//------------------------------// // Quarantine // Story: Resolution of a Queen // by Logarithmicon //------------------------------// The clinking of chains echoed down the long hall, offering forewarning of the pair’s approach: The smaller, walking unbent but with a tremor in her limbs that rendered her steps erratic, like the beating of fat raindrops on a roof. The larger, her neck bent and legs laden by the weighty chains that hung from them, but still somehow keeping her pace steady, proud, like a march. They walked together, and before them fled all others: A nurse vanishing through a door with a terrified squeak, a patient's bed abruptly wheeled back into their room before the pair could be seen. They walked side-by-side, a changeling queen and a pony mare, through the pale pools of magelight cast by the faintly-humming crystals set into the ceiling. Past complex arcanics that hissed and beeped and whined, past threadlike weaves of alarm-magic that glowed a faint, sedate blue - and a few that pulsed an alarming red, signaling doctors to come and see. They walked until they had reached a wardnear-abandoned but for the golden-clad guards that watched the pair with narrowed eyes; only then did they stop before a wide window to stare at the twitching, writhing forms within. "So," Starlight Glimmer said as her ears pinned back and tail lashed, "it's just like I told you, Chrysalis. I didn't lie. This isn't any trick. The Changelings need your help." Chrysalis' eyes flicked dispassionately from bed to bed, hooded eyelids barely moving as she examined one victim after another. Beyond the glass, chitin glimmered erratically under the magelights’ pale, unflickering glow reflected off the shuddering forms laid out on bed after bed. Here and there, a seeming pony lay too - a patient caught in a transformation they could no longer reject. The low hum of background noise was occasionally broken by a shriek or burst of manic laughter that erupted from gibbering lips; legs swatted at things only their owners could see, though clumsily: Like the rest of their bodies, the changelings' limbs were caught in a frantic, twitching shudder. At long last, Chrysalis’ fanged maw opened to hiss two words in a low, grave voice: "How long?" Starlight blinked, head tilting slightly, her ears still pinned but twitching slightly in confusion. "A-About fourteen years. Since you were - um - since the last time you saw-" "So soon… I did not think these fools would succumb so soon." Starlight sucked in a low breath, the first hints of anger narrowing her eyes. "...can you please, for a second, stop thinking about yourself and - if there's any hint of care in your heart - consider-" "I mean, you imbecile, so soon for this to begin spreading." As if a snake circling to face its prey, Chrysalis turned to face the smaller mare beside her. Chains fell across her face like a veil, hanging from the dense inhibitor anchored to her twisted horn like a burl festering on a crooked branch. Her eyes settled on Starlight as if discovering her for the first time, and traced the lines written by exhaustion and despair into her face. If the insult had riled Starlight whatsoever, no part of her face showed it. "O-Oh. Um. First case was eight years ago. We realized it was a disease in the last three. But in the last few months-" "How many?" Chrysalis hissed. "A lot. Most of the population is showing signs. These are the worst, but - there's years where it begins to spread. Some of them aren't this bad yet." "Is Thorax infected?" "Yes. Chrysalis..." Starlight Glimmer paused again, her mouth half open, and tore her gaze from the Changeling monarch to again look through the window into the special ward. "...I know you hate me. Thorax too. And I honestly despise you. But I convinced Twilight to pull you out of that stone for a reason: They need your help. None of our treatments work. It's spreading, and we can't cure it. They're your kin. They need you." When she looked back, Chrysalis had likewise begun staring through the glass again. The Changeling Queen's next words came so soft Starlight barely heard them. "They must all die." “Oh, for Celestia’s sake,” Starlight spat, “can you put aside your horn-up-your-rump bitterness for just a second and look at them? This isn’t about your vengeance. This isn’t about them turning against you. They need you.” “No, Starlight Glimmer. They die. There is no other choice.” A line can only be drawn so taut before it snaps. A heart can only be wound so tightly before it bursts. And a pony can only take so much before lashing out. “What,” said Starlight, her nostrils flared and ears laid flat, “is wrong with you? Don’t you care for them at all? What mountain did you climb to hold yourself above them right now?” Chrysalis’ head whipped back with the clink of chains, her muzzle twisted into a bare-toothed snarl. “I am above them. You-” Cutting off with a gasp, Chrysalis found herself seized in a violet field - ethereal pressure closing about her throat. “Can you let go of your rutting self-importance for once - just once - in your miserable little parasitic life and help somepony else?”  