This Platinum Crown

by Capn_Chryssalid

Chapter Sixty-Two : One Last Breath

Author Note
I've been gone for a while, obviously. Kinda goes without saying. BUT I did swear to eventually finish this, and while I had been aiming to do so before this last Bronycon, I couldn't make that deadline. I have an update though. And I got to meet some of you at this last Bronycon, and I even got a lot of writing done there. Feels almost like an end of an era. But I can wax nostalgic about conventions in blog posts. I'm in a pony mood, still, reading fics, re-reading some old favorites, that sort of thing. I mean to harness this good mood and ride it to completion. Hmm. That sounded kinda pervy, didn't it?

Barring epilogues, this is likely the third to last chapter of TPC.
There'll be a more formal author note at the bottom as well. You'll see why when you get there.

. . .
. . .
(62)

. . .

“Twilight? Twilight, are – are you alright? Can you hear me?”

Twilight Sparkle returned to Equestria in the exact same place she left it, her steadily materializing hooves touching down on the cutie-mark her ascension had burned into the floor. Wisp-thin trails of steam poured off her new body, as if it had been freshly born from a cosmic womb. Her first real breath, too, felt raw and a little strange, like the first gasp of a newborn, exercising lungs that had never before tasted real air. Born atop her back like a third pair of legs, her new wings twitched awkwardly, the muscles strange but familiar at the same time. Earth pony magic coursed through her hooves and her legs in a way she could feel, infused into her very muscles and bones. It felt alien, but it also felt like it had always been there, under the surface, just… waiting to be discovered.

Her first step was a stumble, but a hoof helped to catch her.

“Chalice?” Twilight blinked. She was the first pony, the first thing, Twilight Sparkle saw with her new eyes. It took a moment to realize she looked a little smaller… was now a little smaller… than Twilight herself. While hardly Celestia-sized, Twilight found her legs were just a little longer than before, and the new height difference was immediately recognizable.

“You look like a true Princess, Twilight,” Chalice said, softly, helping the newly minted alicorn steady herself. “Congratulations again.”

“Thank you, Chalice,” Twilight replied, and smiled at the timid unicorn mare. Chalice’s ears perked at being thanked, and nothing more, and seeing it pulled at Twilight’s heartstrings.

Chalice…

It was so easy to look at Chalice and forget that, beneath her gentle and unobtrusive demeanor, was the vessel of a cosmic entity. Looking at her, now, though…? Twilight couldn’t help but recall the ethereal chains she had seen in that starry realm, the ones that chained timid little Chalice to Sagittarius’ throne. They were invisible to the eye, but not gone. Never gone. Chalice would wear those chains until the day she died, and possibly long after as well. The entity seemed… possessive of her.

‘And who gave her that power?’

“Thank you for being there to help me,” Twilight added, and Chalice blushed even more hotly.

“I – I didn’t really do much…”

“You were there, Chalice, in that place with me,” Twilight reminded her, and leaned over to affectionately nuzzle her, “and I felt safer because of it. If I had been truly alone, I don’t know what I’d have done.”

Chalice returned the nuzzle and seemed emboldened by it, and by Twilight’s words. “I’m glad I could help, then, if only just a little!”

“Absolutely!” Twilight said and followed up the nuzzle with a pat on the mare’s petite withers. “Now, what’s been going on while I was away?”

“Oh! I think the spell went off,” Chalice answered, glancing down at her hooves. “The contract spell, I mean. I saw the flashes of black light… felt the magic in the air change.”

“Good. Good! Then this battle will all be over soon!” Twilight grinned and started on her way to the stairs back down. She got to the edge of them, only to be greeted by a sight.

In the railings below, waiting for her to come down the stairs from the spell projection platform, were more than a dozen ponies… but they were not normal ponies. The bright pastel colors of their coats were dimmed, and they now sparkled faintly with starry magic, reminiscent of Luna’s tail and mane. The effect was particularly pronounced around their new horns, hooves and wings, shrouding them in aethereal star-stuff.

Their horns, both old and new, were etched with a spiral pattern, like light in the darkness, and the base of their hooves likewise burned with an actinic tone, more light in the night. The colors of their eyes remained, but at the same time they burned with a colorless white flame. Their manes moved of their own accord in chaotic patterns that had nothing to do with the wind whipping through the terraces and balconies of the Hanging Gardens. Most of those manes were turned black, with their original colors instead turned into bright outlines of their former selves.

“Twi-light!” they cheered, upon seeing her emerge. “Twi-light! Twi-light! Twi-light!”

They were stamping their hooves as they cheered, raising their voices and flaring their magic.

“Twi-light! Twi-light! Twi-light!”

Standing at the edge of the stairs, one hoof raised to descend, Twilight was momentarily stunned by the display. Ponies were cheering… for her? Tentatively, she lifted a hoof to shyly wave and the darkened ponies in attendance cheered even louder.

“Twi-light! Twi-light! Twi-light!”

“You’re a Princess, now, Twilight,” Chalice said, softly, so only Twilight could hear. “Not just in your form. Brother promised them a new Princess, and like it or not… we are what others see us…”

“What is a Princess?” Twilight remembered Antimony’s question. She knew her Terre Rare cousin’s answer to the question, and Chalice’s comment was much the same.

“What am I now?” Twilight asked herself, as the cheering thundered around her. “I cast a spell, a powerful spell, but that can’t be what makes me a Princess. There has to be more to it than raw power. Arsenic spent her whole life trying to ascend, and all she became was a monster. I… ponies are cheering me on… I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it… but a Princess is not made by acclaim, either. Even this body… it isn’t what makes me, me. With or without wings, it doesn’t matter, shouldn’t matter. I’m just Twilight Sparkle.”

“Twi-light! Twi-light! Twi-light!”

“I’m just Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight repeated, under her breath. But she raised her hoof higher, waving a little more confidently. “Hi, there, everypony. Thanks for coming out to see me?”

The crowd roared again, stamping their hooves.

She turned to Chalice. “Let’s find out what’s going on. If things have gone according to plan, then we should be in position to find the Princesses.”

Chalice looked up at her and seemed to hesitate.

“R-right,” she agreed. “The plan. Let’s find out.”

. . .

“Update: twenty-one thousand, five hundred and sixteen. It continues to climb, but we have finally passed both our critical threshold and the boundary statistical error.” Eunomie opened her missing eye, revealing a glowing hollow in the flesh, sizzling with residual magic. Turning her head slightly, she found Brass still seated on a raised level, looking out a window at the sprawling, burning city below. “Congratulations, Father.”

“We’ve done it!” “Yes!” “Congratulations, sir!” “Congratulations, my Lord!”

All around the control center, transformed ponies were clopping their hooves together in applause, embracing one another in joy, staring upwards rapturously or bumping hooves and rumps. One mare was literally in tears, weeping openly as the numerical ticker overhead - tied to Eunomie’s contract magic - continued to climb ever higher. Other ponies popped open bottles of champagne with laughs of joy, pouring overflowing drinks for their comrades, or in one case, on their comrade. The wine sizzled and popped on contact with her new starry mane.

Alpha Brass remained separate and away from them, his back to the crowd to stare out over Canterlot below. Like the others, like everypony, he had signed the contract and transformed… but his black wings remained firmly fixed to his sides and he seemed largely disinterested in his new body parts. Slowly, the architect of the Fourth Tribe raised his hooves, as if silently and privately savoring this moment… except not.

“Father?” Eunomie asked, softly, as she alighted next to him. With a single flap of her new wings, she had taken off and landed, but rather than turn and smile promisingly at her, Alpha Brass still seemed lost in his own thoughts. Wreathed in a soft violet magic were two glasses of champagne she had picked up en route. She tried to pass one on to him, but he didn’t seem to see the offering.

He continued to stare at his hoof.

“Father?” she asked again, her voice deadpan, but inwardly concerned. This was his moment of triumph. It would not have come to pass without him. Why did he look so… lost?

“I’m the same as before,” she heard him whisper. “I suspected it would be this way, I always suspected, but… but… I hoped…”

Eunomie watched him in profile as he let out a breath.

“Father?”

He shook his head and seemed to return to his normal self. “Eunomie? Yes? We passed the demographic threshold, didn’t we? I seem to have zoned out for a moment.”

“Congratulations, Father,” Eunomie repeated in monotone and offered him the flute of champagne. “You have created a new equestrian race. One that recaptures the power of the old world, and most importantly, the valor of the old world as well. The Fourth Tribe.”

“Lady Eunomie!” a mare called out from the control room. “Our observers report the changelings are in full retreat on all fronts!”

“Results are in from the naming competition are in, my Lord!” another mare called out, holding up a sheet of paper in her blazing hooves. “Thank the P- thank the heavens, ‘Starsworn’ managed to beat out ‘Starcorns.’”

“Starsworn!” a cry went up.

“Starsworn! Wooo!” a mare with a pink highlight in her starry mane downed a full bottle of champagne.

Watching the festivities with a somber expression, Brass’s magic plucked the flute of wine from Eunomie’s grasp. His new magic was much the same as before, but with dark stars glittering within the field. The momentary confusion from before washed away and a more familiar mask of confidence and strength returned. Eunomie was glad, though it did little to show on her face or in her voice. Her father was back to his senses, it seemed. Mostly.

Still, something was wrong.

“This is an accomplishment for the ages, truly,” he cautioned, “but before we toast to the future, Eunomie,” he raised his voice, addressing the one mare not overtly partaking in the celebration. The dancing and applause below went silent when he spoke. “Demographic breakdown, please.”

“One moment,” Eunomie responded without inflection, her one eye still disembodied. “Current breakdown as follows. Gender: 14,228 mares, 7402 stallions; Age: zero-to-ten years, 3946, eleven-to-nineteen years, 3391, twenty-to-forty-four years, 8905, forty-four-to-sixty, 3678, sixty-one-to…”

“That will do, Eunomie, thank you. Those numbers are promising. Very promising.” Brass, at last, seemed satisfied, but there was something missing, too. Some emotion Eunomie was not familiar enough with to place. His eyes were dry, and there was a smile on his lips as he looked down at his fellow false alicorns. He turned to Eunomie by his side and his smile broadened, though something about it seemed… forced. Raising his glass, the two gently tapped the rims to produce a satisfying crystal TINK.

