing in now, loud, bright, and overwhelming. And for the first time, there was no parameters in place by which her heart could govern her, silently checking her to keep her in a predetermined mold.
There was no directives. There was no paradigm. Only a howling, terrifying, quiet roaring of things Roseluck could not understand, because she’d never truly experienced them, only their specters. The veil was gone. And now… now she could see.
Her hooves rose, shaky, quaking, uncertain.
Lily was still looking at her, but now there was a scared look on her face. “Rose, what’s wrong?” she asked, her aloof demeanor slipping.
She licked her lips. She wrangled her tongue.
“I missed you,” she said quietly.
Daisy turned her head and looked at her. “Rosie?” she asked.
Roseluck’s hooves wrapped around her, and pulled her down in a hug. Daisy squealed in alarm and confusion.
She was warm, wonderfully warm, and smelling of potting soil, flowers, and lavender. All these things Roseluck had committed to memory as being distinctly Daisy. But now it was Daisy. Those smells, those sensations, they were her.
The deafening roar grew louder in her chest.
“R-Rose?! Wh-what’s going on? What’s wrong?”
“I missed you,” Roseluck said again. She buried her head in Daisy’s shoulder.
Now she understood. It made sense in a way only an insane person’s insanity makes sense once they’ve fully slipped into lunacy - a way that defies actual explanation, but simultaneously is the most unquestionable truth there is. Maybe that was it? Maybe Roseluck had just snapped and gone completely mad.
She laughed. Tears rolled down her cheeks, heavy and hot. “I missed you… I missed you,” she babbled. “Because… because…”
Her manic laughter devolved to blubbering. “I-I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”
Daisy was panicking. She was asking Lily what she’d done, what was wrong with Rosie. But when Roseluck looked up at Lily, she saw her standing there, wide-eyed.
Could she see it? The manicured persona, gone, leaving a scared, blinded, deafened creature in a cold, unfamiliar world for the first time in its life?
Roseluck extended her hoof again, and unexpectedly, Lily, moving faster than she had in a long time, dove at her. She wrapped her hooves around her, tight.
“It’s okay, Rose,” she murmured. “It’s okay. Don’t be afraid. We’re right here. Just-Just let it out, okay?”
Daisy still seemed unsure what was going on. She just looked at Lily, amazed, but never released Roseluck.
“We’re right here,” Lily repeated.
Roseluck clutched at her, her eyes too blurry to make sense of anything anymore.
Deafening roaring… blinding feeling… She opened her mouth.
“I… I love you,” she said to the sky -a bleary splash of blues and whites and the iridescent blur of the spire overhead. “Both of you.”
She smashed her eyes shut. “I love you both… so much…”
She could wrap her head around it now. This, her chest told her, was love. This burning, radiant feeling, not the filtered sensation she’d dealt with her whole life. A mute stand-in she’d always assumed to be genuine, and thus had no reason to question it.
It flooded through her veins now, warm and wonderful. Loud, blinding. But she couldn’t get enough of it. The way it pounded with the rhythm of her heart, pulsing through her legs and body like a drum beat.
This was love.
~~***~~
“Careful… careful…”
Rainbow’s words in her ears, Applejack focused on the ground beneath her.
Her long black hooves batted lightly, eager to touch the ground again. Her wings blurred through the air, making multicolored crescents at her sides and disturbing the grass as she neared. They bore her weight, but there was a reason why Rainbow had to hold her hooves like a foal learning to fly for the first time.
“Just a little bit more…”
Her hooves finally met grass, and Applejack let out a breath she’d been unintentionally holding. Back with the solid earth under her hooves, she immediately felt several times steadier.
“See? Nothing to it,” Rainbow smirked, landing with a quick flitting motion. “Stick with me, filly, and I’ll get you flying circles around everypony in no time. Well, except me, of course, but that goes without saying.”
Applejack raised an eyebrow at her and returned her grin. “Modest as ever.”
Rainbow puffed out her chest and tapped it. “Practically my middle name at this point. I’m probably the most modest pony in, like, the history of Equestria or something.”
Applejack chuckled. Then, she fell quiet.
Rainbow noticed, and looked her over. Applejack was looking at her, seemingly lost in thought.
Rainbow blinked, puzzled, but before she could ask what that was about, the buzz of rapidly approaching wings caught her attention.
“Your Highness! Your Highness!”
