“Hurry up!” Penumbra ducked behind a corner. Her motions were both silent and acrobatic. Chrysalis, however, was neither of those things.
She was thin and pale, and her eyes seemed to be staring past everything into some great and unseen distance.
“I’ve...seen things,” she whispered, shaking. “So many things...”
“Stop complaining. It’s your own fault.”
“My fault? My fault?! YOU were the one who built the trap, I just supervised- -HMFF!”
Penumbra had clapped her hoof over the changeling's mouth. She was promptly bitten.
“Ow! You bit me!”
“I’ve had to bite a LOT of things today! Don’t touch me! I don’t want to catch your obesity!”
“For the last time! I’m NOT FAT!”
“That’s exactly what a fat pony would say! Why don’t you go shovel some lard into your fat mouth and let me sit in a corner and CRY?!”
“At least you got a free meal!”
“Meal? Meal?! There wasn’t a DROP of love in that pony! Just pure, streamlined professionalism- -it was terrifying! I’ll be sick for MONTHS! And it’s all YOUR FAULT!”
“Am I going to have to slap you?”
“Oh of course.” Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “Resorting to violence. The only thing a fatty understands.”
“That doesn’t even make sense!”
“Your FACE doesn’t make sense! I mean, how can it be that ugly?” Chrysalis shape-shifted into Penumbra, except much more chubby than the real one. “Oh, look at me. Somebody get me a taco. My daddy doesn’t love me and I’m gonna self-medicate with unhealthy food. Also, no stallion will ever love me because Chrysalis is sooooo much hotter than I will ever be...”
“I swear to Sombra I will strip off my armor right now and snog you if you keep this up. Do you want that?”
“Literally no pony wants that.” Chrysalis changed back to her changeling form. “I had to snog a brown mare. BROWN. Do you know how humiliating that is?” She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Why are we even here anyway?”
Penumbra looked around the corner, down the long and dim hallway. “I need to see Holder.”
“Why? Nopony likes him. He’s weepy and overdramatic. And his poetry sucks hard.”
“You suck hard.”
“I do. It’s literally how I eat. That’s not the point.” Chrysalis gestured to the room around her. “Why are we sneaking around? I sneak around all the time, but you’re a princess. This place is a prison. You kind of belong here.”
“My father banned me. I don’t know why. I’m not allowed here. Now shut your adorable filly mouth and stop making words before we get caught.”
“Don’t tell me what to do. I outrank you. Also, you’re fat.”
“Your mother is fat.”
“YOUR mother is fat.”
“My mother is dead.”
“Now you’re just bragging.”
Penumbra rolled her eyes and snuck forward. “This conversation is making me uncomfortable. Come on. The maximum security wing is up here.”
Chrysalis rolled her eyes and followed.
Penumbra slowly leaned out from behind a corner. She frowned when she saw the guards.
“What is it?” whispered Chrysalis.
“Thralls,” replied Penumbra. “But I’ve never seen thralls like these before.”
Chrysalis shoved Penumbra out of the way and looked for herself. The thralls looked mostly similar to normal, except that their armor was thicker and more vicious than was normal, with not a speck of rust. Their masks were more extensive, with long horns and a piece that seemed to connect downward to a piece of chest-armor, which for each contained a single large, red crystal.
“So that’s what the mask has been working on.”
“It must be the next generation. They look really good. I’m actually tingling.”
“Eew.” Chrysalis pushed Penumbra away.
“What? I tingle a lot. But that’s not the point. If they see me, they’ll tell my father. So I need you to get me past them.”
“And just how am I supposed to do that?”
“You’re ceremonial name is literally ‘The Infiltrator’. Infiltrate!”
“The changelings do not ‘infiltrate’.” She paused. “Well, we don’t infiltrate intentionally. Well, we kind of do. But you deserve it for being so tasty.”
“Can you do a golem?”
“I can do anypony and anything.” She shapeshifted, assuming the form of a type-B golem. “Hows this?”
“They rarely talk.”
