//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 // Story: A Foreign Education // by GaPJaxie //------------------------------// Cheval lay in bed, a blissful smile on her face. Gideon was behind her, wrapping her body in his and holding her tight against his feathers. He circled her shoulder with the tip of a talon, tracing the curves of her body. Hovering in front of them was the book of poetry he’d given her. “Read that one,” he whispered to her. With a single talon, he indicated the one he meant. She giggled, and did as he bid her. “Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken.” Her post-coital smile flickered for a moment, but did not quite fade from her face. She shut the book and laid it on the bedside, then shut her eyes and snuggled tighter against him. “You know Gia didn’t love you,” she said. In the corner, Gia stood silently, said nothing, and waited for Cheval to give her an order. “She was a whore. You’re the creature I’m meant to be with,” Gideon said, his voice firm. He nuzzled into the back of her neck. “No. No. She wasn’t a whore.” Cheval stroked his talons with a hoof. “But she wasn’t right for you. Your relationship would have ended anyway. All I did was speed things up a little bit.” “I know you always do the right thing.” “Wow. No. You are um…” She bit her lip. “You are really doped up right now. I might have baked your mind a little too hard there. But it’s fine. It’s temporary. You’ll regain your wits soon.” He didn’t have anything to say to that, and after a moment, she went on: “I know you’ll be mad at me. Really mad. But I can feel that you do like me, a little. You’re not just beguiled. We did have a friendship and… you know. Sometimes friendships turn into romantic relationships.” “I love you,” he said. Cheval’s smile faded. “No. No. You…” She squeezed him again. “Not yet. But you will one day. Okay? You’ll get over this, and… everything will be okay. You’ll love me and you’ll be happy. I know I did some bad things. But I’m still the pony you made friends with, right? I’m not… I did some bad things. But I’m not the bad pony here. I’m not.” “You could never be a bad pony.” His claws traced a pattern on her belly. “You’re my beautiful little griffon.” Before she could reply, something exploded in the hallway. Concrete shattered. Shouts echoed through the building. “Revolutionary guard!” some griffon roared. “Talons up on the wall!” Tied together by an unspoken bond, the three of them leapt into action. Cheval rolled out of bed and assumed the form of Cross Product. Gia leapt to her desk, spread out her homework, and in every way put on the appearance of normalcy. Gideon stood between Cheval and the door, blocking any attacker’s line of sight. “Hey, you can’t come in here,” shouted one of Cheval’s student guards. They fought valiantly, though briefly. A series of meaty cracks marked the end of their struggle. The door to their dorm room glowed. Metal groaned. Then, with a sudden rending scream, the door came away—sucked off into the hall as though by a tremendous wind. Bits of its shattered hinges flew through the air. One bounced off Girard’s chest, and he spread his wings to protect Cheval from any debris. Out in the hall stood two changelings and a half-dozen griffons. All soldiers. “Cadet,” one of the griffons ordered, “step out into the hall and put your talons on the wall.” Gideon didn’t do as he was instructed. Instead, he locked eyes with the officer in the hall. His talons flexed. The illusion of normalcy dispersed, Gia picked up a letter opener she kept on her desk. She did not keep her talons sharp, and so required a weapon. A knife, while not ideal, could suffice in a pinch. “Really now, that’s enough of that,” spoke a smooth, feminine voice. A bright green aura surrounded Gia and Gideon, freezing both of them in place. And through the door frame, Queen Amaryllis stepped into sight. Her shell was the color of rainbows and candy. Her wings were delicate gossamer, reminiscent of butterflies. Her mane was a soft white tinged with flecks of pink. And when she smiled, the room lit up around her. A reformed changeling could look no better. And, of course, she was tall. She had to lower her head to see Cheval beneath Gideon’s wings. “Hello, Cheval,” she said. In a flash of green light, Cheval reverted to her natural form. Her hole-ridden legs clicked on the concrete as she stepped out from behind Gideon. What else could Amaryllis do? She giggled. “Oh, this is dramatic. You look like you’re rotting from the inside out.” In tones as sweet as candy floss and smooth as flowing wine she asked, “Were you really so afraid of being your mother's heir?” For half a second, Cheval hesitated to answer. Her head lowered and her tail tucked between her legs. It was as though she was ashamed. But when she lifted her gaze to Amaryllis anew, her expression was