Both turned as a pair of changelings zoomed in their direction, moving fast, looking distressed.
A knot of panic formed in Applejack’s gut. Had the Court already made their verdict known? It was too soon!
But then one of the drones piped up. “It’s Roseluck! Something terrible- You need to come, quick!”
The knot tightened in her chest. Applejack nodded, and galloped off as fast as she could - which was much faster than she’d anticipated, thanks to her longer legs.
Rainbow was flying after her, and soon overtook her, as she raced off to see what fresh calamity had befallen them.
~~***~~
By the time Applejack arrived, half the hive had beaten her there. They all buzzed anxiously, fretting in nearby trees and on top of houses and crowded the grassy pathways still more wilderness than road.
They parted for her as she approached, and as Applejack grew closer, she thought she heard somepony crying. Her heart clenched tighter.
What could have happened? How could it have happened already? So many questions whirled about in her head, but she did her best to push them side until she made it around the last house, through the crowd, and beheld the scene.
Daisy and Lily were huddled in the middle of a clearing in the hive’s ranks. They were lying on top of something strangely shaped and pearly, apparently beside themselves even as Rainbow - who’d beaten Applejack there by a country mile - tried to pry them free.
There was no sign of Roseluck at all.
Daisy was beyond inconsolable. She appeared to be trying to say something, but all that came out was wave after wave of hysterics.
Lily was barely more coherent, at least able to articulate some kind of words. “Get off!” she was shouting at Rainbow, actually fighting her. The pegasus had Daisy around the barrel, and was trying to pry her away from that strange, oblong thing underneath her. “Get off! Get away from her!”
“Take it easy!” Rainbow was trying to say, only to catch a flailing hoof upside the head.
Daisy managed to get free, and immediately latched onto the thing again.
“What in tarnation is going on?”
Applejack’s voice rang out loud enough to get everypony’s attention. Daisy, Lily and Rainbow all froze and snapped around to look at her.
Applejack looked around, first to the many staring faces of the changelings, who all looked back apprehensively, then to the ponies, one by one. Then she scanned around the clearing, slowly trotting towards them.
“Where’s Roseluck?” she asked.
In response, Daisy let out a fresh flood of sobs.
Applejack drew closer, the knot throbbing in her chest, until she was almost to them.
She squinted at the thing Daisy was lying on top of. It was pearly, glassy almost. In the direct sunlight it was blindly white, but Applejack detected more than that in its many pearlescent hughes.
Her eyes adjusted to the blinding flash of it catching the sun, and as she did, she made out its swirling pattern. And suddenly, she realized what it was.
She froze, eyes going huge. Lily must have noticed, because suddenly she forgot her tussle and turned to her.
“Miss Applejack? Miss Applejack, do you know what’s going on?”
She was suddenly in her face - as in her face as a pony a fraction of her height could be. Lily beat her hooves on Applejack’s chest, her eyes wild. In all her years of knowing the flower pony, Applejack had never seen her so desperate.
“Please! You have to help her! I-I don’t know what we’lll do if-if R-Rose…. If Rose…!”
Rainbow appeared next to her, rubbing one of her eyes. Apparently Lily had gotten a good one in. “What the hay is she talking about? I don’t see Roseluck anywhere.”
Applejack glanced at her, then back up to Daisy - and the pod she was clutching.
She could feel it… something she couldn’t quantify, but resonated with her nonetheless. Some part of her understood, a part she’d neglected more than her wings.
“Um, AJ? What’s going on?” Rainbow asked, now regarding her curiously.
Applejack shook her head, but said nothing. Lily moved out of her way as she stepped forward. Her hive watched her approach, and Daisy turned to look up when she came to tower over her, casting a shadow over her.
She looked at her searchingly, eyes flooded with tears that flowed freely. Applejack smiled down at her. “Ah know yer upset, but could Ah ask ya ta step back a bit?”
Daisy sniffed, and blinked up at her. “Do… do you think you can fix her?”
Applejack chuckled. “Ah get the feelin’ she’s done all the fixin’ she’ll need, herself.”
Daisy gave her a perplexed look.
“Please,” Applejack said softly. “Ah promise she’s gonna be just fine.”
Daisy continued to look at her for a moment. Then, she nodded, and clumsily removed herself from the pod and took several steps back.