Chrysalis made a rude gesture and stepped out into the hall. The visual illusion was perfect; not only did she look like a golem, but she moved like one as well. She marched confidently down the hall and stopped just before the thralls.
“You are dismissed,” she said in a perfect golem’s voice.
Both thralls turned to her, and their eyes changed hue. A thin web of magic crossed Chrysalis’s body. This was not something Penumbra had seen before.
“Scan complete,” said one of the thralls. This truly surprised Penumbra, as thralls could never talk. Yet, when it spoke, she recognized the voice. Though distorted and strange, it was that of Scarlet Mist. “Organic matter detected. Changeling identified. Preparing for extermination.”
Before they could move, Penumbra jumped from behind Chrysalis, using her back as a springboard. As she flipped through the air, she grasped the thralls’ masks with her hooves. She knew how they were attached, and knew how to take them off. With one swift motion, she had removed them.
“Who what when why where who?” said the crystal ponies in unison, confused and disoriented. Before they could have their various questions answered, though, the red crystals on their chests flashed.
“Oh no! Please no, not again!”
Then, in an instant, both of them were gone, consumed by red flashes of light. All that remained were their masks, still in Penumbra’s grasp.
“They’re gone,” she said, blinking.
“You atomized them. Congratulations. I hope they didn’t have families.”
“Atomization leaves residue. I think that was a teleportation spell.”
“You just keep telling yourself that.” Chrysalis shapeshifted again, assuming the form of a thrall. “Now can we get this over with? This place is damp, cold, and smells like ponies.”
Penumbra agreed that it was cold and damp, but so was everywhere in the Crystal Empire. She supposed that was part of being a princess: acclimation to damp from living in a castle. Still, this damp was especially pernicious. The prison felt strange. It was far too silent.
Having been to the prison before, Penumbra already knew exactly where the cell she needed to visit was located. She moved swiftly in that direction, Chrysalis trailing behind her.
When she came to the last corner, she stepped out- -and immediately jumped back.
“What is it?” whispered Chrysalis.
“A thrall. Hold on.”
Penumbra peeked out past the corner. She had indeed come to the right place. The cell was exactly where she had left it, and so was the pony within. She still had no front legs, although the wound from where her horn had been severed had begun to heal, if only slightly. She was smiling the same hideous smile as before, a result of thirteen having taken her cutie mark. The only difference was that she had grown much thinner and much dirtier than before.
Holder was there as well, sitting on the cold stone floor. He had not eaten or slept since arriving in that spot, but it hardly showed. His clothing was already old and tattered, and he himself showed no sign of sickness or fatigue. Penumbra doubted that he could, so long as he held the Black Blade- -and indeed, he did. It was resting on his back, neatly tucked into its leaden scabbard.
The thrall had come to feed the prisoner. He accomplished this by shoving a wad of moldy hay through the bars. Or perhaps straw; Penumbra could not tell the difference.
Holder stood. “Here,” he said. “I can help you eat it.”
The prisoner’s golden eyes turned upward from the ground. “You ask that each day,” she said. Her voice was weak. “Stop. It is annoying. The answer will always be the same, earth-pony. I do not require your help.”
“Oh.” Holder sat back down. The mare in the cage did not bother to eat. “I’m sorry. I know its bad in here. I’d get you out, but they...they won’t let me. They won’t even listen- -”
“Stop. Just stop.”
“Excuse me?”
“So what if you did let me out? Then what? I can’t walk. I have no magic, no cutie mark. I’m already as good as ended.”
“That isn’t true! It just isn’t!”
“Forgive me if I don’t share your optimism. Now go away. I’m tired. And being seen like this...it’s humiliating.” She turned with a great deal of effort to face one of her cell’s walls. “Just leave me. Hoots knows why you’re even still here.”
Holder fell silent.
“Well?” whispered Chrysalis. “Go help him. He’s wasting his time here. She’s never getting out.”
“Shh,” replied Penumbra. “I’m watching.”
Holder looked down at the floor for a long moment- -and then spoke.
“Can I tell you something?” he asked. Piwancha did not reply; she simply continued to stare at the empty, dirty wall of her cell. “I’ve never told anypony before. They would laugh at me, and probably beat me if I tried.”
