//------------------------------//
// Backtracking 
// Story: Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot 
// by Equimorto 
//------------------------------//

Chrysalis took a deep breath, watching the Sun rise through the blinds from the window in her stolen room. She'd had her rest for the night, and despite the fact that she'd woken up with still time to spare she hadn't tried to go back to sleep. The nervousness would have kept her up either way. Instead, she'd focused on mentally revising the plans. Both Stella's and her own.
The alicorn was still sleeping in the living room. Or as close to sleeping as that thing got, really. Chrysalis had watched her do it a few times, fully aware that Stella knew she was there. It was an unnerving sight, and one she occasionally wondered the origins of. Was Stella able to do that because of what she was and how she'd been created, or had she figured out a way to do it by herself? She certainly was the kind of creature to do something like that.
The Sun had gotten a little higher on the horizon. Just a tiny bit. Only a few minutes still left, and then they would leave the house for the last time. The unicorn it belonged to was already out of his pod, already instructed by Stella on what to do. If things went particularly smoothly, they wouldn't even need to run when leaving the castle. But things weren't going to go smoothly, not if Chrysalis had a say in it.
Things would start out the same as Stella's plan. They had to, she needed to keep the alicorn as unsuspecting as she could. Once she was out of the scene though, once it came to Chrysalis's part of the equation, she could start diverging from there. Stella had plans for that, of course, but those plans couldn't account for what Chrysalis had learned behind her back.
An alarm clock went off in the kitchen, for a single second, and then stopped. The sound of Stella's hooves came from the living room, and Chrysalis didn't wait to get up and walk out of the room. She met with the alicorn in the kitchen, donned her disguise, and then walked out of the house with Stella following close behind her. All in silence, no need to go over the plan again.
Because even if she screwed up, Stella had a backup plan, after all. Maybe the alicorn was expecting her to fail in the first place. Maybe it was all just a trap to get rid of her for good, and she'd get stabbed in the back the moment she walked into Twilight's castle again. But that wasn't Stella's style. She wasn't the kind of creature who left things up to chance for the sake of presentation, and she'd made it clear enough why she still kept Chrysalis around.
The two of them quietly walked their way to the castle, neither bothered by the cold morning air. Stella was smiling, of course, the same smile she almost always had and Chrysalis had grown to loathe over time. One way or the other, whatever happened that day, she knew at least she would never have to see it again.