Applejack smiled at her, then turned back to the object of everyone’s attention. Her shell opened a bit, and her wings slid out to flit through the air a few times. It was a thoughtful movement, one only Rainbow really noticed.
“Um… AJ?” Rainbow said curiously.
Applejack didn’t answer. She continued to stand still, looking down.
A sudden flash of light made everyone present recoil. Everyone except Applejack. The crowd watched in fascination as the pod suddenly wriggled, quivered, and lifted itself into the air.
Everyone watched as the pod rose even higher than Applejack, slowly revolving on the spot… then cracked.
Daisy and Lily both gasped as the outer shell fractured once, twice, then exploded in a shower of sparks and small fragments that flurried through the air like snowflakes.
And out of the shell came a creature who was altogether familiar and alien at the same time. Her dark chitin was familiar, as was her blank, glowing eyes. But her mane, once a scraggly fringe like the rest of her kind, had grown out into wavy rat’s nest of rose-colored hair. She blinked with big green eyes. The sun danced off of her rosey shell marbled with lighter pink streaks.
The crowd gasped as she dropped out of the air, only to catch herself shakily a few inches from the ground. She set herself down on hooves without holes, exhaled through lips without fangs, a bewildered look on her face. Her wings glimmered with shades of pink and yellow, making Daisy and Lily gasp.
“Wha…” she breathed, voice hushed. “What… happened?”
Applejack smiled down at Roseluck. “Welcome back, Rose,” she said.
“Applejack?” She asked, sounding woozy.
Applejack chuckled. “Easy there. Just take a breath. How’re you feelin’?”
Rose blinked slowly. Then, gradually, her eyes focused. Her expression grew to one of wonder. “I… I don’t know,” she said breathlessly. “But… but there’s a lot of it.”
Applejack laughed, drawing more confused looks. “Ah know the feelin’, Rose. Ah know it’s overwhelmin’. Trust me.”
Roseluck continued to look at her like she’d never seen her before. Then, she looked down at her herself, and gasped. “What… what happened to me?”
She only stopped spinning around, literally chasing her own tail, when she heard Applejack laugh again. She looked around to see the warm look on her face.
“Ah ain’t got the foggiest,” Applejack admitted in good humor. “But… It don’t look like I’m alone, after all.”
Roseluck blinked at her. Then, abruptly, she turned around towards Lily and Daisy. They stood not far off, looking equal parts dumbfounded and amazed.
They only snapped out of it when Rose came sprinting towards them, and wrapped a hoof around each of their necks.
Applejack smiled at them, and without thinking, she leaned her head to one side - right onto Rainbow’s shoulder. It was strange, not having to even think about where she was, despite their height difference now. She always knew she could find her, and where to find her. And sure enough, there she was, hovering at shoulder height.
Changelings all around continued to watch the trio of flower ponies giggling and crying together in a mess of tangled emotions and tight embraces.
And then, slowly at first, it started to happen.
Applejack only became aware of it when she heard someone mutter nearby - something indistinct about needing to go somewhere. Another murmured about needing to check on somepony. Still another, about an appointment they’d forgotten about.
She glanced around, and noticed black shapes trickling away through the bushes, through the sky, through the grasslands.
Changelings were leaving, bound for places unknown. But Applejack knew. She watched them go, heart warm and full in her chest.
“Where are they going?” Rainbow asked, curious.
Applejack didn’t even need to think about it. “Home,” she said.
Rainbow looked around when Applejack lifted her head from her shoulder. They looked at each other, and she was suddenly aware of how bright and warm the sun was.
“Rainbow,” Applejack said quietly, just for her to here. “Do ya remember yer promise? About gettin’ away fer a while.”
Rainbow grinned. “Like I’d forget, bugbrain.” She held out a hoof. “Where to?”
Applejack’s smile was the warmest it’d been in a very, very long time. She lifted on of her own hooves and placed it gently in Rainbow’s.
“Don’t care,” she said back.
Rainbow snorted. “Funny. Neither do I.”
Applejack chuckled, then glanced to one side. She noticed Roseluck looking at her. She beamed, brighter and happier than Applejack had ever seen her before in her life.
The changed changeling jerked her head, as if to say ‘get out of here’, all without untangling herself from her adoptive sisters.
Applejack smiled, and spread her wings. She felt the tug on her hoof.
