Lilywater
I rubbed my hooves together in anticipation as I drew my gaze over the crystal-lined ceiling. There were loads of possibilities with an amphitheatre like this, and such a network would let me weave together something really spectacular.
So it was a panic she wanted, was it? Something to draw their queen back to the hive?
I tapped a hoof to my chin. It was a lot easier to bring out emotions or the like if my audience was already feelin’ those emotions naturally, but everyone here was just going about their normal business. Sure, I could always brute-force a riot with an echo chamber like this, but that would be overkill for something as simple as just giving them a little fright. After all…
What emotion could be more natural than fear?
I closed my eyes. Fear. Horror. Dread. From the darkness, I drew up the tales I was told back at the temple, stories meant to warn against the terrors of the deep and scare the ignorant and young alike into obedience. They were murmurs of monsters never meant to be seen with names never meant to be uttered, whispers of the blasphemous.
With that kinda perspective, it was only natural to begin with nothing. Though I could only see blackness, I felt my muses beside me, their voices crooning a melody of silence. Through this prelude, we conveyed their insignificance in the vast emptiness of this world, their voices all but nothing when compared to infinity. One by one, they stopped in their work. One by one, their transient souls saw a glimmer of understanding.
A pause. A brief respite as we drew in our breaths.
All at once, we let loose a shriek even more terrifying than the one we had voiced previously, a vicious blight to plague both their ears and their minds. We sang together in beautiful, terrible harmony, for the voice of the profane was too horrible to be emulated with just a single voice. The bulwarks of the mind were no match for the insidious truth echoed within each exquisite chord.
I wove together the spell, casting it out like a wide net over my captive listeners. Primal panic took hold as the line between fiction and reality blurred into madness, and they began to see the unseen horrors and fear for their lives. Their desperate cries echoed off of the unfeeling stone, echoing together in a ghastly chorus.
We raised our voices in unison, and the very ground quaked. Let them feel its approach. Let them feel that which threatened to swallow them whole.
There can be no escape from the edge of oblivion.
There can be no refuge from this Tartarus.
Myiasis
I raced back to the hive, still trailing the green flames of my teleport into the Crystal Caves. The hivemind was filled with the horrid wailing of my children, and all attempts to ascertain the nature of the attack fell on deaf ears.
I passed the threshold into the hive itself, and found nothing but pandemonium. The wailing had amplified tenfold, and the earth shook under my hooves. A shriek unlike any I had ever heard echoed from the very walls, clawing and worming its way into my mind. Drones and workers alike were caught in the throes of terror, fleeing without aim, their eyes wide open yet unseeing, so incoherent and desperate that they could not even recognize their own queen.
What in Equestria was this damned sorcery? Fear took hold over my heart, spilling over from the hivemind. Was it Chrysalis? Now?
It was too early. Too quick. I hadn’t completed any of my preparations yet. Mere days ago, her pawns had been all but eliminated and driven out from Canterlot, yet they still had the capacity to unleash something like this?
Perhaps this was how they eliminated the invader queen. Perhaps what was occurring before my very eyes was the fall of my hive, and I was but standing on the precipice of extinction.
I spurred my hooves into motion.
Nymph
It was a very good thing that my connection to Lily deadened the pull of her songs on me, because if weren’t for that and the muting effect of the crystal-lined caverns, I would probably be having a heart attack right now.
Oh sweet Celestia, I was going to face down a queen.
I shuddered in the shadows next to the entrance, a sneeze away from curling up in a fetal position. There weren’t many places to hide down here, but it wasn’t like it really mattered against the assault on my senses from above me. I had always been hypersensitive to the emotions of others, and it was difficult not to get swept up in the fear forcibly drilling in just a little above me. Doubt was beginning to seep in, even though I knew it was just an aftereffect of the sympathetic empathy.
I’m not going to die I’m not going to die I’mnotgoingtodieI’mnotgonnadie—
Stop. Calm down. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
I’m certain the whole “gasping for air” thing was just in my head.
