//------------------------------//
// Knight And Day 
// Story: The Real Nightmare Knights 
// by Bigwig6666 
//------------------------------//

Rain splashed softly against the stained glass windows of the palace at the centre of Equestria.

King Morpheus, the wise, benevolent ruler of all ponies and titled as the King of Dreams, sat on his throne, thinking of what to say. The sound of his hoof tapping lightly on the ground in an almost rhythmic fashion seemed extraordinarily loud amid the otherwise silent hall. His mane, enchanted to shimmer like a piece of the night sky itself and give him an otherworldly appearance, flowed about his head with a mind of its own. 

His piercing eyes narrowed slightly at the two creatures standing before him. The first: his eldest daughter, the Crown Princess Celestia; his heir and future ruler of all Equestria. She who would one day become queen. She the reason for his disappointment and frustration on this particular day.

The second, and in a far trickier position than his own daughter: Chrysalis, the changeling daughter of his most hated and reviled enemy, Queen Imago of the Changeling Hive. Since he had taken her in as his ward, the nymph had become something of a sister to both of his daughters. More than a sister for Celestia, if the rumours were to be believed. Not that he minded at all, for he saw blossoming love as only a source of strength between two souls.

Both of them now hung their heads low as they waited for judgement.

A portrait of the princess’s mother, Queen Iris, hung on the wall, watching them with rainbow coloured eyes that seemed to shimmer with a light of their own as if she was still amongst them.

“Why?” the king said finally, breaking the deafening silence that had descended upon them all. “Why must I be burdened with such an arrogant, reckless and destructive daughter such as you, Celestia?”

Celestia bristled and twitched her ears. The young pegasus lifted her head slightly to look Morpheus in the eye and cleared her throat. “Father, if I could only explai-”

“Silence!” Morpheus barked. His deep, baritone and rumbling voice echoed around the hall. The few servants outside that had been listening with their ears to the door quickly scurried away to make themselves scarce, fearful of the King of Dreams’ wrath.

He raised a hoof to his head and sighed. “I seek to turn Equestria into the greatest kingdom on Equus, one that may yet even rival that of the Crystal Empire, and your only thought seems to be amusing yourself in trying to tear it down! Have I taught you nothing?”

As he paused and father and daughter glared at one another, Chrysalis inhaled sharply and stepped forwards. “Your majesty, I--allow me to speak plainly,” she said with a shaking voice. She raised a hoof to her chest and bowed low as the king turned to her expectantly. 

“The fault lies not with your teaching, but rather with me. I goaded Celestia on and so I am the one responsible. I await whatever punishment you deem fit.”

Despite what others may have thought of her, and in spite of their race’s difference and her heritage, Morpheus was quite fond of the changeling in his court. She was smart, brave, and acted as something of an anchor to the often arrogant and brash Celestia. As such, he admired how she much put herself forwards. If only his own flesh and blood was as selfless as she was. He saw how Celestia’s lips tightened and her brow furrowed ever so slightly, and how her head turned a few degrees to the left, subtly attempting to hide her shame.

“Responsible. Hmm,” he murmured, rising from his throne. 

He descended the steps to them and touched Chrysalis’s chin, raising her head up slightly to look her in the eye. As he smiled at her his stern and cold expression faded, then he turned his eyes to his daughter, and the cold disappointment swiftly returned. 

“How is it that the Crown Princess of Equestria knows less of responsibility than one not even of the same species as her?”

Celestia grit her teeth and said nothing. Her pink mane--usually so well kept, now messy and unruly, much like how she was at times--obscured a portion of her face. That which wasn’t obscured, however, practically glowed with indignity.

“Do you know the meaning of that word, Celestia?” Morpheus persisted. “Responsibility?”

“Father-”

“And do you understand the task that your ancient birth right has laid out before you?” the king replied, starting to pace back and forth, keeping his head held up high and placing each hoof carefully before the other. “The ancient tradition that our family has upheld for generations--to safeguard the realm against any and all threats to ponykind?”

“I do,” Celestia grunted, grinding her teeth together. 

Morpheus stopped in front of her and sighed again. He reached out to brush some of her hair out of her face and pursed his wizened lips. “When I pass into the next world it will fall to you and you alone to govern our kingdom, Celestia. Do you understand this?”

“Of course! I understand it all, father,” Celestia snapped, batting his hoof away and raising her head to look at him. “But one small accident is hardly enough to cripple a kingdom or undo centuries of tradition-”

“One ‘small accident’ may lead to another!” Morpheus suddenly and angrily declared, slamming his hoof down into the ground. Celestia flinched and stepped back, flattening her ears to her head. Chrysalis remained frozen, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the ground.

“And then perhaps another, and so on and so on until there is nothing left! Actions like these, however accidental or minuscule, cast a shadow over you, Celestia. A shadow that frightens our subjects and weakens you in their eyes! Is that how you wish to be remembered?!”

Chrysalis kept her head lowered and stared at the ground as the king’s thunderous voice reverberated around the castle.

“You are a paragon of our people--the pinnacle of Equestrian society,” Morpheus continued, lowering his voice and his temper. “You must be a better example to them than you are now, else they will come to view you as a tyrant. You must not let yourself be led astray. Am I clear, Celestia?”

Celestia blinked away the tears in her eyes and said nothing. Chrysalis could feel the anger building up inside her, and could see how her cheeks flushed red with heat.

Morpheus hung his head and let loose a disappointed and dejected sigh. “You have my permission to leave,” he rumbled, waving dismissively at them as he ventured back up the steps to his throne and sat down, placing his head in his hooves. 

The princess’s hoofbeats came hard and heavy as she stormed from the throne room, slamming the door behind her with enough force to rattle the chandeliers. Morpheus had the slightest pause and a flicker of regret passed over his face. Chrysalis swallowed and bowed to him once more, and turned to leave, only to then hesitate and turn back a moment later.

“My lord?” she said nervously. “If I may say something?”

The king pulled his head up and looked back at her with a stoic, yet curious expression.

“All... all Celestia wishes is to bring honour to your family’s name,” Chrysalis said as confidently as she could, trying to hide the shake in her voice. Though old and kindly, Morpheus was still an imposing stallion, and in truth the fear that had been instilled in her by her mother had never fully left her. “And I know she will live up to your expectations. In fact, I believe she will surpass them, if she is only given the right... opportunity.”

The king chuckled dryly and bobbed his head up and down. “Maybe. Maybe so. Perhaps you have something in mind?” he added coyly. “A certain... venture, shall we say, regarding the Morning and Evening Stars?”

Chrysalis blanched. Her confidence wavered. “I... u-um...”

A smile pulled at the corners of the King’s mouth. “Do you forget that I am the King of Dreams, dear girl?” he said softly. “I know an awful lot about what goes on inside the heads of all my little ponies. Including you. And, may I say: I can see, and have seen, that you are a good friend to her. A very good friend indeed.” He tapped his hoof on the arm of his chair and let out a heavy sigh.

“I...”

Morpheus’s eyebrow made an audible creak as it arched upwards and the nymph silenced herself. “You love her, is that it?” he said bluntly.

Chrysalis blushed and looked away.

The King smiled at her and bobbed his head understandingly and looked over to the portrait of the queen. “I know what it is like to love. You would do anything for them... worship the very ground they walk on for fear losing them... and should the worst come to pass, in that grief you lose yourself... and madness becomes the only possible course of action...”

The changeling lifted her head up slightly as he tapered off, noticing how his eyes grew cold and distant. “Sire?”

“Hmm?” Morpheus brought himself back around, and the sparkle returned to his eyes. “Ah, forgive me, young one. This old stallion does let his mind wander from time to time. In any case, I will take your words into consideration. Go on now,” he said with a wave of his hoof, dismissing her. “Best to hurry after Celestia and ensure that she doesn’t cause any more further trouble.” 

Chrysalis gazed at him curiously before quickly bowing and nodding back at him. “Y-Yes, my lord. Thank you.” 

She again turned and swiftly marched towards the big, heavy door of the throne room, only slowing to look up at the portrait of the queen. Her heart beat slightly faster in her chest as those beautiful rainbow coloured eyes met hers, almost as if they were watching her. Judging her. 

She swallowed and hurried away, closing the big heavy door behind her.

The click it made, and her hoofbeats, sounded abnormally loud in the otherwise quiet palace as she hurried away in search of Celestia to fulfil the king’s wishes and keep her out of trouble...


***


The present. . .


In the dark tunnels that made up the intricate network that was the Changeling Hive, it was quiet.

Too quiet, for Chrysalis’s liking, as quiet often meant trouble. 

Her horn glowed a steady green as it lit their way, although the light tapered off into the abyss after only a few feet. 

She hated the silence.

Under her leadership, there would have always been noise; sometimes loud, sometimes not. Regardless of its source, there was always noise.

She remembered listening to the instructors training fresh young nymphs in the art of subterfuge and intrigue. She remembered watching the warriors of the Hive fight and spar with one another. A bitter tasting fondness found its way into her mind as she remembered hearing the delighted chirping the freshly hatched and mewling grubs made whenever she graced their presence. But when the Hive was silent, however, it was usually a sign that something required her undivided attention: a prisoner escape, intruders in the Hive, or a cave-in, perhaps.

Possible rumours of her mother’s resurrection...

Chrysalis curled her lip upwards as they pressed on. Her companions behind her were apparently having a conversation, not that she was particularly paying attention. Zoning back in to reality and pushing aside her intrusive thoughts, she decided to listen in to whatever inane drivel Cozy was talking about now, and cocked an ear outwards.

“Y’know, I was an alicorn once,” Cozy was saying, followed by the fluttering of her small wings.

Oh this should be good, Chrysalis thought to herself.

Celestia chuckled softly. “Yes, I remember. You were doing quite well to control and use that power at such a young age.” Her voice took on a harsh edge for a moment. “Until you nearly destroyed Equestria and my city.”

The queen smirked as she heard what she assumed to be Cozy choking on her words. Celestia simply laughed in that wonderful, sweet yet infinitely mischievous way she used to. “But yes you did very well for a filly your age. I, myself was eighteen when I ascended. Tell me, how did you find having a horn? It took me some getting used to, I must say.”

After Cozy managed to compose herself and saw the light-hearted joke for what it was, she shrugged nonchalantly. “Uh, well, y’know, it felt weirdly natur--Wait. Wait a minute, hang on. ‘Took some getting used to’? What, are you saying you were a pegasus?”

“Oh yes, like Cadance was. My sister, on the other hoof, was a unicorn like Twilight,” the princess chuckled. “If I recall correctly, I was quite the skilled flyer in my youth.”

Cozy whistled. “Huh... score one for us, I guess. I thought you would have been a unicorn.” She hesitated and wrinkled the end of her nose. “How’d you move the sun? In school we were told that you used your unicorn magic to do it.”

Celestia bobbed her head up and down with a tight smile across her lips. “Hmm. I’m afraid that is a simple embellishment propagated by unicorns that I never bothered to correct. Perhaps that is my error.” She sighed and shook her pink streaked mane. “And as for how, well... it involved a clever trick using solar winds, I had some help from my sister and... a dear friend of mine.” 

Chrysalis could practically hear the grin spread over Cozy’s face. She could feel both of her companions’ eyes on her, and turned her head enough to look at them. Indeed the filly was smirking and furiously wiggling her eyebrows.

“I bet you two have loads of stories about each other, huh?” said filly wondered out loud. 

Celestia made a small noise between a laugh and a snort. “I’m sure we do, Cozy Glow. Very much like yourself, or Tempest Shadow and Lord Tirek, for that matter?”

“Aha... yeah... Tirek has a brother, right? Scorpan. I used to read stories about them when I was little... well... littler... That’s where I got the idea to send him letters when he was in Tartarus.” The filly fluttered her wings gently and sighed. “And we became besties ever since. More than besties, really, he’s kinda like the dad I always wanted. If a bit grumpy sometimes.”

A few moments of silent contemplating passed, allowing Celestia to digest that little nugget of information before Cozy asked her next question. 

“What was she like?”

“Who?”

“Chrysalis.”

“Oh.” The princess seemed taken aback slightly. “Well, she was...”

She paused. 

Chrysalis felt a small chill run along her neck and shifted ever so slightly to look back. She thought about arguing against any sort of comment regarding how ‘she was’, or how ‘they were’, but her own curiosity was almost as insatiable as Cozy’s was at times, and she wanted to know what the princess would say now. She certainly remembered how she was. How they were.

“Well...” Celestia finally answered. “She was... different.”

A smirk started to spread itself across Chrysalis’s face. There she was, typical Celestia, playing the part of the diplomat, even when it was just them in this dark and dreary place. A far cry from the argumentative and heaadstrong pony she grew up with.

“We all were,” she muttered, a touch louder than she perhaps intended.

Cozy’s eyes danced between them both for a second. 

“Huh.”

Chrysalis snorted and rolled her eyes. “No comment, Cozy?” she sighed, flicking her tail out sideways in annoyance. “No snide jab or childish teasing?”

The young knight shook her head. “No,” she said. “No, I get it. Sometimes ponies just change. Or, uh, weird, bug-ponies change, even.” She sighed and added, both bitterly and quietly: “I know some ponies I wish would change...”

Chrysalis’s glare softened as she cast her eyes down to her teammate. She was surprised by her apparent understanding and candidness... but she quickly realised she shouldn’t have been. It seemed they all had a certain amount of baggage to them these days, after all. As she glanced up she caught the sad twinkle in Celestia’s eye. The corner of her mouth twitched upwards into a smile for a brief moment, then she turned back and continued to face the darkness ahead of them.

An unwelcome, eerie quiet descended upon the group that added to the deafening silence of the Hive, and to Chrysalis’s growing discontent.

She felt strange. Those memories of days long past were painful and unwelcome, and yet... it was almost like there was some semblance of comfort in the pain, knowing that happier times like those in her youth may be possible again, and that, if the Nightmare Knights no longer needed her, she and Celestia could...

She stopped herself and started to blush, grateful for the fact she was ahead of them and they couldn’t see her face. Something Tempest had once said to her came to her in that moment:

’One day I’m going to book us all in for group therapy.’

She snorted quietly and smiled to herself. 

Then her smile faded when she remembered why they were there. Needless to say, she would certainly need some form of therapy after this, and her mind was filled with doubt at the task before her.

Could she do it? Could she send Imago back to Tartarus? She swallowed and rustled her wings. Could she kill her own mother again? And what of the changelings? What diabolical scheme had her mother devised for them? The questions started to pile up again as she theorised on many different things. And Bray, was he here too? Was he the one responsible and if so-

“Chrysalis?” Celestia murmured, resting her hoof on her back.

Chrysalis blinked. she hadn’t realised she had stopped walking. She huffed and buzzed her wings, feeling their eyes on her again. “I’m fine,” she grumbled, shrugging off the friendly hoof and marching forwards.

She shook her head. She needed to focus. She needed to push aside her concerns for now and do her job. If not for herself, then for Celestia... and Cozy. And... begrudgingly... the changelings. Traitorous vermin they may be, she was sworn to protect all of Equestria’s creatures now.

Even if it made her stomach churn.

“Ugh,” she grunted quietly to herself in disgust as finally the tunnel they were in gave way to a large, circular chamber. She inhaled deeply, breathing in the familiar air, and rested her gaze upon a sore and sorry sight. Her throne, or rather what was left of it, lay close to the back wall upon a few steps, smashed to bits and left to waste away--most likely because they were afraid of touching or moving it, the superstitious fools they were.

Celestia and Cozy both flanked her and gazed around the room as she did, and followed her in, keeping pace as she strode towards what remained of her throne. She caught the looks they were giving her out the corners of her eyes, but she didn’t care. She traced a hoof along a ridge of rock. When she pulled it up and inspected it, she tutted and blew away the dust, and wiped her hoof on her front.