Starlight’s anguished howl still echoing in her ears, Chrysalis barely noticed herself taking a surprised step back as the mare’s horn flashed with an oddly discolored glare. “Are you so unbelievably selfish that you won’t even save the lives of your own kin? You were their Queen; you want to be a Queen again? Stand up and act - act like - like - like -” Starlight paused, her horn’s brilliance fading. Something phantasmic, something like smoke, rolled from it - but it burned no longer. Her eyes had met Chrysalis’, and found on the larger mare’s face an expression Chrysalis' taller stature had hid from her as they stood side-by-side: The true, deep, and unshakable sadness and horror written into the former queen's face as surely as Starlight's own wrinkled, tooth-bared expression spoke to her frustration-born fury. ------------------------------------------ It was half an hour before Starlight stepped back in.  She had left the guards behind when they came galloping to investigate, and she dearly hoped the last foul, cloudy sparks of hateful magic were no longer clinging to her horn when she stepped back in - just as she hoped her coat was dry of the water she had hidden her rageful tears with. Even when, when she returned and the guards clanked their way back out to their posts, Chrysalis barely spared her a glance. Nothing passed between them but silence until the hospital's bell-tower sounded the hour. "We call it Kuru." Chrysalis' voice was low and cracked, devoid of the resonant depth it usually held; Starlight didn't know if it was damage her magical outburst had done, a relic of Chrysalis' granite prison, or just what she sounded like when sorrowful. "Have you ever wondered, Starlight Glimmer, why Changeling-kind have always stalked from the shadows? Taken faces, instead of making our own? Stolen, and not shared?" "You knew about this,” said Starlight, her voice with the sour tones of accusation - and admission. Chrysalis placidly nodded. "I did, Starlight Glimmer. I knew." "Yet you didn't tell anypony!." "Would you have believed me, the Queen of Deception?" Starlight tried to ignore the slightest note of pride at the self-declared title. "Yes ... No. Maybe. Maybe! But you didn't tell any of them either. Your subjects." "I tried to keep it out of their foolish little heads, yes," Chrysalis said with a curled lip, "so they wouldn't think about it." "That's not right. Honesty is important." A sharp bark of pained laughter was Chrysalis’ first response, accompanied by the clink of chains as she threw her head back to give it. Only when the guffaws had died out did she add words to the retort. "Honesty, important. What a so very, very pony-like answer... and so very wrong. You cannot know, Starlight Glimmer, what it is to exist as a Changeling. To feel the bite of bitter hunger not merely every second you wake, but even when you rest. To have a hole in your heart. To feel that ravenous demand nibbling at the fringes of your soul. To need to consume the essence of others to see another dawn..." Gathering herself up again, Chrysalis shook her head. Then, with hooves dragging like they had been weighted with far more than chains, she crawled back to the window again - her steps now just as shaken and irregular as Starlight's had been. "...the disease is called Kuru. I know not who named it. Some queen-of-queens in misty ages past, beyond even my memory or Celestia's. It is infectious. It is lethal. It is unstoppable." "How is it spread, Chrysalis? At least we can save some o-" "By sharing love."  Starlight flinched; the three words slashed at her core, and she felt another slash to her heart as she realized there had been no satisfaction in the Queen's admission.  "When Changelings share love without bringing new, fresh energy in, Kuru follows. Some - deficiency, compared to what we take from you. But you cannot know how strong the urge to do that is, Starlight Glimmer. To have the hole in your essence filled, at long last, and to no longer have the need scrabbling at the back of your mind every moment of your existence. And so Kuru is not merely infectious, but mere knowledge of it is infectious. Sooner or later, changelings who know that love can be shared - even knowing the cost - will dare to try. For they will believe the stories are wrong, or they are superior enough." "And so-" Chrysalis paused, and to Starlight's shock choked on her words. "-they must all die. Any who knew that love can be shared out by any but the Queen, for it is a siren's song leading to a poisoned prize. And then, when they are gone, a new hive shall arise. And all they shall know is that the old disobeyed the queen - and died." "This has happened before." It wasn't a question, but a statement. Chrysalis nodded. "Twice, in my lifetime. Three times, now. Four, if you count the disaster that ended the Queen before me. Even hiding the knowledge is never enough; one of us inevitably rediscovers the sharing of love, reveals it, and we perish. Never on a scale as large as this, though. The cullings… were never this large." "Wait. If the old queen died, then how did you know - was she your mother?" "No. I was chosen at random, from my kin, to be fed enough love to become a Royal. Before the