I tilted my head up to see the little filly looking at me with a raised eyebrow and an amused smirk. I glared at her.
Shut up. You’re also in my head.
The door burst open, and I nearly jumped out of my skin in surprise as the queen shoved her way through. She looked haggard, her steps not quite steady as she made her way to the pedestal. It looked like whatever evil Lily was stirring up was affecting her just as hard as, if not harder than, it was affecting me.
“Move fast,” Crystal said urgently. “If she gets to that throne, she will be able to locate Lily.”
I scowled, forcing life into my leaden limbs. I shot the memory spell at the open door now that I had seen that the queen couldn’t phase through it and spread it across the entire entrance, sealing her inside with me.
She whipped back to look at me, startled by my presence for just a moment before she snarled at me. “You! Vile spawn of Chrysalis!”
I growled back at her before drawing upon my connection with Crystal. In the blink of an eye, I sent out my bola, nothing more than a red streak with the power I had put into it.
The queen drew up a glowing green shield just in time, deflecting my bola to the side. I winced as the shot pierced into the wall like a cannonball, sending shards of crystals flying everywhere. I was almost thankful that she had managed to block it. I had only intended it to be strong enough to immobilize her, not cut her in half!
The queen let out a cry of fury. “Such strength you hold in that tiny frame of yours, child! Or is it really you, Queen Chrysalis, hiding behind the guise of a pony?” she shouted, charging up a retaliation spell. “If so, I will tell you this, greedy subjugator! Canterlot is mine!”
My eyes widened. It was a big spell, and it had the might of a changeling queen behind it. Goosebumps ran across my entire body as I felt the magic roll off her horn. I drew my remaining fume, activating it before it even completely left its pouch and tossing it straight in her direction.
“Ha!” she cried out, batting the canister to the side with a swift hoof. “Your tricks won’t help you here! This is my domain! Mine!”
The fume burst, but it wasn’t fast enough to fill the cavern. The queen trained a murderous gaze on me as the cloud spread, her mouth drawn back in a savage snarl. “You do not belong in my world!” she shrieked before releasing her spell into the crystalline dome surrounding us. “I am Queen Myiasis of the Canterlot Hive, and you will know why I am the Queen of Mirrors! Step beyond the looking glass, and be lost in your reflection!”
The entire cavern shifted as the magic spread across the crystal network, and I looked up as the light that had once been there shifted into a brilliant white. My body locked up as I stared into it, blinded, yet mesmerized. A sharp pain stabbed through my heart, as if a harpoon had been shot straight through it, yet I could not even call out. It settled in like a lead weight, stubbornly sinking its hooks in.
“Resist, you fool! Resist!”
It pulled at me, and my consciousness followed.
r e s is t
Urrrggghhhh…
Unnnngggggghhhhh…
I tried to block out the light working its way through my eyelids. Why was it so bright down in the sleeping chamber? And why did my bed feel so… soft? Well, maybe not really soft. It was like some sort of firm foam. The blanket was a tad thin too, but as a Royal Guard living mostly in the barracks, I was fairly used to crappy blankets. Maybe I just slept on the wrong side of the bed.
My eyes slowly opened, having adjusted to the light more, and I finally got a good look at my surroundings. It was the hospital bed in Canterlot Castle, the one that I had found myself waking up to after the party with Fanc—
“Ahh, good morning, Corporal. It seems you’ve finally woken up.”
My eyes turned to a smiling Princess Celestia, who sat comfortably on a pillow-laden chair to my left, levitating a teacup.
I blinked, and soon after, I realized that blinking was the extent of my physical capabilities. I was paralyzed. None of my muscles responded to my commands, as if they had all been numbed.