It was then that she realised she hadn’t materialised her uniform on, and that Cozy wasn’t wearing hers at all.

“Where’s your uniform?” she snapped suddenly, making the filly freeze.

“Uhh...”

“They’re a symbol of our status as Knights. You should have it on. What would Tempest say?”

“Well... you don’t have yours on,” Cozy fired back. “So how about that, huh?”

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes. “Mine is magic,” she replied. With a bright flash of green fire, the jumpsuit of the Nightmare Knights materialised on her body. She readjusted the cuffs and smoothed her front down, and proceeded to scowl, for now that she was properly looking at the filly, she noticed how scraggly some of the ends of her mane were. And how dirty she was. 

“Ugh, look at you, you’re a mess.”

Cozy scowled back and rustled her feathers. “Yeah, so? We’re underground, in the dark, about to chase off a bunch’a zombies and your dead-slash-not-dead mom, what does it matter what I look like?”

The changeling’s scowl remained fixed on her face as she leaned over to wipe some dirt off of Cozy’s cheek. Her eyes travelled downwards towards her hooves and she grimaced. “Are your... are your hooves covered in mud, too?! My word, girl what did you do while you were waiting for us? Play in a puddle?”

“No, I landed in a puddle, there’s a difference.”

“Hrrrrn, for goodness’ sake, Cozy. Well, seen as how I’ve already started to clean you I may as well finish. Stay still.”

Chrysalis’s horn began to glow again. She grabbed some of her tail in her magic and cut it off without a second thought. She folded it up like a makeshift towel then tapped the ground in front of her and cleared her throat.

“Ahem. Come here.”

Cozy sulkily ambled over and sat down. She stuck her tongue out and pouted. “I bet Tirek wouldn’t make me wash up,” she spat.

“Tirek’s not here. Now hold still,” Chrysalis grunted as she began to wipe the filly’s face. “At least your wings don’t need preening... For Tartarus’s sake, girl--hold still...” she muttered at the squirming filly.

“You’re scrubbing too hard!”

“Then sit. Still.”

Celestia’s nose started to tickle. The more she observed the Nightmare Knights, whether it was here in this underground adventure or at their castle, the more she couldn’t help but think there was more than some sort of friendly co-worker-slash-teammate banter at times. In fact, as peculiar as it may have been, Chrysalis right now seemed to be mothering the young filly, something that amused the princess greatly.

As such, a grin began to spread over her face.

Chrysalis paused in scrubbing the young Knight’s cheek and glanced up at the alicorn. She froze, and her cheeks turned bright pink. “What?” she snapped.

“Nothing,” Celestia chuckled as she idly investigated the remains of the throne, looking up at the ruins with a lopsided grin on her face. “You two seem... close... is all.”

The queen scowled and continued scrubbing. “Close has nothing to do with it. As Nightmare Knights we’re ‘representatives of our home and our sovereign nation’, so we should aspire to at least be clean when we do our job,” she sneered. “Surely you would understand that, Princess.”

“Ah ah. Retired,” Celestia chortled, wagging her hoof back and forth. “I’m not a princess anymore. But yes, I do understand. It’s just that I never expected you to take such duties as seriously as this. Tempest Shadow certainly has done her due diligence, hasn’t she?”

“You have no idea.”

Cozy bobbed her head in agreement as she let herself be scrubbed, lifting up her hoof absentmindedly as Chrysalis worked on her frog. “So, seen as how only old ponies retire, just how old are you, Celestia?” she asked innocently. “You banished Luna to the moon over a thousand years ago, right? So you gotta be over a thousand yeah we get that, but a thousand and what, exactly?”

Celestia’s smile started to shrink. 

“I’m pretty sure the retiring age is sixty right?”

“It’s fifty,” the princess muttered.

Chrysalis began to grin as she noticed the alicorn’s eyebrow twitch and her expression turn sour. “You’ve never thought about it, have you?” she commented. “How old you are, Celestia.”

Celestia pursed her lips and cleared her throat, her eyebrow twitching dangerously. “Ahem. Forgive me, Chrysalis, but aren’t we the same age? If so, then there’s your answer,” she huffed before adding: “And shouldn’t a knight be in the business of not asking a lady her age?”

Cozy’s eyes flashed with mischievous glee as she gazed up at the changeling. “You guys are the same age? So what, you’re like a bazillion years old, too, Chryssy?”

The queen snorted as she ran a hoof over the child’s curly mane. “Yes, astutely put, Cozy Glow. A bazillion.” She narrowed her eyes at the filly and stood up. “Well, then. Now that you are at least in a somewhat presentable state, we should press on. Agreed?”

Having a desire to change the subject Celestia eagerly nodded. “Where to next, then?” she said, a touch quicker than she imagined.

Just as Chrysalis opened her mouth to reply, a sound like a hiss came from down one of the tunnels leading into the throne room, followed shortly after by a strange scratching sound. She snapped her head to the left to stare at where the sound had come from and stared. Celestia moved to stand beside her and followed her gaze.

“We are no longer alone, it would seem,” the queen growled. She helped Cozy up and ushered her backwards. “Stay behind me,” she told the young Knight. 

Cozy scrambled to hide behind her leg. “Mhm. Yep, sure, Chryssy,” she mumbled.

The scratching grew louder still, coupled now with some chittering and harrowing shrieks. Chrysalis cracked her shoulders in a manner not too dissimilar the way Tempest did in preparation. “Celestia... are you ready?” she asked, shooting a concerned look over at the alicorn.

Celestia nodded. She spread her wings and planted one hoof in front of the other, and ignited her horn with a bright flash of gold. “I may be old, Chrysalis, but I remember how to fight,” she said with a cheeky wink. “However... are you?”

The queen levelled her gaze at the tunnel and exhaled through her nose. Imago’s magic was rampant through the Hive--she could feel it now, creeping towards her. How had she allowed herself to be so blinded by denial?

Unless...

She froze. Did Imago want her to know she knew she was there? Her pupils shrank as she stared as the scratching sound intensified. The Queen Mother of the changelings was always a master manipulator, always full of tricks; had she simply orchestrated the entire thing? Was their coming here all part of her sadistic web of intricate plots and desires? And another nail-biting thought crossed her mind then. Was the Thorax that begged for her help even the real Thorax? Truthfully, Chrysalis didn’t know if a changeling brought back from the dead could still ‘change’ in the common sense. Her lips pulled back into a snarl and her breathing grew ragged. 

She looked over at Celestia again, at her beautiful eyes always so full of hope as she readied herself and flexed her wings, and then down at Cozy holding onto her leg. Something stirred within her then as she and the young Knight’s eyes met: a want--a need--to protect what was hers.

She growled softly and bared her fangs, and once again cast her intrusive thoughts aside. “I am ready,” she rasped. “Let them face the wrath of the living. Let them face the true Queen of the Changelings!” She slammed her hoof down onto the ground, just as the first of the wretches came into view and emerged from the darkness of the tunnel.

It was the same height as a changeling, same dimensions and all, but it was... wrong. Surrounded and bound by dark magic used to keep it alive; the foul stink of Imago practically oozed from the cracks in its carapace. Its eyes were pale and unseeing, yet they pierced into Chrysalis’s very soul with a hungry and hateful desire. The queen stared back at it in a mixture of horror, revulsion, utter loathing and a barely restrained hate.

“Is that one of the zombies?” Cozy asked as it stepped forwards with jerky, janky and broken movements. Its head quivered and shook from side to side in an odd, unnerving manner, like it was listening to them.

“It is,” Chrysalis snarled. “One of my mother’s brood.”

“Huh.” The filly tapped her chin thoughtfully for a moment. “What do we call them besides zombies? Biters? Nah that sucks...”

“Does it matter?” the queen growled. “They’re going to try and kill us either way.”

“Well we give ghosts cool names: poltergeists, demons, spirits and stuff--why not zombies? So... deadlings? Nah that’ll never stick...”

Celestia cleared her throat and shot them both a look. “Perhaps some focus, Nightmare Knights?”

Cozy waved her hoof dismissively. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ll come up with something better than ‘deadlings’ don’t worry.”

“What? That’s not-”

The solitary changeling approaching them suddenly stopped and unhinged its jaw. It raised a pale hoof towards the trio and pointed, and a dreadful shriek leapt out from its throat. From behind, in the dark tunnel, a series of similar shrieks and howls answered it as dozens upon dozens of more just like it emerged, clambering and slavering over one another in service of their dark queen.

Cozy’s resolve wavered as she quickly lost count of how many she could see. “Wow. Oh geez, that’s... that’s a lot of them,” she murmured. “You guys can handle that right?”

Celestia offered her as much of a comforting smile as she could muster. “Of course we can, Cozy. This wouldn’t be the first time Chrysalis and I were outnumbered.”

Chrysalis unfurled her wings to their full length and ignited her horn in a flash of green.

Time paused for a fraction of a moment as both sides braced themselves for the oncoming clash. And then, with another shriek that could shake a mountain, the first of the changelings leapt forwards, its jaw open and its pale, bony legs extended. Its blank, unseeing eyes lit up as a flash of green and gold fired forth from the alicorn and the changeling’s horns.

As it lay smouldering on the ground, its cohorts looked down at it. Their heads twitched and their jaws clacked, then they looked up with eyes swirling with malice. They shrieked and stamped their hooves and brayed for blood. Chrysalis and Celestia, standing flank to flank, shared a small smile and knowing look to their eyes as the swarm launched themselves forwards and the battle was begun.


***


Great flashes of gold and green light lit up the walls of the cavern, followed and accompanied by the hum and crackle of magic. 

Scratches and bite marks pocked both Chrysalis’ and Celestia’s bodies, but still they fought. The former’s uniform in tatters, cut up and stained with blood, scorch and scratch marks. A pile of the seemingly unending number of undead changelings lay around the shattered throne, growing ever larger by the moment as more and more of the wretches poured forth from the tunnels leading into the chamber and fell at the queen and princess’s hooves, horns and magic.

“Three on your right, Celly!” Cozy cried frantically, pointing them out in between launching pebbles and small rocks where she could at the devils. “Chryssy, two on your left!”

Celestia deftly avoided the dreadful bites of their foes and jumped up into the air. She kicked out with her powerful back legs, shattering the jaw of one of them and sending the others scattering with a gust blown by her wings. She nodded at the filly in gratitude as she landed back down and ignited her horn again.

Meanwhile, Chrysalis spun around, cutting through a swath of them with a solid beam of pure energy firing from her forehead. Their smoking, crackling bodies fell to the ground one by one as she bared her fangs and snarled at them.

“I’m beginning to think we can’t do this forever,” Celestia jokingly said to Cozy. She noticed how the filly’s eyes travelled over a cut across her shoulder, and then how quickly her pristine white coat was turning red. 

The princess winced, realising the cut was so fine she didn’t even feel it. She ignited her horn and cast a quick healing spell over it to stem the bleeding, then smiled bravely at the filly.

“Are you okay?”

Celestia heart melted at the concern in the girl’s voice. “It’s very kind of you to worry, Cozy Glow, but yes I am. I think I’m just out of practice.” She coughed and fluttered her wings in between breaths. “I haven’t seen this much excitement in centuries... not since the last time we-”

She tapered off as she looked at the back of Chrysalis’s head. A flashback of ages past came to her, alongside a lifetime of pain.

Cozy swallowed and looked down at all the bodies of deadlings, her face occasionally lit up by the flashes of magic from the changeling’s horn. “What do we do?” she said, her tone oddly serious for what was often the most jovial Nightmare Knight. “Celly... what do we do?”

The princess’s brave smile faltered for a moment and a flicker of concern passed over her face. For one of the few times in her long life, she didn’t know what words of encouragement she could offer to the young, wide eyed filly staring up at her. It seemed hopeless, as Imago’s horde seemed unending.

There was a break in the horde’s attacks as Chrysalis dispatched the last of the current bunch before they could regroup and try again. She stormed over to her comrades in arms over the bodies of the deadlings, and thankfully, she did know what to say.

“We cannot stay here,” she declared, apparently noticing Celestia’s red and white coat for the first time. She flinched as a pang of guilt flashed across her face and her mouth twisted into a snarl. “My mother’s magic gives these foul beasts unnatural strength, and she is stronger than I had thought.” She tutted in disgust and shook her head. “I should never have brought you here.” 

A howl suddenly emanated from deep within the Hive--within the tunnel the deadlings had been pouring out of. 

Cozy leaned around her leg with wide eyes. “What was that?” she croaked as more of the wretches emerged and began to gather around the trio.

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes and stared at the tunnel. “I should never have brought you here,” she repeated.

“I came of my own choice, Chrysalis,” Celestia snapped back, wiping some spittle away from her mouth on the back of her hoof. “And for what it’s worth I’m glad you asked me to. I’m... glad I’m here with you.”

“It was foolish of me. I shouldn’t have--you shouldn’t-”

Chrysalis glanced at the alicorn. For a moment, she saw the young, pink haired pony she had grown up with. The argumentative at times Crown Princess of Equestria. Her friend. The pony she had fallen in love with. Then the illusion vanished, replaced by blood, sweat, and reality as a loud stomping came from the horde’s entry point. Those deadlings that had gathered, instead of pressing another attack, proceeded to shriek and wail in a way that sounded almost like cruel, mocking laughter as they parted.

“Uh, hey, Chryssy?” Cozy murmured, a small stone in her hoof ready as a makeshift weapon. “What is that?”

“That, Cozy,” the queen spat as she turned her attention back to her mother’s army. She flexed her wings and swished her tail out sideways. “Is a praetorian. One of the Queensguard, I suspect judging by how hard its hooves are falling.”

“Is that like a bigger changeling?”

“Bigger. Deadlier. The Queensguard were the epitome of what it meant to be warrior. Their enemies did not typically survive their encounters.”

Cozy rustled her wings and swallowed. “Oh... okay...”

Chrysalis hesitated, and took her eyes off of the horde for a moment to see the palpable fear in the young filly’s eyes. Her face twitched with concern for a moment before she turned back, flattening her ears down to her head. She felt that perhaps truth, in all honesty, was not quite what Cozy wanted to hear.

Celestia, however, was not as content to leave it at that, and voiced her disapproval. “Chrysalis, shouldn’t we unsure that at least Cozy retreats to safety?”

“Hey, I’m a Nightmare Knight,” interrupted in the filly, shooting a glare up at the alicorn. “Just like Chryssy. And we don’t run away from anything. Right?” The stomping grew louder as the praetorian approached. She swallowed and rubbed her forelegs together nervously. “Although I wish maybe we could sometimes...”

The stomping grew louder still as it approached; until finally it emerged, breaking through the ranks of its lesser cursed brethren with a mighty and bellowing roar.

A giant changeling, twisted and warped by dark magic charged forwards, shaking the dust and debris off of its shoulders. Similarly bone white like its foul cohorts, lined with ridges and spikes and sporting a large rhinoceros-like horn on its nose. A crest of glowing green fire atop its head flickered and wavered with movement, trails of the baleful light weaving in and out of its eye sockets. Its jaw opened and a deep howl vibrated through the air and across the ground at the trio.

It scraped its foal-sized hooves along the ground and readied itself to charge, aiming its horn directly at the former queen. 

But before it could charge, a mighty bellow sounded out through the cavern, reverberating off the walls and back at the trio like the crash and boom of thunder.

”Chrysalis!”

Chrysalis froze. Her pupils turned to pinpricks. “Pupa?” she breathed.

Cozy tilted her head slightly in confusion. “Who-pa?”

”Come... with... me!” the voice rang out once more, echoing around the throne room. 

