I trotted happily through the streets of the Crystal Empire shimmering in the afternoon sun. The day was perfect for painting, and I had taken this opportunity to bask in the warm light while creating my next masterpiece. Well, not exactly a masterpiece - far from it - but I wasn’t going to let that little technicality stop me! My spirits were high, the saddlebag on my back was full of painting supplies, and a whole world of inspiring sights lay ahead!
I wasn’t the only one who had decided to make the best of such a beautiful day: ponies were everywhere, trotting, chatting, sitting at cheerful little outdoor tea parties, having picnics, playing… it was like a holiday! Was it a holiday, as in, an actual one? I didn’t recall Sunburst or Cadance mention any; maybe they’d forgotten or assumed that I knew or wouldn’t care? But why would I not care about pony holidays now that I was living in their land? Was it because I hadn’t known what a holiday was until Sunburst mentioned Hearth’s Warming Eve at some point during our lessons? I thought I’d assured him that I was interested in seeing it myself when the day came to celebrate it! Okay, I had to wait until winter for that, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t interested in any holidays that were due to happen sooner!
Had I simply forgotten about a holiday he’d taught me about? Oh dear, I hoped not; he’d be so disappointed in me! And I’d be disappointed in myself if that turned out to be the case! How was I supposed to fit in and be accepted if I couldn’t remember important dates?
Still pondering which holiday I’d forgotten about, I saw one of the crystal guards come out of the pastry shop at the corner of Malachite and Peridot Streets. Brave Heart, I believed his name was, though I’d only seen him a couple of times. He grinned at me and trotted off with a saddlebag full of treats on his crystally back.
Okay, so the shops were open. Hadn’t Sunburst said they were normally closed on official holidays? Maybe today wasn’t an official holiday after all! An unofficial one, then? Bask-in-the-Sunshine Day, or something along those lines? It sure looked like it!
A little later, I passed by the toy shop, and Whirligig waved at me from the entrance. I waved back. I wondered if I should have stopped by for a minute and bought something for Flurry. It had been a while, and I was sure Cadance wouldn’t mind! Had I brought enough bits with me? Had I brought any? Oh well, maybe Whirligig would at least let me take a look and come back later when I could pay for my selection. She might still not let my guard come in-
Wait a minute. Where was my guard?! I couldn’t have gone out of the castle alone! And Shining Armor still hadn’t stopped demanding that I have a guard escort at all times! Actually, which of the guards was supposed to be with me today? I couldn’t remember!
Think, Thorax, think! When was the last time you saw the guard with you?
Try as I might, I couldn’t remember any of the guards being with me all day, except for that one moment when I’d seen Brave Heart, but he’d never been assigned to guard me, and he’d been unarmored and busy with shopping! He couldn’t be my escort for today! The last I could remember of any of my own three guards was coming home with Paladin last evening!
Okay, Paladin had been last, and that had been yesterday. So unless something unexpected had happened, today would be Sentinel’s shift. But where was she, and why couldn’t I remember seeing her?
Should I fly up and check the streets from above in case she was somewhere nearby? It could work, except that the whole city knew I was supposed to have a guard escort and was banned from flying whenever my guard wasn’t a pegasus to follow me into the sky. What if they saw me flying all alone and decided to tell Shining about it? What if Shining himself saw me flying all alone? That would be all the excuse he’d need to make my day the exact opposite of pleasant and enjoyable!
But how was I supposed to find Sentinel? Retracing my steps might work if she was close by, but what if I’d lost her a good while ago? She was probably looking for me right now, and without knowing where I’d gone to, she could have started her search in any random direction, and by now, she might not be anywhere near the route I’d passed! Unless she’d gone airborne like I’d wanted to… but nopony was in the sky as far as I could see!
Maybe she was a little farther away or hidden from view behind a building? Hesitantly buzzing my wings, I risked a peek above the roofs. Still no sight of her, and she’d have had to fly up high enough for me to see her now! Was she on the other side of the city, obscured by the castle? That was the only remaining thing tall enough to conceal her unless she was still on the ground!