Princess Celestia set her cup down on the bedside table, upon which a small tea set sat, and addressed me again. “Relax, Nymph. You had a harrowing fight a week ago against the leader of the foalnappers and you were extremely injured. The doctors had to put you under anesthesia to take some of the pain away. It’s a miracle you managed to return alive after such a dangerous mission.”
“Straight into my hive too. Really, what a bold move.”
My eyes widened. Princess Celestia still looked at me with a calm smile on her face, yet I had heard something across the hive link coming from her, and it sounded very familiar.
“Oh, this? Well, I’ve noticed that you rather do enjoy being on our hivemind, so I’ve taken the liberty of making it a little more… permanent. It did have the side effect of wiping away all the other voices in your mind, but you’re part of us now, and here, it’s just you and me,” she continued, even as she maintained an unflinching face.
And then it hit me. It was the other queen. Myiasis.
She clapped her hooves together. “Oh, and look who’s never left your side,” she said, motioning with a hoof to the other side of my bed. “Look at her, pawn. Look at her.”
I turned my eyes over, and there, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, was Lily. A line of drool ran down the side of her mouth, but she quickly wiped it off as she noticed me.
“Oh, she’s awake!” she chirped, hopping up out of her own cocoon of blankets and trotting over to me. “Hey mum. It’s me, Lily! You feelin’ alright in there?” She tapped her hooves together nervously before turning to my other visitor. “C-can she 'ear me?”
The false princess chuckled. “Of course she can hear you, young Lily. She will be fine with a little more bed rest. We have the finest medicines to treat her.”
“Ahh yes, just look at her cute little face, so naive and innocent.” She shot me a sidelong look. “How touching, to offer companionship to a changeling of all things, which will, of course, make this reunion so much more tragic when you get to watch her die.”
I glared at her, silently willing my muscles to move, to do anything besides just sit there uselessly, yet to no avail. My heart screamed for her blood, but not even my magic would come to me.
“But we’ll get to that later. I do not tire of her presence at this very moment. Let us enjoy her company for just a little while.” The queen levitated over a tray of breakfast items from out of sight, offering them to the merpony. “But perhaps a little something to eat first? Good to have some food for the day ahead,” she said, still with the infuriatingly serene look on her face.
“Ooooh!” Lily leaned over eagerly, examining the contents of the tray. “Oh, it all smells so good. You really didn’t need to, luv.”
The imposter chuckled. “It was the least I could do. Go on, pick whatever you like.”
Lily giggled as she reached over and picked up one of the plates with eggs on them. “I’ll just ‘ave some of these then,” she said, slurping one up whole. “I remember mum 'ere loves these things. It was all she could make back when I first met ‘er, y’know. Never tasted the same either, though they did get less black after a while.”
I turned my gaze to her. “Lily! Run! Get away from her!”
“A sign of improvement, I hope!” Myiasis said with a laugh as she turned her eyes to me. “Ah, ah, ahhh. She can’t hear you anymore. You’re only allowed to speak with me, dear.”
I looked back at the smug look on Celestia’s face. “Leave her alone.”
“Or you’ll do what, dear?”
“Oh, mum? You… you alright there, mum?” Lily said concernedly, setting her plate down. “She doesn’t look right. Are you sure she’s fine?”
The princess laughed. “Don’t worry, Lily. I’ve been monitoring her recovery as well. If there was anything wrong, I would know it first,” she said reassuringly. “And you’ll stay right there until you’re all better. After all, I know what’s best for you. Stay on your leash. You’re nothing but a puppet for those better than you.”
I wanted nothing more than to murder her. I wanted to see her blood splattered all over the room and her insides nothing but mush after I finished driving my axe into her villainous body. I wanted her dead. I wanted to grind her bones beneath my hoof.
“Ahh, alright then,” Lily said. She placed a hoof over mine and squeezed. “Don’t worry, mum. Everything’s gonna be fine.”
I couldn’t do anything. I tried to push my murderous intent through my gaze, but the queen returned it calmly, so self-assuredly. “I’m no puppet, you witch,” I finally sent.