“My friends. My comrades. My special ponies,” he continued. “Congratulations to all of you and… thank you. From the depths of my heart, thank you.”

Glass still floating in the air, he softly clopped his hooves together.

“You have done it. You have won this… and all future wars.”

A roar of triumph and approval rippled through the center as the celebrations briefly resumed. Tall glasses of bubbly toasted and one mare even broke out in spontaneous song. For so long, they had labored in secret for this moment, almost all leaving family and friends behind to work in seclusion with their new sisters and cohorts. The research and rediscovery of new realms of magic; the construction of an Effulgent Forge and the production of new Star Keys; the design, replication and testing of not one but three Crystal Hearts for amplification of spellwork; the biological testing and equine trials… then, at last, kindling the embers of war; setting a trap for the changelings; covertly decimating the Equestrian nobility; so much and more… all for this.

All for this.

“A New Equestria rises with the dawn,” Alpha Brass kept speaking, but softly, so low that only Eunomie could really hear over the celebration. He took only the smallest sip from his champagne. “And with that Dawn will come a new Princess.”

The sun could be seen, rising, in the corner of the window behind Lord Brass. It burned… weakly and more distantly than before. Those few who had been outside had already felt the difference during the night. If the sun and moon were not tamed anew, Equestria would have to grow accustomed to being colder and darker. Not that the Starsworn would be troubled by the change.

“Look up here, Eunomie,” Alpha Brass said, pointing to a blackboard set against one of the walls. It was being all but ignored in the festivities. On the board were names…

Many, many names.

And many of those names were crossed out.

“I was looking at this before we hit the threshold,” Brass explained, searching the board with his eyes. He pointed. “Do you see that name, there? South Pole?”

Eunomie nodded, but only because she saw it. “Yes.”

“I knew him,” Brass explained, taking a sip of his champagne. “After my minority, I was sent to Canterlot instead of being fostered by a great house. I attended a boarding school for stallions… and I shared a room with South Pole. He was from a good and noble family, but… but he loved whiskey.” A pale ghost of a smile appeared briefly on Brass’ face at the memory. “I remember he actually had a hollowed-out book that he hid a flask in to escape inspection. For three years, he dated a pegasus named Mayfly. They were a cute couple, maybe even in love, though eventually he ended up in an arranged marriage, just like me.”

South Pole’s name was crossed out on the board.

“They’re both dead now, I suppose,” Brass continued, staring hard at the name. “He was Lord of Southern Light. I thought of him as a friend, but I killed him anyway. I could give you stories about a dozen other names up on this board, all crossed out. All dead.”

“The changelings killed these ponies,” Eunomie clarified.

“No, Eunomie. No!” Brass turned to her, and for just a moment, there was a black hatred in his green eyes. But then it was gone, just as quickly. “No. I set things in motion. I made sure the nobles who had to die were in the city. I didn’t spear a single one of them in the barrel, but I am responsible. I am a mass murderer, Eunomie. The greatest mass murderer since Sombra.”

“Only a coward refuses to see his victims for what they are: his fellow ponies, fellow griffins, his countrymares… I am not a coward,” he finished, turning back to the board. “I accept what I am. I need to exist. What I do is terrible, but I need to exist.”

“The nobility of Equestria had to be decimated,” Eunomie reminded him. “What point is there in dwelling on it?”

“If Euporie was on that list, would you still say that, Eunomie?”

“…”

Eunomie was silent, but she did think about his question. Honestly, she wasn’t sure what she would feel. Perhaps the comment was prophetic. Euporie had fallen, after all; fallen not just in battle, but in grace. Eunomie had seen the end of her fight with the Element of Laughter, Pinkie Pie. Euporie had turned from the cause, from father. How it had happened? Why? Eunomie didn’t know. Couldn’t understand.

“The nobility of Equestria did have to die,” Brass agreed, letting his question from before remain unanswered. “They were too wedded, too invested, in Princess Celestia as their leader. She was literally the center of their world, the instrument through which she ruled, and my enemy… my real enemy is…”

The magic holding his flute of champagne trembled.

“All sunshine makes a desert,” he said, and the trembling ceased. “Equestria has become that desert.” His eyes narrowed at the blackboard. “I want this board to go untouched. Unless another name is stricken out on it. I want it to remain, as a testament to our crimes, and as a reminder of the price we paid for the future. I want foals to see it in a museum, a hundred years from now, and remember these names. I want them to know that for every name on here, countless other nameless ponies died.”

“And if the blame falls on all who joined the new tribe? The Starsworn?” Eunomie inquired, eyes level. “It would be more pragmatic to erase it when we are done.”

“A people who do not understand why they exist… should not exist. See it done.” Brass turned to her, and Eunomie nodded, knowing when he would or would not be gainsaid.

“I do not agree, but I will do as you say, father. The board will not be erased.”

“Good. Now. At least three more names on it need to be crossed out,” Brass said, then, pointing to the three on the very top:

CELESTIA
LUNA
BLUEBLOOD

“The old royalty. The pillars of the old world.” Brass sighed. “These three… Chrysalis should have killed them. That would have been best. But clearly, I will have to see to them myself. Celestia… will be the most difficult. She is a good mare, with a good heart. Death is a poor reward for a thousand years of relative peace, but it is time to rest and let the next generation take over. Their time is limited, anyway, thanks to our breaking the crown.”

With cold eyes, he turned to Eunomie. “Twilight Sparkle is still on her way here?”

“She is,” Eunomie confirmed. “Galen is watching her. Our contract is still in effect.”

Bass nodded, his mind growing distant again. “How is she? Well?”

“She appears to be intact and unharmed,” Eunomie replied and cautiously offered some advice. “Presently, she is inspecting one of the transformed ponies. I would guess she is fascinated by the outcome of our experiment. …Father, she is still the Princess you have chosen to lead Equestria, isn’t she?”

“Of all the candidates, I do favor her, yes,” Brass answered, but only after a moment.

“And if she sees this board?” Eunomie asked, her single amber eye flicking over to the blackboard, her other one still ghostly and indistinct.

An uncomfortable silence followed and, impossibly, a shuddering breath left the stallion’s mouth.

“I’m… tired, Eunomie,” Brass finally admitted, and the wariness and vulnerability in his voice almost floored the typically emotionless unicorn. “A… a part of me, a small, foolish part, actually thought that transforming would restore me, but it did not. I look at those names, I remember ponies I knew and respected, I know they’re dead… dead… and I feel nothing. I intend to tell Twilight Sparkle that, and the truth. I don’t want to lie to my future Princess.”

“Father,” Eunomie said, gritting her teeth. “If you do that--”

“No more lies, from here on out,” Alpha Brass interrupted her. “And if the worst happens, you know what to do, with or without me. Honestly, after this, my contributions are no longer necessary.”

“I will of course follow all established protocols,” Eunomie promised, and watched as Brass nodded, and returned his glass of half-finished champagne. He turned to retreat to his private quarters, and studying his back, Eunomie felt a strange prickle of emotion. Euporie would’ve known better what it was.

Something about it, about this, was… uncomfortable.

“Lord Brass!” a cry went up from below, and he turned to smile and wave at the Starsworn alicorns.

“Forgive me, forgive me! I have some business to attend to, even now!” he assured them with confidence and strength. They drank it in, caught in the whirlpool of power amplification that was his special talent. One and all, they adored him. One and all, they reveled in their world-changing accomplishment.

“Father!” Eunomie called out to him, then, and Alpha Brass paused to glance back over his shoulder at her.

“What’s wrong, Eunomie?” he asked, raising his voice so she could hear him across the room.

“Euporie has fallen,” she said, trotting closer and keeping her voice low. “I cannot rely on her, nor can she rely on me. As a result, I believe I am feeling a sense of loneliness. I have never been alone before in this way. I do believe I am afraid of it. And… it occurs me… that you have lived in this state for a very long time. I will need your advice.”

Brass regarded her for a long few moments before sighing.

“I’m not going to commit suicide, Eunomie,” he said at last. “I really am just tired. Now, please, go bring Twilight. If the two of you are working together, then I know no force in the world can oppose you. Not now. Not with the gifts you have at your disposal.”

“Of course, Father.”

“Good.”

With that, he continued on his way to his quarters. As he left, the starry alicorns throughout the Star Palace’s control chamber raised their glasses, spread their wings, and lit up their horns. Eunomie remained silent, one eye on the ongoing tally of demographic numbers and the other on the spectacle.

‘Twilight Sparkle,’ Eunomie thought.

There was much Twilight Sparkle did not know.

Yet father seemed quite happy by her side, raising her up. Eunomie rather liked Twilight, personally, but still she felt he should have been more cautious. Twilight did not know about the mental changes the aethereal enhancement would have on ponykind. The contract and the modifications to the crown had been very specific and the result of trial and error. As father had mused many times, there was no point giving power to ponies if they were afraid to use it. She would object when she came to realize the contract had a component in it that, by the very nature of aethereal energy, enhanced a pony’s more violent and aggressive tendencies.

“There is a reason sheep do not have magic,” he had said, more than once.

More important by far than the gift of power was the willingness and the steely resolve to use that power. This was the True Gift, not a mere power-up. It was a transformation of mind as much as body. Would Twilight understand that? Eunomie hoped she did, but she was not sure. Certainly, she would not accept the nature of the “retirement” of the old Princesses.
‘Twilight Sparkle,’ Eunomie thought, watching the door her stepfather had left through. ‘Even someone as inept as me can see it. He’s different around you. Where we go from here… what happens next… it will all depend on you. And what you make me do.’

“Lady Eunomie!” a voice called from the command center, recapturing the emotionless mare’s attention. She trotted about to look down on the starry ponies below.

“A report from the ground!” a Starsworn mare explained, reading another relay message. “We have confirmation on another dead changeling Princess.”

Eunomie blinked, neither frowning nor smiling. “Good. Which one?”

. . .

“Thorax!” The beating sound on his chamber door did more to rouse Thorax than the harsh barking of his name. “Thorax! The Princess demands your attendance!”

“Just a moment,” Thorax called back, his Equestrian clear and practiced. Exuvia had always insisted on it. Equestrian, she had often said, was not a foreign language. By the will of the Queen, it was to be their new changeling language.