“And you tell a mare with two legs missing and no horn why? Because she cannot beat you?”
Holder just smiled. “Sometimes, I think about retiring. About what it would be like to have a home of my own. No more wandering, no more fighting, no more...pain. To build a simple house with my own hooves, and to have a plot of land I can call my own. To be a simple rock farmer.”
Piwancha turned her head, raising an eyebrow. “Rocks?”
“There is nothing better than rocks. And growing them is surprisingly difficult.” He sighed. “I want to wake up every morning and go outside and see the sunrise. The dew. The quiet birdsongs. And at the days end, watch the sunset knowing that I did something real. That I worked hard to create something, instead of just destroying. Then pen a poem or two, eat some rock soup, and go to bed happy, knowing the next day I get to wake up and do it all over again.”
“Why?”
Holder lifted his head, confused, and saw that Piwancha was staring back at him.
“I don’t understand.”
“That sword. I trained for decades to become an elite knight, and you were able to defeat me in an instant as though it were nothing. With that blade, you are perhaps the greatest warrior Equestria has ever known. You could conquer empires, and you desire the life of a peasant?”
Holder looked down again. Penumbra could see the glimmer of tears from his eyes. “It’s not a sword,” he said, slowly. “She’s a Chaos Shard, one of seven and one of uncountable numbers. Sometimes I can half-see her brothers, and the men who wield them. Their hatred, their violence, the endless paths of destruction drawn across their own eternities...but yes. She can conquer empires, and she has. With me at her side. And I’ve seen it.” He looked up, still crying. “There...there’s nothing left. Nothing left but endless wastes. Endless destruction. Why would I want that? What’s it even good for?”
“You’re not the one in a cage. You can walk out whenever you please, do however you please. If you hate the sword that much, throw it away.”
Holder nearly screamed and jumped back, terrified by the very thought. He clutched his scabbard closely, though gingerly, because he could hear the blade within screaming in rage at the very suggestion.
“I- -I can’t! You don’t understand! She’s been searching, searching for so long for a pony that can understand her, that will do what she says- -she won’t let me leave! The things she whispers to me...the terrible, terrible things...” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’m too afraid! I’m just a coward, I can’t do it! She’s too strong!”
“So you have an unstoppable weapon, a position of power, but a desire to throw it all away. Yet you cannot, out of fear.”
“You don’t understand,” muttered Holder. “If you could hear her...if you could see the things she makes me see, if you had the memories of what I’ve done for her...” He shook his head. “She says this is my destiny. That I was born to wade through gore. From now, and until the very end of time.”
“We make our own destinies, swordspony Holder.” She turned away, blushing somewhat, although her time in the prison had left her deathly pale and anemic. “It is...it is a pretty dream. Please do not lose hope in it. That would be a very sad thing.”
Holder’s eyes grew wide. “You’re...you’re not going to laugh?”
Piwancha shook her head. “For the sake of fairness, and out of respect for the foe who defeated and maimed me, I shall tell you something that would otherwise lead to dire punishment. That I, too, have a similar dream.”
“You want to farm rocks too?”
“No. Not necessarily. I do not understand your fascination with them, although I probably should start learning, seeing as you have made me an earth-pony like yourself. No. What I once wanted was different, but similar.”
“Once wanted? You mean you don’t want it anymore?”
Piwancha looked down at her hay. “You would not understand.”
“Try. Please. I want to know.”
The mare was silent for a long moment. “In the Order, we are expected to fight. To be warriors. To serve justice and equality, and await the time of Zargothrax’s return to join the King in battle. The training is brutal. The life is hard. We are hunted and persecuted, but we persevere. But mares in the Order have a special privileged.”
“What kind of privilege?”
“We can chose. To take our career as knights, or to become domestic. To create and raise the next generation of warriors.”
“That’s what you wanted to do?”
Piwancha sighed. “Perhaps it is foolish and wrong. I do not begrudge those who made the choice to become mare-knights. My sisters, my friends, many chose that path. But I did not. I was not given a choice.”