“And yet you lay there like a puppet with her strings cut,” the queen returned. “You have no free will, dog. You bark and bite at the whims of that which you do not understand. You follow the orders of your deposed queen without even fully understanding what they are. Diving into the manticore’s den just because your queen told you to finish your mission first, how silly of you to assume that was all she planned.”
She seemed to chortle silently as she took her teacup again. “And let’s not forget how much use Overwatch has been in getting you adjusted to Canterlot. You have been following her hoofsteps as she led you around the city, and she’s guided you through no few shortcuts and alternate passageways even from beyond the grave.”
The monster raised her eyes again, returning my gaze intensely as she took a sip. “Even your so-called sense of justice, this ‘hero’ complex propelling you into ever more dangerous situations, is but a product of poor little Sweet Spot’s guilt and rage at herself, a thin mask for an ever worse thirst for revenge and blood. Don’t think I don’t get the message you’re trying to send through your eyes, but really, all it shows is just what silly strings pull you around, piloted by a violent, suicidal mind. Weak. Pathetic.”
My anger reached a peak, near boiling over, yet I still could do nothing. It raged, looking for any sort of outlet, but it found none.
I closed my eyes. I had to breathe. To calm myself against her goading, for she knew just how well she was playing with me. I couldn’t let this disgusting, vile creature puppet me like this.
“And what better show your weakness than your relationship with young Lily here,” she continued, blowing softly over her teacup. “You know that to reveal yourself as a changeling violates our tenant of secrecy, but you needed the comfort, didn’t you? To expose yourself and find a warm embrace waiting for you. Your queen would even agree with such drivel as open cooperation with the non-changelings.”
Another sip. “What was it you called her to your hivemates? ‘Money and unconditional love?’ Couldn’t even tell your own hive what she is to you because you know what they are: resources, and nothing more.”
“I told them that because to tell them otherwise would have been a bigger hassle.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “But just because it’s like that now doesn’t mean it always has to be this way.”
“So you tell a lie to avoid an inconvenient truth, but is it really as much of a lie as you believe it to be? Tell me, have you really thought about Lily’s motivations? Her beliefs? Her home? She’s been by your side since you’ve been in Canterlot, and yet you’ve never so much as thought about why she’s aided you without question on life-threatening missions.”
“I… well…” What did Lily want? Was it the Heart Gem? I had heard her mention it previously and it was clear she wanted one, but I’d never confirmed anything, just heard small hints of it. I never really asked her why she was so helpful, just took her help and went with it.
Did… did that make me a bad ling?
The false princess leaned back into her seat, turning her gaze to the merpony on my right. “Not that I blame you for forgetting. She’s quite a powerful weapon, isn’t she? Really, she would be a major problem for anyone who had to go up against her.”
I glared at her. “You know she’s more than just a weapon. Where are you going with this?”
“Oh, just musing,” she replied, giving me a lazy smirk. “And I haven’t forgotten her… emotional support for you, though would anyone care about that if you weren’t on the same side? Really, if she were ever working with the enemy, your masters, those who command you, would surely ask for her death…”
My gut sank. My eyes darted rapidly between the princess and Lily. “No, wait. Stop.”
“And last time I checked, aren’t I your master now?”
I tried to struggle, to make anything happen, but my muscles refused to respond. My heart raced. “Stop! Please!”
“Let’s make good use of that bloodlust you have there. Kill her.”
My body lurched against my will, and Lily jumped. “O-oh!” she exclaimed. “Mum? Are you alright? Mum? Mum?”
It couldn’t end this way. I bared my fangs as I continued to rise from my bed, but my eyes looked around frantically for any way out, anything to stop this horrible nightmare.
And then I saw her.
Sweet Spot sat in a chair across the room, a small smile on her face.
The false princess jumped, shocked at the filly’s appearance. “Her. What’s she doing here?!”
