//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 - Internal Dissent // Story: The Chrysalis Letters // by A bag of plums //------------------------------// The next day at the spa went quietly, for the most part. Dahlia returned from her job at the castle with an uncharacteristically grim look on her pony face. “What’s the matter?” Aeon asked as he sat behind the lobby’s counter table. “Has there been a development?” “I knew it! There has been, hasn’t there!” Golden Lily dropped down from the ceiling before the cloth she had been using fluttered down on top of her snout. “Chrysalis wasn’t going to listen to the mistress and only bad things could come out of that!” “I couldn’t agree more.” Ruby Gleam groaned and smacked her head on the table counter. “She always makes things worse. So what happened, Dahlia?” “I overheard some guardsponies talking,” Dahlia reported. She sat down on one of the many chairs in the lobby and massaged her temple with a hoof. “There’s grave news.” “What?” Golden Lily asked eagerly. “The batpony patrol that was sent out to the badlands,” Dahlia told them. “They returned just as my shift was ending. Or at least what was left of them.” Spirit Wave came out from the nearest massage room, carrying a stack of fresh towels. “What did you say?” She asked suspiciously. “Apparently the sole survivor came back with a story that Chrysalis attacked the ponies that were sent out to the badlands and killed all but one of them,” Dahlia watched as the expression on her mistress’s face grew from incredulous to shocked and finally to fuming. “Let me guess, the survivor must’ve said something like…” Lily put on a weird face and changed her voice. “The others were massacred, and I was the only one who made it back alive. I consider myself to be lucky. Did they say that?” “I don’t think they were in any shape to be speaking,” Dahlia replied glumly. “But you know what this means, don’t you?” An uncomfortable silence settled on the group of spa ponies. “That... daft… wretched…!” Ruby Gleam mushed her hooves into her mane and messed it in anguish. Spirit Wave stood there, the only thing moving was her chest as she took in deep breaths. “I told her…” she mumbled through gritted teeth. “I told her not to…” She spun around and marched for her room, dropping the towels onto the floor in a heap. She stomped through the doorway and already had a scroll and a quill floating towards her. “The next time I see her, I’ll wring her neck myself!” she fumed and sat herself down hard on the chair before placing the feather tip on her scroll. “If it weren’t for my loyalty to the queen, I’d have already done that years ago.” Dear Chrysalis,  I kindly ask with all due respect. HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?! I told you to lay low and specifically NOT to engage the ponies. They already have enough of a reason to hate our kind, and killing more of them IS NOT GOING TO HELP. Now you’ve given them an agenda and a greater motive to find and capture you more than ever. They’re not going to leave you alone now and they certainly will not leave us alone! Can you please, for once in your life, listen to me? I’m trying to save all of us here, but if you don’t listen, our kind will be doomed. Unfortunately, what’s done is done, even if what was done was inconceivably acted upon with a mind of deceased brain cells. Please, I am asking not just as your advisor, but as your sister, hide yourself and don’t make this any worse than it has to be. Your sister and TACTICIAN, Psithyra Rolling up the scroll, Spirit Wave lit it with her horn and sent it away in a puff of magic. She stood there in the middle of her room, her breath coming out in warm pants and her fangs bared. This was not going to be easily fixed, she knew. There had been no fatalities in the actual invasion itself, so there had still been a chance at salvaging something from the whole misbegotten plot. But now…  Ponies were anything but forgiving. They would remember this and they would be out for blood. Changeling blood. Somepony would have to pay for the deaths of those guards, even if they lacked skill in combat, even if they thought they could be a match for the queen of changelingkind. “As if life could get any harder now…” Spirit Wave put a hoof to her forehead and closed her eyes. “What’s next? Chrysalis blowing up half of Canterlot?” Spirit Wave stopped herself. She didn’t want her words coming true, though she wouldn’t be surprised at this point if her sister were to try something as ludicrous as that. “No, no. There’s nothing I can do now,” Spirit Wave mumbled to herself irritably. “Except wait.” She hated waiting. She dreaded the thought of her sister doing something equally if not more ludicrous than the last. Her letters since the wedding had proven that things could still progress far below her expectations.  “If she could have just followed the plan, we might have Canterlot by now…” Not, she thought with grim satisfaction, that she didn’t already own it. But controlling the city from the shadows using subterfuge and coercion just didn’t compare to actually stepping in and subjugating everypony. She could see the appeal, yes, but things had to be done properly. Spirit Wave waited until her breathing and heart rate returned to normal before leaving her room. The rest of her staff had finished cleaning up the spa for the day and were loosely assembled in the foyer, waiting for their mistress. “Shall I get cooking, then?” Ruby Gleam said once her boss was fully in the foyer. “Or are we going out to eat?” “I think we shall remain here for now,” Spirit Wave instructed. “I am awaiting a reply from my esteemed sister, and I need to have a pen and parchment ready for a reply.” Ruby bowed her head. “Of course, mistress.” The rest of the staff went to get changed out of their