Chrysalis checked her image in the mirror, to make sure one last time it exactly matched the stallion she'd captured.
"You look fine. Stop obsessing over it," came Stellaria's voice from the other room, muddied a little by the chocolate the alicorn was munching on. Chrysalis ignored her.
"You'd say that even if I stepped out of here with no disguise," said the changeling, finally leaving the bathroom. "You'd enjoy seeing me captured, wouldn't you?"
Stella stared at her from the couch, smirking as she always did when she had a chance to torture her would-be mother. "I wouldn't go that far. Where would the fun be if you were caught? I wouldn't get to play with you anymore. But seeing you nervous, squirming as you fear you might be found out, seeing the tension in your body as you realise you might have doomed yourself with your mistakes..." She gave a long, deep, and particularly breathy exhale. "That's fun," she said, in just as breathy of a tone.
Chrysalis chose to pay as little attention as she could to the alicorn's words, and for once decided not to say anything back to her. It wasn't worth the consequences, not given the day ahead. She glanced at the clock. "Shall we be going, then?"
Stella nodded. She levitated the keys to the door and opened it, then stepped out into the morning. Chrysalis had another look at the stallion in her cocoon, to ensure everything was still alright on that front, then followed Stella outside and closed the door behind them.
The walk to Twilight's castle was uneventful, aside perhaps from Stellaria's ever-present grin. Chrysalis tried to take her mind off it by going through the plan again in her head.
It wasn't supposed to be anything too dangerous just yet. Simple scouting was the idea. They'd taken as much information as they could out of the stallion she was replacing, and Stella would cover for anything else they might need in terms of required knowledge on the research topics. She was the smartest creature in Equestria, after all. Chrysalis shivered, and deeply regretted choosing to mentally go over the plan again.
For a moment, as the doors to the castle appeared at the end of the road, she wondered about taking herself out of the deal. Undoing her disguise as soon as she was close enough to Twilight and telling the alicorn everything. She wondered if stone was really all that bad after all.
She rejected the thought so violently she almost spat out. Clenching her teeth, she marched a little faster towards her destination. She would not give either of those purple nuisances the satisfaction of seeing her admit defeat. Not when she still had a chance to win in the end, not after everything she'd already gone through.
And if things went well enough, she'd decorate her throne room with the petrified remains of both alicorns, after she was done smashing them to pieces. She looked up, finally at the doors, and gave a determined knock.