After a moment, the crackle of magic filled the air and with a flash and a pop, what appeared to be a doorway of sorts materialised behind in the air above the horde. Chrysalis roused herself out of her shocked state and flared her nostrils. “Go,” she ordered Celestia and Cozy, marshalling the filly and the princess to move. “Quickly.”

Cozy spread her wings and jumped into the air. “Come on, Celly!” she called. 

Celestia gave the queen a questioning look and fluttered her wings. “Who...” she murmured. 

Chrysalis grimaced and bristled. “I will explain later. Go now,” she ordered. “Please, Celestia.”

Despite her reluctance but seeing no sense in arguing, the princess pursed her lips and followed suit after Cozy. Chrysalis followed shortly after, but not before giving Imago’s swarm one final sneer as they shrieked and clattered forwards.

With a flash of green light, a crack, and a fizzle, the portal vanished, leaving those who remained enraged, incensed, that they had lost their Dark Queen’s prey.

A dark and terrible laughter answered them, drifting up from the depths of the Hive.


***


With a thud, Cozy  landed in a heap on the floor of somewhere far quieter and far less threatening than the throne room of the Changeling Hive. “Ugh...” she groaned, slowly picking herself up. “So where are we now?”

Upon the silence that greeted her, she quickly looked around in a slight panic. “Chryssy? Cell--oh.”

She saw Celestia and Chrysalis behind her, both panting and looking rather worse for wear. She breathed a sigh of relief and smiled weakly at them, but noticed the trail of luminous green blood running off the end of Chrysalis’s hoof, and the red staining Celestia’s coat.

“Geez, guys,” she murmured. “Do you two need anything?”

Chrysalis picked herself up and dusted herself off before snorting derisively at her. “We are fine, Cozy Glow,” she grunted, flicking some of her mane out her eyes. “For now.”

“What do you mean for now?” Cozy asked worriedly.

Chrysalis didn’t answer as she scanned their surroundings, offering a hoof to the pony beside her.

Celestia took it gratefully and hoisted herself up, glad to be out of the frying pan, so to speak. She spread her wings and stretched, popping several vertebrae as she did so and wincing at her bruised body. “That was indeed... something. Now where are we?”

“Where is she?”

The princess’s ear flicked when she heard the changeling growl softly. She and Cozy flicked their eyes towards one another before going back to Chrysalis.

“Come on, come on,” the queen snarled. “Let us dispense with pleasantries and the theatrics. I know you’re here, Pupa, so speak.” She stamped her hoof to punctuate her point, crushing a rock in the process. “Speak! I demand you show yourself!”

Cozy tugged on Celestia’s mane, making the alicorn lower her head. “Who’s Pupa?” she whispered.

“I... don’t know,” Celestia whispered back.

A set of hoofbeats from up ahead made them both turn and look at the approaching figure. A slender but clearly old changeling as dark and tall as Chrysalis herself was, if not taller, ambled into the chamber. She had deep purple eyes opposed to Chrysalis’s green, the same coloured hair adorned with streaks of grey, a set of ragged wings on her back--and far more noticeably--was missing one foreleg. Despite her rather dogged appearance, the very sight of her set the queen’s teeth on edge.

“Pupa,” she said, spitting the plosives out like they left a bad taste in her mouth.

“Chrysalis, darling,” the newcomer said sweetly with a smile as false as they could be. Her voice was low and husky, tinged with excitement. Her eyes travelled down to the tattered remnants of Chrysalis’s uniform, and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “So good to see you again. You’re welcome, by the way.” She cocked her head to one side, letting some of her dark cerulean mane hang down over her eyes.

“Do you recall me asking for your assistance?” Chrysalis snarled as the pair began to circle one another like sharks.

“No, I did not. But you needed it all the same, yes?” the changeling, whose name was apparently Pupa, smirked. “So you are welcome for it.”

Cozy fluttered her wings and looked between them, thoroughly confused. “Uh... Celestia?” she whispered, tugging at the alicorn’s hoof. “What’s happening? Who is she?”

“I’m not... sure, Cozy,” Celestia answered truthfully, watching the changeling so similar to Chrysalis carefully. How they spoke and acted towards one another reminded her very much of how she and Luna used to, and sometimes still do, speak to one another. 

“To me it seems like they’re... family...”

She stopped short of herself as Pupa came to a stop in front of them. She looked them both up and down and clicked her tongue in distaste. “Really, Chrysalis?” she tutted. “This is who you bring to deal with our unique problem? A retired monarch and a child?” She rolled her eyes and directed her attention towards the filly. “Tell me, young one: how old are you?”

“Eleven. No, twelve. I think.” Cozy scratched her head and grimaced. “Kinda lost track of time after being turned to stone for a year.”

Pupa arched one unimpressed eyebrow upwards at the filly, then looked at Celestia. “You I do not know, child, but your companion here... the one and only Princess Celestia.” She bowed her head respectfully in greeting. “Oh it is a great honour indeed to finally meet you, your grace.”

Celestia, though a touch confused, bowed her head back graciously. “The... honour is mine,” she said. “But I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage.”

“Oh worry not, your highness,” the changeling tittered, smiling a toothy smile at her. “After all, I have always admired the crown of Equestria. No matter whose head it sits upon.”

The princess felt a chill run along her spine as those purple eyes met hers. She subtly ushered Cozy behind her leg while maintaining her trademark sweet smile. “Well, I’m flattered, truly. The pleasure is all mine. How is it that you know Chrysalis?”

Chrysalis, however, was not as polite or as tactful as she was, and stormed over to put herself between the three before the three legged stranger could answer. A flash of green appeared around her and her uniform vanished, revealing a cracked and scarred chitin.  “Enough. Pupa, keep your forked tongue behind your teeth,” she snapped in a menacing growl. “You speak to me, not them.”

“Oh come now, Chrysalis,” Pupa sighed, flicking some of her mane out of her eyes. “Must you be so aggressive? Have you no love for your dear old aunt?”

Celestia’s eyebrows skyrocketed. Cozy felt like time stopped for her as she digested the information presented to her in that moment. The young Knight’s jaw almost hit the ground it swung open that far. She floundered for words, choking, sputtering and struggling for cohesion until finally-

“Aunt?!” she squealed. “You have an aunt and a mom?! What--but--how?! D’ya have any sisters or brothers?”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes as she faced her teammate. “Did you assume I spawned from some strange talking log, perhaps? Yes, I have a mother and, unfortunately an aunt,” she grumbled, turning back to Pupa, who simply flashed a cocky and arrogant, toothy smile at her. “My mother’s twin, to be exact.”

“Really, dear, you never mentioned me?” Pupa chortled. “Not after all we’ve been through together. After the... sacrifices we’ve made?” She gestured to her missing appendage. “I’m hurt, Chrysalis. Truly.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed. 

Cozy gulped nervously, her previous elation vanishing in an instant. “Wh-What happened?” she whispered.

“The last time Chrysalis and I spoke,” Pupa replied with a coy smile, not taking her eyes off of her niece. “Was shortly after she dethroned my dear old sister.” She cracked her shoulders and rustled her ragged wings. “I aided her in it, and in the fight that ensued, some of us lost more than others, if I do say so myself.”

“I am sorry that you lost your leg, Aunt Pupa, but do not forget it was your carelessness that led to it,” Chrysalis snapped. “Had you not acted so vaingloriously, perhaps things would have been different.”

Pupa simply smiled back at her. “Perhaps. Regardless, it seems that our efforts were all for nought anyway. For I am here, like you, because your mother’s... ‘retirement’... has been interrupted,” she continued. “And I wish to rectify that error by offering you my assistance once more.”

Chrysalis looked her up and down with a distasteful sneer, like the very presence of her offended her. “How can I trust you, Pupa?”

The wicked look in Pupa’s eye grew. A set of fangs peeked out over the top of her lower lip as her smile grew. “You can’t,” she said simply. “That is the nature of a changeling, though... isn’t it?” 

With that, she turned, and started to march away to another chamber, bowing her head to stoop through a low archway and a ragged curtain. 

After taking a deep sigh and grumbling under her breath, Chrysalis’s hoof shot out in front of Celestia and Cozy as they started to move.

“Stop,” she said. “I need to speak with you both.”

The princess reached out and touched her hoof with her own. “What is it, Chrysalis?” she said softly, giving the changeling a gentle squeeze. She, much like Cozy, knew how difficult family members could be at times, especially when they weren’t on good terms with one another.

Chrysalis tongued around the inside of her cheek for a moment before answering.

“She’s right. We cannot trust her. My aunt was... is... devious beyond belief at times. I have been told stories of in the court she and my mother were raised in, that she was a spymaster among spymasters. Even at a young age she had devised plots upon plots upon plots, earning her title as the Witch Queen.” She shivered before continuing. “And though she hates my mother as much as I do, I am certain that she has an ulterior motive for choosing to aid us here and now. So... I would ask both of your opinions of what to do next.” 

The alicorn nodded back at her. “I understand. Well then, if she has the means, be it strength or information, any way that may help us defeat Imago, isn’t it worth hearing her out at the very least?”

Cozy nodded along in agreement. “Mhm, yeah. Plus, y’know, she did save us,” she added with a shrug. “So that’s gotta count for something right? Even if she is a... ‘Witch Queen’.”

Chrysalis scowled, but let out a discontented grunt and reluctantly nodded her head. “You may be right,” she grumbled. “And that is what I fear.” She fell silent for a moment, tapping her chin and seeming to grapple with her own self-doubts, before flaring her nostrils in frustration. “Fine. Let us see what my aunt has planned, then, and perhaps we may act upon it. But stay alert. Do no fall for her honeyed words or any of her foul tricks.” 

The filly flapped her wings and rose into the air as they started to move. “Gosh... to think that all this time you had an aunt and a mom,” she murmured, on the edge of smiling. “Wow. Who’da thunk? You got a brother or sister we don’t know about as well? Some kids, maybe? How big is your family tree?”

The changeling scowled, marching onwards. “Be careful what questions you ask, you little beast. You may not like the answers.” 

Celestia eyed her carefully and followed after her, pausing only to let Cozy rest on her back for a time.

As they stooped and passed through the same archway Pupa had, Chrysalis felt her gut start to twist itself into knots. Her aunt was humming softly, sitting on one side of a circular slab of rock adorned with several small figurines in shapes of things vaguely familiar. Spiders had strung several dozen cobwebs across the ceiling, and the pale light from a shining crystal up above reflected back in her eyes. She inspected her good hoof nonchalantly, although her eyes flicked upwards for a brief moment as the trio entered.

As Chrysalis picked up one of the figurines and saw it bore a striking resemblance to Princess Cadance, she quickly realised they were in the old council room of the Hive, a place she hadn’t been since she devised the attack on Canterlot... and her subsequent failure. Setting the figure back down onto the table with its kin brought back a wave of unwanted memories and a bitter resentment in her heart.

“So good of you to join me,” Pupa sighed. “Gather around. We have much to discuss.”

Chrysalis rested her hoof upon the table, trying not to think about the countless hours she would spend plotting the downfall of the pony beside her. That pony in question, Celestia, simply held her head up and steady, as she and the filly on her back watched and waited.

Pupa cleared her throat, eyeing them all carefully. “So...” she began, tracing her hoof idly over a crack in the table. “Imago. My sister. Your mother. What do you propose to do about her, Chrysalis?”

The queen blinked. “Find where she makes her nest and destroy her,” she stated, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Pupa sighed and shook her head. “That’s your grand plan is it?” she sighed. “My word, darling, it’s no wonder your invasion of Equestria failed with you at the helm. Had I only been there, I could have guided you into a swift victory.”

Chrysalis’s eyes shrank in fury and a deep red flushed across her face. “Watch it,” she growled.

“If only you hadn’t exiled me. Heh,” Pupa scoffed, laughing behind her hoof. “It is indeed a good thing I rescued you, then, if only so that then I could revel in your stupidity before the end.”

“You... abhorrent cur!” the young, by comparison, changeling raged. “You bring us here to offer your assistance, only to then have the gall to speak to me like that! I am Queen of the Changelings!” She slammed her hoof down on the table and glowered at her aunt. “I will not be spoken to like this in my own Hive, and certainly not by an exile as yourself, Pupa.”

“I am your aunt and your elder, and I may speak to you, girl, however I wish,” Pupa snapped back, dropping the kindly, sweet act in an instant. She stood up, her ragged and moth-eaten wings unfurling as she pulled her head up high and looked down her nose at her niece. Her eyes flashed and a tight, mean smile grew over her mouth. “Regardless, is this even your Hive anymore, my dear? From my understanding... it belongs to another now, yes?”

“You know nothing!”

The queen also stood, rearing up to her full height, ready to leap across the table and throttle her aunt--only for a soft white hoof to reach over and hold her still.

“Lady Pupa,” Celestia said sternly, drawing both of their gazes. She gave them both her best diplomatic smile and flourished her mane. “You are indeed wise and powerful, as we can see, to have eluded Imago for so long right under her very nose, but perhaps any faults you and Chrysalis may have with one another could wait until after this crisis is averted and Imago is dealt with, yes? Yes, Chrysalis?”

Chrysalis reigned in her temper somewhat as the princess’s eyes bore into hers. “She-” she growled.

“I know, Chrysalis.”

The changeling clenched her jaw. She took in a sharp breath of air between her teeth, then stiffly nodded. “Fine.”

Pupa gave them both a knowing look before she chuckled quietly to herself and sat back down. “Such manners, Princess. Such grace. It’s a shame my niece never learned any during your romps together.”

The princess’s face remained as steady as a rock while Chrysalis’s flushed deep scarlet. Cozy wrinkled the end of her nose and flicked her ear.

”Romps...?”

“But yes, you are right,” Pupa continued. “I offer you my apologies, Chrysalis, for I only half enjoyed slighting you. Indeed, I wish to offer you my assistance--an alliance, if you will. At least until your mother dearest is dead and where she belongs once more.”

Chrysalis bristled, spitting out her words. “What are your terms?”

“Terms, dear?” the old changeling giggled softly. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Don’t give me that,” the younger changeling grunted. “I know you want something, so out with it. What do you hope to gain from this excursion? What does the ‘Witch Queen’ want?”

Pupa’s eyes narrowed at her title and she ran a hoof down the length of her long, ragged mane.

“You and I both know what would happen should your mother’s power continue to grow,” she said quietly. “Not just for the Hive. Not just for Equestria. But for the world.” She sighed and looked Chrysalis in the eye, fixing her with an intense and cold stare. “I am not your mother, Chrysalis. I am not a creature of war. I wish only for peace in our time.”

“And free reign to weave whatever schemes you wish I suppose? Tell me what you want, auntie.”

Pupa sighed and rubbed her nose. “There’s nothing else for it is there?” she muttered. “Fine. If you must know... I wish to make amends with my only niece. We are family, after all, despite ourselves. Surely your pretty friend here would agree that family is important, yes? This--these are my ‘terms’ if you need such a thing.”

The queen glared at her and instinctively flexed a wing out over in front of Celestia, grinding her teeth together with such force she was creating a pain in her jaw. She knew she had to be careful with her aunt--just as careful as she had to be when dealing with her twin. Yet she could sense a true sincerity to her words. 

Pupa was always nice to her before she left the Hive as well, if she recalled correctly.

“How... exactly can you help us, Pupa?” she growled, just barely able to restrain her frustration at the entire situation. She needed assurances--a promise, something. Anything that suggested Pupa was telling the truth. “What do you have to offer that’s stopping us from simply walking away from you?”

Pupa sighed in disappointment and sat back. “By all means go ahead. Feel free to wander the Hive, I’m sure you would find Imago’s lair eventually. In a week or so, perhaps. Long after the world has died and been resurrected in her image.” She leaned forwards with a smug look plastered across her face as Chrysalis glowered and flared her nostrils. “But I know where she has made her lair. I can lead you to her, and in a matter of minutes we can put an end to this ordeal once and for all. All I ask for is a chance, Chrysalis.”