Making his way to a rack on the wall, he retrieved a spear and helmet, striped in jagged green to make clear his gender in the swarm even from afar. He left behind the work clip and the chalk-marked blackboard that dominated much of the wall, and the hundreds of neatly packed and stored Equestrian artworks that had been… acquired by Princess Exuvia and her agents during the chaos of the attack on Canterlot. It was not enough to just secure the arts and artists of Equestria for the New Changeling Future of Chrysalis, what had and hadn’t been saved needed to be recorded. This was the duty he had been tasked with, despite his earlier training.

His place was not the battlefield, not if it could be avoided.

After all, Thorax was male.

He was one male, one of only a few, in all of the green hive. He was a son of Chrysalis herself. Drones existed in the thousands – unfertilized females – and fertile Princesses numbered a half-dozen, but rarest of all were male consorts. Four existed in all. Of those four, only one would one day be chosen to father the next generation of changeling royalty. This was his role. This was his brothers’ role. In many hives, males were well-guarded treasures, living indolent lives without labor or effort, except to breed once in a blue moon. In others, they were property. The Greens… being more Equestrian than most… insisted they contribute more than just their genetic material.

The airship bucked slightly as it turned, and Thorax felt it in his hooves. They were turning and burning; he could feel the engines switching from a leisurely murmur to a throaty roar. A pang of worry shot through the young male. There had been rumors going around about the war in the city below, and about the Princess and her decision to leave the radio tower they had based at. Not that it was his place to question or demand answers. Obedience. Always: obedience. Changelings lived a life of deceit, but always, despite that, they obeyed.

“Where are we going?” he asked the drone who had summoned him. She was another of Exuvia’s, usually easily distinguished from most greens by her adoption of some pony features rather than mimicry. The grand spellwork from before had disrupted that, however, preventing any form of changeling disguise-craft.

“What’s the emergency?” he asked again. In the hierarchy of the hive, he did outrank a drone, at the least.

“The Princess is wroth,” the changeling answered, finally, sounding anxious herself. “Word has spread. The Queen is missing and Pharate oversteps herself.”

“Pharate?”

Thorax frowned, recalling his sister. All the Princesses were his sisters, born of Chrysalis, but he did not know Pharate well. She was older than him, the Queen’s forth-born, after Instar, Exuvia and Ecdysis. Despite being his sister, though, he did not know her well. She was a distant and aloof figure to him, and he knew her to have a fierce and defensive temperament. Chrysalis had come to entrust her with her personal guard, which meant she was probably holding the Palace grounds.

She was also the mate of his brother Pharynx.

“The Princess will know more,” the drone promised him.

Thorax agreed and kept quite the rest of the way to the bridge of the airship… except they did not head to the bridge, but to the starboard bay. Along the way, they passed by a rank of windows in the hull, and Thorax took a few moments to look out over the city below, simply to get their bearings. He had guessed that they were headed to the Palace, and sure enough, that did seem to be their path. Having confirmed that, he also took note of the damage to the city below.

Canterlot… stately Canterlot…

Thorax had not known the city well, but he had been one of the relative few changelings who had spent time in the city under active guise and infiltration, alongside Exuvia herself. She had taken him along to explore the city’s museums and boulevards, its plazas and squares, hundreds of years old, steeped in culture and history.

He was not quite the enthusiastic proponent of Equestrian culture that she was, not by a long shot really, but he had come to appreciate the beauty and majesty in it. He was especially fond of the great towers, thin and delicate, that reached upwards to grasp at the heavens. He sometimes wondered if his people, or even his children, would one day build towers like them… and if they did, what skeletons would rest in the foundations. Those towers, those fair and fragile towers, were broken now in the city below, cracked and bleeding and burning.

But it was not his place to question. Obedience.

In the starboard cargo bay, changelings were girting themselves for battle. Exuvia’s forces had not faced serious opposition thus far, Thorax knew. They were sent in teams to capture artists and museum curators, to round up books and paintings, not tangle with royal guards or desperate nobles. A hundred of them were assembled when Thorax entered the bay, already wearing armor and bearing arms. Lieutenants among them were busily warming up their horns to cast spells.

“Thorax,” Exuvia said, as he approached, her back to him. She seemed almost naked to his eyes, without her pony-features. She looked far more like her mother, like their mother, like Chrysalis.

“P-princess,” he greeted, and bowed his head in deference.

“Rise, brother,” she commanded, and touched him gently on the shoulder. “I have called you to be present as a show of force and commitment. Remain by my side.”

“Yes, of course,” he said, and made to take his place on her left. He was no larger than a drone, and as a result, Exuvia easily stood a head taller than him, looking commanding and regal.

“Sisters,” Exuvia projected her voice, addressing the hundred who were picked to sortie with her. “Know this: we go to confront Pharate. When we leave behind the protective barriers of this airship, it will be up to you to ensure my safe conduct. If other changelings impede us, remind them that you are the escorts of Exuvia, second-born daughter of the Queen, and her mate Thorax, true-born son of the Queen. If ponies oppose us, subdue them if possible. If the ponies you encounter are… possessed of a dark aura… call for aid and engage with maximum force. Ideally, we will not encounter these on approach to the Palace.”

“Now! Form up behind me!” she ordered and turned to face the bay doors. With a creaking of clockwork gears, the doors yawed wider and wider, revealing more and more of the world outside.

With such a clear view, Thorax could clearly see that the city below was blasted and broken, but not sleeping, not resting, but resisting. Even now resisting.

Bursts of magic shot upwards like fireworks, harmless right up until they exploded. Rather than sparkles of multi-colored light, these magics erupted into blossoms of fire or ice or light. Thorax saw a trio of changelings, airship escorts unwise enough to venture outside the barrier, struck by a burst of ice magic. Their suddenly pale forms tumbled out of the air and vanished into the rubble below. Thorax gulped and tried not to think about their fates.

“BARRIERS!” Exuvia barked. “Advance with me! Keep formation!”

The Princess began to gallop, and Thorax dutifully followed, pushing aside his fear. The bay rushed by around him and then he was leaping off the edge, his wings snapping out to take flight, vibrating rapidly, the holes in them making a droning sound. Rippling light directly ahead filled him with confidence: the Green Hive had magic, too, and the shields would protect them.

More magical fireworks shot up to intercept them, bursting all around in the air. The barrier warbled and cracked but held, and Exuvia’s airship replied as ranks of changelings on deck lowered their horns and fired down at the sources of the fire. Thorax could just barely make out ponies below: some pastel colors, one or two seemingly wreathed in a strange black aura. They fired back, even as the attacks from above buffeted them and smashed the ruined homes and stores in which they took refuge.

‘Was this what it was always like, out here?’ Thorax wondered as he stuck close and in formation. ‘The Queen said we would overwhelm the ponies in hours, but we’ve been fighting for two days now. Two days. And what do we have to show for it?’

But those thoughts… were not good changeling thoughts. Obedience.

“Black Ones!!” a cry went up from behind and to the right, and Thorax turned to see a black shape, like a Pegasus, smash into one of the flights of changelings. It punched into the barrier and began to kick and buck, heedless of being surrounded by enemies. The formation quickly broke apart in the affray.

“No,” he heard Exuvia hiss. She turned back to him. “Hold formation! Hold formation without me!”

Turning sharply, she left behind her ranks and unloaded fire from her crooked horn. The black pony resolved itself clearly just in time to be taken by the fire-spell face-first. It tumbled out of the aerial melee, but another burst of magical fire from below had already converged on the disorganized wing of changelings. Fire and ice spells again! The black pony flew away, his job done, while the bursting magic turned unlucky changelings into popsicles or crackling sparklers. Exuvia herself projected a new shield over the group as they flew, leading them the rest of the way.

“Keep pace with me,” Thorax said, knowing he had to take her place in the current formation. The drones obeyed without question or hesitation. Obedience.

It wasn’t just the way it had to be, it was life or death.

Eventually, the resistance was either suppressed or fled, as changeling waves dove down supported by the airship’s artillery drones. Up ahead, the Great Palace of the Sun towered over the rest of the terraced city, still intact despite all the other devastation. White spires pierced the sky, capped by golden turrets and gilded roofs. The Equestrian flags had been torn down, of course, and replaced by the standards of the Queen of Queens and the ascendant Green Hive, the vanguard of united changeling-kind.

Thorax was among the first to land in the inner courtyard, one hoof on his helmet to keep it from whipping forward over his snout. More and more changelings followed, and finally Exuvia herself and the formation she rescued. With a uniform stamping of chitinous hooves, the changeling ranks reformed and reassembled. At the same time other greens rushed out of palace doors, spears drawn, fangs bared. They moved to bar the way.

“I am Exuvia!” Exuvia raised her voice, enhancing it with magic. “Make way!”

Changelings moved to confront changelings and Thorax felt a shiver run down his spine. How had it come to this? They were all brothers and sisters of the same hive, children of the same mother. He rushed forward to keep by his Princess’ side.

“Make way,” he ordered, glaring at the changeling lieutenant standing in front of the door, trying his best inject steel into his voice. “You cannot bar a Princess from entry.”

The changeling hissed, a sibilant snarl that only partly hid her own unease and uncertainty. “Princess Pharate has locked down access to the Palace. None are to enter or leave.”

“Let me guess,” Exuvia interrupted, “there was an incident with the captured ponies transforming?”

The changeling’s eyes widened slightly, betraying her. “Y-yes, Princess.”

“Let me pass,” Exuvia ordered. For a moment, the changeling officer held firm, but ultimately, she stepped aside and lowered her head in deference.

“Pharate is where?”

“The… the Throne Room.”

“I suspected as much.”

The procession made way, winding through the castle with Exuvia and Thorax at the head. Other changelings watched them, some making preparations, others wounded, others watching over cocooned Equestrians. A triage area stocked with wounded drones caught Thorax’s eye in particular as they passed by. It was set up in a great ballroom, the soaring chandeliers once flying above grand parties and revelries, now echoing with pained hisses and whimpers. Another drone, seemingly unwounded, sat in place in the middle of the hall, refusing to move or even acknowledge Exuvia’s escort. She merely watched them go around her with glassy, unfocused eyes.

“That one’s mind is broken.” Exuvia seemed to sense her young brother and mate’s discomfort and unspoken question.