The castle…
Of course! I should go back to the castle! Shining hadn’t given such an instruction, probably not having anticipated that I might get separated from my guard like this, but back in my training days, we were sometimes instructed to return to our starting point in case that a drill done outside of the hive went wrong in a way that we couldn’t handle ourselves! Hadn’t drill instructor Carnage said that was standard procedure in cases of field mission failure whenever returning to base wouldn’t run the risk of compromising the rest of the mission and the other team members’ disguises completely? Why hadn’t I thought of that before? My current situation was close enough, and ponies might have similar strategies! Shining would understand! He’d have to!
But I was still running around loose and unsupervised. Should I disguise myself? No, I decided, that might only make things worse if Shining was to find out what had happened! But if anypony saw me without a guard…
Listen to yourself! Ponies have already seen you without a guard! In fact, a few of them are looking at you right now! No, don’t start hyperventilating! Just get to the castle, quick!
I launched into a gallop right away; I ran as fast as I could, but something was slowing me down. My saddlebag? It hadn’t seemed that heavy! And why did the street seem larger all of a sudden? Was I hallucinating? Had I accidentally shapeshifted into a downsized version of myself? But if that was the case, why did the houses seem the right size? Was I simply panicking so hard that I’d lost all sense of proportion or forgotten how big the city was?
It should have taken me only a couple of minutes to reach the castle and climb up one of the stairwells into the first hallway, but it felt like hours, and when I finally did, I was so out of breath that I couldn’t stand on my hooves anymore. I collapsed onto the crystally floor, panting and gasping for air. But hey, at least I’d made it back safely! Shining Armor hadn’t seen me roam about unsupervised!
Come to think about it, who had seen me? Whirligig, a few ponies who had happened to be around when realization struck me that I was alone, and possibly Brave Heart if that had been before Sentinel had disappeared, but curiously, I couldn’t remember anypony seeing me gallop back here! Not that I’d bothered to pay much attention in my frantic state…
...but now that I was paying attention, wasn’t the castle unusually quiet? And why hadn’t anypony passed by in the time I’d spent sprawled on the floor?
Getting a bad feeling about it, I stood up and moved cautiously deeper into the castle. I didn’t feel my saddlebag anymore; I hadn’t realized when or how I’d lost it, but it didn’t matter right now; something weird was going on! I couldn’t fathom what, but it felt bad, really bad!
I traversed several hallways with a lump in my throat, but nothing happened. No abomination jumped me from an unseen corner, no enemies struck me in a moment of carelessness, and nothing I saw could explain what had happened or suggest that I had a reason to worry… but there were still no ponies to be seen, and my instincts whispered to me regardless of no obvious signs of trouble, warning me to be careful. Careful about what?! If only I knew!
A few hallways further, the whispering had gradually but quickly turned into screaming. This is all wrong! my instincts insisted. You don’t want to know what happened! Turn around and go! Leave while you still can and never come back!
I wanted to listen to that voice, I wanted it so badly, but this was my friends’ home! How could I abandon them if an unknown peril threatened to wipe them out of existence? How could I just turn my back on them after everything they’d done for me? Against my better judgment, I pressed on.
Soon enough, I found myself standing at the entrance to the throne room. The doors were closed; it was unusual, but there had to be a reason for it, probably a mundane one... but I had a vague but unshakeable feeling that I’d find my answers on the other side of that door.
Don’t, my mind beckoned. Leave it be and get out of there!
I almost listened. But the whisper of my heart, reminding me that I’d never forgive myself if I abandoned my friends, was louder. Against the better judgment of my mind, the whisper of my heart prevailed.
Ignoring my racing heartbeat and my shivering breath, I opened the doors.
And stopped dead in my tracks.
The throne room was in chaos: all the decorative objects were strewn about and broken, the same seemed to be the case with parts of the architecture, though which fragment belonged where, I couldn’t tell; no light was coming from the outside through the shattered windows - was it night already? - and the only illumination was provided by a few piles that had caught fire. But despite those fires, everything was curiously, ominously cold in more ways than one, as if all the love and joy had been drained from the room.
I took a tentative step forward. Suddenly the fires changed: they turned from yellow and orange to a sickly shade of green that burned brighter, steadier, and more ominous. The change in lighting allowed me to see something I’d missed until then, something that confirmed my deepest dreads and justified my screaming instincts: there were pools of a green liquid that I knew too well and would recognize anywhere.