You’re just in my head.
I ran back over the conversation I just had. So many things that had bothered me since I had woken up started to arise again. The other queen’s uncanny knowledge of my personal affairs from as far back as a month. The absence of the link, even the bond with Lily and Crystal. The loss of my hivemind. The sense of deja vu as I woke up. With my hallucinations, it had been difficult to properly distinguish between what was there and what wasn’t, but perhaps there was nothing here to distinguish because it was all the same. All of these could have been explained by many different circumstances, but there was one that wrapped everything up nicely.
This was just in my head.
None of this was real, not even the queen. This was all just… me.
Time stopped, save for me and Myiasis. “She’s a part of me, and she is no more my master than you.”
She scowled at me. “To tell me that, you sniveling nymph, who do you think you are?”
“Who am I?” I took a deep breath, feeling the fresh air revitalize my limbs. For the first time, I saw cracks in the dream. The spell wasn’t perfect, and I think I knew why. “It would have been difficult to answer that a month ago when all I had were bits and pieces of old memories, breadcrumbs left behind by Overwatch and Sweet Spot.”
I let out a low feral growl, turning my head towards the false princess, a sick reflection of my self-doubt. “But I learned a bit about them. I learned that Sweet Spot was embittered by vengeance and anger. Even now, I can feel it, but in the end, she wanted to protect others from suffering, no matter what her motivation’s sordid history may be, and it is a mission I will take up. Overwatch gave her life to save mine, but I will not be her and I will not make her same mistake. She may influence me, but no one, especially not you, has control over me. I may not be perfect, but that does not mean I can’t take it upon myself to improve.”
“Which was what I have been trying to do this whole time, hasn’t it? If I am what I remember, what I remember best comes not from Overwatch’s memories, but from what I’ve been able to make on my own in Canterlot. It is obvious who I am. I am not Sweet Spot. I am not Overwatch. They’re both dead, and all that’s left to live her life is me.
“Who am I? I am—
Nymph
“Begone!” I bellowed.
The white screen that once been the crystalline dome shattered like a pane of glass, starting from right where my bola had impacted the wall. It was a flaw in the network, broken with just a little more pressure. The world snapped back into existence, the clouds from my fume once again reigning supreme. Though they had dissipated slightly, vision range was still a good three to four meters away, enough to disappear into.
“Damn you, foul, unnatural hellspawn!” she shrieked, charging up her spell again, the same nightmarish dream spell I had fallen to before.
But I was ready now that her net could no longer hold me. I called upon my illusion spell and shrouded myself in it. As before, the illusions were unable to stick to my distorted aether, but my spell constantly reapplied them as they sloughed off, something that once required all my concentration only requiring a mere thought now. My body blurred and flickered randomly, rendering me all but invisible in the shadowy embrace of my fume’s clouds.
She shot her spell where she last saw me, but I could tell even a fraction of a second after it left her horn that it wouldn’t land anywhere close to me. I charged up my memory spell, but I didn’t aim for the queen.
“A very nice spell you have there!” My spell tagged the magic bolt as it passed by, yo-yoing back to me. My aura became electrified, spazzing and arcing out to any crystals I happened to be near. Though I had been concerned about the instability before, it contained a lot of energy, and energy could be harnessed.
I felt… giddy. I let out a light giggle, though in a situation like this, it sounded more unhinged than playful. “I’ll give it back!” I said, a wide grin across my face as I circled around her. “Promise!”
“No no no no no!” she screeched, throwing out magic bolts as fast as she could charge them into the swirling clouds. “You’ll not defeat me! You will not claim what is mine and mine alone!”
I could sense the fear building in her as Lily continued to weave her song up above. The fear of the inevitable, of a predator she couldn’t see, and of the continued consequences of her inaction, all of these stresses weighed upon her, and it was clear she was breaking. She was flailing about with a desperation only known when escape was impossible, hoping for purchase against the slippery slope.