Thorax was aware of changeling mind control and the effects it could have, but…

“Ponies did that to her?”

“Battle did it.” Exuvia glanced over at him, and there was a softness to her then. “You’ve been trained to fight, Thorax, and you have skills, but you were also sheltered.”

“My training was to defend you, Princess,” Thorax reminded her. “I - I will not hesitate to do so.”

“I don’t doubt that.” Exuvia faced forward again, her expression guarded. “Thorax, you have often said you love our hive and our kind. How many lives do you think Canterlot is worth?”

“Without crushing Canterlot, there can be no future,” Thorax answered, virtually from rote.

“That’s what our Mother says. What do you think?”

Obedience.

“I think… it doesn’t matter what I think,” Thorax said, honestly, and without even much anger. It simply was what it was.

Exuvia snorted, a very pony-like expression for a changeling. “I don’t know what the answer is, myself, but I know what the answer isn’t. I think the answer is not ‘all our lives.’ And that is what it will cost us.”

Thorax gulped nervously at the implications. “Retreat?”

“Withdrawal.” Exuvia paused. “No. You were right. Retreat. I can at least be honest about it with you, if nopony… noling else.”

“I see,” Thorax murmured. This was why they were here, then.

Obedience.

“The critical moment is approaching, Thorax. It will decide not just what future changelings have, but if we have a future at all.”

At last, they came upon the great doors of the throne room, and without preamble or fanfare, Exuvia had a pair of guards push them open. They groaned, revealing the damaged but still grand, still imposing, still impressive ascent to Equestria’s ultimate dais. Black changeling guards stood at attention all along the approach right up to the throne itself, almost all tilting their heads towards the new arrivals.

Thorax felt their eyes on him, and on his Princess, as they walked by. Pharate arrogantly waited for them atop Celestia’s throne, her nose turned up to look down on approaching supplicants. The sight of her on that pinnacle, the rightful domain of the Queen, chilled Thorax to the bone. Did Pharate already think Chrysalis dead? Even if she was, then the throne was Instar’s by rights.

“Sister,” Pharate greeted them as they drew close. “What brings you here… uninvited? Shouldn’t you and your pack rats be busy stuffing crates full of silverware?”

“This castle, too, is a treasure,” Exuvia answered, glaring up at her fellow hive Princess. “A little bee told me that you were endangering it.”

“You may not have noticed, spending all your time on that airship, but a war is being waged down here.” Pharate, as tall and imposing as Chrysalis or her other fertile daughters, narrowed her faintly glowing green eyes at them. “Our mother and her pet stallion were foalnapped in her royal chambers. The Palace is on alert.”

She gestured with a chitinous hoof. “We are under attack from within and without. There is no way the Queen could have been taken, except that some changelings have been compromised. Perhaps by the ponies, perhaps by the blues. I am investigating it and who is responsible, but rest assured, they will be found. Mother will be found. We are also being attacked by these new ponies… if you want to be helpful, feel free to go out and help defend the perimeter.”

Exuvia nodded. “You are investigating.”

“I am,” Pharate assured her.

“And the other hives? I don’t see their representatives here.”

“The cowards fled. Except the blues… I arrested them. Treason.”

“I see. Very well,” Exuvia conceded with a sigh. “Then I will only ask for your Equestrian captives, and for you to cease setting up demolition charges and fire-works in the Palace. Then I will be off, and you can continue being you.”

“Oh?” Pharate asked, after a pause. “Why do you want my captives?”

Next to her throne, Pharynx shifted uneasily. Thorax gave his brother a questioning glance. Pharynx was a loyal and strong changeling, his only brood-brother, and it usually wasn’t hard for either brother to get a good sense of what the other had on his mind. Growing up two to a clutch would do that. They had grown up together, trained together, learned together, been punished together, like two sides of the same coin right up until they day they were finally separated: one going to their sister Exuvia and the other to Pharate. They had met only rarely since that day.

Pharynx’s body language, though… it was clear. He was restless, anxious, worried, angry, and afraid. Pharynx was almost never afraid. Thorax was the one who so often had to conquer his fears; whether it was facing older and more skilled changelings in mock battle, being forced to stand still in the presence of wild beasts to learn camouflage and patience, or even just being assertive towards drones. Pharynx never seemed to struggle to keep his cool.

‘You’re in danger,’ he almost seemed to be saying.

But that made no sense. There were only changelings here. They were all brothers and sisters. All greens. Then again, if there was no danger, why had Exuvia insisted on having such a large escort follow her through the castle? Thorax had figured it was a show of force, useful in general, but especially if they were retrieving something or someone. There wouldn’t really be a fight, would there?

“Some of them transformed, didn’t they?” Exuvia asked, tilting her head slightly in bemusement. “I’m not wrong, am I? Two of our ponies transformed as well. It was quite a mess.”

“Only two?” Pharate scoffed. “Well, aren’t you the lucky one, sister! We had dozens. Dozens of the damn things. A whole crop of the fillies and colts. It was a bloodbath.”

“And who knows if it will happen again!” Exuvia argued, holding out a hoof. “Let me take them off your hooves.”

“I’m afraid… I can’t do that,” Pharate answered with a growing, toothy grin. “You must not have seen it on your way here. The bodies, I mean. I had all the uncocooned Equestrians executed.”

“You what?” Exuvia stamped her hoof down onto the marble floor. “There were to be no executions! What good is a hostage if you execute it?!”

Pharate’s grin turned into a bared snarl. “You overstep yourself, sister. The Palace is mine to defend. This is how I defend it.”

“When the Equestrians realize what you’ve done, they will attack!”

“Let them. We will hold this ground.”

“By the Stars, Pharate!” Exuvia finally snapped. “Are you blind? You cannot hold the Palace! We cannot hold Canterlot! We NEED those ponies! They are the only way to bargain for our escape!”

“Exuvia,” Pharate answered with a sibilant hiss. “I always knew you were a coward. Mother knew it, too, which was why you were given a coward’s duties. You want us to tuck-tail and flee? After all we’ve lost, after getting this far?”

“You foal!” Exuvia yelled back, bearing her fangs. “If you stuck your hoof in a wood-chipper, would you thrust the rest of your leg in?”

“This is Mother’s throne!” Pharate roared, slamming her hooves onto the rests of Celestia’s seat. “No pony will ever sit in it again! Not while I live! I will not flee, and I will not surrender it!”

“I am your elder!” Exuvia roared back. “You will obey me!”

“I might answer to Instar, but not you, sister,” Pharate sneered down at her. “If you are my better, then why do I command Mother’s personal guard?”

“This is nonsense.” Exuvia turned to her own guard. “I am assuming control of the Palace and ordering an evacuation. We will barter the cocooned captives here for safe passage.”

“Traitor. Traitor!” Pharate snarled, pointing an accusing hoof. “You are no true Princess! No true daughter of Chrysalis! Guards!”

“Surrender!” “Seize her!”

For a long, tense, moment… no changeling dared to move.

Then, as if a damn suddenly burst, changelings flew forward from one side, and tried to surround on the other. Thorax grimaced and steeled himself. He was a male – one of only four in the entire hive – his duty was to protect the Princess, but surely no changeling would be so mad as to—

“Kchehe!”

Thorax moved, virtually without thinking, to block a spear hurled at Exuvia’s flank.

“This is a Princess!” he yelled, deflecting the spear. “Have you all lost your minds?!”

“Our whole race has lost its mind,” Exuvia noted dryly, deflecting a second spear with a burst of magic. She began to walk forward, even as changelings fought all around them. They fought with maddened spears and poisoned jaws, thrusting and leaping and biting and slashing with chitin hooves.

“Stop this!” Thorax cried, blocking a drone as it jumped at them, fangs bared and dripping with poison. With a smooth motion, he used his spear to catch her across the throat, forcing the drone to choke and stumble. It wasn’t a fatal strike, but it would put her down until she came to her senses.

Yes, the other hives fought one another… but Green did not kill Green. They were better than this! It was what made them more civilized than the other hives!

Another changeling tried to avoid him to get at Exuvia’s hindlegs, forcing Thorax to spin and deflect her with his own back legs in a quick kick. She tumbled on her side from the oblique hit, planted her legs to pounce, only to run face-first into his hoof. The drone wasn’t poorly trained, but it was just a matter of standards. As a male, he had the same basic training as the Princesses.

Thorax shot his head back, hearing a crack of broken teeth as a changeling fell away, having foolishly tried to leap at and bite his neck from behind. He trotted back, trampling her underhoof as gently as he could, but still with enough force to knock her out. Silently, he cursed her for making him fight at all. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be. Was this the Changeling Future their mother had promised?

Obedience.

Glancing back at the throne, Thorax saw Pharate had dismounted it and started to descend, Pharynx at her side. Like a mirror of his twin brother, Pharynx was defending his Princess from Exuvia’s attackers, swatting them aside and protecting her sides and flank. The two Princesses, meanwhile, had eyes only for one another.

“You were always weak, sister,” Pharate hissed.

“And you were always overstepping yourself, little sister,” Exuvia growled back.

“Age doesn’t matter like it used to,” Pharate countered, smacking away a drone while hardly breaking her stride. “The truth of it is that the last of us will become Queen by default. Why shouldn’t that be me?”

“Because I won’t let it be you.” Exuvia broke into a fast trot, and Thorax had to rush to keep stride. The rest of the throne room passed in a blur, until Princess met Princess in a clash of black hooves and flashing magic.

Slowing, Thorax tensed to assist his Princess--

Just as Pharynx also slowed and tensed to do the same.

Both brothers froze, then, as the battle raged on around them. Behind and above, changelings whirled and fought, biting and slashing, crashing into the ground and filling the air with an angry buzzing hum. To their sides, changelings barked orders, trying to form some semblance of order out of the chaotic melee. Crashing through it all were their two Princesses, nearly perfectly matched as they waged their own duel, large enough to tower over their subordinates as they wrestled.

“Pharynx,” Thorax said, still frozen.

“Thorax,” Pharynx replied, his changeling eyes glowing briefly as he glanced over at where the Princesses had crashed into and through a stone pillar.

Thorax instinctively tensed to move.

But Pharynx didn’t do anything more than watch.