Chrysalis fell silent once more, weighing up the pros and cons of allowing her aunt to join and aid them in their mission. After looking into Cozy’s eyes and then Celestia’s, seeing how they looked at her both optimistically and cautiously, and knowing precisely what she should do regardless of her personal feelings, she she set her jaw and stiffly jerked her head up and down. “Fine. We have an agreement, then. If you lead us to my mother, Pupa... you can consider us... allies. We can discuss your terms later. However.”

She held her up hoof as her aunt started to speak, and faced her companions.

“Celestia. Cozy. You two are going-”

“With you,” Cozy stated firmly. She puffed her small chest out as far as it would go and waved her hoof. “I know what you’re gonna say, Chryssy: probably something like it’s ‘too dangerous’ or whatever. Doesn’t matter, we’re going with you. Right, Celly?”

Pupa’s smirk grew at the nickname she overheard for her niece, but still she kept quiet and refrained from saying anything.

Celestia levelled her gaze at Chrysalis and nodded in agreement. “We’re in this for the long haul, Chrysalis. Whether you’d like us to be here or not, we will be, because we care about you.”

The queen flinched. “You most certainly are not,” she scolded. “This is far too dangerous for either of you, my mother’s strength is already more than I feared and I cannot guarantee your safety. Therefore, there is no way in all of Equus that I am allowing you to come with me. You will remain here where it is is safe, and that. Is. Final.”


***


Chrysalis’s scowl only deepened as Celestia and Cozy strode on either side of her. The aunt of the Knight led the way after emerging from another of her portals, claiming to know the correct paths to take to avoid any possible deadling encounters and get to Imago the fastest route possible. Though she was old, even by the royal changeling family status, she was spry and had a spring in her step, almost as if she was happy.

Cozy tapped Chrysalis’s leg as they marched down another dark, dimly lit tunnel. “Hey, Chryssy? Why do you hate your aunt so much?” she asked. 

Chrysalis glared down at her without a moment’s hesitation. “Must you always ask such personal questions?” she grumbled.

“Uh huh. We’re friends, it’s what we do,” the filly cheekily replied, sticking her tongue out at the changeling. “Sooo... what happened?”

The changeling glanced back at Celestia, silently asking for assistance with a swift and deathly glare.

Celestia chuckled and shook her head. “Cozy, if Chrysalis doesn’t wish to talk about her past, we should respect her wishes,” she said, only to add quietly: “I do wonder though why I have never heard of your aunt.”

“Because she is a liar, a traitor and a cheat,” Chrysalis growled, glaring daggers into the back of Pupa’s head. 

Her aunt turned slightly, just enough to look at her with one eye. The corner of her mouth quirked upwards into a smile, indicating she was listening. She cleared her throat and turned back to focus on the path ahead.

“You would fault me for my nature, Chryssy?” she chortled. “Or your own? We are born to scheme. We revel in delight when our plots come to fruition, and we grow fat from the love we take from others. The same love you are positively dripping with now, Glitterwings.”

“Silence, witch,” Chrysalis snarled.

Cozy glanced up at Celestia and swallowed, sensing trouble. “Uhh... hey, so how much further is it?” she asked, hoping to change the subject away from Chrysalis as quickly as she could and give her teammate some reprieve. 

“Not very,” Pupa replied with a sigh. “My advice to you all, darlings, should you wish to follow it, is to be cautious as we proceed.”

“How can you tell? Is it like a twin thing where you can always sense each other’s presence?”

Pupa stopped and smirked coyly at her. “No, child. My sister and I are not so gifted to be bonded with one another. Even if we were, I suppose that any bond we may have once shared was severed when I aided Chrysalis in casting her into oblivion. Unlike some, my sister is not as forgiving of my transgressions or slights against her. That was one of her many traits I always admired.”

The filly swallowed and looked down as Pupa aimed a cold and unnatural smile towards the princess. Celestia bristled and held her gaze firmly, keeping a false smile on her face. “Y-You admire her?” the filly mumbled.

“Oh, make no mistake, child,” Pupa nodded, earning a dagger-filled glare from Chrysalis. “I will never deny that I admired my sister, and may still do. Imago was ruthless and cunning. Brutal yet efficient. Some would have even called us friends once upon a time. In our youth, we would council and comfort on  another in times of hardship.” 

She shivered and rustled her wings.

“Unfortunately... there came a time when I could see a madness begin to grow in her mind. A darkness that shadowed her heart and set her against me.” Pupa’s ear flicked and she glanced towards Celestia with a grim, knowing look. “Surely you can relate, Princess?”

Celestia bobbed her head solemnly, saying nothing.

“Once I saw my sister’s madness grow too strong,” Pupa continued, “I was left with no choice. By that time, Chrysalis had returned from her life ‘abroad’, and so I chose to aid her in destroying my dear sister and ascension to the throne.” The old changeling arched one eyebrow upwards and bemused look came over her face. “Perhaps that is our true nature, eh, Chrysalis darling? To overthrow despots and tyrants.”

Chrysalis flared her nostrils and hissed softly at her, prompting Celestia to give her a gentle nudge and a caring, gentle look. 

“And my reward, for performing my services?” the old changeling tittered. “Banishment. Excommunication. Cursed to wander the wastes, never knowing when I may next feed, doomed to die a slow and painful death--or worse: turn onto a feral, love starved beast.”

Cozy shivered, remembering how vicious Chrysalis had been on that Hearts and Hooves day all that time ago.

An odd, serene look suddenly crossed Pupa’s face as she tapered off, and Chrysalis narrowed her eyes.

“How did you survive?” she growled quietly.

“Hmm?” Pupa mused, rousing herself of her thoughts. 

“A hiveless changeling in your condition should have perished centuries ago.”

The Witch Queen smiled at her niece. “Now that’s my secret, isn’t it, darling?” she said coyly. “Come along.”

Chrysalis glowered at her as they pressed on.

Pupa eventually turned her head, having apparently grown bored of the quiet, and the corners of her mouth curled upwards as she fixed Celestia with a wicked glint in her eye. “I must say... I am surprised Chrysalis sought you out, Princess,” she said. “Though not at all surprised you have come.”

The princess’s ear flicked as she looked right back at the old changeling. “What makes you say that?” she asked politely. “Chrysalis and I have had our... differences in the past, yes, but we have since reconciled. And I... have my own reasons for being here beyond a matter of helping my lo--my dear friend.” Her cheeks turned ever so slightly pink at her slip-up, but a tiny smile appeared on Chrysalis’s face for half a second before it quickly vanished as the old changeling chuckled softly.

The glint in Pupa’s eye grew. “Oh yes, I am well aware, Princess, of your history with my sister.”

The porcelain mask that was Celestia’s face cracked, revealing an angry scowl and a visage full of pain for a second before she caught herself and resumed her neutral, careful expression. Cozy looked between all the adults curiously.

“Wh-What do you mean?” she murmured. “What history?”

Pupa hummed and hawed to herself. “I suppose it’s not very common knowledge, is it? Lost to the annals of time, no doubt, the murder of the good King Morpheus.”

Cozy blinked. “King Morpheus? Who was that?”

“My father,” Celestia said in a dangerously low tone of voice.

The filly made an ‘o’ shape with her mouth in realisation. “A-And he was... murdered?”

“He certainly was,” Pupa went on. “And to my knowledge, the perpetrator was never caught, were they, Princess? And yet, so many speculate my sister was responsible. They were hated rivals, you see, child. Ancient enemies since the dawn of Equestria. The bane of each other’s existences. So when she made her appearance at his funereal to ‘pay her respects’, well... our family was always one for making a show of things.”

Celestia inhaled a sharp breath between her teeth and stamped her hoof. “Enough,” she stated, raising her voice just enough to be threatening while maintaining her poise. Chrysalis bristled, thanking her silently for it.

“In answer to your question, no. The culprit was never found,” the princess said. “And please, Lady Pupa, I ask you to refrain from speaking of such things anymore. This subject is...” She glanced up at Chrysalis for a brief moment and the two shared a telling look with one another. “Difficult... to talk about.”

Pupa bowed her head. “As you say, your grace. I meant no disrespect, simply to educate the girl on matters most serious. We have no quarrel, you and I.”

“I understand, Pupa,” Celestia replied. The mask she wore slipped again for a fraction of a second, and the hateful fire in her eye made Cozy wilt and shiver.

They continued on in silence for a while longer. Chrysalis walked stiffly, fighting off a wave of bitter memories. The death of King Morpheus was perhaps the biggest catalyst that had led to them separating, and many a violent and hurtful word said. 

The princess walked beside her, sombre and quiet. Cozy walked between them, struggling to keep pace with their long strides, occasionally glancing up at their faces and trying to think of something to say to alleviate the sudden tension between them, only to remain quiet and focus on the path ahead.

Soon enough they rounded another corner and came upon a large antechamber with a circular door made of stone at the far end flanked by two moss covered statues of tall and imposing changelings. As they grew closer to it they saw the door practically oozing with a thick, viscous liquid akin to slime that dripped down the steps leading up to it. Pupa stopped and raised her hoof.

“What is this place?” Cozy asked, finally finding her voice as they gazed up at the etched runes along he door’s surface and along the walls of the Hive around them, and then at the statues. “Looks fancy.”

Chrysalis started on the spot and let her wings droop from shock. “She hasn’t...” she murmured as her blood started to boil and her temper began to rise. “Pupa... has she?”

“She has,” Pupa replied matter-of-factly.

The queen’s face contorted in anger. “That... horrid sow... that vile, evil cockroach!”

“What?” Cozy asked frantically. “What’s she done, Chryssy?”

Chrysalis ground her teeth together and jutted her chin towards the door. “This... this place, Cozy... is a crypt. A sacred place where we would bury fallen changelings--a way of returning them to the earth as per our ancient traditions. For Imago to make her nest here is...” She shook her head in disgust. “She makes a mockery of life and so she must defile our sacred ground too?”

The filly bobbed her head along with her. “Wow that’s... I didn’t know changelings did ancient traditions.”

“We are an old people,” Pupa sighed. “Though few, if any, alive today would know of the extent of how old, or comprehend places like this’ existence, or any other sacred sites like it.”

Cozy frowned. “Other sites? Y’mean there are more... places like this?”

The old changeling didn’t answer, and her horn began to glow. The rock door began to shift, rumbling slowly out of the way, shaking off the cobwebs and dust that had made themselves home on its surface. The group braced themselves for what lay beyond it, promptly gasping as a wave and stench of something awful emanated from within from the dark room.

Cozy gagged and her eyes started to water. 

“What is that smell?” she said, pinching her nose in an effort to try and stop the stench.

Celestia said nothing, but she did wince and swish her tail from side to side. Her nose twitched and wrinkled ever so slightly.

“Death,” Chrysalis replied solemnly, stepping forwards to join Pupa and peer inwards. She took deep, slow breaths through her mouth to try and stave off the reeking smell. As she entered into it, the ancient magic that ran through the Hive responded to her, causing several braziers to ignite themselves to life and cast long, dancing shadows by the flickering flame.

Chrysalis scanned the chamber carefully, looking for any sign of trouble. Upon seeing nothing, she breathed out slowly and jutted her chin forwards. “Come on,” she grunted. “But be quiet, and be careful.”

They all crept forwards. Their hooves squelched and squashed the bile underneath them as it coated everything in sight.

“What is this stuff?” Cozy asked.

“A form of secreted bile,” Pupa answered, inspecting some on the end of her hoof. “Typically this is what should coat the walls of a Hive as a sign of territory. I suppose since their defection, your subjects have no need of it, eh, Chrysalis?”

Chrysalis scowled at her antagonistic aunt and marched onwards, coming to a stop near the centre. 

“Where is she?” she growled.

Celestia flexed her wing and rested it gently on the filly as Cozy grimaced and squirmed. “Perhaps we should do with a spa day once this is finished,” she chuckled softly, hoping to alleviate the filly’s tension somewhat.

“Too right,” Cozy muttered, trying to wipe some of the bile away. “Oh, it’s in my mane, too? Gross.”

Chrysalis grimaced and shook her head. “How can your only thought be of your own vanity?” she snapped. “And not more important things, like where exactly Imago is, Pupa?” She rounded on her aunt, glaring at her.

Pupa sighed and fluttered her wings. “I said I know where she makes her lair, not where she precisely is-”

“So you have led us down here for what? As bait?”

“Must you think of me as so cruel? If I wanted you dead, darling, I would have watched as my sister’s legions ripped you limb from limb.”

The queen scowled and opened her mouth to bark back a response, only to pause when she felt a tug on her tail, and turned to see Cozy staring at something on the bile-covered wall nearby.

Cozy’s eyes went wide and her lip trembled slightly. “Hey--hey, Chryssy? Isn’t that-” she said, pointing a hoof. “Doesn’t that look sorta like Thorax?”

Curious, Chrysalis peered forwards, as did Celestia, while Pupa arched one unimpressed eyebrow upwards.

A figure in the vague shape of a changeling lay fused into the wall, coated horn to hoof in a dark, not entirely see through cocoon. And though faded and his image murky, his antlers and his size were unmistakable.

Chrysalis stared in horror as she realised what, and who, she was looking at. “It’s a cocoon,” she whispered, tracing her eyes over the unconscious King’s features. 

“The same thing as you do?” the filly offered. “Like y’did with that bull-snake thing?”

“Precisely,” the elder Knight answered. “Only it’s... wrong.”

Sick was the word that came to her mind. Tainted, very much like the deadlings themselves: so very similar and yet so clearly not.

“Thorax?” she said. 

Her voice sounded impossibly loud in the deafening silence surrounding them. She suddenly glanced around, feeling an ample amount of dread form in the pit of her stomach and an epiphany creep into her mind. She raised her horn, shining more light on their surroundings.

And sure enough as she started to suspect, she saw more of the cocoons embedded into the bile. Dozens upon dozens of them lining the walls and stretching up to the ceiling, all holding something. Someone. Vague silhouettes of changelings.

A Hive’s worth of changelings.

“By the stars...” Celestia whispered, seeing them as well. “The missing changelings... she’s... is she feeding off of them?”

Chrysalis couldn’t answer her. She recognised most, if not all, of who she could see. 

There was Tarsus, Firefly, Carapace, Spindleshanks, Weaver, Cutter, Mandible, and Dave--just a few of those who were alongside her when she invaded Canterlot all those years ago. Even Pharynx. Once her pride and joy, and well on his way to becoming a member of the Queensguard if things had worked out differently. She swallowed and looked back at the king.

“Help me,” the queen hissed. Celestia moved forwards, earning a contemptuous snort from Pupa behind them

“We cannot waste time saving every stray we come across, Chrysalis. There will be time enough to save these wretches later, yes?” She dismissively waved her hoof at Thorax as he blearily looked around at all of them, like he was in a daze--or sleepwalking. “Besides, these changelings are traitors to your crown, are they not? I’m curious, why should you save them? Why risk your life for theirs?”

The queen narrowed her eyes and stepped away from Thorax while Celestia poked and prodded the cocoon.

“I will not allow my mother to use them--to string them up like this as trophies,” she growled. “Regardless of how I feel about them... I will not allow her to claim what is rightfully mine.”

“How altruistic of you,” Pupa scoffed.

Chrysalis bared her fangs and hissed at her. “I don’t care for your opinion, auntie, and I didn’t ask for it. Whatever it may be, the fate of the changelings of this hive will be the same as ours. Not this. Not for one moment longer.”

The sneer lining her aunt’s face receded for a moment, replaced by a curious look--one that was almost in admiration, of all things.

“I may not be their queen,” Chrysalis continued, holding her head up high. “But I am their Knight. Traitors, malcontents and putrid, verminous slugs though they may be, if I can protect them, I will. Especially from my own mother.”