Changeling slime.
And stuck in some of those pools of slime, lying despondently or struggling to break free, were ponies.
Cadance. Sunburst. Crystal Berry. Sentinel. Paladin. Trusty Shield. Shining Armor. A few other ponies I’d seen about but whose names I didn’t know.
And somehow, Whirligig and Brave Heart. How had they gotten here before me? How come hadn’t I seen them get captured?
The sound of the doors slamming shut snapped me out of my panicked attempts to grasp how in the name of eggshells things had gone so bad so abruptly and right under my snout. A cackle echoed through the air, and for a fleeting moment, I wondered why I hadn’t realized sooner that I’d be hearing that blood-chilling voice any moment now.
But it was too late now. It might have been too late all along, no matter how hard I tried to escape it! I could have fled for dear life the second I’d realized something wasn’t right, the second I’d become aware of my guard’s absence, and it still wouldn’t have saved me!
I looked around frantically, trying to spot a way out of this nightmare-come-true. There wasn’t any; even the shattered windows were now covered in membranes of sticky resinous slime! Had they been like that all along? Why hadn’t I noticed? I should have been able to notice!
Either way, it didn’t matter anymore; as I looked further, a dark silhouette appeared standing on the overturned throne. That part of the room was cast in the shadow of a torn tapestry hanging from the ceiling and the figure was barely visible, but no one in the world would have had any doubt by now who she was.
And not even my thumping heart and ragged breaths could drown out her soul-clenching cackle.
“Welcome to the party, traitor,” she cooed. “Enjoying yourself?”
I gulped and cowered before the piercing glare of her glowing eyes. I risked a quick glance behind me. How far away were the doors? Could I get to them in time, open them quickly enough to stand a chance of getting out of there with all my parts still attached to me? Or at least with most of my parts still attached to me, my head preferrably being among the said parts? It was futile; I couldn’t even see the door anymore! It couldn’t have disappeared like many of the gates in the hive, could it?
“Thinking of leaving so soon, are we?”
My reply came in the form of a feeble gasp.
“Why, don’t you like it here? With all of your… friends?” The last word was juiced in all the venom she’d ever produced in her long life.
“Uh…”
“Come on, say hello to them!” She grabbed me in her magic and paraded me around in front of every single one of the trapped ponies.
“Please…”
“What’s wrong, traitor? Not good enough of a company for you? How about these?”
She carried me to another cluster of trapped ponies, ones that had until then been concealed behind a pile of debris.
Starlight. Princess Twilight and her friends.
And Spike, trying in vain to burn away the slime that was holding him in place. Why wasn’t it working? Was Chrysalis’ slime fireproof or heat-resistant? Had she cast a spell on it to make it impervious to dragon fire?
Was my friend’s firebreath simply not strong enough by itself?
“Thorax?” he rasped when he saw me. “Get me out of here, will you?”
“Spike…” I thrashed in Chrysalis’ magical grip, knowing I’d fail to break free, but still hoping against hope that there was something, anything, I could do to save my friends from there!
She blasted him and he cried out.
“No! Stop!” I exclaimed.
She shot me a glance as if I’d offended her, which I probably had.
“Please… don’t hurt him…” I whispered.
“No? Why not?”
“He’s my friend…”
“And the rest of them aren’t? Fine, if this lot isn’t good enough for you either, I’ve still got one who might be!”
Oh no… who now?
She dragged me deeper into the throne room, into the shadowy part, beyond the fallen throne. There, stuck to the far wall, was a single figure, barely recognizable under the blanket of darkness and the blob of slime.
Barely recognizable except for the purple eyes.
And the deep voice.
“Thorax?” he said. “How could you?”
“Pharynx…” I sighed.
“You traitor!” he shot back.
“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to-”
“Didn’t mean what?” Chrysalis roared, pulling me closer so she could get in my face.
“All this… um… betraying you… I never meant to-” I lost my voice momentarily under the outbreak of tears. “I just… I just wanted friends…”
“Friends,” she mocked me. “Isn’t that sweet? How’s it working out for you now?”