old queen passed, as the Kuru took her mind, she gave this knowledge to a single Changeling. The knowledge was in turn given to me, and then I scoured his mind with the strongest of our geasses to wipe it from him forever." A strange expression came over Chrysalis' face, and it took Starlight a moment to recognize a seemingly out of place emotion on features that were usually twisted with a sneer: Fondness. Actual fondness. "He was forever crippled. He was forever honored, living in care until his days ended. Should I die, I shall do the same for another." Slowly Chrysalis turned to face Starlight - extending out an accusatory, hole-ridden leg that somehow made Starlight feel like a tiny filly again in spite of the chain hanging from its fetlock. "Now, Starlight Glimmer, you must understand why I despise you. Why I despise Thorax. Why I can never accept your 'friendship'.” "Y-You're lying. You just want them back under your hoof, want to make them your slaves again-" "And yet all your magic, all your friendship, has not been able to find a solution either." "...no." Starlight's voice was small, and her muzzle fell to stare at the tiled floor as she sank to her haunches. Chrysalis shrugged, as if the reply had simply been expected. "I do not know what causes it. What fiendish curse twists us, what whim of a mad god made us this way. But I know how Kuru works. They will die soon, unable to feed or breath. Reduced first to gaudy prizes for you ponies to march around, and then to something that cannot live at all." "And what then?" "I will spawn a new Hive. It may be my end, if that gives you any satisfaction. The process is terribly straining; the last reformation taxed me severely. Starving as I am, this may be too much. But my kin will survive." A ripple ran through Starlight’s coat - a shudder from muzzle to tail as she felt the iron-clad certainty in Chrysalis’ tone strike her like a blow across the cheek. “How can you just be so - calm about it? You sound like I just told you that you’re failing a test, not that every changeling is going to - to -” “You ponies!” Chrysalis laughed again - long and hard, rows of jagged teeth on full display as bitter laughter rocked her body. “Ah, you’re so convinced that everything can be changed. Controlled. Rewritten. Bound up to your will, or else something scary might happen.” “...and so willing to believe that that end always justifies whatever must be done to make it so. A sentiment that you have some rather particular experience with, I think?” Chrysalis continued with a smirk. To Starlight’s surprise, the barb didn’t hurt nearly as badly as she’d somehow expected it to. She simply shook her head, tail swatting back and forth almost as wildly as her mane. “That - I left that behind years ago. The old me.” “Did you?” Chrysalis asked, and suddenly all the teasing, menacing mirth was gone from her voice - replaced with cold, accusing bitterness. “Is that why you poisoned my children? Gave them the idea of turning into something more pony-like, something better, so they could fit in with you more? You, Starlight Glimmer, are just as bound to who you are as we changelings are to our own nature. The only difference is that your cause is ‘harmony’ now.” “...I didn’t mean to cause this.” “Of course you didn’t. You just didn’t think not too either. Because you’re the good pony and I’m the bad pony. Because I am cruel, and vain, and proud of what I accomplished.” “I didn’t mean to-” Starlight was still repeating the phrase, over and over, beneath her breath. Chrysalis simply shrugged. “So tell me now, Starlight Glimmer: What will you do with me now…? Release me to my final end, spawning a new hive? Try to ‘reform’ me another way? Kill me, and end my line forever? Return me to that stone prison until I’m ‘needed’ again?” “...what would you do?” asked Starlight, before she even realized what the words leaving her mouth were. “Kill me. Finish what the Kuru started.” Chrysalis spoke nonchalantly, and the inner counselor within Starlight wondered whether fury and despair at a hive lost had congealed into the urge for a final conclusion to her life. “It’s the rational choice. I will never not be a predator of ponykind. End me, and you end one of the greatest strains of Changeling lineage to exist since the first queens were spawned.” “And what do you want me to do?” Starlight asked, her voice whisper-soft. This time, Chrysalis paused. Paused a long time, long enough that the pause stopped being a pause and stretched on into a silence. Long enough that she could walk back to the window and stare at the writhing, twitching forms on the beds within the room. “Stone.” “Why?” “I have no desire to see my line end. I want my hive to flourish. To conquer. To rule. Perhaps I might even live to see it. But in the same thought…”  Chrysalis turned her sorrowful, bitter stare straight into Starlight’s eyes, and Starlight was shaken by the certainty that - no matter how much she ranted and howled, no matter how venomous her words - deep within Chrysalis there was real, genuine love. “...I have no desire to watch this. Put me back in stone, Starlight Glimmer, so that I do not have to see my children die.”