There was so much left to do, so much left to consider. What’d just happened to Roseluck, especially. But for the first time in months, Applejack felt not trepidation about casting it all side, if only to chase that cocky grin and that guiding touch.
For once in her life, shrugging out from under responsibility felt so blessedly welcome. For once in her life, she craved the freedom of that big blue ocean overhead, where the vastness of the world eclipsed anything she might have bothering her. For once in her life, it didn’t scare her how huge it was, how limitless it was.
And for once in her life, taking flight was the easiest thing in the world.
~~***~~
Many, many miles away, deep in untouched tracks of wilderness, a one-eyed changeling drone made his way down a game trail that had never seen a pony’s hoof before.
With the sounds of the forest all around him, Cassava plodded along at his own pace, humming a wandering, tuneless ditty to himself. All around him, the birds sang, the bugs buzzed, and in the distance, a dragon roared as it stretched after a hundred-year-long nap.
He was dimly aware of the soft pitter-patter of small hooves behind him, but when he looked, he saw Agave was still looking down, methodically focusing on where to put her hooves.
Honestly, he’d expected her to put up more of a fight. When he’d told her they were going home, he was braced for a tantrum. They’d come all this way, by golly, and done nothing but sit around and break into one measly mansion. And now they were headed back the way they’d come. Back to mother.
But when he’d told her, she’d just nodded, and started plodding along after him. After all, the day was saved, but their continued presence in Equestria would only exasperate the Court’s impending reaction. But he hadn’t even needed to bring that up.
In some far-flung corner of his mind, he wondered if Phantasma’s influence was already settling in. He wondered if the thing trotting along behind him wasn’t even the blubbly little filly anymore. It was something else - some thing.
He pushed the idea aside: it raised too many complicated responses to be considered. Agave was a smart filly. Perhaps she’d come to that conclusion herself. That was an answer he could live with, and so he clung to it, even if a little naively. She was being strangely quiet, though...
On his side, his pack bobbed and bounced with his stride. The weight of it made him feel lopsided, but he put up with it without complaint. Up a hill he went, traversing along a steep ridge of shale and loose rocks. Once he rounded it, it found himself faced with a series of plateaus, each covered with dense underbrush.
He paused as he regarded them. His humming stopped, and for a moment his expression was blank. He stared at the dark tree line immediately in front of him with his one good eye for a long time, as if unwilling to approach.
For the first time, Agave spoke up as he hesitated.
“Um, Cassava… where are we going?” she asked. This was the first time she’d seemed concerned about their destination, but now she was looking around, as if she’d snapped out of a daydream to realize where she was.
Cassava paused. Then, his nonchalant grin came back, and he turned it on his ward. “Oh, nowhere much. Just meeting up with some old friends.”
Agave’s brows knitted together, worry and confusion coloring her expression. But, as always, she nodded politely. “Okay,” she said.
She always was such a trusting soul, Cassava mused to himself. She had complete and unquestioning faith in him, that he’d always do the right thing for her, no matter what.
Maker… how I wish I did...
He turned away. He banished the bothersome gnats swirling around his brain. With a deep breath, he forged ahead.
The tree stand was not particularly large, but it was dark and dense with bushes and fallen trees. Navigating the wood was a chore, especially with a little one in tow that needed help over nearly every obstacle, but he forced himself onward, trudging in silence, until he came to an opening between two fallen redwoods.
He came upon what must’ve been some kind of camp site. In the recess under a tree’s uprooted base he could see a well camouflaged tent half concealed by hanging moss and shadows. Nopony would ever know it was there if they didn’t know where to look.
There was no campfire—such a thing would defeat the purpose of a bolt hole—but from the open tend door, he could just make out a green glow.
As Cassava approached, he became aware of the sounds in the trees dying down to a hush. The forest grew deathly quiet and still, yet somehow the silence felt very crowded to Cassava. He felt Agave bumping against his side. Much closer and he’d risk tripping over her.
He planted his hooves and waited without saying a word, only extending a wing to bring Agave to a halt as well. He continued to wait for a long time, until the tent door rustled, and a pony stepped out into the gloomy deadfall. Agave took one look at him, and let out a shocked gasp.
The elderly stallion who emerged could not have been any more out of place. Surrounded by uncharted woodlands, it was hard to reconcile the portly, well dressed fellow who ambled out into the open air in the same way one might approach a guest awaiting in front of a villa.