“Pharynx… are you really going to fight me?” Thorax asked, and something in his chest clenched painfully. Exuvia was his Princess. His Princess. If Pharynx tried to harm her, what would he do? What could he do? Obedience.

Obedience.

Obedience… but to what? To whom?

“I can’t let you harm Pharate,” Pharynx replied, and the brothers began to slowly circle, everything else becoming a blur as their focus narrowed down to just two. “Mother charged her with defending the Palace. You should not be here.”

“Is Exuvia wrong?” Thorax countered. “What’s left for us at the end of this?”

Pharynx narrowed his eyes but had no answer.

“Mother promised us a better future,” Thorax continued, gritting his sharp teeth and resisting the urge to call up a few drops of venom. “A better future! Does this look like the future to you? Or like the past, the savage past, we were taught about? Do you even remember those lessons?”

“You always did ask too many questions,” Pharynx growled. “Maybe this is fate, Thorax. It isn’t a coincidence that it was you who came here, and not Setae or Maxillae.”

Pharynx lunged then, but it was a half-hearted and easily avoided thing. Thorax backtracked, juking to the left, but not retaliating.

“Fight back,” Pharynx hissed, tossing aside his spear and pouncing with bared fangs.

It looked suitably terrifying, Thorax supposed, but it was so clearly choreographed it was nymph’s play to avoid. He blocked his brother with the shaft of his spear across the chest, pushed him away, and nimbly backed away while circling. Pharynx hissed and circled again, his mandibles curled in a snarl, but his eyes looking far off into the distance.

“Fight my brother?” Thorax asked, and also tossed his spear away… and his helmet. “I can’t. I won’t. I won’t.”

“Then you’ll die,” Pharynx warned, tensing to jump.

Obedience.

‘I am obedient,’ Thorax thought to himself, as his brother took to the air, fangs bared. ‘To my family. To myself.’

Pharynx plowed into him, and Thorax made no effort to move or avoid his sibling. The two crashed and tumbled across the floor and Thorax let his body go limp. He closed his eyes, waiting for the bite to the throat--

A bite that never came.

Opening his eyes, he saw Pharynx standing over him, one hoof pinning him down. His mouth was wide, a droplet of venom on the tip of his right fang, poised to strike, but frozen in time. Slowly at first, and then with a sudden snap, his brother’s mouth closed.

“Good job, Pharynx!” a haughty voice crowed, and suddenly Pharynx was gone and replaced by a larger black form. A hoof stepped down on the Thorax’s midsection, pinning him in place. Princess Pharate chuckled darkly, pressing down harder and eliciting a pained hiss from the floored male.

“Best keep your distance, sister!” Pharate declared between breaths. She had not escaped her fight with Exuvia without harm; there was a crack in the hard membrane over her left eye and a ragged scar across her chest. “You won’t be much of a Queen without our little brother, now will you?”

Pharate let out a breath, and this one was colored a sickly green. Poison, Thorax knew. Pharate was a master of poisons.

“So, you do know how to properly take a hostage,” Exuvia said, landing past Thorax’s hooves, several body lengths away. She seemed physically unharmed compared to her sister, but there was a sickly pallor to her black chitin.

“Princess,” Pharynx whispered, turning to her.

“Be silent, Pharynx, Princesses are talking,” Pharate hissed, keeping her eyes on Exuvia. “You aren’t dead, yet, traitor. Why not consider your situation? Give yourself up, and I will let … Instar judge you. When she becomes Queen.”

“And if Instar dies? As she may well be dead now?” Exuvia snapped, taking a step forward.

“You are still my sister,” Pharate promised.

But Exuvia snorted. “And you are mine, and I know you will kill me. Instar would, too. You’re just playing for time.”

“It’s working, though, isn’t it?” There was another press, a sharp one, and Thorax felt something in his chest begin to give.

Exuvia grunted but didn’t move forward. Around the two, the battle continued to rage.

“My Princess,” Pharynx tried to speak, again, and again Pharate snapped at him.

“Be silent. You--” A cough of blood stained the bottom of her jaw, and Pharate reached her spare front hoof up to it, disbelieving. Her uncracked eye widened at the sight of it.

“What?” she coughed again and grimaced in pain. “W-why?”

“Poison is a two-edged sword, sister,” Exuvia said, and took a cautious step forward. “It is true, none of us can stand against the potency of your venom, but neither can you. A simple bubble spell was all it took to capture and then compress the poison. You swallowed it without even noticing.”

“My own…?” Pharate coughed again, just a few shallow breaths.

“We’re both poisoned, but you’ll die before I do.” Exuvia’s breaths were steady but clearly a little labored. “Give up already.”

“You haven’t beaten me. You haven’t beaten me!” Pharate turned her eyes down, to Thorax, and lifted her hoof for a split-second to stamp down. From his prone position, Thorax tried to move, to roll out of the way, but he knew it was too close and too fast. Pharate was a Princess Royal, second only to Chrysalis and the equal of a Queen in most any other hive. There would be no surviving this.

Except a black blur slammed into Pharate’s side, knocking her off her hooves.

“Pharynx?” Thorax gasped in surprise and relief. “Brother!”

“There’s been enough pointless killing,” Pharynx said, stepping forward to place himself between his fallen brother and his mistress, by duty. “Princess, you are not dead yet. We can still--”

Pharynx was mid-sentence, with a hoof caught him by the mouth, covering much of his face from eyes to jaw. In a split second, Pharate had him, and flipped him right off his hooves to slam face-first into the floor. Marble split from the impact and Pharynx’s pleading for reason turned to a wet gurgle.

“Not pointless,” Pharate hissed, lifting a hoof from his limp form. “Corrective.”

“Have you lost your mind?!” Exuvia roared, slamming bodily into Pharate again. The two sisters rolled away in a flurry of black and green, as Thorax righted himself and stumbled over to his brother’s body. It almost looked surreal, to see him lying there, the side of his face partly buried in the white and pink tiles of the palace floor. His eyes were wide open, shock-open, and his tongue lolled out, so limply it was hard to see if he was even breathing.

“Pharynx?” Thorax nudged him, first with his hoof, and then with his nose. “Pharynx? Come on, get up… get up already!”

A gurgle was Pharynx’s only response, and as Thorax gently pulled him out of the depression in the floor, he saw the ruin that was half his brother’s face. He was still breathing, though, and his good eye somehow managed to follow Thorax’s hoof when he waved it.

Painful feelings welled up in the male at the sight of it, at the pitiful broken sight of it. Pharynx.

Obedience.

“This - this isn’t so bad,” Thorax lied, looking around for some sort of aid. “Medic! I need a medical changeling! I know we sortied with at least one! Medic!”

Around him, around them, drones heedlessly continued to fight amongst one another: a chaotic sea of black bodies, lost in their own fights, their own struggle to survive, to rationalize their nature in a world falling apart. Thorax felt the clench in his chest tighten, constricting like a snake around his heart. He looked desperately around, yelling again and again for a medic…

Only to find her, by the red stripe on her helmet, lying dead against a pillar halfway across the room. Another changeling lay next to her, another drone, this one with the same red stripe on her helm. The absurdity of it all struck Thorax like a sledgehammer. Was this it, then? Was this what it meant to be a changeling? All those promises, those speeches, mother’s words and years of training – all for this? The wore the veneer of civilization like a disguise, but at their core, were they really any different than the Reds and Yellows of the old country?

“Pharynx,” Thorax whimpered, trying to gently cradle the head of his brother. “Talk to me. Tell me how I can help. Say something.”

Amazingly, despite his injuries, Pharynx managed the strength to flail his left foreleg and reach for Thorax’s hoof. He grabbed it, held it, and felt how weak his strong brother had become. This truly was it.

No.

Family.

Obedience.

No. This couldn’t be it. This couldn’t be all they were.

“Pharynx,” Thorax whispered again, more forcefully. With his other hoof, he opened Thorax’s mouth. Maybe, there was a way. Leaning over, Thorax concentrated on his energy reserves and the love he had harvested over days… over weeks…

Over months.

Years.

There was power there. He just had to move it. To give it instead of taking it. It sounded so simple in his head, but how on Equestria to do it? Changelings had no mechanism for giving magic or even sharing magic. Yet there had to be a way. There had to be, or Pharynx was going to die on the cold floor of the throne room, just another dark body among hundreds. It couldn’t happen. In a contest of the impossible, Thorax knew that at least that one thing couldn’t happen.

The knot of life energy inside him strained and wormed as he focused on it, and on his brother.

“Live. Live. Brother. Live.”

Closing his eyes, Thorax focused, his crooked horn vibrating with uncast spellwork.

“Live. Brother. Live. Live! You have to live.”

The knot twisted, painfully. His body rejected the feeling. Thorax ignored it. If his body was willing to let Pharynx die, then it could go to straight to Tartarus.

“Live. Brother. You have to live… you’re the only real family I have…”

The knot twisted again, sharply, and it felt like his insides were about to rupture and explode.

“Because I…”

Obed-

“I…”

I love my brother.

Thorax’s chest relaxed, abruptly, and for just a moment he wondered if he had a heart attack. It was almost as if he detached from his body, drifting out of sync with it, only to be suddenly reeled back in and forced into bone and muscle and chitin. It was relief, and then hurt, and then relief again, and a total catharsis. The knot inside him undid, unfurled, unwound, and poured out of his body… and into Pharynx.

Rainbow colored light shifted to white, and it was over in just a moment.

Pharynx gasped, drawing breath, and his good eye shot open. The energy – the love energy – was readily and greedily absorbed, and the spark within him reignited. His breathing steadied and his eyes focused again.

“Brother?” he asked and blinked in confusion. “Thorax? What happened to you?”

“To me?” Thorax asked, only then noticing his hooves looked strange. They were whole, without the holes, a lime green color… and they felt wrong. Mostly it was the lack of holes. Was this how ponies felt? It was so chunky feeling.

Suddenly self-conscious, Thorax stood up straighter over his brother and noticed the fighting had all but died down around him. Changelings were still there, Exuvia’s and Pharate’s, but they were all watching something in stunned silence. It took a moment to realize it was him. They were looking at him.

“What’s going on?” Thorax asked, turning his head to left and right. “What are you looking at?”

He finally found Exuvia and Pharate, the latter on her back, the former holding her down. Both were staring at him with awe and confusion.