shameless. “I can be my mother’s heir,” she said. Her horn glowed, light flashed off the tip, and the magical aura surrounding Gideon and Gia dispersed. “Kill her.” In the tight confines of the dorm room, complex maneuver was impossible. The concrete walls blocked the guards in the hallway from entering, and there was space for neither elaborate spellcasting nor dynamic martial arts. It was all over in seconds. Cheval was fastest to act. Her horn flashed, and a thin haze surrounded Amaryllis. Amaryllis was slightly slower. She attempted to teleport out, but Cheval’s spell inhibited her. Her outline momentarily blurred, but she did not move. One of the changeling guards in the hallway was next. She fired a magical bolt over Amaryllis’s shoulder. It struck Gideon in the chest and passed through his torso. A spray of blood covered the dorm room wall. The smell of scorched flesh filled the air. Gia wrapped her arms around Amaryllis, preventing her from backing out into the hall. And then Gideon, roaring through his injuries, lunged forward and got his talons around her neck. His muscles clenched, and he tore out her throat. In a flash of green, Amaryllis transformed into a dead changeling drone, its throat still gone. Without a friendly blocking their lines of sight, the guards in the hall were free to open fire. Cheval sat on Amaryllis’s train, her legs bound with heavy iron chains. Dried droplets of griffon blood covered her shell. “Is Amaryllis immortal?” Amaryllis asked her, a smile on her face. “Are her methods supernatural?” No matter how hard Cheval looked, she couldn’t see any flaw in the disguise. “Is this one real?” “All of them are real; I am the hive.” She leaned forward, and sniffed Cheval’s shoulder. “I smell two griffons’ blood. Which one is the father?” When Cheval refused to answer, Amaryllis gestured, and a guard grabbed Cheval’s dock. By that means, she was yanked to all four hooves and her tail lifted. Amaryllis sniffed her hindquarters. “Ah, good,” she said. “He has a strong bloodline. Principled. Vital. An excellent choice. Reminds me of your father.” “He’s dead.” “Oh, dear, that’s for the best.” Amaryllis brushed Cheval’s cheek with a hoof. “How do you think he’d have reacted? You poisoned his relationship with his love. Lied to him. Entrapped him. And when he refused you, you took what you wanted by force. In this new, kinder era, changelings don’t use the ‘R’ word. But it’s a subtext.” Cheval shivered in the warm air, and her gaze sunk to the floor. “I will never be a changeling queen. Kill me or I’ll kill myself.” She tittered. “You already are. You found an area with plenty of love to steal, moved into a defensible central location, ensorcelled the locals to serve as your initial hive guard, and found a male with a good bloodline to be the sire. The nesting instinct is very strong. If I’d left you another month, you’d have been rationalizing getting the griffons to raise your grubs for you.” The smile didn’t leave Amaryllis’s face. How friendly it looked, against that rainbow-colored shell. “I wonder if that’s why you came all the way out here, instead of going to Equestria. Perhaps, on some level, you knew the creatures around you would become your victims. You love ponies too much.” “Did you actually reform or was this all just a big trick? A twenty-year long con.” Cheval spat. “Maybe you never changed. I think you’re still the same toxic creature you always were. Do you have as many holes in your legs as I do?” “I instructed Double Time to train you in the ways of your kind. But it seems she failed.” Her disappointment was faint, but impossible to miss. “A pony may be one thing or the other. But we contain many ponies, young queen. I am kind and I am cruel and I am loving and I am vicious. I feel and I calculate and I forgive and I punish. I have as many holes in my legs as I wish to have.” “You’re a monster.” “I am,” she said, ever so gentle. “But I do love. Just like you are a monster, but you do truly love your family. You treasure them as they would wish to be treasured. It hurts you to know they are in pain.” Reaching a hoof under Cheval’s chin, Amaryllis tilted her head. “Hear my words and know them to be true. You are many things. You are the daughter of Princess Cadence, raised as her own. You are also my daughter, bearer of my bloodline. You are a kind, sweet, loving creature who desires nothing more than to live in a world without conflict. You are also a liar, a brute, and a greedy, power-hungry schemer, who betrayed her closest friends to their deaths.” Cheval’s words stuck in her throat, and her voice was thick. “I don’t want to be those things.” “You want to be Flurry Heart. The firstborn. The one who gets to rule a kingdom, who everypony treasures, and who deserves her mother’s love.” She tilted her head, considering Cheval in detail. “Confess that you’ve fantasized