I could hold her spell no longer, and I unleashed it right at her. Her shield came up, but it couldn’t block her own spell, and the barrier fell immediately as she was struck. Even though the smoke, I could feel her twisting and writhing on my empathy sense, dazed and howling like a feral beast, but it was clear she wasn’t being affected by her own spell as well as it had affected me. She was going to recover if I didn’t do something with this opportunity.
“Go. The memory spell. Now!”
I dove in, my memory spell already upon my horn. I felt Crystal already working her own magic upon it, altering it ever so slightly as I broke the cloud cover and pounced right at Queen Myiasis’s head.
In the reflection of her wide, terrified eyes, just a moment just before our horns connected, I caught a mere glimpse of my own eyes, as deep crimson as the red beryl in my back holster.
Crystal
The memory spell was amazingly versatile, especially now that I knew the final missing component to it, and being connected to both Nymph and Myiasis by the spell meant I had… options.
Lots of options.
Lilywater
The composition was nearly at its end. I felt it clearly within my breast. A subtle change. An altered bond. It was time for the final movement.
One thing I remembered from my younger years was that, after every single one of those scary stories, the caretakers would always hug and comfort us, holding us close to their breast and singing lullabies to us to ward away the nightmares.
No reason to break away from tradition here, now that the job was done. My muses and I stopped our banshee song and launched into a transition, a weary wandering for safety and comfort now that the danger had passed, before finally beginning our lullaby, letting them fall into the warmth of a dreamless sleep.
And so, the song that began with silence, ended with silence.
I opened my eyes, gazing out upon the weary bodies down below, those who had finally found rest and respite from the stalkers in the darkness.
A moment passed, and then a wide smile split my face, and I clapped hooves with each of my muses, giggling all the while.
Nymph
I groaned as the world snapped back into focus. I thought the newer memory spell wouldn’t make me fall unconscious again, but maybe it couldn’t quite hold up to being used on a queen.
I rolled over onto my side, trying to ward away the razor-sharp pain running down my side whenever I tried to move. My magic had been burnt out, and even the mana reservoir I had access to from the binding ritual had been sucked dry. I shuddered, half from pain and half from uneasiness. To have used a spell that required such a vast pool of magic was… terrifying.
The dark clouds from the fume had dissipated further since I had last seen them, now no more than a thick blanket extending fetlock-deep around the area. The only thing that still stood over the cloud layer was the throne at the center of the room.
Another shape rose from the ground slowly, and in the dim light, I saw the clear outline of the horn and the crown on top of its head.
The queen.
My eyes widened. She hadn’t been taken down. I tried to call up my magic, but my horn could produce little more than green sparks. My body was too tired to push myself up all the way, and I eventually tried to sink into the blanket of clouds, hoping to conceal myself.
She pushed herself up to a sitting position, bringing a hoof up and groaning. Her hoof stopped halfway to her head, and she stared at it, completely still. Her other hoof came up, and she looked at both of them as if she had only seen them for the first time.
A low chuckle began in her throat before erupting in a loud, triumphant cackle, a true supervillain laugh. “Yes, yes! I did it!” she cried out before falling onto her back, waving her legs in some strange aerial aerobics as if she were a newborn foal.
I poked my head out from the clouds slightly, my brow furrowed together. The evil laughter was one thing, but I hadn’t quite expected this sort of reaction. What in Equestria…
She shot back up again and looked around eagerly until she finally spotted me.
Oh Tartarus.
I tried to hide myself again, but she had already pounced on me, an unsettlingly wide smile on her muzzle as she lowered her head to mine. I shut my eyes and tried to curl up into as tight of a ball as I could, awaiting for the moment when she would—
“Boo,” she said.
I opened my eyes again, furrowing my brow. “Huh?”
“Hellloooooo, Nymph!” she exclaimed joyously as she lifted me up bodily and brought me into a tight hug against her chest, squeezing the air out of me. “Oh, it feels so good to have legs again!”