As she finished, the silence that followed could have been broken by a pin dropping.

Cozy shuffled on the spot, puffing her little chest out as much as she could in pride while Celestia beamed with an equal amount. The both of them kept their eyes trained on Chrysalis. The queen turned around after fixing her aunt with a glare, and started to help Celestia pull away the cocoon holding Thorax.

“That was lovely,” the princess whispered, resting a hoof over the changeling’s. “Really.”

Chrysalis forced herself to smile back despite how her insides churned at such ‘pony’ like behaviour she exhibited every now and then. “Let’s just free this miserable idiot,” she grunted back. “Then we can focus on-”

She stopped.

Her ear twitched and her tongue suddenly felt dry as she felt another presence, an older, familiar and dreadful presence, among them. She slowly turned to survey the room, her pupils rapidly shrinking. 

“She’s here.”

A deep, rumbling and sinister laughter sounded out all around them out of the darkness, followed by words positively dripping with malice.

“How sssenti-men-tal...”

Chrysalis’s breath caught in her throat. Her heart pounded in her chest so the point she felt it might burst. Her pupils transformed into thin vertical slits, and her wings unfurled to their full length in a protective manner in front of Celestia and Cozy.

With the crackle and the hum of magic, a shimmering portal opened on the floor of the centre of the room, bathing everything in a pale, deathly light. From it emerged a colossal beast of bloated belly and ragged, rotten flesh, heaving itself up on rotten, crooked and broken legs. Cozy pressed her hoof into her mouth to keep from vomiting at both the sight and stench of it.

“Is that-” she hissed before turning to throw up.

The beast fixed its one good eye upon Chrysalis, for the other was nothing more than an empty socket, festering with pus and bile.

“Queen Imago...” Celestia breathed.

With a chitin as bone white and filth ridden as her vile creations, Imago lifted herself out of her portal and planted her hooves firmly on the ground, looking down at those who would stand against her. Her black, seething tongue ran over her rotten lips and blackened teeth when she saw them, and her eye lingered on her daughter.

“Chrysssalisss...” she hissed. “My beloved daughter... returned to me at last...” Her words oozed with malice and a contempt for all life, utterly dripping with venom. Not only that, but her voice came out as little more than a dying gargle, as if every breath she took pained her.

Her eye drifted over to the alicorn beside Chrysalis and what was left of her lips pulled back into a wicked smile. “My, my... such a gift... you bring to me, my daughter...” she croaked. “The great Princessss Celessstia...”

She bowed her head in a mocking fashion of respect. Celestia stared up at her in shock, even as Chrysalis’s outstretched wing temporarily blocked her view, no doubt trying to shield her from her mother’s gaze. “I have not ‘brought’ you anything, Imago,” she snarled. “Other than your demise. For I aim to destroy you, to rid the world of your filth once and for all!”

The Pale Queen raised her head and flashed a smile at her without saying anything, then directed her deathly glare towards the one of the group closest to her.

“And... dearessst Pupa,” she hissed gleefully, her eye lighting up. “It is ssso good to see you... alive, O sister mine. How long... has it been?”

Pupa simply spread her ragged wings outwards and bared her fangs, looking up at her with a fierce intensity. Her horn sprung to life in a deep violet aura. “Far too long, sister,” she hissed back. She lowered her head and tensed up her legs, readying herself to attack.

Imago’s grin spread across her face and she merely chortled back in response. “Ahh, good... a fight...” If her voice was as grating and hoarse as could be, her laugh was perfectly wretched and sent a shiver along Chrysalis’s back. 

“You may begin... sister.”

Pupa charged, buzzing her wings as fast as they could. She dove one way and the other, lashing at her sister’s body with her horn, carving great swathes of what should be lethal wounds against the deadling’s side and splitting her cracked and decaying carapace. But Imago barely reacted, if she reacted at all, other than with a dry, haughty laughter.

Chrysalis stepped forwards intending to help her aunt, only for the Pale Queen’s horn to ignite in a flash of pale green light. “Ah, ah,” she crooned as the Knight found herself lifted up and pressed into the wall. “This is a sisterly dispute, O daughter mine. Do not... interfere...” 

Imago’s eye flashed with malice as Chrysalis struggled against her bonds.

“If you do... then watch your pretty friend suffer...”

The queen twisted her head around to see Celestia in the same position, splayed against the wall as bile started to creep around her, conjured to life by Imago’s dark magic. In a moment of panic Chrysalis shifted her gaze over to where she thought Cozy was, only to see the filly was nowhere to be seen. She both breathed a sigh of relief that she wasn’t ensnared the same way she was, but couldn’t help but worry as to where exactly her young teammate had gotten to.

“Imago!” Pupa barked, coming to their aid. “Our dispute lies between us. Release them.”

“As you wish,” Imago chortled darkly. The magic and the bile surrounding her daughter and the alicorn released them, letting them breathe easy and drop to the ground.

“Pupa-” Chrysalis began, rubbing her throat and buzzing her wings to lift herself up.

The three legged changeling scowled and waved one of her back legs towards her. “Stay out of this,” she snapped. “This duel is not meant for you.”

Chrysalis opened her mouth to retort, but froze when she felt Celestia to rest her hoof on her. She looked into the princess’s eyes. Celestia held her gaze for a moment longer, until finally the queen reluctantly and begrudgingly nodded, and took a step back to join her.

Imago watched them all with a sick, beady eye. “How touching,” she mused. “The bonds we forge... as family... there are none stronger, yes?”

Pupa grunted and lunged at her, striking with magic, horn, hoof and fang where she could, streaking flecks of foul smelling blood onto the ground.

“Ah... but then again...”

Imago spread her massive wings, sending a horde of mites and filth showering into the air. Her horn, gnarled and crooked like the base of a great, twisted tree, ignited in a flash of pale, sickly light. 

Celestia’s own horn ignited in response, throwing up a shield around her and Chrysalis quickly before another wave of foul magic washed over them. Pupa, however, was not so fortunate to have a companion gifted in defensive magic. As such, All Chrysalis could do was watch as her mother’s magic ensnared her aunt, lifting her up and grasping her tight.

“I tire of this... charade... sister,” Imago rasped. “And I tire... of you.”

Chrysalis stared in horror as the old changeling, her only aunt, struggled in the magical grasp enveloping her, firing wayward blasts of magic this way and that, growing more and more frantic by the second. Her once arrogant and antagonistic demeanour replaced by a frightened look of horror amidst as series of pained grunts and groans as the magic surrounding her tightened.

“What was it... they called you... sister?” Imago sneered. “Ah, yes... I remember... the Witch Queen.” She threw her head back and laughed as Pupa’s horn finally fell dull and her eyelids fluttered. 

“Watch, Chrysalis,” the Deadling Queen said, gesturing to her daughter. “Watch, and learn how a true queen punishes those who betray her!” She turned and swung her massive abdomen outwards, scraping along the ground.

Chrysalis stared with wide eyes as Imago kept Pupa held in front of her like a doll. Her eye flashed with malevolent glee as she opened her mouth, and started to drain her sister of not just her love, not just her emotions... but her very life.

The old changeling started to age impossibly rapidly before their very eyes, withering away until she resembled little more than an anorexic skeleton as Imago absorbed her life essence. Her eyes sunk back into her head and her lips grew dry and taut, to the point where Celestia had to look away, comforted only by he fact that Chrysalis put a wing around her, refusing to look away and feeling her heart heave. Finally, the deed was done, and as Pupa’s dying gasp left her throat and her head hung limp, Imago dropped her, letting her pitiable body crumple to the ground in a cruel display.

“Ahhh,” Imago hissed, cracking her neck. She straightened herself up and flourished her mangy mane, having grown stronger form the strength she absorbed. “Deliciousss. Thank you for your contribution, O sister mine... Now...” She turned her attention towards the others who would stand against her. Her eye flashed with malice as her foul gaze rested upon them. “And now, my dearest Chrysalis... what to do with you? And your companion here?”

Celestia’s shield remained firm and steady, unwavering even in the face of such evil. She cast a quick glance towards Chrysalis, who nodded back firmly at her. The princess swallowed and dispelled her shield, letting golden flakes of magic land down upon them.

Imago grinned at them both as they stood side by side and tilted her head to one side. “Have you any words before we begin?” she teased.

“I do,” Celestia growled, spreading her wings out wide.

Chrysalis mirrored her, ready to attack at the first signal.

“Queen Imago of the Third Changeling Hive,” the princess proclaimed, speaking with the Royal Canterlot Voice. The chamber--nay--the entire Hive shook with the ferocity of her voice as she stared down the Pale Queen. 

“For your crimes against Equestria and her people and those of this Hive, I order your immediate surrender into our custody, so that you may be judged accordingly.”

Chrysalis cracked her neck and buzzed her wings, daring to chance a look over at Pupa’s remains. Sorrowful guilt wrenched at her innards when she saw her legs coiled upwards like a dead spider and her eyes sunken and lifeless.

Imago, however, licked her lips--her long, lack tongue coated in the same bile covering the walls and the floors. “A promising offer,” she cackled. “However... I have a suggestion of my own, Princess.”

She pulled her head back and smiled, looking down at them both like they were nothing more than insignificant ants.

”Kneel.”


***


Imago’s voice, teeming with black magic, seemed to ripple through the air as she spoke. Chrysalis’s head grew heavy and her vision blurred, her mother’s command weaving and worming its way into her head, so much so that she didn’t even realise she had sunken to her knees. The princess beside her followed suit, and slumped down into the muck.

The Pale Queen chuckled. A hateful, horrible sound. “You are strong, children...” she crooned as her horn began to spark and crackle with black and green magic. “You discarded my warriors, my beautiful creations, like they were but flies. But they were but a test, and I am stronger. And now, there is only darkness that awaits you, as it does for all of Equestria. All of Equus.”

Chrysalis tried in vain to rise up from the ground and take a swing at her mother, only for her head to start to pound as her mother’s foul magic gained a foothold in her mind. She slipped, falling back down with a grunt and a groan, gritting her teeth together. Beside her, Celestia mumbled something incoherent, slipping in and out of consciousness in a similar manner.

“Only darkness...” Imago continued, with a sick glint in her eye. Her bloated, rotting corpse of a body shifted and pulsated. “And the beauty of death. These changelings you see around you...” She gestured to the walls and the cocoons lining them. “They are but the start of a new brood. Hybrid warriors born of life and death. With them at my command I will create a great army, one that could rival even that of the old gods of this world.” She leaned forwards and brushed some of Chrysalis’s hair out of her eyes. “And you will lead them, my beloved daughter. You will lead them into war... and conquest.”

“Hnnng...” Chrysalis groaned, fighting to keep her heavy eyelids open as a foul and wretched whisper pierced her mind.

The Pale Queen’s rasping, dry laughter grew quiet for a moment. “Together, we will conquer this world and feed on its remains. We will grow fat from the strength of others. And then, Chrysalis, when Equestria lies in ashes and the world basks in the beauty of death... you will have my permission to die...”

She opened her mouth and let her tongue slither out until it gently caressed the side of her daughter’s face.

“And be reborrrn...”

Chrysalis felt her willpower slip as her mother’s magic penetrated her mind, body, and her very soul. Her hooves started to feel like they were not her own. Her legs felt heavy and tired, and her body felt like it was being pushed down into the earth by a great weight. She wrenched her gaze towards Celestia, at how weak and frail the princess looked.

Pathetic.

Imago’s grin started to spread up to her eyes as Chrysalis felt a sudden bout of rage and anger build up inside her. “Yesss, my daughter... You understand now, don’t you? It is useless to resist.”

Hate. 

Hate flooded into Chrysalis’s mind, turning her vision red. She could feel her strength returning to her, only it was wrong.

Sick.

Tainted.

Imago’s... 

Shadows began to dance at the corner of her vision, like tendrils of a great beast creeping forwards. The hate of centuries of agony, of living on the edge of utter madness bubbled up inside her despite her best efforts to quench it, and despite letting go of it and reuniting with Celestia.

Celestia. The one pony she hated more than anything. The focus and subject of her current rage.

But there was something else, too. A want--a need--to protect.

“No...”

Her own voice surprised her, and in that momentary distraction she regained her senses, and realised how close to Celestia she had gotten.

The princess looked up to her with heavy bags under her eyes. “Chrysalis...” she croaked weakly. The magic pressing down on her kept her mostly still, but even still she stretched out a shaking hoof.

Destroy.

Chrysalis’s vision wavered and the whisper returned. Her sanity retreated back into the darkness permeating her mind. The shadows around the edges of her eyes crept forwards, obscuring everything until she could only see the pale white body of her hated foe before her, looking up at her imploringly. Her head shook and trembled like the deadling drones and she started to salivate, imagining sinking her fangs deep into this wretched pony’s neck.

“Please...” the princess whispered. “Help...”

Imago’s cruel laughter filled the void again. “Do it. Kill her,” she commanded. “Strike her down, Chrysalis, O daughter mine, and take your place at my side. Become who you were born to be. Be the monster Equestria will always see you as.” 

Chrysalis’s limbs moved with stiff, jerky movements and a mind of their own. Her head was swimming with one singular thought: to kill. To destroy her enemy. To murder the one responsible for a thousand years of suffering and misery. She stopped in front of the princess and reared up on her back legs, poising her hooves for the final blow.

And then Celestia said something. Something that stove off the hate and the rage, and snapped her back to her senses.

“I love you...”

The Living Queen hesitated. Her heart set itself aflame with love. With power. Her power, born of a love not given or stolen, but shared between two souls. 

The second purest form of love imaginable.

It was enough to break her free of the spell ensnaring her mind. With a grunt and a groan she ignited her horn and spread her shimmering wings, and pushed away the darkness closing in around her.

“Rrrrrraaagh!” she cried, creating a small shockwave of magic as she regained full control of her own senses. The air smelled different now. Cleaner, almost. She shot a glare up at her mother and offered her hoof to Celestia.

Similarly freed from the dark magic, Celestia coughed and grasped her hoof tightly, giving it a gentle but firm squeeze as she hoisted herself up.

“I will not... serve you,” Chrysalis rasped at Imago. “Not then. Not now. Not ever.” 

She stepped forwards, letting go of Celestia, and spread her wings, shielding the princess from her mother.

Imago rolled her eyes, unimpressed at the defiant display. “Very well,” she crooned, smirking at them wickedly. “Have it your way, then.”

Her horn flashed like lightning and magic lashed out at both of them, quickly wrapping around both Chrysalis’s and Celestia’s necks.

The Knight’s eyes bulged and the air caught in her throat as Imago started to squeeze. She found herself hoisted up and pinned against the wall, and watched with a growing fear as Celestia was raised up like Pupa.

“I want you to remember, Chrysalis,” Imago said with a glint of glee in her eye. Celestia struggled and tried to free herself, but the dark magic that had penetrated her mind left its scars deep, and in her weakened state she could barely focus her own thoughts let alone conjure up her magic. “That what is about to happen... is entirely your fault!”

With a wave of her head, Imago lifted Celestia up higher, then brought her down. Hard. Time stood still for Chrysalis as Celestia bounced off of the rock with a sickening snap. The alicorn’s shrill scream of pain rang out, cutting her deeper than any sword of knife ever could. Imago lifted her up again, and brought her down. Again

And again. 

The Knight wanted to scream back, to cry and bellow as her heart ripped itself asunder with each crash and each scream. But instead, in her horror, all she could manage was a gargled and fractured sound as she watched her mother murder Celestia.

Soon the screams of pain faded, drowned out by the insane laughter of Imago as she tossed the alicorn about like a rag doll, until finally she thrust her at the hooves of her daughter hooves, limp and broken.

