"What do you mean "I don't know"? Did you seriously lose her?" Twilight screamed at the white alicorn in front of her.
Celestia just took another bite of her cake. She had just finished raising the sun when Twilight had come to ask her where she could find Chrysalis, saying she wanted to try to teach her to share love instead of stealing it, and she had responded saying she had no idea of where the changeling had gone. After asking her guards it seemed that Chrysalis was nowhere to be found inside the castle. It had been hours since then, and after searching over and over no trace of the Queen had been found, so Celestia had decided it was time to inform Twilight.
"Honestly, I don't see the problem," Celestia said while finishing her slice of cake.
"You don't see the problem? One of your greatest enemies is loose somewhere in Canterlot after having acquired information about us and the castle and you don't see the problem?"
"No."
Twilight gave an exasperated grunt in response.
"Oh, come on, Twilight. What's the worst that could happen?"
Twilight stared at her. "What's the worst that could happen? Do I need to remind you of who we're talking about?"
Celestia cocked her head. "No. We're still talking about Chrysalis, right?"
"That's exactly the problem! How can you trust her? Why haven't you put someone to keep an eye on her? Why have you wasted so much time when we should have tried to figure out the truth from the start? Why didn't we start by teaching her to share love so we could be sure that she was actually reformed?"
"That one's easy. We don't want her to turn into one of those things the other changelings turned into," Celestia said interrupting Twilight, her sitting posture and her expression giving off the impression of a student happily answering a question they knew the answer to.
"...Why? Why don't we want her to transform?" Twilight asked, not sure if she wanted to hear the answer.
"Twilight, you silly. If we want to send her against our foes we need her to look like this. We need her to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies. If we want her to be of any use to us at intimidating others, why would we want her to become like the other changelings? Tell me, what is more menacing, Twilight? Chrysalis, evil Queen of the Changelings, conqueror of cities, destroyer of empires, ruler of armies, overthrower of kings, or Chrysalis, the friendly rainbow moose thing who wants to hug you?"
Twilights left eye twitched slightly. "First off, she could always transform to look like her old self when we send her-"
"It's a matter of principle, Twilight. If they know we converted her they won't be as afraid."
"-Second, why do we suddenly want to strike fear into our enemies? What enemies do we even have?"
"But the other nations, of course. How are we supposed to take over them otherwise?"
"Did you forget that Equestria is known for being a peaceful and accepting country? A country that has a long history of being that way? A country that prides itself on being that way?" a progressively angrier Twilight asked.
"Well it's about time things started to change. The old days are over, it's time for Equestria to rise as a glorious empire reigning above all others."
"Celestia, Equestria is a country made of ponies! The most dangerous thing most of our citizens have faced is the summer heat when you decide we haven't had enough sun. In the last decade alone there have been at least four recorded cases of the entire nation being brought to its knees by one single individual. Nopony out there is going to like fighting in a war, and very few would survive."
"That's exactly why we need Chrysalis. Now all we have to do is find her and convince her to help us."
"Do you really not get it?"
Celestia just looked at her, cocking her head to the other side.
Twilight resisted the urge to slam her hoof against her face. "She tricked you! She tricked us! How could you be so careless and trust her?"
"Should I not have been?"
"Celestia, she's a monster! She destroyed the city of Timbucktu, drained all of its inhabitants of love, stole King Orion's crown and was possibly responsible for what happened to him afterwards. She almost did the same to Trot, and the only reason that didn't go as badly was because you stopped her in time. She escaped the volcano you trapped her in by hypnotizing a dragon and then piercing one of his wings, and then she threw one of her generals back inside the volcano out of spite. She trapped Cadence under the castle, hypnotized my brother and tried to take over the city. I'm not even going to talk about what she did to the citizens of Wuvy-Dovey Land."
Twilight raised her tone, visibly frustrated by the lack of responses from the other alicorn. "Then she trapped the Cutie Mark Crusaders in that castle with her and almost forced me to become her servant. She tricked us and escaped from her imprisonment, she helped Radiant in her plan to bring back Sombra and left as soon as she realized what freeing the Umbrum would have meant. She trapped all of us in her castle and replaced us with changelings so she could control all of Equestria, and even after she lost her castle and her changelings she refused to join us. She was born evil, and she will stay like that no matter what."
Somewhere outside the sound of hooves running away was heard. Twilight paid it no mind, focused as she was on her ranting. "She used us, Celestia. She stole information from us, she studied the castle and the guards, she probably tampered with the spells we put in place to protect this place. Right now she's probably preparing for an attack or infiltration, and we have no idea of where she is or of what she could have done in here."
Celestia got up and walked up to a wall, always staring behind Twilight at the entrance of the room. "I still don't see the problem."
"I... You... I... How? How? How did you make it this far as a ruler when you're this bad?" Twilight angrily shouted back.
"I wasn't always this bad. In fact, until very recently I was very good at this. You see, Twilight, after we had to cut all connections to the other world the thought of never being able to see my love again, and the fact that he's slowly being consumed by evil, slowly eroded my sanity. I couldn't stand the fact that there was nothing I could do, and when just a few weeks ago we risked losing all magic in Equestria I finally snapped. I realized that I felt sad because I was good, so I changed myself into an evil and uncaring tyrant and then changed the memories of all the citizens of Equestria to match my new personality, making them believe I had always been like this."
Twilight stared in disbelief. "A-A-Are y-you s-serious?"
"Maybe," Celestia said while picking up another slice of cake, "maybe I made that all up. The end result is the same, really, if everyone thinks something happened a certain way and it's impossible to prove that it didn't then the truth is irrelevant. What is important is that I could have done it."
Twilight was still confused. "I... I'm not sure I understand. Does that mean you can just change yourself to be good?"
"Well, I could, but that's not the point. It's not something the me I am now would do. The point is, Twilight, I'm powerful enough to do something like that. Chrysalis might be strong, maybe even stronger than me at times, but she is alone. Even if she somehow defeated me, you and Luna, she would never be able to rule Equestria. She has no means of controlling that many ponies. And as much as they might hate me, I'm still the best option they have. That's how I made it this far, Twilight, because if they have to be stuck with an immortal tyrant then I'm the least bad one available. So unless a good alicorn appears out of nowhere without having been indoctrinated by us like you or Flurry first and she starts to lead a revolution then the citizens of Equestria will always turn to me."
Twilight spent some time looking at the floor, contemplating what she'd just heard, then she wordlessly walked out of the room.
"I'll be in my chambers if you need me," Celestia told her as she was leaving, "I need to have a conversation with someone."