Before I could process what was going on, I was flung into the air, somersaulting once before landing on my backside on the throne on top of the center pedestal. I shakily righted myself and regained my balance, just in time to see the queen skipping in a circle around me.
I put two and two together. “C-Crystal?”
“In the fleeessshhhh!” she sang as she passed by in front of me again before bursting into another loud cackle. “Oh, you never know how much you miss having a tail until it has been taken away from you.” She stopped her skipping and turned her head, watching her tail swish around happily.
Cryst—Queen Chrysalis’s tail stopped moving and she furrowed her brow, narrowing her eyes at her rear end. “I think her flank is bigger than mine.”
I blinked. “H-hold on,” I said, bringing my hooves up. “How?”
“Probably the high society life. Oh, if only I had treated myself to some fine dining back when I still wore my old skin,” she said, raising the back of her hoof to her forehead dramatically. “Alas, I may now have to put in actual effort if I am to maintain my current splendor.”
I rolled my eyes. “You know what I mean.”
She lowered her hoof and smirked. “The memory spell. You saw how the… the traitor took my own body with it,” she said as she trotted around to lean on the arm of the throne beside me. “I merely used your spell to do the same to Miss Myiasis.”
My eyes widened. “So what happened to her? To Myiasis, now that you’re occupying her own body?” I stopped and brought out the red beryl in the pouch of my holster. “Is she in this thing now?”
My queen shook her head. “She is not. When I cast the spell, I had the opportunity to… discuss things with her. She was not amenable to cooperation, unfortunately,” she murmured.
I sighed. “That’s a shame.”
“So it is.” She took the beryl from my grasp and hummed. “It seems like I am still bound to this thing by the ritual—and to you two by extension—even in my new body. Could warrant further research in the future, though not necessarily any time soon.” She shook her head despondently. “There is still much to do. Though I may be able to keep up appearances as their former queen, I will have to reveal the truth of the matter sooner or later if I am to secure their unwavering loyalty.”
I scrunched my face in a frown. “How’re you going to convince them of that, My Queen, given that you kinda just… y’know… overthrew their queen?”
“Just call me Chrysalis. I will not be called a queen by one I have had to rely on extensively these last few weeks. As for your question, well… I have a few ideas,” she mused as she wrapped her magic around the beryl and caused it to vanish. “I imagine that my name still carries some weight, even in other hives. Knowing that their new leader is one very much capable of leading may take some of the sting out. I will have to explain why I am not leading my own hive, of course, and that alone may rally them to my cause, or at least against the traitor. Requiem is no doubt planning for an assault on Canterlot at some point in time, though queens are willing to wait a very long time before they go through with their plans.”
She let out a weary breath. “I will also need to convince them of my own plans for the changeling race, to abandon the old tenants of secrecy so that we might all benefit from better relations with those we feed upon.”
Chrysalis straightened up with a huff. “Plenty to get done, but I am no stranger to long-term goals, and at least now, we can tick off the first step, which is—”
I gasped. “The pods! Wait, we still have to get all of those ponies back up to Canter—”
She cleared her throat forcefully, raising an eyebrow at me. “I can take care of that. You are about ready to fall flat on your face, and I want to test my body a little.” She paused. “I also need to see if Lily has done any lasting damage to my new hive, shaking the mountain like that.”
Chrysalis looked down at me. “Just rest, for now. You have already done your part, Nymph.”
I pouted as she lifted me with her magic, placing me on her back. “But what about Lily?”
“She will be fine,” she said. “Now sleep before I have to start singing at you. It has been a very long time since I have done so, as you may imagine.”
I rolled my eyes with a sigh. “Fine fine,” I said before closing my eyes and relaxing my muscles, feeling the rhythmic movements of Chrysalis’s body under me.
I took a deep breath and settled in.
Maybe now… now that it was finally over…
I can take just a little nap.