The Pale Queen cackled as she looked down at the spawn of her ancient rival, at how fragile and broken she looked, and sneered in utter contempt at how yet she still lived. “Ah. I wondered what would break first, princess... your spirit... or your body.”

Celestia closed her eyes and took deep, pained breaths. No doubt she had a collapsed lung, and there was no question that several of her ribs were broken. She couldn’t feel her wings. She coughed, sending a trail of blood to trickle down her chin. 

“Chrys... alis...” she whispered, opening her eyes at the changeling she had grown up with. Her first and only love.

She thought to herself that she was glad she came, even if this was how it ended. She was glad to finally tell Chrysalis how she felt, even after all this time and all they had been through. All she had done to her. She and Chrysalis’s eyes met once again as she slowly rose up into the air by Imago’s magic for what she supposed would be the last time. In too much pain to speak, her mouth quivered and a dying gasp left her mouth.

“It appears as if it will be your body. A shame. I did so enjoy breaking your father’s mind when I plunged that dagger through his heart.”

Celestia’s bloodshot eyes widened as Imago threw her head back and roared with sick, sadistic laughter.

“Although that strength... that love...” the Pale Queen continued, her laughter tapering off as she turned Celestia to the side, like one would inspect food on the end of a fork. “Such a waste if I were to not sample it. The life force of an alicorn, second only to god-flesh!”

Imago licked her lips and opened her mouth, ready to consume the alicorn’s life as she had Pupa’s. As her maw opened wide and time stood still once more, she paused.

A small ‘tink’ and scraping sound from up above caught the attention of all those present. She, Chrysalis, and the close to death Celestia all slowly looked to the source of it. Chrysalis felt a tear of relief roll down her cheek as she stared in amazement at the small, pink filly on the ceiling, trying her hardest to scrape away at the root of a stalactite, using a smaller rock as a makeshift chisel. 

Cozy paused for the briefest of moments as she felt several pairs of eyes, and one unseeing socket, upon her. After inhaling a sharp breath, she cast aside her tool, spun around and started kicking. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!” 

After her third kick, there was a crack.

The stalactite trembled, and came loose, plummeting down directly on top of Imago herself.

Chrysalis gasped for air as she was released and dropped to the ground, as was Celestia, as the queen tried her hardest to scramble backwards. Her thick, bloated body got caught in the way, however, and she fumbled over herself. The rock crashed into her, driving straight down onto her spine, causing her to shriek in pain. Soon after more of its kind followed, cascading down upon her in an avalanche. Cozy coughed and sputtered, waving a hoof in front of her face as dust rose up into the air.

“Sorry I didn’t say anything,” she coughed, floating down to them. “I needed you to keep her distract-” Her voice caught in her throat resulting in a small choking sound when she saw Celestia’s state, and she came to a perch on a piece of rock jutting out from the rubble, where all she could do was watch. “Oh... oh, jeez...”

Chrysalis, despite wanting to show her amazement and praise at how Cozy had performed, wasted no time in scrambling forwards to check on the princess’s body. Dread made its home in her heart as she slipped her hooves around that beautiful, slender neck and turned Celestia around to look at her. “No no no no...” she repeated over and over, brushing her mane out of her eyes. “No no no, Celestia... Celly... stay with me. Don’t leave me...”

Celestia took several long, pained breaths and her eyelids fluttered open. “Chrys...”

Blood trickled out of her nose and her mouth as she struggled to speak, prompting Chrysalis to wipe her mouth for her. 

“Shh, don’t speak. Don’t say anything,” Chrysalis said softly, stroking her mane. “We’re going to get you out of here. Aren’t we, Cozy?”

Cozy started on the spot and nodded vigorously. “Oh--oh, yeah you bet we are!”

A nasty gash had opened above the princess’s eye and was staining her mucky coat red. Both of her wings were bent at an unnatural angle, and her eyelids were half closed. Her breathing was starting to come short and shallow, and only grew shorter and shallower as Chrysalis pulled her tight.

“Stay with me... don’t leave me...” the queen whispered, her eyes brimming with tears. “I love you.”

Celestia’s trembling hoof found hers and rested on it gently. The princess’s mouth twitched upwards, and her eyes sparkled and shone like stars. 

“I--I love...”

Her hoof fell limp and her chest lay still.

The queen’s lip quivered, and when she whispered next her voice was hoarser than it had ever been as she gently touched the side of Celestia’s face, looking into her dull and glassy eyes. 

“Celly?”

Suddenly the pile of rubble exploded, knocking Cozy forwards off of her perch. Imago roared and raged, her only eye glaring with all the furious anger she could muster at the filly who dared to drop a hive on her.

Cozy scrambled to her hooves as quickly as she could and made to dash away, only for a hoof the same size as her to block her path by slamming down into the ground.

“Oh...” she mumbled, nervously fluttering her wings. “Uh... hi?” 

A cloud of dust rose up into the air after the queen’s blow. The young Knight waved a hoof in front of her face to clear some of her vision. She winced, casting a quick glance over to Chrysalis, who remained perfectly still, leaning over the fallen alicorn, touching their foreheads together in a silent, tender embrace. 

“Chryssy? ...Help?”

Her heart leapt into her throat upon hearing a low hiss and a snarl.

She turned, and looked right into the cold and furious eye of Imago, framed by a sharp and jagged skull as a few flakes of her skin peeled away. 

“Uh oh.”

“You...” Imago hissed viciously. “You dare... attack... me?! With my own hive?! Insolent child, I’ll split you in two!”

Her eyes blazed with an unholy, unnatural life as she made to close her jaws around the most impertinent child she had ever come across--some no-name pegasus no less. The audacity! The unbridled cheek of it! She snarled, growing only angrier with each second and thrust her head downwards, ready to sever the life of this insignificant flying rat.

With little else to do she did the only thing she could possibly think of.

She screamed.

“Mommy!”

She fell to the ground and buried her face in her hooves, waiting for the end and hoping it wasn’t as painful as being turned to stone. A strange, eerie coldness washed over her, but the fatal blow never did.

She opened her eyes slowly, thinking that was it and she was dead, only to see Imago frozen in place, her single, large and festering eye swivelling around in confusion.

The swarm of green fireflies surrounding her--the magic of a changeling--reflected off of her bone white carapace. And soon enough, her deathly gaze found its source.

“Chrysalis,” she hissed.

The Nightmare Knight’s lips were pulled back into a snarl as vicious as her mother’s. Her horn was glowing brighter than it had ever been, her cheeks were stained with tears and her hooves were marred with the fresh blood of one of Equestria’s greatest icons.

And now, after committing her most heinous act... Imago was threatening Cozy Glow now, too.

Chrysalis would not stand for it.

The first most purest form of love surged through her, giving her a strength not even she was aware of.

The love of a mother for their child.

“Get away from her you bitch!” she roared, temporarily pushing aside her sorrow to let rage, a devastating and righteous rage fill her very soul. With a wave of her head, she lifted her mother up and sent her hurtling through the rubble and debris with an almighty crash.

Her gaze wrenched itself down to Cozy for a moment or two. “Go. Move,” she barked, jutting her chin towards the motionless Celestia. “Stay with her.”

Imago emerged from the crater Chrysalis had thrust her into, her jaw snapping and snarling, dripping with venom and bile. Her sole eye fixed upon her daughter, and then at the filly beside her.

“Go!” Chrysalis barked, shoving the filly away. Cozy gulped and fluttered her wings, scrambling over to Celestia to crouch and hide behind her. Satisfied, the changeling cracked her neck. “And you. Mother. Look. At. Me,” she growled.

Her mother hissed and reared herself up, towering high above them all. 

Chrysalis gnashed her teeth together and planted her hooves firmly on the ground.

Cozy’s mind conjured up images of a valiant knight facing off against a dragon to save the fair princess like in some fairy tale as she gazed at them both. She quivered and crouched low, resting her head softly against Celestia. The alicorn was still warm, thankfully, although she had no idea how long that would last.

“Come on, Celly,” she whispered. “Wake up. Chryssy needs you...”

Chrysalis spread her shimmering, shining wings and swished her tail from side to side. King Morpheus’s words came to her as clear as day in that moment as she and Imago stared at one another, waiting for the other to make the first move.

’In that grief you lose yourself... and madness becomes the only possible course of action.’

Madness was right. The intoxicating feeling of utter loathing, of utter hatred and the desire for vengeance filled every fibre of her being. She would avenge Celestia. Even the rotten miscreants that once called her their queen. Even Pupa.

Whatever it took.

Her breathing grew dogged and heavy, and her pupils transformed into fine slits as she prepared herself. 

Imago curled her lip upwards into a vicious, cruel and jeering smirk. “You cannot hope to win, Chrysalis. Even as we speak my legions are flocking to my command, ready and eager to tear you limb from limb just so that I may put you back together again.”

Chrysalis gnashed her teeth and snarled. “By the time they arrive, mother... you will be dead once more and banished into the depths of oblivion. Where you belong.”

The Pale Queen eye narrowed and she lunged forwards, igniting her horn in a flash.

The Knight retaliated by doing the same.

Together, in the dark underbelly of the Changeling Hive, mother and daughter fought. Lightning of varying shades of green fired between them as they began their duel. Chrysalis channelled her fury, her anger and her rage into her attacks as she cast spell after spell, taking a step forwards after each one she sent out, backing off only when Imago started the offensive.

Cozy watched them with wide, frightened eyes as pale lightning fired over her head, hitting the ground around her and sending flecks of dirt and rubble into the air. She brushed some off of Celestia and gave her a gentle shove, hoping to stir her enough to wake up. “Celly, get up!” she hissed. “We gotta move!”

Celestia did not move. Not a single muscle of the alicorn’s twitched. Her wings were limp and bent at awkward angles from Imago’s attack, and even her mane and her tail had stopped flowing with a mind of their own.

The filly gulped and rested her forehooves on the alicorn’s body. A shiver ran down Cozy’s spine as a dreadful thought crossed her mind. “You’re not supposed to die,” she mumbled. “I mean... you’re Celestia for cryin’ out loud! You’re supposed to be immortal, right? If you die, then... who are we gonna use as an expression?”

She laughed once. A joyless thing, just about the only thing she could do in her current situation as Chrysalis and Imago battled, raging, snarling and snapping at one another as they slung their spells. Another set of stalactites came crashing down around them with the force of their blows. Some cocoons came free with each shake and lay about the ground, thankfully at a safe enough distance to not be crushed by the duelling matriarchs.

Cozy stroked Celestia’s flat, pink-streaked mane and let out a heavy, absent minded sigh. “And what’s gonna happen to Chryssy?” she added quietly. “She’d never say anything, but... I could see it. We all could. You made her happy...”

She sighed and nestle down by the princess’s side, and rested against her belly. 

Imago roared and raged as the magic flying from her and Chrysalis’s horns clashed in a flurry of sparks.

Cozy glanced up despondently, wishing she could do more than she already had. A few more stalactites could probably help, she thought, but she didn’t want to hit Chrysalis. 

Ba-dum.

The young Knight started on the spot and snapped her gaze towards the alicorn. She listened and held her breath for a moment longer, straining her ears over the sounds of crashing, snarling and battle, swearing she had just heart the tell-tale thump of a living heart. Celestia remained still, though, and she was starting to think it was just in her imagination.

Bad-um.

There it was! For definite, she heard it that time. Cozy’s eyes lit up and she thrust her hooves around the princess’s side, sniffling lightly. She looked over at her teammate, her eyes shining with relief, and fluttered her wings excitedly. “Chrysalis!” she whisper-shouted.

Chrysalis didn’t hear her, and she was losing ground. Her and her mother’s spells soared over one another, cracking into the ground and the walls between and behind them respectively. A few of the cocoons had been smashed, and the changelings inside still and unmoving, a fact the Knight was acutely aware of, and with each one she saw she felt a pang of guilt, but pressed on.

Her head twisted just enough so she could see Cozy, and noticed how close to the filly she was. One false move and Imago would-

She let out a grunt and broke off her latest attack to dart away, drawing her mother’s eye solely on her. Unfortunately, in her moment’s distraction, she didn’t realise how in striking distance she had gotten of her adversary. 

But Imago did, and her eye flashed with malice as she swung her mighty hoof.

She was quick, quicker than expected for a creature of her size, and managed to clip Chrysalis’s legs, knocking her off course. In a slight daze, Chrysalis spun herself around, only for another of her mother’s legs to swing from the other side, this time properly connecting with her and knocking her down.

“I was wrong about you,” Imago hissed, spitting venom towards her daughter as Chrysalis attempted to pick herself up. “You’re not strong. You’re weak. You’re a weak, feeble excuse for a changeling--unfit to have ever been called a queen!”

She punctuated her words by slamming her hoof into her daughter’s side and kicked her away. Bright blood flew out of Chrysalis’s mouth as she hit the ground again, landing on her wings. She scrambled and flailed her legs in the air for a second as Imago struck again.

“You are but a child, an insignificant grub compared to my power,” the deadling continued. “You are nothing. A mere child was more competent than you, if only for a moment. You, O daughter mine, are a witless worm who does not know her place. Allow me to educate you.”

In a moment of desperation Chrysalis threw up a shield around herself as another of her mother’s hooves came crashing down. She gasped and grunted under the sudden strain. Shield magic was never her forte. She glanced over at Cozy out of the side of her eye; the filly was shaking Celestia, probably trying to wake her up. Poor thing didn’t realise that she was...

Again and again Imago slammed down onto her shield. Her nose started to bleed, the scent of metal filling her nostrils.

Images of Tempest came to her mind, of how the commander looked at her and smiled, treating her with respect and dignity. Then Tirek, and how often they would bicker about the most ridiculous things. And Cozy, how the filly would nestle in close to her late at night or mumble in her sleep.

She thought of King Morpheus, and how he would sit and read with her when she was little alongside Luna... and Celestia. 

And then finally, her thoughts turned to that of Celestia... her dear, sweet Celestia. The pony who broke her heart. The mare that gave her life a purpose. That made her feel alive before it all went wrong on that long, terrible night. She flicked her eyes over to the alicorn again.

Her heart heaved with sorrow again, and the rage she felt subsided, replaced instead by a sudden burst of inspiration--that same desire to protect. Imago struck again, this time breaking through her shield. She collapsed, panting and gasping, feeling her head pound. One of her legs twisted the wrong way as she went down--but it didn’t hurt. She supposed that was due to the adrenaline pumping through her system.

Imago stared down at her, sneering and licking her lips in anticipation. “I have long waited for my revenge against you, O daughter mine,” she whispered. “All those countless years I languished in the pits of Tartarus, I envisioned this day. And to be frank, I find myself... disappointed.”

Chrysalis gasped in pain as Imago planted one hoof down on her, applying pressure. She hissed and bit and clawed at what she could, weakly snapping her jaw as the pressure on her chest grew, trying to ignore the taste of rotten flesh.

“Nonetheless, this is the end for you, Chrysalis. Goodbye, O daughter mine,” Imago taunted. “Perhaps in death you will only be half the disappointment you were in life.”

Again, the Knight gasped, her back legs kicking in the dirt and bile, using her front legs to try and pry Imago off of her. Her lips parted and a quiet whisper escaped her throat.

“Hmm? Some last words, perhaps?” the Pale Queen sneered, tilting her head. She tittered to herself and relented, removing her hoof. “Fine. If only to sate my own curiosity at what you might have to say. Speak.”

The Nightmare Knight took deep, gulping breaths of air, and held her throat. “I... may be... nothing,” she panted. “I may be, as you say... weak. Unfit to be queen. But at least... I am alive. You... you, dear mother...” She furrowed her brow and puffed out her chest as far as she could, glaring up at her mother towering over her. “You’re just... a thing. A heartless... wretched... thing.”

