“Princess Twilight Sparkle?”
The silence had been like a physical weight over the past week; hours passed like minutes, days like hours. What was time, anymore? What meaning did it hold for her, what power could it hold over her? She could lay here for years, and all that would change would be the layer of dust over her coat.
“Your Majesty? It’s been a week, and you haven’t eaten the daisy sandwiches we left for you … are they not to your liking? My lady?” The voice was tremulous, and heady with concern; Twilight Sparkle could recognize Appledust’s voice, but couldn’t bring herself to care.
“Please, Your Majesty; we are all so worried for you. I - I even brought some books from your library, I thought you might like to read them?”
Twilight remained still on her bed, unmoving; she barely even drew breath, yet she sustained. She would sustain forever, she supposed. After a few more minutes, she heard Appledust’s retreating hoofbeats fade down the hallway, and she returned to her silence. She would need to get used to it; she had 300 more years of it before Spike returned, but even he would only be a reprieve, not a solution. Was this why Celestia and Luna had left? All of the memories, so heavy that they had to carry them around like a cloak? Why had Celestia been so eager to take an apprentice, to subject her to this as well? Perhaps so that she wouldn’t have to carry the heavy burden by herself?
Twilight was already losing herself in her circling thoughts, when she realized a new sound was tickling at the edge of her hearing; the sound of her window latch being undone from the outside.
Well, perhaps a robbery might liven things up, she thought dourly, and didn’t even bother to open her eyes.
“Holy hoof, Princessy, you live like this?”
Princess Twilight remained unmoved. “I didn’t take you for a common thief, Chrysalis. This is getting exciting.”
“Your sarcasm is as dull as a butter knife, don’t bother next time.” Queen Chrysalis sneered, but it wasn’t quite as vicious as it had been before. “I thought we left it at - how was it - ‘zap zap, I’ll cut it out of your limp body’? What happened to that?”
Twilight heaved out a low sigh through her nostrils, so unbothered she couldn’t muster up the energy to approximate a bitter laugh. “Feel free to cut it out yourself, if you feel so moved.”
Queen Chrysalis stood for a moment, then huffed, and took a few stomping steps around Twilight’s luxurious room. “Well, it’s not as fun if you just … LIE there. You’re supposed to - I dunno - ‘Look hence, evildoer! I shall not allow you to bring Canterlot to any harm! Your reign of evil is at an end!’ But, you know, more dorky.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I’ve been menacing the townsfolk all this time, you know. A full week of menacing! Leeching little bits of love here and there! I even masqueraded as a blacksmith’s wife for a day. I sucked up so much love, I thought I was gonna puke!”
“That’s great. You must be happy.”
Queen Chrysalis froze where she stood. “That butter-knife sarcasm is getting really tiresome, you know.”
“No, I mean it.” Twilight Sparkle continued speaking to her bedside lamp, where her head had been pointed for the past week with little change. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? You didn’t have a lot of motivation beyond ‘eat love, build army, cackle evilly.’ So I guess it’s time to build an army.”
Silence hung in the room long enough that Twilight wondered if Queen Chrysalis had left; still, she couldn’t muster up the energy to turn her head and check.
“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” Chrysalis spoke at last, so quietly that it hardly sounded like her at all.
Twilight Sparkle had to admit that this piqued her interest; still, coming from such a low place as she was, it really only lifted her mood from the Mareiana Trench to - well, still pretty deep down. She turned her ear back to better listen to Chrysalis, and when she heard the soft rattle of a glass bottle landing on her vanity, she finally lifted her head to look.
Sitting on her vanity was a tiny vial of perfect, kelly-green changeling venom, and no changeling queen in sight.
***
When the changeling queen returned the next night, she found Twilight Sparkle still in bed, sitting up and considering her hooves; the vial stood, untouched, on the vanity.
“Oh come on! I gave you the venom, aren’t you going to even get out of bed and LOOK at it?!” Queen Chrysalis groaned, dragging her hooves down her cheeks in frustration. “What happened to all that nonsense about friendship?!”
Twilight lifted her head this time, and considered Queen Chrysalis with new eyes. “I hoped you might come back.”
Queen Chrysalis couldn’t manage to hide how taken aback she was. “You - WHY?! I’m - the bad guy! Shouldn’t you stone me or zap zap or something?”
“I wanted to ask you a question. A couple, actually.”
Queen Chrysalis’ annoyance scaled back rapidly into consideration, and she couldn’t fight her curiosity for more than a moment. “Alright. But I reserve the right not to answer your impertinent pony perusal.”
