//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 
// Story: Cuckoo's Lullaby 
// by TCC56 
//------------------------------//

All was silent, save for Shining Armor's snoring. For once, that wasn't why Cadance was awake. 

No, her mind was racing and unable to find peace. Too clogged with thoughts to settle; too hyperactive to lay still. And the source of it all was a simple sentence - a piece of news she hadn't shared with anypony yet. Two words - I'm Pregnant. 

The words were both exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure. Cadance wanted to shout it from the rooftops and share her joy with the whole of the Crystal Empire... but it was also frightening. A foal was no small matter. And then there was the issue of Flurry Heart. 

That thought made Cadance bite her lip. Yes. Flurry Heart would have a sibling soon. And therein lay a lot of her worries. 

Perhaps that was also the solution for her stress, as well.

Rising from bed, Cadance tried her best to stay silent. Shining always slept like a big dumb adorable log, but it still felt wrong to be anything other than as quiet as she could manage. At the same time, leaving behind her shoes also felt odd - the floors of the Crystal Castle were foreign to her bare hooves. 

Still, those tiny moments aside, Cadance managed to escape her bedroom without incident. The door even cooperated, opening and closing without so much as a squeak. Two doors down, the one to Flurry Heart's room was much the same. 

Standing beside Flurry's crib, Cadance looked down at the foal's sleeping form and couldn't help but smile. Flurry was wrapped tightly around her favorite snail toy. Whammy, secure in her wings, practically glowed with the love Flurry had for it. 

Cadance's wing reached out instinctively to stroke Flurry's cheek - she stopped herself only at the last moment to keep from waking the adorable foal.

"So." She kept her voice low, speaking only as loud as she dared. "It's been a crazy year, hasn't it? You coming into our lives, the storm and the crystalling, then everything with..." Cadance cleared her throat. "With the changelings. But that's all in the past now. We have our lives. They're good lives, too. I'm happy, Shining is happy... I hope you're happy, too." 

With a sigh, Cadance leaned against the crib and smiled. "I know this hasn't been easy for you. And it won't be in the future, either. I'm sorry about that, but our lives always have been interesting." 

Flurry Heart didn't react beyond a cute yawn. 

Cadance hesitated. But she knew it was time to pull the bandage off. At least they were in private. "And they're going to keep being interesting," she admitted with trepidation. "I suppose it comes with the territory. As an alicorn. And a princess. And... as a mother." Another hesitation. "I... I haven't told anypony yet. You're the first one. I guess that's the right thing to do, too. It's going to affect you more than anypony else. You see I'm..." She pinched her eyes shut. "I'm pregnant."

Flurry Heart's wide eyes shot open. "You're WHAT?!" Her horrified voice scratched across the crystal walls of her nursery.

"I'm pregnant!" Cadance repeated, recoiling away from the crib. 

The tiny alicorn lunged, rising up to her hind legs and grabbing hold of the crib's edge. "You can't do that!" Her adorable lips curled into an angry snarl. "We had a deal!" 

Frowning, Cadance took another step back away. "Well, you can't just expect me to never have a foal, can you? It was bound to happen sooner or later."

Flurry Heart vaulted out of her crib - halfway to the floor, she was enveloped in green flame. By the time her hooves made contact with crystal, Flurry Heart was gone. "Our peace treaty was very specific about that!" Chrysalis stomped her night-black hoof. "I cease my attacks on ponykind. I surrender my territory to Equestria. I allow my children to be reformed. And in exchange I get to masquerade as your daughter and absorb as much love as I wish! The adoration of the Crystal Empire is mine by treaty!"

"You'll still have it!" Cadance fell back onto her rump, clasping her hooves together in a beseeching prayer to the changeling queen. "It's just that you'll have a younger sibling! That's not so bad, is it?"

Another snarl - Chrysalis prodded Cadence in the chest with her hole-riddled hoof. "It means I have to share. Share something that, again, is guaranteed to me! We had a deal, or does that fluffy pink cotton-candy brain of yours not know what that means? You broke a peace treaty because you couldn't keep your hooves off that... that himbo," she gagged with disgust. "So now the coming war and all the pony blood will be on your head, Princess."

Desperate, Cadance latched onto the first thing she could think of. "But then you'd be giving up your title! The other part of why you agreed is because it means you're in the line of succession now! You're Equestrian royalty! If you give up being Flurry Heart, that means you give that up too!"

Chrysalis rolled her eyes. "Oh please. Your argument is that I should give up being a Queen to be a Princess? Do you understand how ridiculous that sounds?"

"And not a criminal." Cadance slowly rose to her hooves. "Because you don't have an army or territory to go back to. You'll be queen of nothing. You can stay here, be royalty and share in more love than any changeling in history has ever had before - or you can go sit alone in the desert and talk to a log or something." 

The two locked eyes, glaring steel and fire at one another. 

Cadance didn't budge. 

Chrysalis... eventually blinked. And frowned. "You still broke our treaty. But you have a point. I'm willing to renegotiate and allow you your foal in exchange for certain... considerations."

The sly, oily tone off that last word made Cadance hesitate. But she knew how few options she had. "I'm listening."

"I'm tempted to suggest you give up the foal." Chrysalis barely paused at that, giving enough time for Cadance to feel horror but not enough for her to morph that into anger. "But I wouldn't do that. Even if for no other reason than to prove I'm not a monster." Another pause to let Cadance's ire fade away again - to let her relax and not be braced for the next blow. "I'm also tempted to suggest you have twins. After his performance as Flurry during the destruction of my Hive, I could be convinced to have Pharynx take the role. My last remaining loyal lieutenant deserves some sort of reward, and he obviously would give me most of what he took as well."

Shifting uneasily, it took a moment for Cadance to admit it. "Um, actually, Pharynx finally got around to reforming recently. So he's--" 

"Bah." Chrysalis pouted. "Nevermind then, he can rot with the others."

There was silence between them for a long, awkward minute. Then Cadance took a deep breath and tried to start again. "So what are your demands?"

"Just two," Chrysalis added. "First, to compensate me for the lost love I demand to be given a staff. A nanny or two, possibly a teacher. The more direct interaction should allow me to take some extra love to partially make up the difference." She paused before swiftly adding, "And not Sunburst. He doesn't count. I already have him wrapped around my hoof."

Cadance pursed her lips before giving a small nod in agreement. "Acceptable, as long as they don't end up in changeling pods. And your second?"

"Second is that I demand to be present when you have your precious foal." A toothy devil's smile crept over Chrysalis' lips.

That made Cadance raise her eyebrow. "So you can taste the first moment of love a mother has for her child?"

The changeling queen scoffed. "No. As tasty as that is, I want to be there for far more selfish reasons. As there never was a Flurry Heart, this will be the first time you've given birth. Your breaking this treaty has caused me pain, and I intend to relish watching you have some in turn."