“A transformation?” Exuvia finally broke the silence, stepping off of and away from her royal sister. “One that isn’t blocked by Twilight Sparkle’s spell? No… this is no illusion. I don’t know what this is.”

“M-moose!” a changeling drone hissed, pointing.

“What?” Thorax reached up to his forehead, reaching for his familiar horn, and found it whole, intact, and paired with strange curving antenna things just behind and to either side. Just what in the name of the Queen happened?!

“You. What the hell are you?” Pharate said, rolling onto her side and coughing violently.

“I’m still me!” Thorax cried, seeing the looks of fear and confusion in the faces and hearts of his fellow changelings. Even Exuvia, his sworn Princess, seemed to be fighting her fear over what he had become. Had his little display turned him into some kind of … of moose bug monster?

Then he saw his reflection in the eyes of a nearby drone and reeled in shock. His wings instinctively shot out, but it wasn’t the ragged blue wings he had been born with. His wings were diaphanous and shimmering purple, more like a red changeling’s wings, alien and impossible on a body that wasn’t his own.

“By all the Queens,” he whimpered, and inched away from Pharynx. His crippled brother was virtually alone in looking at him like he hadn’t changed. But he had. What even was he, now?!

“Thorax?” Exuvia called to him. “Thorax!”

His dazed attention turned, after a moment, to her, to the sound of her voice… and to the glob of magical poison hurtling in his direction. His hoof instinctively flew up to ward it away, futile as it likely was, except the green blast of poison and magic warbled and twisted and flew off to the side before it could fully made contact with his hoof-proper. The attack tumbled through the air and smashed into a pillar, splattering against it and half the wall behind to boot. Like caustic acid, magic and poison both began to dissolve the stone on contact, causing it to slouch away in thick rivulets.

“Damn you…!” Pharate cursed, only to be soundly knocked out by a blow from Exuvia a moment later. The Princess spared her sister a scornful look, only to turn to Thorax and look uncertain.

Thorax himself stared at his hooves, dumbstruck.

That spell from Pharate… it should have killed him. It should have reduced him to a shell of smoldering bones and chitin. How had he deflected it?

“A full form transformation,” Exuvia announced. “Thorax. You may have just--”

“Alarm! Alarm!” a changeling voice cried from behind the throne room doors. Almost warily, changelings – former enemies even – turned to the sound of the alarm and the cries of battle. An explosion rocked the gallery beyond.

“The black ones!” a changeling buzzer flew in. “The black ones come! Hundreds! We are routed! Where is Princess Pharate?! What do we do?!”

All eyes turned to Exuvia, who stumbled and struggled to stay upright. Her carapace was paler than Thorax had ever seen. At her hooves, Pharate was motionless. Green poison leaked from her open mouth, hissing on contact with the stone floor.

“I… I am Princess here, now…” Exuvia managed to say. “My orders… my orders…”

At that moment, the only remaining Princess of the hive fell forward onto her knees, and then tipped over onto her right side. Thorax raced to her, pushing aside a pair of drones in the way. He found her still breathing, but near paralyzed. Her eyes lolled and looked up at him.

The drones buzzed, agitated and lost without a leader.

And, advancing on them from behind the doors, came the sounds of battle, of slaughter.

“I am Princess… Prince,” Thorax announced, standing straight and tall. “Prince. Follow me. Please. All of you. Follow me!”

And they did.

Even as an unstoppable force barreled down on Celestia’s throne room, intent on wiping out the changeling infestation, root and stem.

. . .

“Hurry, now, friends! We must make haste!”

Luna’s wings flapped, hard, as she propelled herself higher. In her legs, she held a rather pale faced fashionista who was probably reliving her less than stellar flying experiences of the past. Rarity had one of her front legs tucked in and the other shielding her face from the wind.

“Easy for you to say! How come you get the lighter load?” Rainbow Dash asked, her smaller wings snapping as she kept pace with the Princess. Clinging tightly to the weathermare, Applejack had her face buried in the pegasus’ chest, save for one hoof that was holding onto her hat.

“I ain’t no heavy load!” Applejack yelled, though it was muffled by Dash’s torso. “And Rarity and me weigh just about the same!”

“Really?” Dash asked, and Rarity shook her head but said nothing. With her hoof she motioned the number five, twice.

“Well, this is good weight training at least!”

“One more joke, sugarcube… just One. More. Joke. I don’t care if ah fall.”

“More pressingly, Princess, are you sure it was wise to leave the battlefield like this?” Rarity asked, the curl of her mane bouncing with Luna’s every wingbeat. “Lord Snow Drift was most put out. What is even happening with those black flames?”

“Aethereal magic. I would recognize it anywhere,” Luna answered, easily projecting her voice over the biting winds. “The source of it is almost certainly in yon Sky Palace.”

“And this is worse than changelings, how exactly?” Dash asked, zipping by. “Just seems like more unicorns doing more unicorn magic to me.”

“Not just unicorns, Rainbow Dash. I saw ponies of all tribes transforming.” Luna narrowed her eyes as she spoke. “The magic of the aether is no mere mummery. Beyond the shield of our blessed nursery world, the Firmament is suffused in raw magic, emanating from the stars themselves. Normally, our world purifies it and dilutes it as it radiates down, like how ocean water becomes pure rain. Drink rainwater, and you are refreshed… drink seawater and you are slowly poisoned. Worse still, great and terrible entities swim through this magical sea, making sport of mortal beings for their wicked amusement. I have seen it many a time.”

“Antimony spoke of contracts made with celestial beings,” Rarity agreed, and Dash sighed and rubbed her face with her hooves.

“All this stuff goes over my head!” the Pegasus mare groaned. “So, all those ponies down there were being possessed or something?”

“Perhaps,” Luna answered, but a moment later explained herself, “I am familiar with many of those entities and their transformations. These were different. The ponies seemed to be themselves, for the most part, so it is no possession. If I had to guess, I believe they have signed a contract not with any one entity, but rather that they have tapped into the wellspring of the Firmament itself. An accomplished magic user can do this… a contract of some sort must somehow act as a conduit, like a tap giving out free water rather than a pony having to walk all the way to the stream.”

“If this is the case,” she continued, “then the power itself has no specific will or intent… rather than a direct possession by an entity, followed by that entity returning wholly to its realm, the energies of the Firmament will linger. This may seem a boon, but it will darken the souls of those who tap into it, turning them callous and cruel, disinterested in friendship and companionship.”

“They will become not ponies, like you three, or even my own self,” Luna said, pointing to them and then to her royal person, “but creatures more akin to grown dragons… or other solitary monsters.”

“And there are hundreds of them!” Rarity yelled.

“No.” Dash interrupted, her voice and face now deadly serious. “I have better eyes than you, Rarity. What happened around the camp is happening everywhere across the city and even in Cloudsdale. Thousands. Maybe tens of thousands. That’s my guess.”

“Who would do such a thing?” Rarity looked down over the burning city. “Have we not suffered enough? Who would be so reckless?”

“Twilight?”

“Not funny, Rainbow.”

“Still… Twilight, kinda,” Dash persisted. “I’m not saying this is her, but…”

“I suspect whomever is responsible for this understood exactly what they were doing,” Luna spoke up, before the topic could turn to blame. “Contract magic like this does not come out of nowhere. By nature, it requires meticulous preparation and groundwork. The effects would have been known.”

“Then why do it?” Rarity asked.

“Why indeed?” Luna wondered aloud. “Some ponies have always revered the monsters around us. Some have always wished to be more like those same monsters. Some, like my own father, became monsters to fight other monsters.”

Rainbow Dash pulled ahead again with a few swift flaps of her powerful blue wings. “That’s nuts! Who would want to become a monster?”

“Yes, who indeed?” Luna’s rebuke was deadpan. She fixed Dash with a stare and the Element of Loyalty quickly found something interesting to look at elsewhere.

“Real smooth, sugarcube.”

“Says my training weights.”

“Ah told ya! Ah ain’t--”

“Hold that thought!” Dash interrupted her friend. “There’s movement in the Sky Palace up ahead. I can see ponies on the balconies and ramparts.”

“Ponies-ponies?” Rarity hoped to dream.

“Nope. The black alicorn type ponies!”

“Lovely,” Rarity announced. “Perhaps they will be peaceful and let us find what empowers them?”

“Yeah, maybe!” Dash agreed. “And maybe they’re having a surprise party, just for us?”

“Neither of those outcomes are likely,” Luna said, looking down at Rarity and then over at Rainbow Dash. “Oh! We see! T’was humor!” the two mares just blinked, a little dumbstruck. “HAHAHAHA!! TO BATTLE!!”

A second later, and the Princess hit a barrier, penetrated it, and crash landed into one of the garden terraces. The final battle, to decide the soul of Equestria, began in earnest.

. . .

Chrysalis.

Chrysalis, Queen of Queens. Chrysalis, Mother of Thousands.

Chrysalis, Blind and Beaten, muttered hardly a word of protest as she was dragged up a flight of steps and into what felt like the light. It all felt so far away, now. It felt like someone else. But she knew it was her: her body, her life, her plans, all ruined. How had it come to this? How had it all gone so completely and catastrophically wrong?

“Sunlight?” a mare’s voice in the darkness up ahead. “It feels… different, doesn’t it?”

Cadance.

Not all of this mess was her fault, but enough of it was. Chrysalis had kept Cadance alive, and that was a mistake. She saw that now. But Cadance had been her imprint, all the way back when she was just a grub. It was Cadance’s young alicorn form that had given Chrysalis her own changeling appearance. Replacing her had always been a matter of fate. Taking everything she had was just a fulfillment of destiny! The alicorn mare was a love parasite herself. Yet everpony loved her. No one seemed to see how false it all was. No one but Chrysalis herself.

Damn her.

“It’s like, bright… but feels colder than normal? I wish I had something to cover my eyes. Oh, there we go! Thanks, handy!”

Lyra Heartstrings.

The mare that had freed Cadance was also the mare who dragged Chrysalis along by her horn. Even if she wiggled free of Lyra’s celestially empowered magic, the abuse on said horn would have made casting magic impossible. She had been a bridesmaid… a weapon empowered by Alpha Brass. A Trojan Horse.

Damn her. Damn them.