“Why not?”
Piwancha stared from her cell. “You’ve met one of them already. Zither Heartstrings. Though his crimes and abilities pale in comparison to those of our patriarch, Dulcimer Heartstrings, a foul heretic of the very highest order. Our clan has produced not one but two betrayers. For the sake of the clan, the remainder of us have had to make sacrifices to redeem our name.” She motioned to her severed front legs with her nose. The mechanical holes where they were meant to be installed were still attached; her shoulders were largely made of metal. “I did not lose these in battle. I elected to have them replaced, and they are not my only enhancement. Only the most visible.”
Holder stared. “But...why?”
“Because I was not fast enough. So I replaced my legs. Because my magic was not strong enough, so they surgically reconfigured parts of my brain. New lungs. Transgenic bone marrow. So I could fight. And so that if I ever found Dulcimer, I would be able to redeem our honor.” She stared at the ground. “But did I want it? No. None of it. I want to have a home. To have children of my own, and to raise them. Not as warriors, though.” She looked up at Holder. “I do not want to raise them to squander their lives on violence. I want them to be peaceful. Happy. To have what I never could.”
Holder sniffled.
“Are you crying?”
“No,” he lied, standing up. “It’s just so beautiful!”
“Don’t associate my desire for a domestic life with empty-headed femininity. Rest assured, my deeds surely match your own in turn and in turn again.”
Holder nodded, and pressed his hoof against the door of her cell. He pushed on it, and the thick iron bars immediately bent. The lock snapped and the door swung open.
Piwancha stared, wide-eyed. “What are you doing?! If they find out you are helping me- -”
“You said it yourself. No horn, no cutie mark, half your legs. You’re not going anywhere, and I’m sorry. For that, and for everything.” He knelt down and hugged her. Piwancha was at first surprised by this, but then did her best to hug back.
“Thank you, Holder,” she said.
“You’re welcome, Piwancha.”
“You may call me Pi. And…and please stay. I’m cold, and afraid. I know I will never leave this place, but I do not want to be alone.”
“I know the feeling,” whispered Holder as the two gently leaned against one another in the cell.
Chrysalis, who was watching this, nearly gagged. “Ugh. You could make syrup out of this amount of sap. And even then, it’d be too sweet for me. Do we have to watch this, fatty? Fatty?”
She looked over her shoulder, and saw that a veritable torrent of tears was pouring from Penumbra’s eyes.
“What the...did you have your sights set on Holder or something?”
“No...it’s just so...it’s just so beautiful!”
“No, it’s disgusting. He’s an insult to the other twelve of us. Including you.” She lit her horn and grabbed Penumbra by the ankle and began dragging her away.
“Where are we going?”
“Not here. Trust me, you don’t want to interrupt them.”
“Are they going to snuggle?”
“Is snuggling all you think about?”
“I’m an adorable teenage princess. I have a heart on my butt. Yes, mostly.” She looked back down the hallway. “But I still don’t understand what happened...”
“Seriously? You can’t tell? Your skull is as thick as your flank, then.”
“Well if you’re so smart, explain it.”
Chrysalis sighed. “The changelings weren’t always parasites, you know. We were once an agricultural society.”
“So you would make love every day?”
“Don’t make it weird!”
“Sorry.”
Chrysalis continued. “Growing love is hard, though. It’s like a seed. You plant it, and if the conditions are just right, it grows. Needless to say, it’s a pointless waste of time. Why make more love in the world when we can just steal it from ponies? You’re practically made of the stuff.”
“A seed?” Penumbra thought for a moment as she was still being dragged across the floor. “But that means...”
“That it’s apparently what you do. You sew love. Hence the butt-heart. If you were in any other place, you’d be a god. But you’re in the Crystal Empire, so listen very carefully. A power like that? It puts you in danger. And if you somehow manage to make it out of this place alive? It doesn’t end there. Someday, and I promise you this, the changelings will come for you. To steal your love.”
“You said yourself. No one will ever love me.”
Chrysalis faced down the hallway, staring into the distance. “Yes. That is true. I definitely said that.”