I remained silent. What was I supposed to say to her and expect not to bury myself any deeper?
“Let’s see. Which one do you care about most? This one?” She blasted Rainbow Dash with what had to be a torture spell; Rainbow screamed, and I wasn’t sure that I hadn’t too. “Or this one?” Now she blasted Whirligig, with much the same result. “Hmmm, maybe this one?” It was Starlight’s turn now.
This went on forever, and whenever I closed my eyes or turned my head away because I couldn’t take it anymore, I became the next target of her blast, which was then followed by a forced turn of my head in the ponies’ direction and a command to keep watching. I had no choice but to obey, and the harder I thrashed in her magic and screamed, begged her to stop, the worse it got for whoever she fancied to blast next! Before long, all the ponies, Spike included, were half-unconscious, my voice was hoarse, and there was a large puddle of tears on the floor beneath me.
But she hadn’t had enough; there was one target she hadn’t touched yet, and now that the ponies couldn’t beg for mercy anymore, it was his turn to take the blasting.
She’d saved him for last, I realized… and now he was going to get it all at once, unlike the ponies, who had all been given a moment to recover between blasts…
Oh, Pharynx, please forgive me…
He groaned as the spell hit him. He did his best to roar and hiss rather than scream and moan, and he managed to keep at it for longer than I’d expected; it must have been his relentless training and warrior’s pride that had helped him endure the pain that I knew from my own ample experience was unbearable! But even he couldn’t take it any longer after a while, and gave in to what he would on any other day call the pitiful whimpering of a pathetic weakling.
It broke my heart. If everything up to that point hadn’t broken my heart, this had. My brother, throwing his discipline into the wind and screaming in pain because I’d been so foolish to think I could defy the Queen!
“Please… stop…” I heard myself sob for the millionth time.
And, finally, she did, if only to allow her glare to question a despised drone’s impertinence to demand such a thing.
“Stop?” she scoffed. “I’ve barely just started!”
“Please… you don’t have to do this… let them go…”
“Let them go?! Why should I?”
“They’re here because of me… please… I can’t stand to watch them suffer…”
“That’s the whole point, you idiot!”
“I know… but you really want me… just kill me and be done with it… let them go and I’ll let you kill me… I won’t resist… I won’t run anymore…”
She kept her glare on me for another moment, then burst into a deranged laughter. Cold shivers ran down my carapace and a bad feeling clutched my heart again. It was her aura of love, I realized, if it could be called a love aura: dark, putrid, and malignant as nothing I’d ever seen before! She had just outdone what I’d thought was her worst!
What had I done? Sweet Hive, what had I unleashed?
Chrysalis slammed me into the ground and trapped me in another blob of slime. Smirking at the sight of my half terrified, half begging gaze, she strolled to one of the clusters of trapped ponies. Some of them were beginning to stir again; Cadance looked at me wide-eyed, having come to realize what was about to happen at the same time as I did.
No, please don’t… please let me be wrong about this…
Even in my new life in the Crystal Empire, even though surrounded by friends, part of me had never let go of knowing deep down that I was going to die in pain, but what I hadn’t realized - and I should have, I really should have - was that a good part of that pain was going to come from seeing my friends’ and brother’s mutilated, dead bodies.
For once in my life, I wished - begged - to be wrong, and yet, I knew my wish would never be fulfilled. How could I have been so foolish? Why had I thought that Chrysalis would ever care to heed my request to spare anypony? How could I have betrayed my friends so carelessly?
Venom dripped from Chrysalis’ fangs as she cast a glance at me to make sure I was still watching. She snarled viciously and licked her lips. Her horn lit up-
-and she burst into pieces in a flash of pure white.
What in the name of eggshells?!
That wasn’t the end of it. The captives faded away, and so did all the pools of slime that had held them in place, including my own; the green fires ceased, the debris fizzled away until the throne room was restored to its old self, the stifling darkness cleared, and the spark of white light that had obliterated Chrysalis shone on brightly, emanating the warm love that had been absent from the world.
I watched in confused awe as the spark took shape and faded to reveal the face of my savior. She gazed at me and smiled warmly.
“Are you alright?” she spoke. “I regret deeply that I could not have come to your aid sooner!”