“Look over there, Auntie. A Sky Palace of some sort… though how it got there, I can’t imagine. That has to be it. And only a Terre Rare like Alpha Brass would employ such inelegant overkill. I can teleport us up there, but I’d wager bits-to-bridles (or chips to bits?) it has a shield.”

Blueblood.

The pompous foal. He was supposed to hate and resent his adopted sister, yet that clearly wasn’t the case anymore. Cadance and Lyra had freed him, and then the cursed stallion had gone and rescued Celestia. It was a chain of disaster leading to disaster. This particular one hadn’t just freed a Princess but blinded a Queen in the process.

Damn him.

“We will have to punch through somehow, nephew. But I can sense Luna now… she’s out there, somewhere. We are both weak, but the closer we get, the more resolve we can gain from one another. I suspect she will do our work for us and win us a hole in the shield.”

Celestia.

The ultimate obstacle to overcome had always been her. Using poor, naive Freyja as a decoy had been such a stroke of genius, and though Lyra had been a Trojan horse, the other bridesmaids had worked just as Brass promised. Celestia had been overcome by her, Chrysalis! Keeping Celestia alive and only half-cocooned to torment, though, that… probably had not been wise.

Damn her.

She should have killed them all.

All of them.

The first chance she got.

She was too fond of playing with her food. Her mother had always said it was a bad habit. “Don’t play with your food,” she would say, over and over, when Chrysalis was still just a nymph. Oh, how she had gotten sick of those pearls of motherly wisdom. Yet, here she was. Mother had been right. Don’t play with your food.

Damn them all.

Damn them all to the darkest pits of their pony-hells. It occurred to Chrysalis in that spiteful moment that she didn’t even know how to curse them, except with their own pony phrases and pony beliefs. Because they were hers, too. She didn’t know anything else; didn’t believe anything else; didn’t have anything else. It was all from them. All just a copy of them. All just a damned copy of them! What did that make changelings, then? Just up-jumped parasites? No! No! NO!

“Auntie. Over there.” That damned Blueblood.

“I see them.” That damned Celestia.

“What are they doing?” Cadance.

“It looks like they’re dragging a body along and singing?” Lyra, her damned jailor.

“At least they seem preoccupied,” Blueblood’s voice was light, but betrayed more than a hint of worry. “I’m more a polo-stallion, myself, but drag-a-changeling isn’t the strangest sport I’ve ever seen. We’re doing it ourselves right now.”

“You can’t mean that. Look again. What they’re doing is… it’s cruel,” Cadance, surprisingly, seemed to be the voice of mercy. “Auntie, we should say something.”

“Go over there, with this one in tow?” Blueblood was incredulous.

“We are two Princesses and a Prince royal.”

“Indeed! Our pedigree is beyond reproach. Except I don’t think these ones will care what two weakened Princesses and a devilishly handsome stallion think.”

“Nephew, you may be right,” Celestia sounded heartbroken. Good. That was something at least. “Nonetheless, it is the right thing to do. We must try.”

“Oh, lords and stars, the right thing to do! That will be the death of me one day. I can tell.”

“Miss Heartstrings, you stay here.” Celestia. “We still need you to keep watch over Chrysalis… and to keep her safe as well. At least safe enough we can use her to bargain with her daughters. Cadance and I shall--”

“No, Auntie, let me. Worse comes to worse, at least I can teleport away. That’s more than can be said for either of you two mares right now.”

“Bluey, have you always been this chivalrous?”

“No. It’s the result of brain damage, I believe.”

“Good luck, nephew. Please, just… be polite, and I’m certain all will be well.”

“Naturally, the rage-fueled aether-ponies will respond well to politeness!”

Chrysalis listened to them talk, heard the sound of hoofsteps, but still felt numb. She considered, briefly, whether this was as good a time as any to escape, but without her magic, with her wings quite literally clipped, it was a fool’s hope.

There was nowhere in the blasted ruins of Canterlot to go. Her forces were in retreat. The other Queens were either dead or fighting for their own lives. As for her daughters, Instar was in the valley below, Ecdysis in the mountain tunnels… Exuvia was hopefully still mobile, with her airship, but that same ship made her presence obvious. Blind and unable to fly, what would it look like to see the Queen of Queens desperately stumbling from ruin to ruin, crying out, mewling for help like a babe? What if one of those new things found her? They’d nearly torn her apart before, stopped only when Shining Armor emerged – also transformed – and declared he would rather hunt down her children.

The Queen of All Changelings felt the ground move as she was dragged along. They were on the move again? What had happened? She strained her ears to listen.

“Well, ladies, I learned two new things just now. First: even rage-fueled aether ponies like treasures,” Blueblood explained, speaking up from a distance away as the mares grew closer. “So, I guess bribery is universal, so there is that. Second: it was probably unwise to try and use my charms on one of them.”

“Bluey? Did you have to?”

“You can’t blame a stallion for trying. More importantly, it provided a bit of insight. Apparently, they think we’re weak for not signing the contract. Cowards in fact. I didn’t mention that I suspected they signed that same contract because they were afraid of being powerless without it. It would have been undiplomatic.”

“Gee, you think?” Lyra quipped.

“Well done, nephew. The changeling?”

“They crushed its head in before leaving. It was clean, well… not clean, but I doubt it felt anything.”

“Look at this. Look at the legs. What kind of ponies would do this?” Lyra again. “This was torture.”

“We’re not exactly sunshine and lollipops either, Miss Heartstrings. Need I remind you we’re all complicit in crippling that nasty bit of work you’re dragging along?”

“I know that, Your Grace, but we didn’t revel in it like that bunch did. Cadance did what she had to.”

“Thank you, Lyra. I’m not proud of what I did, but…”

“Come now,” Blueblood interrupted. “I know you’re a little proud. Honestly, I’m proud of you for doing it. Leaving that message behind kept the enemy on their hooves, which is a good thing. But you’re right, Miss Heartstrings, what was done here was a different beast. Aethereal corruption, I suppose?”

“Most likely,” Celestia agreed. “As long as we don’t get in the way, I believe we should be left to our own devices for now. They’re only after changelings.”

“And with the changelings unable to disguise themselves…” Cadance again. “Auntie. It’ll be a slaughter.”

“That is what it seems, yes. That fine bunch even said it to me before they left: ‘no prisoners.’ They’ll kill them all.”

Chrysalis was only half listening by the end.

She could smell the death. Changelings had better noses than mere ponies. Crawling across the broken ground, Chrysalis found the body of the changeling easily enough. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel it with her hooves. The chitin felt soft in places. Too soft. She had struck others and been struck enough to recognize the damage by touch alone.

They had beaten this changeling… and dragged it across the rubble.

Her nose twitched, and she recognized the smell of one of her own: a green changeling of the Biscione hive. This one had just been an infertile drone, one of thousands, but Chrysalis knew at some point she had laid her egg. Drones were disposable, that was why they were infertile, but they were still her children. She valued them for their service, but she didn’t care for them. She wasn’t a mewling pony. The loss of this one… it should have meant little.

She had sent how many thousands of them to fight, after all?

It should have meant little.

So why were there tears welling up on her cheeks?

“It’s over isn’t it?” she muttered, speaking to the dead changeling, knowing it made no sense and finding she didn’t care. “I’m… I’m sorry…”

Pulling the body closer, feeling it get caught on something on the ground, she pulled harder until it was cradled safely in her forelegs. The drones… she usually let grow on their own, but her daughters? Her fertile daughters? Sometimes, she had enjoyed coddling them, and holding them when they were nymphs. When they were young changelings, grown nymphs, they were drone sized. In her forelegs, the still-warm body reminded her of them. Instar. Exuvia. Ecdysis. Pharate. Tarsus…

Where were they now?

Were they lying in some field, some ruined building, some dirty street, broken and lifeless?

The ponies were silent, watching her. Probably pitying her. Damn them. Curse them. Chrysalis didn’t care anymore. She held the dead drone in her legs and began to cry, for a long glorious moment letting go of all inhibition.

This was it.

This was the end.

The Queen of Queens had to be regal. She had to be strong. She had to be perfect. She had to be… a Princess. Like Celestia. But better than Celestia. Stronger. Smarter. More cunning. It was shameful to admit, but as a young nymph, she would often stare at pictures of the pony’s Princess and wonder what it was like to be her. To have her life. To take her place. Queen Chrysalis was modeled after that idea, that ideal, as much as it was by her actual biological mother.

No more.

It was all over now. There was no need for pretense or pretend. Chrysalis cried over her dead children and, to her own surprise, it felt good. It felt good not to have to hide how she felt or who she was. The life of a changeling was one of constant deception. It was one of the things she had most hoped to destroy with her conquest of Equestria and her building a changeling nation: to no longer have to hide and lie just to survive. Yet she had hidden herself from her own people, worn a mask of absolute power and authority. Even if she had won, that was a mask she would have had to wear all her life.

Now, though, at the end? It didn’t matter. It finally didn’t matter. And it felt good. Chrysalis cried, and then, even as her tears still fell, she began to laugh. Where the laughter bubbled up from, Chrysalis wasn’t even sure. She just felt, in that moment, like laughing. And the more she laughed the more laughter followed. Tears and laughter were, in that moment, the only balm of her body and soul.

“She’s – she’s lost her mind,” Cadance’s voice was softly spoken, conspiratorial, but Chrysalis hear it, her ears twitched, and it slowly snapped her out of her impossible doldrums.

“Actually, if you must know, my mind is clearer now than it ever has been before,” Chrysalis said, then, before any of the other stupid ponies could chime in with their ignorant opinions. With a grunt, she managed to sit up, with the dead changeling beside her. She idly stroked its membrane-hair with her hoof and smiled.

“I’ve made mistakes, I see that now. Obviously, not killing you three was one of those mistakes,” she lectured them, and wished she could see their pony expressions with working eyes. Ponies were always so amusingly expressive. So many muscles in their faces.

“Cadance. I wish I could’ve boiled you alive. I hear that’s how they execute adulterers in Zebrabar. That would’ve been a good way to kill you.” Chrysalis laughed again, even as she imagined how to do it. “They seal you in a large metal pony full of water and light a fire under it. There’s something poetic about that kind of a death, I think.”