“Why did you leave the vial of venom for me?”
“Why didn’t you use it?” Queen Chrysalis sneered.
“Why didn’t you build your army?”
Queen Chrysalis’ smug grin abruptly dropped from her face. “Next question.”
“At first I thought your answer must be tied up in my answer; if I used the venom, then you would use the opportunity while I was gone to terrorize Equestria.” Princess Twilight Sparkle spoke with a clarity of tone that she had not possessed in awhile; it felt good, almost as if she could feel her friends nodding at her sides, encouraging her. “But the more I thought about it, that felt like an excuse. There have been many threats in the past hundreds of years, and every time I have allowed my guard and minister of security to manage them with peace and friendship. There was reason to believe that they would be able to handle you, too.”
“Doubtful,” Chrysalis smirked.
“But that didn’t explain why you made the venom so easy for me to obtain. If it was a trap, you laid it out too easily; if I didn’t have to fight for it, it wouldn’t feel like I ‘earned’ it, and I would begin to suspect your motivations.”
“Maybe I just didn’t think that far ahead.”
“Maybe you did, and you realized something that I’ve been trying to ignore for the longest time.” Twilight Sparkle let the silence hang in the air between them for a moment. “You can never go back.”
Chrysalis stilled; Twilight Sparkle wasn’t even sure if she was breathing anymore.
“I wanted to make the Spell Enhancing Spell; I even prepared some of the ingredients last night.” Twilight Sparkle’s eyes had gone unfocused, no longer looking at Chrysalis. “But even as I thought about how wonderful it would be to see my friends again, even if I had to be in disguise, I was already thinking about how I would have to watch them grow old and die all over again. I couldn’t think about the new hellos, without also thinking about the new goodbyes. I could go back in time a hundred times, and each time I would have to say goodbye to them all over again. Even if I only saw them for a moment, I knew I would eventually have to return to a future where they did not exist anymore.”
Twilight Sparkle let the silence spread between them, a silence that Chrysalis didn’t dare infringe upon.
“That’s why you haven’t raised a new army, isn’t it? Because at some level, even if you won’t admit it, you know it will go the same way. So you had to sabotage yourself.”
“Don’t you DARE pretend you know my thoughts, Princess!” Queen Chrysalis shrieked, enraged.
“You’ve been immortal even longer than I have, Chrysalis; is that why you have drones, and never friends? A hive, but no family?”
“A hive IS a family, you - you vile fleshling!” Chrysalis hissed, her pupils slitting.
“The changelings are a family now!” Twilight barked back at her, voice rising. “And that’s not what it was when you ruled, and you know it!”
“Lies! Liessss!” Chrysalis hissed, and reared back onto her hind legs, pawing at the air between them as her wings hummed. “Do you want to know why I left you my venom?! Because I felt BAD for you! The great Princess Twilight Sparkle, ruler of Equestria, the Princess of Friendship who locked herself up in her library for centuries until her people even forgot her NAME!”
Twilight Sparkle was startled into silence, watching Chrysalis as one might watch a rapidly-approaching hurricane.
Chrysalis was all but frothing now, her eyes slits of black in poisonous-green pools, and her wings hummed behind her at a fever pitch. “You lecture me about family and friendship! You’ve been gone so long, I doubt you even remember what those words mean!” Chrysalis roared, baring her fangs. “You horrible little pony! Let me show you a TRUE queen’s power! I don’t need to pretend I’m something I’m not - I know what I am! I don’t need family, or friends - I need blood on my hooves! Fight me!”
“I refuse!” Twilight yelled, and then stilled, a new awareness alighting in her gaze. “I - I refuse. I won’t fight you, Chrysalis.”
Queen Chrysalis brought down her hooves mere inches in front of Twilight, and shrieked into her face, fangs glistening in the moonlight. Twilight Sparkle remained unmoving, unflinching in the face of her violence.
“I can’t fight you, Chrysalis; you’re hurting, like I am.” Twilight Sparkle whispered now, her voice tight. “Just like I am.”
“Don’t you dare try your filthy pony mind games on me, you - you pony!” Chrysalis spat.
Twilight Sparkle couldn’t help but chuckle, the sound less sad than she’d expected. “Oh, Chrysalis; who’s got a butter-knife wit now?”
The sight of a stunned Chrysalis prompted another chuckle, and then another, each sound lighter and happier than the last. For a moment, it was as if she had Pinkie Pie back at her side, and no time had passed at all. For a moment, she was in the spring of her life, and she was a young filly again.