“Princess Luna? Is it really you?” I whispered, then pulled myself together and mustered all my discipline to quickly give her a deep bow. “I await your command, Your Highness!”
“What?” she gasped. “I am not here to command you! I merely banished your nightmare as is my duty as the Princess of the Night! Has Cadance not told you that she requested my assistance with calming you in your slumbers?”
“She has- wait, I’m dreaming? How are you here, then? You look so… real…”
“I assure you, I am quite real, even if what you are seeing is but an image of the extension of my mind as it touches yours. Did you not know that I can enter ponies’ dreams?”
“No, I didn’t…” I mused. “Other drones never bothered to tell me anything while I still lived in the hive, and the ponies must have assumed that I knew… Sorry! I should have asked!”
“Do not trouble yourself over it,” she said. “You need me, therefore I am here.”
“How did you know I was having a nightmare, Princess? Uh, forgive my impertinence…”
“There is nothing to forgive! As fair Cadance has surely told you, you are free to ask whatever you wish to know! To answer your question, I have learned of your troubles from the letters that Cadance sent me, and have endeavoured ever since to visit your dreams. But it is harder than with ponies, as changelings’ dreams do not call out to me like ponies’ dreams do, and I had to find a way to reach out to you myself. This was not easy, mind you, and once I did find a path to your dreams, I was still unable to open the doors and step into them, so to speak; that required more effort, and up until now, I could merely observe.” Her gaze darkened. “I wish I could have intervened sooner… the horrors I have seen in your head have troubled me greatly!”
I winced. “Are you saying that… that I’m a monster? Please don’t hate me! I’m trying my best!”
“You misunderstand me, dear Thorax! It is but the opposite! I see a great virtue in your soul, and courage and strength that many a hero of Equestria would envy! Merely a minute ago, you were facing your worst fears, and you chose a path that few would dare; you were willing to sacrifice yourself to save others, even those who have wronged you! You were willing to pay the price that no one should have to pay! No, Thorax, you are not a monster, nor do I see you as one; the horrors I spoke of are not of your heart, but of your memories! You have a pure heart that has suffered a great burden! I fear I cannot undo the past to relieve you of that burden, but know this: you are a good person, you deserve better than what you have had, and whatever should happen to you in life, know that you have an ally in me!”
“Your words honor me, Princess, and I’m deeply grateful for the trust you’ve shown me and for the trouble you’ve gone through to save me from something that wasn’t even real-”
“You are wrong, Thorax. Though your nightmares might not have been real in the sense that the perils within them never happened outside of your mind, the feelings and past experiences the nightmares stem from are far too real indeed! They are the burden I spoke of, made heavier by your reluctance to share it!”
“But Princess, how can I burden my friends with all that I’ve been through? It’s too much for them!”
“As it is too much for you. I assure you, Thorax, you have been blessed by a group of friends anypony could wish for! They have helped many, including me, and I have every confidence that they can help you too, if only you allow them. You have begun already to open your heart to them, but there is nothing wrong with surrendering yourself completely to their love, for you are loved more than you think!”
“I’m not sure I’m worthy of that love…”
“You are,” she said. “Never forget that! No matter what some may think about you or how they may treat you, you are worthy of love!”
A flash of warm light enveloped her again and she was gone from sight. I was once again alone… but not really alone; I knew now that somepony out there cared enough to transcend space and physical boundaries to tread the path of my mind’s world in order to bring me a bit of reassurance in a moment of despair. I knew now that somepony had seen me - truly seen me - at my worst and never once flinched at the darkness or shied away from bringing some light into that darkness! This was a whole new kind of love, and what a powerful love it was!
How had she done it? How had she healed my wounds so easily after I’d carried them all my life? How had she calmed the raging tempest in my soul, how had she given it the tranquility that it had never known before?
And how much I owed her for her selfless act, for the tremendous gift she had given me!
I didn’t know how to repay her, not at this time. But a new voice whispered in my heart now: one not warning of danger but promising the dawn of a new day, a day when I would overcome my troubled past and live a truly happy, love-filled life. One day, it spoke, I would find out just how much I could do, and if Princess Luna ever needed my help, I would be there for her, just like she had once been there for me!