The Deadling Queen clacked her jaw and hesitated for a moment. Her face spasmed in anger, and a flush of rage crossed over her decaying features. “I have existed long before your time,” she sneered. “I dragged myself out of Tartarus, hold mastery over the forces of death itself. I am more than a mere... thing.”

Chrysalis chuckled dryly, relishing how quickly she had gotten under her mother’s vain skin. “No, mother... you’re just a thing. All you do is destroy. Take what belongs to others. You don’t create, you care about nothing other than yourself.”

Imago bared her rotten fangs and let her black tongue slither out towards her. “Are you dictating your obituary to me, girl?” she hissed. “Or is there a point to your useless last words?”

The Nightmare Knight spread her wings again and held her head up high, one final jab to get under her mother’s fetid skin. “My point... mother... is that you’re just a thing,” she repeated. “A creature of hate that will never know love. That will never know what it means to fight for more than survival. And for that... I pity you.”

Imago’s face contorted with rage. “You...” She grit her teeth and snorted, composing herself as her horn sprung to life. “You are going to die here, Chrysalis.”

A cold, deathly glow of magic surrounded Chrysalis and brought her close to Imago’s face.

Her eye narrowed and the side of her lip twitched. “I’m going to eat your soul, then I’m going to spit it out and use it to choke your world to death,” she whispered.

The sudden sound of skittering coming from the doorway nearby made them both turn their heads. Imago’s eye swivelled back to Chrysalis and she smirked triumphantly as a whole host of deadlings made their appearance, their pale, unseeing eyes gleaming in the light of the braziers around the chamber.

“An audience, for your last performance, Chrysalis. Do you see now, girl? I am inevitable. My legions will grow with every battle in the years to come. I. Am de-”

Fire, bright golden fire, suddenly lashed at her face, making her shriek and back away.

The Knight dropped to the ground as the magic holding her evaporated. She looked up at the tendril of fire weaving its way through the air, tracing her eyes along it to its caster.

Celestia stood, ragged, bloody, broken and bruised, but alive. Very, very much alive. Chrysalis’s heart soared with elated joy as her eyes tore across the princess’s face, as eerily calm and collected as it was. Imago howled and snapped her jaw, fixing the alicorn with a hate-filled stare. 

“Worthless scum!” she bellowed, and jabbed a hoof at her minions. “Kill them, my children! Slaughter in your queen’s name! Bring me their bodies!”

The horde surged into the chamber, quickly forming a tidal wave of bodies, scrambling and clawing over one another to do as their queen commanded, their fangs dripping with venom. They shrieked and wailed, longing for the taste of love, flesh and blood.

“No,” the princess said calmly, turning her head to look at them. Her eyes flashed and the fire of her magic leapt over to them, spreading across and through them,  cutting them down like a hot knife through butter.

Behind her, Cozy looked equal parts terrified and awestruck as she watched the scene unfurl.

The baleful shrieks of Imago’s horde turned into nothing more than a whispering echo as ash replaced their bones, and Celestia’s holy fire turned them into dust.

“Whoa...” Cozy breathed.

Imago already pale face paled even further. Her brow twitched and her pupils contracted. “You wretched-”

Holy fire exploded around her face again, cutting her off and making her howl in pain.

“It burns! It burns! Stop! Stop!”

Celestia’s focused and determined expression remained unchanging as her magic danced and lapped at the Pale Queen’s face and rotten carapace, setting her mangy mane on fire in the process.

Eventually she waved her horn again and stopped her attack, leaving Imago singed, smoking and gasping for air.

Chrysalis slowly pushed herself up, holding her hurt leg close to her chest as she limped towards Celestia and Cozy. She struggled and winced, in sore need of some rest and recuperation... and love.

“Celestia...” she breathed.

Celestia’s eyes flicked down to her. Her gaze was cold and alien, laced with the quiet fury only she could hold. “Imago,” she said calmly. “You claim to have killed my father. Is this true, or is it a trick? A lie?”

The Deadling Queen’s mouth quirked upwards. “Oh-ho-ho, princess... I would never lie about such a grandiose act.”

“How?”

Imago blinked, furrowing her brow ever so slightly. “How? My dear a good assassin would never-”

Fire exploded around her again, scorching her rotten flesh and filling the room with her stink. She wailed and cried in pain, until it stopped as quickly as it had started. Celestia’s eyes remained uncaring and ironically cold as her horn stopped glowing, and the flames faded away.

“Tell me how my father died,” she growled menacingly. “And I will ease your suffering.”

Imago snarled at her, clutching her hooves around herself for some semblance of comfort. She wasn’t supposed to feel pain. It wasn’t what was promised to her when she mastered life over death, and yet this fire... this purifying flame of hate seared her very soul. For the first time in her miserable, wretched life, or unlife for that matter, she felt a twinge of fear. But, refusing to let her emotions betray her, she allowed a smile to slowly creep across her lips.

“As you wish... your grace. Lend me your eyes and your ears, for I bring visions and words of loving enlightenment!”

The Pale Queen closed her eyes and breathed deeply. The green fires of a changeling sprung up around her as she changed her form, growing smaller--more mare-like. Until finally the fires died, and a beautiful mare stood in her place, with a shining golden coat, golden mane...

And rainbow coloured irises.

Chrysalis shivered and gawked, regarding the new mare with troubled eyes. “You didn’t...” she breathed in disappointment and disgust. 

“Oh but I did, O daughter mine,” Imago cackled, running a hoof through her long mane. She took a few steps forwards, letting her hooves fall heavy and deliberate, a juxtaposition to her elegant and sleek form.

Celestia’s eyebrows skyrocketed and her pupils contracted into pinpricks. Her lips parted in a slight gasp of shocked recognition. 

Cozy gulped, hesitantly and tentatively peering around her. “Wh-Who is that?” she mumbled. “Celly? Chryssy?”

“Who indeed, child,” the deadling chortled gleefully. Her words sounded like honey given a voice: infinitely sweet--an absolute treasure to hear. And yet it seemed so very, very wrong. “What’s the matter, Celestia? Have you no words for your dearest mother?”

Queen Iris flicked her mane out of her beautiful eyes and bowed low, sweeping one leg in front of the other like an actor on a stage.

She was a mockery, a cruel and jeering joke of Celestia’s mother. And the princess knew it. Her mane started to coil and furl around her with a mind of its own, flickering like the fires she had brought down upon the deadling just moments ago in her growing rage. She set her jaw and tried to compose herself, only for Imago to start laughing.

Imago held a hoof to her mouth and apologised. “Oh--Oh, I’m sorry, princess, but you should see your face! For you see, your father, the venerated King Morpheus, had that same look as I plunged that knife through his chest. The utter shock, the dumb confusion! I tasted every delectable emotion he felt when he thought I was her--the illustrious Queen Iris returned from the dead to reunite with him.” She lowered her hoof and inspected it, watching how it shimmered with a golden sheen with an ugly, sinful grin on her otherwise perfect face. “I suppose that, in a way... she has. Now hasn’t she?”

“Enough.”

Celestia’s voice was eerily calm. So much so that it gave Imago hesitance. Her ear flicked and she traced her eye over the alicorn’s face with a curious, mildly annoyed expression, bitter that she had garnered such a little reaction.

Cozy shivered and sensed something terrible on the horizon. The filly shrank backwards. Chrysalis noticed her and swallowed, inching forwards to be by her while Celestia flexed her fire-kissed wings.

“You are bold, Imago, to confess to such a crime...” the princess said, speaking through gritted teeth. Her eyes blazed to life with righteous fire. “And bolder still to boast.”

Chrysalis raised her hoof to her eyes and winced, as did Cozy. The Knights shared a quick glance before looking back at the alicorn. Her mane continued to furl around her until it burst into a flame of its own. The changeling started on the spot, but stopped and stared, unable to do anything more than watch. 

Two glowing pools of amber glowered with the purest hate at Imago.

“I thought you were intelligent,” Celestia snarled. “I see now that Chrysalis is right. You are indeed a thing. I would treat ants with more respect than I would for one so boastful... and idiotic.”

Imago’s rainbow coloured eyes flashed and her lips twitched downwards. 

“Keep speaking,” Celestia spat. “Every word you say, every action you have taken as an affront to my family and my friends will be kindling for your funeral fire.” She pulled her head back and held it high. “So I shall indeed ease your suffering, Queen Imago. By ridding the world of your filth.”

Imago narrowed her eyes and transformed back into hr usual, rotting self. “And who are you, Celestia, to make such bold claims? I know you ponies. You don’t kill your enemies. That is why you are weak-”

Her sneering, contemptuous words turned into a violent, vicious scream of agony as fire erupted around her once more.

“I am a pony no longer,” Celestia growled, her voice brimming with authority, dripping with anger. “I am vengeance. I am the Morning and Evening Star. I am the rage, fire and fury of the sun itself. I am Daybreaker.”

She reared up on her back legs. Imago stared at her and for the second time in her life, she felt fear. True, unadulterated fear coursed through her as the alicorn’s eyes burned and blazed with holy fire.

“And I order you, Imago,” Celestia roared, the fires of her mane and tail swishing and swirling around her as her fury grew. “In the names of my father and my mother, I order. You. To. Burrrrrn!”

With a flash of orange light, fire engulfed the Pale Queen. Imago screamed and fell to the ground, writhing around in a useless attempt to extinguish them. Then a quick as they had appeared, the fires evaporated, leaving her a smouldering, smoking body that heaved with pain.

“Curse you!” she rasped, glowering at the alicorn. “Curse you and all pon-”

Chrysalis winced at the heat washing over her, radiating outwards from her mother as Celestia called down another round of holy fire. The stink of singed, dying flesh filled her nostrils, making her retch. Cozy also retched, and pinched her nose as best she could. 

Celestia strode forwards, clearing the cloud of smoke with one wave of her hoof. “Look at me, Imago,” she growled when the deadling lowered her head and cast her eyes downwards. “I want you to look into my eyes as you die.”

Imago swallowed her pride and lifted her head up. Her filth-ridden wings were starting to burn away like her legions had. In the end, all her power amounted to little in the face of such disastrous rage. In a last desperate bid to survive, she turned to drastic measures. 

“Please...” she wheezed, startling Chrysalis somewhat. “Have.... have mercy.”

“Mercy?!” the princess roared, rearing up to bring on another attack. “Did you show my father mercy, monster?! Did you show the honour of my mother mercy when you impersonated her?!”

Chrysalis looked up at her face, and for a moment she saw not Celestia, not the pony she knew and loved, but a demon. A fiery demon born of rage and an all-consuming hate. 

And scarier still... she saw herself.

“Celestia...” she whispered, slowly pushing herself up.

Celestia waved her horn this way and that, weaving a great firestorm around the Pale Queen. Flames lit up the entire cavern, burning paths this way and that across the bile until it reached the walls, where it then caught fire and the cocoons holding the captured changelings began to wither.

Those inside stirred, slowly starting to wake up.

Imago fell to the ground, writhing and wailing in pain. “Stop!” she begged. “Stop it! It hurts!”

The alicorn raised her hoof and dusted off her chest, looking down her nose with eyes like fine slits. “Good.”

The Deadling Queen snarled and twisted her face. “Filth! Wretched pony! Don’t underestimate meeeeeaaaaaaghhhh!”

She thrashed and banged her head on the ground in an attempt to stay the pain as fire consumed her body. Celestia’s snarl grew and her mouth started to curve upwards. It was then that Chrysalis realised she was enjoying this, and saw she had to put a stop to it.

“Celestia, stop,” Chrysalis snapped, rising up to her full height, holding her injured leg close to her chest. “This is wrong. She’s beaten.”

Celestia glared at her and deactivated her horn, the fires making up her tail coiling and twisting through the air. “After all she’s done, Chrysalis, you would deny me this?” she hissed. “You would deny us vengeance?”

“No! By all the stars above, no,” the Knight grunted, spreading her shimmering wings. The love she stored within herself had sealed up most of her wounds, yet blood and muck still marred her body. Her mane clung to her with sweat and bile, leaving her scalp feeling like it was crawling with dirt. 

“Not a day has gone by in the past thousand years when I haven’t thought about all of the vile acts she’s committed. But this...” She looked down at the pitiable form of her mother, a withered and charred husk of a being. A spasm of anger and her own hatred flashed across her face, then she looked back at Celestia and her gaze softened. Her eyes shimmered. 

“This isn’t you.”

“And what would you suggest, Chryssy?” the alicorn snapped, raising her head up high. “Lock her away for another thousand years in Tartarus? Where she may regain her strength and try again one day? I can end this, I can end her miserable, wretched existence, right here and now. The only thing stopping me is you. So step aside.”

Chrysalis shook her head defiantly. “You are not a killer, Celestia. You’ve never been a killer. Don’t let this fire consume you.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” the princess snarled. “Whatever trials and tribulations may follow this night, let them come. For I am stronger than I have ever been.”

“No... you aren’t.”

The fire in Celestia’s eyes flickered. The ragged, hoarse breathing of Imago gave way to laughter as she turned her blistered face towards them. “Touching...” she wheezed.

“Celestia,” Chrysalis said, ignoring her and stepping forwards. She reached down and took the alicorn’s hoof in hers and held her, firmly but gently. “Please. I don’t want to lose you again. Let go of your hate. Don’t become... me.”

The princess swallowed and shivered. She turned her head to one side and closed her eyes. The fires of her mane started to die down, and was soon replaced by solid pink. When she opened hr eyes they had also returned to normal, and she brushed a hoof through it absentmindedly. She inhaled a deep, shaking breath. “You always did know how what to say to calm me, didn’t you?” she murmured quietly.

The changeling stepped forwards again, still holding her hoof. She raised it up to her lips and kissed it, just barely pressing her lips into it, then closed her eyes and leaned forwards further, pressing their necks tightly together in a sweet and tender embrace.

“I’m sorry,” Celestia whispered. “I didn’t...”

“Ahh... love...” came the rasping hiss of Imago again. She pushed herself up on rotten, ragged legs. “Such a sweet... scent. But... alas, I believe... my time is finished here.”

“You are correct, mother,” Chrysalis said, pulling away from Celestia to face her. “Your time is indeed finished.”

Her body was fading, disintegrating away like ashes in the wind. The Knight realised she was dying, for good, and watched as she crumbled. Her horn began to glow, ready to open a portal to Tartarus, to cast this fading form back into the abyss and hope that in a thousand years she would be there, ready and waiting to-

A slow sound came from nearby, past the rubble and debris, breaking her concentration and putting an end to her inner monologue.

A dry chuckle--a taunting, teasing laughter.

“How truly... truly wonderful, darlings,” a familiar voice said as an equally as familiar, three legged changeling broke the top of the rubble, looking down at them all in utter amusement.

Chrysalis froze, staring up at her aunt. Her name teetered on the edge of her tongue as it turned heavy and dry like sandpaper. 

“Pupa?”

Pupa flashed her a smile and flicked some of her mane out of her eyes. “Surprised, Chrysalis?”

Imago’s bloated, dying body pulsed and quivered as she started to laugh before tapering off into a hacking, wheezing cough. “Took... your time... sister,” she wheezed. 

“Oh I was too busy enjoying watching this wonderful display, Imago,” Pupa tittered, hopping down to stand by her sister. “But fret not. I would have intervened should you have truly needed it.”

The Witch Queen’s grin spread up to her eyes as she flashed a smile at the Nightmare Knights and the princess. 

“How?” Chrysalis croaked. “You-”

Pupa tapped the side of her nose and winked. “Now that’s my secret, isn’t it?” she said, mimicking her words from earlier. “Alas, Imago is right. Our time is finished here, yet I must thank you for that amazing performance, Celestia,” she added, bowing her head to the alicorn. “For it has been most enlightening. Imagine: the great Celestia, holding the power of the sun in the frog of her hoof. The possibilities such power might entail...”