“Well, well, well. Look who we have here,” laughed Bullion. “I’m guessing by your presence that things have gone awry?”
Cassava met his humorous grin with a quick flash of one of his own. “As you expected, of course,” he said.
Bullion’s grin only grew, as if he wasn’t surprised by Cassava’s report, only reaffirmed by it. Next, his eyes glided off of him, and down to Agave. The changeling filly had taken to hiding behind Cassava’s hind legs, peering out with only one eye from around his flank.
“W-what is he doing here?” she whispered, but Cassava ignored her.
“And I see you’ve brought our other little prodigy,” he remarked. His tone was unchanged in its pleasantness, but it made Cassava’s hide crawl. Bullion seemed to notice some tiny shift in Cassava’s demeanor, because his eyes flicked back to him, and he chuckled.
“W-what does he mean by that?” Agave whispered nervously. “Cassava, why is he here?”
Cassava tilted his head in her direction. “Be quiet, sonrisa,” he said calmly, but there was an edge to his voice that silenced her.
“Oh don’t be so sore, Cassava,” Bullion said boisterously, and Cassava snapped back towards him. “If I were you, I’d own up to this little accomplishment of yours. After all, you were the one who personally delivered our queen’s Corastone to Applejack herself. You were the one who smuggled it out in the first place, right out from under the Court’s nose, I might add. One could argue, if it wasn’t for you, none of this would have even happened!”
Bullion stood up, and clapped, slowly, while Agave looked on with dawning horror.
“C… Cassava?”
Cassava said nothing, stone-faced for the first time.
Bullion set himself down, all smiles. “It was quite the grand idea. Using Applejack to bring back our dearly departed queen would have been quite the ironic thing, now wouldn’t it? Had it worked, I would’ve given you full points for creativity. Hay, I may still do that. It was quite the sales pitch.”
Bullion sidled closer. “But you and I both knew it was a gamble. That mare has too much of a history of overcoming adversity. Such a shame things didn’t go our way, but still, it was only a spur of the minute choice, now wasn’t it? Applejack, she’s just a distraction, really, to keep the rest of the Court fuming while we go about our business.”
“What’s he talking about Cassava? Cassava?”
Bullion stopped just in front of Cassava and looked the drone up and down. “I must say, I am surprised you stuck to the plan. Why, I could’ve sworn you were developing a soft spot for that little queenling you’d guarded so well.”
He leaned in then, “Among… other… distractions, shall we say?” he whispered. “How is Equestria’s newest princess, anyway?”
Cassava gave him a cool look, but said nothing as Bullion leaned back. “But I would wager you’ve proven your loyalty to the cause without a shadow of a doubt,” Bullion said, turning away sharply. “Pity though… we’ve lost more than we’ve gained this time. Seventeen years under cover, since the day Phantasma was taken from us, all gone up in smoke. Bullion was such a useful scapegoat; I doubt the ponies will ever really grasp how useful. In a few months I’ll just reassume his identity again and start over, I suppose, or maybe select some other patsy.”
Agave was quiet now, disturbingly quiet. Cassava could almost hear the pieces falling in place in her head.
Bullion’s horn lit up with a green light. The knot of fabric tied around Cassava’s throat unwound, and the pack levitated from his back.
“And now, we have the crown, and the Corastone. Now that we know our enchantments work, we just need to wait for our… true target to blossom, shall we say. Until then, we, her loyal hive, will bide our time. We’ve already waited seventeen years; what is a few more, hmm? As long as we keep the Court’s ire centered on Applejack, what do we have to fear? We don’t exist anymore.”
Bullion grinned and turned away, carrying the bundle with him. He made it ten feet, and for one fraction of a second, Cassava dared to think that would be the end of it. But then Bullion drew to a halt again.
“Of course, we do have one problem.”
Cassava watched him, keeping his expression carefully neutral. “And that would be?”
Bullion grinned over his shoulder. “The ponies have a culprit, of course! They have a lead to what’s truly going on. Which is truly problematic to the overall secrecy of our mission. Which means… adjustments must be made.”
The trees around them started to shake. The sounds of hissing built up louder.
“You have been remarkably sloppy, Cassava,” Bullion said, still trotting away. “Remarkably sloppy. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you intended to make yourself their target. All these years under Aconita’s watch has dulled you. And, I’m afraid I don’t have a use for dull instruments.”