“And Prince Blueblood,” she moved onto her next target. “You blinded me, but in this hypothetical world where I don’t make mistakes, that wouldn’t happen. So, I wouldn’t hate you as much there. You’d just be food. It wouldn’t hurt… not really. You’d be asleep for most of it. Like a big, dumb battery.”

“And Princess Celestia!” Chrysalis came to her last target, since she didn’t really blame Lyra overmuch for what had transpired. She was just a tool. “I sometimes dreamed of smothering you with a pillow. While you slept. Very quietly… and then replacing you. I always wanted to replace you, you know? I don’t know why, but I want you to know that. I always wanted to kill you and take your place. That’s actually a compliment, so… if you want to say thank you, that would be nice.”

“Thank you for the compliment,” Celestia said, and Chrysalis tried to imagine her face. She probably looked regal, staring down at her beaten opponent. It was a good look. That was why Chrysalis had copied it and practiced in front of the mirror to get it just right.

“Another mistake… was all this,” Chrysalis then admitted, gesturing with a hoof around her. She could imagine the devastation. She had seen the ruins of Canterlot before losing her sight.

“The invasion was a mistake. I see that now. It was too risky, too bold… too many variables, and for what? If I could go back, I know I’d do so much differently. So many things.”

She gently stroked the dead changeling and took a few seconds to compose herself and find her words. This was actually quite nice. Just… speaking her mind.

“I was too proud,” the Queen admitted with a weak shake of her head. “I was always envious of you ponies. Your civilization. Your happiness. I wanted it. I wanted us to be more like you. I hated you for what I didn’t have, what we didn’t have. I hated that it made me feel inferior. I had to crush you for that. I had to make you suffer for that. …sorry.”

“You’re… sorry?” Celestia answered, sounding like she was shocked.

“I see it now.” Chrysalis laughed a little, giggled even. “What was I thinking? I could’ve killed you all in a much less sadistic way. Then I’d be happy, and you’d be dead, which isn’t happy, but it also isn’t sad, and everything – everything would’ve just been better. Or maybe I’d have done something else entirely? I don’t know. Anything but this.”

“Anything…” she repeated with a ragged sigh, her hoof resting on the dead changeling’s cheek. “Anything but this.”

Chrysalis gently stroked the dead drone’s cheek with the side of her hoof, and maybe because she was out of things to say, the tears came back, even more forcefully than before. A gasp escaped her lips and she had to reach up to shamefully wipe them away. Like a bursting dam, all the pent-up emotion began to escape and for what felt like an age, she was wracked with sobs.

Cadance.

“Cadance,” Chrysalis finally managed to say, turning towards where she thought the mare was standing. “You can feel love, real love, can’t you? Did… did I love Shining Armor? Or anypony? Anypony at all? Can you tell?”

For a long, pregnant few seconds, there was no response.

“Maybe,” Cadance finally answered. Chrysalis tried to imagine how bitter she must have looked saying that, but for some reason it was hard to think clearly.

“Maybe?” Chrysalis considered. “I see.”

“Your emotions are different. Similar, but different. I can’t say for sure.”

“You’re lucky,” Chrysalis said, before Cadance could say more, tears still flowing down her cheeks and face. “Why are you so lucky? Why does everypony love you? I don’t understand. I never understood.”

Sniffing, violently wiping her face with her leg, Chrysalis took a deep breath to compose herself one last time. “I poisoned you earlier, but now that I think about it, I don’t want this version of you to die. I want you to live, I want you to find Shining Armor, and I want you to discover he isn’t the pony you love any more. I wonder what you’ll do then?”

Chrysalis paused just long enough to imagine the shocked and disgusted look Cadance had to be giving her. Yes, even now, it felt good to hurt her. Even now.

“But you have to live long enough for that to happen… so I’ll tell you a secret,” Chrysalis sniffed again and tried to smile against the tears and despair. “Love poison can be sucked out of the wound, safely, but only by someone who loves you. Otherwise, it turns toxic. I wonder if your aunt or stepbrother are up to the task?” The Queen chuckled darkly. “Maybe you should use your magic on them, just to be sure?”

Chrysalis liked to imagine Cadance took a moment, then, to glance at her two adopted relatives. She had to be wondering what was real and what was fake. But then, Chrysalis was the same. She could see that clearly now. They were the same.

Maybe… maybe that was why she really hated Cadance so much.

“To my last breath,” Chrysalis said, finally. It was time. “I curse all three of you. Live long lives and suffer! My daughters will escape, my people will survive, and I hope they haunt you and your descendants until the end of time! And Canterlot? The heart of Equestria? It dies… today. With me.”

Raising her right foreleg up to her face, and without further preamble, Chrysalis bit down and injected every last drop of venom into her own body. She heard a chorus of voices, but they seemed like little more than a murmur against the roaring pounding of her heart and the searing pain of the bite. Changelings were not immune to their own venom, not by a long shot, and as Queen, hers was potent indeed. In her already beaten condition, everything quickly went numb – number really – and then took on a dreamlike quality.

“No! No!” she heard Celestia yell. “If she dies now--”

“Let me try a spell!”

“Handy! Do something!”

Fools.

It was too late.

But it didn’t hurt, not after the first second or three. After that, it was like dreaming.

And, like in a dream, Chrysalis felt her mind wander, detached from the troubles of her physical body. First came an image of her mother, half-in and half-out of Olive Branch’s body, indistinct as she led her somewhere. Oh. That was where. It was the bed. She remembered having to stand up and use her front legs to look over the side, where there was a sleeping stallion. It was Alpha Brass, that bastard. Mother was taking her for her first real love-meal. It was a sweet memory.

Next came that picture of Celestia she kept hidden in her room. She remembered pinning it to the wall and trying to pose like the Princess, imaging herself at the head of a mighty court and with a great army. Chrysalis wanted to cuff her younger self for being so foalish. Still, reaching for the pinnacle and then vowing to surpass it? That wasn’t such a bad dream.

The next memory was of decapitating her mother. Such were the needs of the ambitious. The old replaced the new. Chrysalis remembered it fondly. As much as she modeled herself after a pony, changelings weren’t ponies. This wasn’t matricide. It was succession. Mother would have appreciated that it was done in the Old Way. That said, Chrysalis herself had no desire or intention to be slain by her daughters. It had been a fun night, though, and her first time feeding by herself, and despite hating him, Alpha Brass would always have a special place in her heart as her ‘first.’ Oddly, she had little concern or interest in the male changelings, her brothers, that she mated with. They were just for the genetic material. There was no feeling there. No sense of a shared experience.

She saw Shining Armor, next. Cadance’s mate. Oh, how Chrysalis had desired him. Desired to take him from her. His love magic was the most potent she had ever consumed. Their first time had actually been in secret, even before Cadance was properly done away with. Chrysalis had been unable to wait, so she had disguised herself during a function and lured him to a secluded spot for rendezvous. Afterwards, disguised as Cadance, she had sworn him to secrecy, claiming it was embarrassing. He kept her secret and the real Cadance was none the wiser. It was so risky, so foolish, but it was a fond memory.

The next memory was less pleasant. Her first egg! So embarrassing! But after that first one, the next couple thousand were easy enough. Nature took over, you could say. Laying eggs wasn’t like the labor ponies go through, but it was embarrassing how she obsessively fussed over the room and the moisture level – buying two humidifiers when the one broke down at the last minute – and wanting everything to be perfect!

Then, one after another, she saw her true daughters, back when they were small: Little Instar, always so noisy and aggressive, trying to bully her unfertilized siblings! Clever Exuvia, so smart, always reading! Troublesome Ecdysis, bursting with energy and always sneaking off… loyal Pharate, who used to try and follow her around and mimic her… Tarsus, with her toothy smile and love of games… why were they all fading away? One by one, she lost her grip on them, their ghostly forms slipping through her hooves.

“Mother,” Instar, proud and strong and fierce, grinned and wiped the blood from under her jagged horn. “The field is ours! The day is ours! Victory!”

“Mom?” Exuvia had books scattered around her, a wide, triumphant grin on her face. “I found them! The Nagin. The changelings of myth. I know where they are!”

“What do you think of my new technique, mother?” Ecdysis looked up at her with expectant eyes. “Not bad, huh? Even you can’t do that, right?”

“The Royal Guards?” Pharate seemed to stand taller at the news. “I won’t let you down! You can count on me, mother, no matter what!”

“Respectfully, mother, Instar is a great fighter, but wars are about more than killing the enemy.” Tarsus looked up at her for only a moment before returning to the board. She reached down and moved a piece. “Checkmate, by the way.”

“Come back,” Chrysalis tried to say, as her daughters trotted away into the darkness. “Wait. Wait for me. Where are you going? Please. Please. I… I…”

“Happy birthday, mom!”

“Oh! Exuvia?” Chrysalis stopped, looking down at her second oldest. The little nymph had jumped out and surprised her! Chrysalis’ two guards hissed but remained relaxed. Exuvia had something in her little hooves: a plate with a slice of jelly on it, shaped like a triangle. She’d even found a candle to stick on it, probably stolen.

“I read in a book that this is how ponies celebrate their birthday! You should have a birthday party, but since there isn’t one, I made this for you!” the little nymph explained, jumping around excitedly and pointing to the candle on the fake-cake. With a bit of magic, she lit the candle. Such talent!

“Blow out the candle and make a wish!” Exuvia held out the dish, and Chrysalis sat down and took it from her.

“If you insist, little one,” Chrysalis replied, smiling at her daughter. “I wish--”

“No, mom! You can’t say the wish; you have to think it!”

“Oh?” Chrysalis played dumb and took a second to think. “What would you wish for if you were me?”

Exuvia cupped her chin with her hoof and put way too much effort into thinking up an answer. Finally, she clopped her hooves as it came to her.

“I’m already a Princess, so I guess I wish I’d be Queen!” she declared.

Chrysalis smiled even more broadly. “That’s a nice wish, Exuvia.”

“Blow out the candle, mom!” Exuvia chirped, pushing her foreleg with her little hooves. “Hurry, before it melts!”

“Okay, alright, don’t rush me!” the Queen replied, patting her foal on the head. She blinked, and Exuvia was in her pony form, and Chrysalis’ own hoof was a pink-white instead of black. It seemed strange, but only for a moment. This. This wasn’t such a bad memory.

It was time to make a wish.

Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings, took one last deep breath and blew.