Celestia paled and shivered, averting her eyes in shame.

The three legged changeling rested her hoof upon Imago’s forehead, petting and stroking her like a dog and much to the annoyance of her sister, however weak she may have been. 

“Until our next family gathering, Chrysalis. Ta ta.”

Her horn sprung to life with a deep violet glow, casting a bright light around the room. With a bright flash and the crackle and pop of magic, they disappeared, leaving only dirt and dust in their wake.

Chrysalis sank to her knees, staring at where her mother and her aunt had just stood mere moments ago in a shocked, stunned silence. Cozy tentatively stepped forwards, first looking up at Celestia, and then at her teammate. Hesitantly and quietly, her mind burning with one question, she asked it:

“What happens now?”

Celestia placed a wing gently on her back, feeling heavy like a great weight pressed down on her shoulders and tightened her chest. Her mouth opened and closed for a few moments, until she decided that she had no words to say, and simply lowered her head.

Chrysalis remained perfectly still where she sat. Besides the rhythmic rising and falling of her chest, she did nothing--simply sitting motionless in the ancient crypt of her forebears.

And then a crack, followed by a series of others just like it, echoed around the otherwise silent chamber.

“H-Hey.” Cozy said, looking around at the source of it. “Hey, guys... look.”

The changelings started to wake up, freed of their slumber induced by Imago and her magic. Their cocoons, their prisons, began to break and come away, and they themselves started to emerge like new-born chicks. Many of their hivemates, however, remained still, unmoving in their pods. Celestia surmised hat whatever Imago was doing to them draining them of their life to fuel her army, had cost them their lives, and she silently offered her deepest condolences for them.

A few of the more alert ones started to help their friends and neighbours by pulling away the sticky bile surrounding them.

They quickly started to murmur amongst themselves, holding on to one another for comfort and mourn for their lost ones.

“Where are we?”

“Those... things that attacked us... what were they?”

“Are they gone?”

“Augh, that smell!”

“The nightmares... they’re over...”

A sharp gasp rose up out of them as several pairs of eyes found the trio, and then widened in awe, fear and wonder.

“Chrysalis? It’s Chrysalis!”

“What’s she doing here?”

“Is that Princess Celestia, too?”

“Princess Celestia? Hey, the princess is here! She’ll save us!”

Celestia swallowed and tried not to show her discomfort as they flocked to her, bombarding her with praise and questions, begging her to explain to them what happened and if they were safe. Cozy meanwhile trotted over to Chrysalis, saying nothing and simply sitting with her.

“Please, everyone, I need you all to relax. We are going to get you all out of here,” Celestia said.

“How? What if those things come back?” one asked her, quickly inciting a small panic amongst them. 

The princess inhaled sharply and shook her head. “They won’t. The immediate danger has passed, but we still need to get you all somewhere safe.”

“Everyone,” said a shaking voice from behind them all, making them turn. The changelings gasped with relief as Thorax stood up on wobbly legs, supported by a few others and his brother. Pharynx kept his eyes fixed firmly on Chrysalis, watching her warily despite her despondent nature.

“What’s she doing here?” he grunted.

“I asked her to come,” Thorax replied, leaning on him for support as they hobbled over to the princess. “Hello, Celestia. Or, um... Princess Celestia.” He bowed low and rustled his wings. “I didn’t think... I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Chrysalis asked for my help,” Celestia said bluntly. The crowd gasped and shrank away from her, daring to look at their old tyrant. “She... it was she who saved you, Thorax. Not me.” She looked over to the queen, still sitting with her head hung low. She bit her lip, trying to dislodge the lump in her throat. “Chrysalis saved us all, in the end...”

“That has to be a trick,” Pharynx growled. “She wouldn’t just help us for the sake of it...”

“Celestia,” Thorax said, shooting his brother a disapproving look. “What happened to Queen Imago? Is she...”

Celestia’s grim face said it all. He bowed his head and nodded. 

“Okay...”

His eyes bounced over to the dark changeling, and he started to move towards her. Pharynx grasped his leg firmly. “What are you doing?” he hissed. “She’s dangerous. She-”

The king interrupted him by giving him a reassuring pat and a smile. “Trust me, Pharynx,” he said calmly. 

After a moment of hesitation and uncertainty flickered across his face, Pharynx reluctantly let go and took a step back, watching as Thorax walked over to Chrysalis, circling around and coming to a stop in front of her.

The crowd of changelings also watched and held their breaths. Celestia did too, and Cozy offered the briefest of smiles up at the king as he smiled back at her, then focused himself on the crestfallen queen.

“Chrysalis?” he murmured. 

Chrysalis flinched and lifted her head, glaring at him from behind a part in her mane. “What?” she growled. Her voice was flat and emotionless, like all the love, joy hope and fear had been drained right out of her.

The changelings all squeaked in fear and shrank backwards as one like a flock of startled cats, except for Pharynx. The proud warrior bug started forwards to come to his brother’s aid, stopped only by Celestia’s outstretched hoof. 

Cozy gently rested her hoof against her teammate’s leg, gazing up at her 

“Thank you,” Thorax said. “I’m... I don’t know what to say. Thank you, Chrysalis.”

Chrysalis’s nose twitched. She glared at him and raised her head up further, letting more of her face be revealed as she brushed her mane away. “What for?” she muttered. “We didn’t win. If anything, we lost, Imago... is still out there. Our coming here was nothing more than a waste of time.”

“Even so, you saved us,” the king said, resting his hoof over hers. “You saved us. That means something. Look at them.”

She did, and glared at the changelings quivering in her presence. Her eyes met Celestia’s, lingering for a moment before she looked away and grunted in annoyance.

“So... thank you.”

He shifted and bowed his head in respect and gratitude, going into a kneel before her.

For a moment nobody moved. Celestia’s eyes sparkled as she saw the significance of such a gesture, even if Chrysalis herself seemed nonplussed by it. There was a cough from the changelings, and Pharynx jerked his head towards his fellows, going into a bow himself.

“Whoa...” Cozy murmured as all the changelings, somewhere by her reckoning in the region of eighty to a hundred, all started to bow before who was once their tyrannical overlord.

Chrysalis’s face was unreadable as she gazed out at them.

’I may not be their queen.... But I am their Knight.’ 

After a few minutes of silent contemplation, her shoulders sagged and she stood up, brushing some dust off of her chest. “The structural integrity of the Hive is unstable,” she grunted, waving her hoof towards the entrance to the crypt. “We should make our exit before it comes crashing down on our heads.” She took a deep breath and rustled her wings, hiding how they shimmered from her former subjects. 

“I will lead the way, as there may still be some deadling stragglers lining the tunnels.”

A worried series of murmurings rose up out of the crowd, with each one turning to the one beside them in fright. It was that reason that Chrysalis chose to omit the part about Celestia washing a majority of Imago’s forces away with holy fires of retribution, sensing it wouldn’t be prudent of her to lump the princess in with the most dangerous things she had seen that night.

Thorax deflated at how cold she sounded, thinking she simply didn’t care for his words, before he perked right back up and cleared his throat. “Right. Okay everybody, grab your emergency buddy and get ready to leave.”

“Emergency buddy...” Chrysalis muttered under her breath in disgust, drawing a quiet giggle from Cozy as both Knights moved towards the exit.

“What about the others?” came a quiet voice from the back. 

The room fell silent.

Chrysalis stopped and turned around. Tarsus was the speaker: a well bred warrior bug, once a deep dark grey, now as bright as pink as Celestia’s mane was. Her eyes glistened and sparkled in the low light of their surroundings as she addressed the queen. 

“We can’t leave them.” 

Her voice was strong and steady. She always was a fighter.

Chrysalis looked over her at the wall, at the dozens of pods still full. Her heartbeat quickened. 

Celestia, Thorax and Pharynx shared a quick, uncomfortable glance as the king cleared his throat “I’m-” he began.

“They are dead,” Chrysalis interrupted. 

The changelings--Tarsus, Mandible, Dave and the others fell quiet. A soft weeping rose up from near the back.

Chrysalis bristled and flexed her shoulders. “They fell defending their Hive, defending you: their friends and families. The best thing you can all do is remember and honour them, the way we used to honour our fallen.” 

Thorax breathed slowly outwards and nodded, looking around. “Th-This place is a crypt, right? One of the ancient changeling burial grounds?”

“It is,” Chrysalis answered, frankly surprised that he knew what the significance of this place was. She did remember he was far more studious than many of his peers in his youth, though... perhaps he had taken his duties as king more seriously than she suspected. “Their bodies will be returned to the earth here. Say what goodbyes you will, but make it short.”


***


Chrysalis paced back and forth, wearing a path in what remained of Imago’s bile coating the ground, deep in thought.

While they waited for the changelings to organise, her mind had begun to wander. In the span of a few hours, she had gone from thinking her mother dead and gone, to not only finding out that she was alive, but her aunt Pupa was as well, and that they had apparently set aside their differences to work together for some unknowable, insidious purpose. And now, she was to lead her former subjects, a group of miscreants and turncoats, to safety. And for what? For a measly, petty thanks she never wanted? For Celestia?

In her pacing she glanced at the alicorn standing tall amongst the crowd, occupying herself by talking to and reassuring them all they were going to be okay. Their eyes met, only briefly, both sets laden with guilt, and shame, before Celestia looked away to a young nymph.

Chrysalis sighed and let her shoulders sag.

“I know, right?” Cozy said, standing to one side and appearing to sense how she felt. “Y’ever feel like we’re just living in a sitcom?” She made an attempt to laugh and awkwardly sighed at how her teammate remained, silently pacing. “Tempy’s gonna wanna hear about everything. Are we gonna tell her about your, uh... Pupa?”

The queen scowled for a fraction of a second and stiffened her neck. She stopped pacing. “Yes, Cozy. We are,” she growled, adding with a snort: “And I suppose Starlight Glimmer will want to know how your ‘mission’ went as well?”

Cozy rubbed the back of her head awkwardly. “Yeeeah, about that... um... I sorta... made her send me here.”

Chrysalis glared at her little teammate. “You what?”

“Don’t be mad, but Starlight didn’t send me like I said. Or... well, she did, but I only made her think it was her idea,” the filly blurted out. “It was Tirek’s idea, really, he suggested I try and follow you, ‘cause I’m small and not seen easily, b-but...” She wilted like a dying flower under the fierce glare of the queen. “Look, I just wanted to keep you company, a-and to make sure you’re okay.”

“Cozyyy...” 

A flash of indignancy crossed Cozy’s face and she puffed her chest out. “Besides, you’re the closest thing I have to a mom, if you died, then...” Her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed a bright red, her burst of sudden bravado vaporising in an instant.

Likewise, Chrysalis growing anger evaporated. She blinked.

The young Knight’s cheeks remained a steady crimson as she cast her eyes down. “You didn’t hear that.”

“Hear what?”

The queen reached down and laid a hoof on the girl’s head. She pushed out the inside of her cheek with her tongue and sighed. “Regardless of how reckless or stupid you were in following me, Cozy,” she said quietly. “I am... glad you did. And for what it’s worth... I...”

Cozy slowly looked up at her. Their eyes met and her lower lip trembled.

A short and polite cough from nearby made them both look around, and see Thorax approaching them. “We’re ready to go, Chrysalis,” he said softly. “Shall we?”

Chrysalis glared at him and twitched her eyes. “Very well,” she sighed, removing her hoof of Cozy’s head. “Tell your... changelings to follow me, then. And try to keep up. I don’t want to spend time here any longer than necessary.”

Celestia didn’t join the Knights as they started the long march to the surface, instead staying beside the young nymph she had been speaking with, whose parents were apparently amongst those that had fallen. Chrysalis was neither glad nor sad about the princess’s sudden cold shouldering, for she herself felt like she needed some space. Echoes of what had happened rang out in her mind. Seeing Celestia’s face twist into that of a demon. Seeing Pupa stand by her mother and them both escape.

She felt sick, and felt that little could help to ease her discomfort.

The journey through the tunnels was not as quiet as it was before, being accompanied by a few of the changelings talking to each other, some still softly weeping. Chrysalis felt nothing but a cold emptiness inside of her for them, even as something brush against her leg. She looked and saw Cozy’s head start to droop, veering herself off course and into the queen’s path. 

The cold emptiness started to fill itself with something as Chrysalis quietly ignited her horn and levitated the filly onto her back, nestling her in between her wings.

She decided that when they got home and as soon as she was able, she was going to put herself to bed as well. It had been a long night.

And she suspected they would all have longer nights yet to come...


***


Some time later. . .


“And that’s the long and short of it.”

Chrysalis rested the blanket over the now sleeping Cozy, the young Knight haven fallen asleep long ago. Her words hung heavy in the air, bringing with them a sense of dread, like dark and unruly thunderclouds gathering in the distance.

The eyes of Tempest Shadow and Tirek flicked towards one another before the latter focused back on Chrysalis. “So your... aunt is working with your mother now?” the commander said slowly.

“Yes,” Chrysalis grunted, her mouth curving downwards. “The miserable cur. As to where they have both gone to, I... cannot say.” She sighed and rustled her wings, starting to pace back and forth. “But, what I do now of them, is that they could be anywhere, have anyone in their pockets--including Twilight for all her bluster. Pupa is the Witch Queen for a reason, Commander,” she persisted.  “She was named after an ancient changeling god of trickery.”

“Isn’t that a touch redundant?” Tirek snorted.

The queen glared at him, not breaking her stride. “And Imago...” she continued, gritting her teeth, “Imago is ruthless. She will not stop until she has what she wants.”

“And she wants... you, right?” Tempest finished for her, regarding her with cautious, worried eyes.

“Indeed.”

The dark mare scratched her chin, the sound of her hoof touching her coarse coat the only sound as the first few rays of dawn broke through the nearby window. “So what do we do?” she asked finally. “Go looking for her?”

Chrysalis shook her head, slowing her pace to a halt. “And where would we start? Every graveyard in Equestria? A mass hunt for any and all burial sites no matter how grand or small?”

Tempest twitched the edges of her eyes at her. 

“Are you suggesting, then, that we simply wait?” Tirek asked. “That we do nothing?”

“No you dull creature, but rather we keep doing what we are doing. We flit off to every and all corner of Equestria we can, defending its people wherever we are needed.”

“How noble,” the centaur grunted dismissively. 

Tempest watched Chrysalis carefully. She sounded different. More sure of herself as a Nightmare Knight, more serious in her duties. A proud smile threatened to tug at the corners of her mouth. “What about Celestia?” she said. “Where is she? I thought she’d want to come back with you. Is she okay?”

Chrysalis flinched, having deliberately left out the part about Daybreaker once more. “Celestia has gone to Princess Twilight, with Thorax, to seek help in rebuilding their Hive, to... fix it.”

The commander murmured to herself and bobbed her head up and down. “Makes sense. How are you doing, Chrysalis?”

“Me?”

The queen inspected her hoof, now without any holes or patches. 

“I am tired, Commander.”

“Go and get some rest,” Tempest told her. “Tirek and I can handle the next job if you want--something going on in Ponyville. Shouldn’t take too long, right, T?”

Tirek nodded along with her. “Yes, rather mundane in comparison.”

Chrysalis fluttered her wings gently. “A few hours is all I need.”

“Take whatever you want. The dead aren’t going anywhere.”

The Knights reminded her of a hive, Chrysalis thought. A family. More of a family than her own flesh and blood. She inclined her head towards the dark mare and stepped to one side to let them pass. Tirek gently brushed his fingers against Cozy’s mane, looking down at her thoughtfully, then glanced up at Chrysalis.

They shared a knowing, mutual agreement sort of look.

Tempest noticed it, too, and smiled to herself as she reached the door. “Come on, Tirek. Let’s go.”