Agave was pawing at his side, squeaking incoherently. Something in the bushes had alarmed her, but Cassava didn’t turn around to see what it might be. He was plenty aware of what he’d see, anyway. Instead, he sighed and rocked back. “Aye, I suppose I can see your problem, muchacho.”
Bullion glanced over his shoulder at him. He even chuckled “Still using that insufferable accent to the very end, I see. Oh well… No hard feelings, I trust?”
Cassava gave him a surprised look and shook his head. “Hmm? Oh no, no. Of course not. After all, you are right. I have been sloppy.”
Bullion paused, something like suspicion in his eyes.
Cassava grinned and licked the point of one of his fangs as he relaxed his stance. Inside, though, he was anything but calm. “It would have been easier to just use Agave without ever bringing Applejack into the picture. Nopony in the south ever would’ve noticed. And it would have been easier to keep as many ponies out of it as possible, like Princess Sparkle, or Rainbow Dash. And… Ah, I seem to be forgetting something else…” He twirled his hoof, searching for the words. “Ah, dios mio what was it… I know it was really important. Something about… making sure I wasn’t followed?”
Bullion froze. His eyes opened wide. In the next second, a deathly chill swept through the hidden camp, bringing with it a shadow as dark as night.
No alarms sounded from the perimeter. Nothing sounded. It was as if the whole world beyond the piles of fallen trees surrounding the camp had ceased to exist, trapping them in a pitch black void from which there was no escape.
“No, that wasn’t it,” Cassava said, still mulling things over. “I wouldn’t be that sloppy, especially after putting someone’s little niña at risk.” A huge, predatory grin spread across his face as the bushes behind him were laid flat. “Right?”
Bullion stared in uncomprehending astonishment at the towering black figure stalking through the underbrush, silver loches of mane writhing in the wind as if they were living, furious vipers.
“No,” Queen Aconita said. “You certainly would not.”
~~***~~
No one would know the fate of Bullion’s imposter and his band of cohorts. But it would be nearly an hour before Aconita was through with her punishment. By then, the secret hiding place was nothing but ash smoldering in changeling fire and black, acrid smoke smelling of burnt things.
Amid the waste, Aconita stood in front of a one-eyed drone, staring down her nose at him. He did not bow, or capitulate, but instead just stood there, as casual as ever. He even leaned on his left hooves.
“Are you wanting an explanation?” Cassava inquired.
Her eyes flicked to some point behind him, then back. “Among other things,” Aconita said.
Cassava’s smile was small, empathetic. “I am a drone, my queen. I serve. That is my lot in life, yes? I do not have the luxury of picking who that might be.”
Aconita didn’t say anything. She just narrowed her eyes. “Agave?” she questioned.
“H-here,” squeaked an absolutely tiny, absolutely terrified voice from someplace behind Cassava’s form.
Both adults ignored her. Cassava sighed. “She has already touched the Corastone. Its influence has not affected her yet, but when she comes of age… there is nothing I can do.”
Aconita glanced down to one side. She lit her horn with an angry flare. Behind Cassava, Agave squealed. He turned just in time to see her whizz over his head, and land again at her mother’s side.
Aconita glanced down at her with the same look as one verifying valuable goods were securely stowed, then flicked her gaze back to Cassava without ever once changing expression.
“You understand what happens next, I presume,” she stated through pursed lips.
“My queen,” Cassava spoke up, paused for a moment, then with a pulse from his horn, he lifted his eyepatch from his head and set it on the ground.
When he looked up now, Aconita saw the pale chitin stretched over an empty, collapsed socket where no eye had ever been before. To Aconita, the sight was ghastly, disdainful. Imperfection in drones was almost always a death sentence, for it meant they were less capable than their whole peers. And yet here Cassava stood, Aconita’s famed attack dog, and Phantasma’s dreaded enforcer before that. The face was disgusting, and Aconita would not stare at that single eye and vacant patch of skin opposite it no longer than necessary.
Cassava smiled. Not a cocky smile, or a confident smile, but one of understanding. “I know what I have done. And as much as I’d like to say I would change it all if I could… Well, that would make me a liar.”
He took a step back, raising a hoof slightly over a lump in the ash. “I did not agree with Bullion, or his methods. But that does not change my duty to my queen.”
Aconita’s eyes narrowed. “So you would rather doom us all?”