about murdering and replacing your sister.” “I…” Cheval tried to lower her head, pushing against Amaryllis’s hoof. So Amaryllis slapped her. “Cadence raised you to be weak,” she snapped, “but I expect better of you. When you lie to me, lie with intent. Lie because you want to deceive me. Never lie to me because you’re too cowardly to face the truth.” And so Cheval stopped trying to lower her head, and looked Amaryllis in the eye. She assumed a calm, controlled expression, one of focused intent. “Better,” her mother said. “Why are you here?” Cheval asked. “Because I’ve been playing this game with Cadence for eighteen years,” she said, gesturing at a map she kept on the wall, “and I’ve gotten tired of it. The conflict between my hive and the Crystal Empire ends this month. So if you really do care for your family, listen carefully.” When she was sure Cheval was listening, Amaryllis went on: “I’m issuing an ultimatum to Princess Cadence today. The Crystal Empire is mine by right. I ruled the north long before your kingdom returned from whence Sombra cast it and she is a squatter on my land. To that end, she has three options.” She flicked a hoof: “One, she can abdicate the title of ‘Princess,’ forswear her fealty to Princess Celestia, and swear herself anew in vassalage to me. I will grant her the title of Duchess, and she will continue to rule the Crystal Empire in my name. It will become one of many territories in my empire, and its ponies will live in peace.” “Two,” she flicked a hoof again, “I declare war one last time, and her crumbling nation finally implodes under its own weight. In the last conflict, her army’s morale was so poor some of her soldiers dropped their weapons and ran before they even saw us. I will take her kingdom and send her and her family into exile.” “Celestia will intervene.” Cheval drew herself up. Amaryllis smiled down at her. She reached out with a hoof, wiped a bit of the blood off of Cheval’s shell, and pressed it to Cheval’s nose with the tip of a hoof. “Boop,” she said. “Why…” Cheval began a question, but couldn't finish it. Amaryllis went on. “Option three is the one that involves you.” With that bloody hoof, she pointed at Cheval once again. “I will formally cede all disputed land to Cadence, return much of the land we took during the last few conflicts, restore her border with Equestria, acknowledge by treaty that I have no rights to her domain, and significantly reduce the size of my army. And all I want in return is…” She gestured at Cheval. “You…” Cheval’s brow furrowed into an incredulous stare. “You gave me away.” “I gave away a grub. Now you’re a queen. I know everypony thinks I’m a brilliant mastermind playing five-dimensional chess, but, really.” She tapped her own shell. “I didn’t see that one coming.” “I said I’d die before I served you.” “Yes, but we’ve already established you’re a liar.” So light was her tone, one would think she was gently playing. Teasing a friend over tea and cakes. “So I like my odds. I can teach you the ways of your people. Soothe your damaged heart. Make you what you were meant to be. You spent your whole life thinking it was your destiny to destroy your mother’s kingdom. But I have good news.” She rested a hoof over Cheval’s chest. “It’s your destiny to save it.” Amaryllis had her dropped off in the Crystal Empire. One train track ran directly under the palace, for the royal family’s personal use. A few drones and a train car took Cheval for the last leg of the journey. Cadence, Shining, and Flurry Heart were all waiting when her train arrived. She didn’t want to get out, so one of the drones pushed her. She was tall, dark-shelled, and thin as a rail. Her legs were full of holes. Her teeth came to sharp points. The shackles about her legs marked her as a dangerous prisoner. And of course, she was still speckled with dried blood. Though it had long since turned brown and flakey, she had not been offered a chance to clean herself. The drones removed her restraints. Shining looked at her and didn’t move. She did look a great deal like Chrysalis. He could hardly be blamed. Cadence looked at her and also didn't move. She was trying to decide if this actually was her daughter. The creature before her didn’t look anything like Cheval, and they had only Amaryllis’s word that it was so. Flurry Heart bounded up to sister’s side and wrapped her in a tight hug. “You’re a huge idiot,” she snapped. Cheval turned into a perfect copy of her sister. For half a second, they looked each other in the eye as mirror images. Then Cheval’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry,” she said in Flurry’s voice. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t… I…” Flurry told her it was okay, and Cheval hugged her so hard she knocked the breath from her lungs. She buried her head into her sister’s shoulder, and uncontrollably sobbed.