Cassava paused, blinking his one good eye. “Doom? Why would you think that? No, no, I’m not dooming you. I’m stopping the doom from coming. Surely you feel it, reina. What’s coming. Applejack can’t stop the war, no matter how many promises she makes. The Court want it. They’ve turned rabid, unchecked. Things need to be set back in order, made the way they were. Or else… or else we will tear ourselves apart. And I don’t think we can pick ourselves up from the ashes another time.”
He smiled. “And as far as I know, there’s only one who can do that. She did it before.”
He extended a hoof, then scooped it through the ash and mud. And as he lifted it, he produced the Corastone again.
“And now I have the crown, and the stone,” he said with a smile.
For the first time, Aconita’s expression soured. Now that she thought about it, she’d lost track of him during her… punishment. He must have rifled through Bullion’s possessions while she was tearing the congregation apart.
Her horn erupted. Two logs splintered, and began to writhe. Their ends ripped open, forming gigantic, snake-like maws. Belching changeling fire, they launched themselves at Cassava - and exploded in midair.
Agave squealed as splinters of wood rained down on them. As the fire faded, Aconita beheld a peculiar glow between her and her target.
‘NO EVIL’ floated in front of her, fiery letters suspended in the air between them - exactly over where Cassava had discarded his eyepatch.
On its other side Cassava looked back with an apologetic expression. “Take care of Agave,” he said. “I’ll try to find someone else, I promise. But, if I should fail… if I can’t save her in time… You know how to. You have a way now! If not for me, then do it for her! I beg you.”
He flashed a smile, lit his horn, and fell through the ground. Emerald flames shot up to the sky, then vanished, along with all trace of the traitorous drone.
Aconita gazed down at the smoldering point he’d stood in, expressionless. The wind swept through the clearing, parting the smoke just enough for a few thin rays of the sun to find their way in.
“Impressive work as always, Cassava,” she murmured, privately. And that was the last she ever spoke of him.
A slight rustle behind her caught her attention. “And where do you think you’re going?” she asked.
Agave squeaked as she froze halfway through tip-hoofing away. She turned, trembling. But Aconita hadn’t turned towards her yet. When she did turn, it was in one fluid motion, placing the whole of her attention on little, frightened Agave.
Agave gulped, then straightened up. Then, summoning every ounce of courage she possessed, she spun around to face her in kind, and shouted, “I’m not sorry!”
Aconita paused, more out of surprise than anything, and looked down at the miniscule creature standing in her shadow. Agave didn’t even come up to her knee, but she was standing in front of her now, head craned all the way back to look up into her face.
It was rare for Agave to raise her voice in her mother’s presence, unheard of for her to raise her voice at her mother.
“It was my idea!” Agave said firmly. “I wanted to help Applejack! Cassava had nothing to do with that! He only came with me to Equestria because I made him!”
Aconita continued to stare down at her quietly. Some part of her - a dead part, long since rendered silent and hollow - couldn’t help but marvel at her passion in this moment. If only she could muster up this kind of conviction on demand.
But it was a small, inconsequential part she’d grown deaf to.
“Is that supposed to change my mind?” Aconita asked coolly.
Agave was trembling. She looked on the verge of tears, but she somehow found it in her to continue holding her ground. Usually she’d demure by this point and obediently shuffle off to one side, skirting her mother’s hard gaze. But now here she stood, resolute against her. Afraid, yes, but not cowering. She held Aconita’s gaze, unblinking, unfaltering.
She saw Agave swallow, and then force herself to speak. “D-do you know why I came to Equestria, mother?”
Aconita show’d no change in her expression. “Why do you ask such a silly question? It is only natural to seek to understand the success of others. Queen Applejack’s way is new, untested, yet her success cannot be denied. I expect half the Court has informants keeping a close eye on her by now.”
Agave’s cheeks puffed up. “No! I didn’t do it for me! I did it for you!”
Of all the answers Aconita could have been given, this was not one she’d anticipated. In a rare, uncharacteristic moment, her eyes widened in surprise, her icy facade briefly forgotten. “Excuse me?”
Agave took a step forward, her expression suddenly desperate. “You’re the only one who ever believed in me! No matter how much I messed up, or came short of the other princesses, you always told me stories, or tucked me in at night! You always made sure I ate, took care of me when I got sick. You never abandoned me, even when other queens did their own princesses, and for things half as bad as what I did!”
Agave shook her head fiercely, sending a few glittering droplets this way and that. “I don’t care what happens to my heart, but I want to give yours back to you! Because… because you’re my Mommy, and, and… and I want you to know how much I love you!”
She ran out of words to say, but not words to tell. Aconita could see it in the useless flapping of her mouth, the way she sputtered and uttered sounds but no articulate phrases.
Aconita stared down at her, and after a pause, her expression sagged. She showed every single one of her forty years of life, and then some. Her eyes glimmered with a deep pain not even a dead heart could fully wipe away.
“You are a fool,” Aconita said. She sounded tired - deeply, morosely tired. “An absolute fool.”
Agave winced back a step, but didn’t back down. “Why? Don’t you want to feel anything anymore?” Agave asked.
The shadow of pain in Aconita’s eyes grew deeper. “My dear, sweet ignorant child,” she said, and now her voice was soft as silk. “Some day you may yet learn what true pain really is. Then you will beg to have that bleeding thing cut from your chest, as I did.”
She stepped closer. She lowered her head to speak only to her daughter in a low voice. “I watched my mother die, Agave. I watched my hive die. My younger sister, die. I watched it all. Everything I loved and cared about. Burned to nothing. All because my mother was too proud to kneel to Queen Phantasma when she came demanding her allegiance. But I was not. For the sake of those that survived, like me, I was not. When I molted and lost my heart, it took all the pain of that experience with it. I was grateful for it.”
Aconita raised a hoof. Agave flinched, expecting a blow, but instead she felt the soft caress of chitin under her chin. Her head was drawn up, to meet the cold forlornness in Aconita’s expressionless face.
“I see in you the same thing that was in me until that night. I see myself in you… far too much. That is why you are my heir - because when your heart dies, you will see things as I do. Nothing more. Whatever you feel for me, it cannot eclipse that wound.”
She dropped her hoof and stepped past her so abruptly Agave was still blinking at the empty patch of sky overhead.
“I have never been disappointed in you, Agave. That is, until just now,” she said as she walked. “Now come. We are leaving.”
Agave bit her lip as she lowered her head. She turned and looked at her mother. “I know there’s something in you that doesn’t believe that,” she said.
Aconita paused. She glanced over her shoulder back at Agave. “Oh? Then prove me wrong,” she challenged. Then she started walking again. "If you can."
Agave composed herself. She straightened up, wiped furiously at her eyes, and quickly started trotting after her. “I will!” she said. “You’ll see!”
Aconita didn’t respond. She just turned her head slightly to keep her expression from her overly hopeful daughter’s sight.
~~***~~
In a grove far, far away, Cassava took a deep, shaky breath.
"Well, no going back now," he said to himself. "Ah, well... I guess somepony has to play the part of the monster."
He lit his horn, filling the darkened glade with a brilliant green light. From his pack, a blackened Corastone and broken crown floated into the air, and came to a stop in front of him.
He didn't need to do anything fancy. No spellcraft was even needed. As soon as they two grew close, they began straining against his magical grip, as if magnetized to one another. All he had to do was let go, and the two flung each other at one another with such force that they broke apart.
Dark flames filled the grove, swallowing everything except Cassava. When the flames died, the grove was stricken and barren. Trees bore no leaves, and looked as if they'd been consumed by some wasting disease. The grass was gone, the flowers nothing but ash.
Cassava hardly noticed. He had his eye trained on the only thing of real importance: the crown slowly drifting down to earth, burning green-hot. No longer was it broken, and even in the gloom, he could see the brilliant shine of the purple gemstones atop it.
He took a deep breath, and then retrieved the crown, which was still scalding to the touch and thrumming with power he didn't dare meddle with. Not yet.
This was necessary. This was what had to be done. No other path laid open to him. Not anymore. He was a drone. And drones lived to serve. But Cassava had learned a long, long time ago that the only way to live was to play with the hand you were dealt, and make the most of it. He just happened to be playing with a rigged deck.
Cassava glanced back, towards an opening in the gloomy dead grove. There was sunlight back there. The brilliant hills of Equestria, and its carefree denizens. What a wonderful place it was, so full of happiness and peace, where everypony and anypony was free to live their lives as they saw fit.
And he absolutely hated it.
Cassava stowed his queen's crown, and taking up a whistling tune, he sauntered into the dark.
He had a job to do.