work uniforms and to wash up for dinner. Aeon passed by Spirit Wave and said, “I'll catalogue today’s findings,” he paused, as if bracing himself. “I hope your sister listens to you.” “I hope so too…” Spirit Wave shook her head in disgust. “It’s as though she’s just doing the opposite of everything I say. I mean, what’s the point of having an advisor if you’re never going to listen to her? My suggestions and plans are for the good of all changelingkind, and for some reason, she just refuses to see that. I really don’t get her sometimes…” “Truthfully, mistress, I don’t think any of us do.” Aeon picked up his clipboard and a quill. “But I suppose we can only hope at this point.” Aeon bowed to Spirit and trotted off into the building to file away the day’s discoveries. His mistress stood there in silence for a moment before going downstairs to help with cooking. The rest of the evening passed without any letters arriving. Dinner was a solemn affair, with nothing but the sound of cutlery scraping on plates and the diners chewing their food. Even Golden Lily, who usually enjoyed commenting on the taste of food, was silent. It seemed everypony was brooding over the fact that things might just get worse from here. Might was a very strange word. It implied that things would go badly, but at the same time, there was that tiny sliver of hope that it would not. But it was so tiny there was almost no point in looking for it. Almost. And that was what Spirit Wave was thinking of as she sat there, her food mostly untouched. She willed for her sister to listen, to keep down and to just stay out of trouble for once. Over the millenia, they had never been hunted this intently. Never, even after all of Chrysalis’ mess ups. This by far, has been the worst experience, and Spirit Wave herself had gotten so used to living a normal life right under the snouts of their enemies that she had forgotten what living on the edge had felt like. Just thinking about it made her stomach sour and she felt like rushing to the bathroom to clear that up.  Spirit Wave ate a few more mouthfuls of food, then decided to call it a day. Bidding everyone else goodnight, she retired to her room, leaving everyone else at the dinner table. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her like this,” Snowy Skies said quietly after a few minutes. “Queen Chrysalis really should listen to her sister.” “We know,” Aeon said tiredly. “If she had, we might be in a very different position right now.” “You mean sitting on the throne of Canterlot?” Golden Lily sighed. “We had one shot. I don’t think we’ll be able to pull something like this off again. Canterlot’ll be on high alert for us after this.” Lily spooned some greens into her mouth and closed her eyes. “Dahlia, what’s the general mood in the castle recently?” “They’re all agitated.” The maid put another spoonful in her mouth. “They want blood. And you can only imagine what they would do now.” “Ah great,” Ruby Gleam clapped both her front hooves to her face. “We’re really in it this time, aren’t we?” “More than ever.” Aeon rested his head on one hoof. “All we have now is hope and the queen.” “That’s not saying much.” Ruby snorted. “Especially on that second point. I think we should just get ready to move. You never know when they’ll come knocking again.” “Moving right now would be suspicious,” Silent Moon pointed out. “Ponies are just getting used to things returning to normal around here. If this spa suddenly vanishes, there will be questions. Not to mention all the stuff we have stored in the caves can’t exactly be moved under the eyes of the ponies.” The table was silent for a while. Finally Ruby Gleam spoke up. “I know I’m not the only one thinking it. Why doesn’t our princess take the throne, or start a new hive? It would probably be more prosperous and successful than what we’ve currently got.” Nopony said anything at first.  Then Aeon said coldly, “That is borderline treason, and you know it, Ruby. Our mistress cannot and will not take the throne for reasons we all know well.” “I’m just saying. She would make for a much better queen than that stuck up, good for nothing, incredible brute of a brain dead carcass.” Ruby shrugged. “We would certainly be living better lives. Hay, we would even have Canterlot!” Dahlia and Aeon looked at Ruby frostily, while the rest of the table grew even more still. “We all swore to be loyal to the hive and the queen. Nothing can change that.” “Queen Chrysalis may not be the perfect, ideal ruler,” Dahlia continued. “But she is what we have, so we may as well deal with it. Calling her names isn’t going to help.” “It does help, so you two know.” Ruby folded her hooves. “I feel a lot better now. And we already do so much for the good of the hive, and here we are. I can’t imagine what it’s like for the regular drone, always having to do Chrysalis’ bidding. I pity future squelchlings being born under her. They don’t yet know what they’ll be getting into.” Nobody seemed to have anything more to say, either due to fear of being rebuffed by Aeon and Dahlia, or because they secretly agreed with Ruby. Better for it to remain a mystery. After putting the dirty plates into the sink, the six spa ponies went back to their rooms for the night, all of them silently dreading what would come of the newest development. The sun dawned the next morning without the barest hint of a letter. Psithrya made a note of this and a small pit formed in her stomach that she was sure wasn’t from hunger. She knew her sister well, and she would’ve likely, but unfortunately, ignored all her valid argument points and would’ve gone straight to crafting a horrid response in the form of insults. And when there was nothing she could come up with because all of Psithyra’s points were valid, she usually just left it, and that was what bothered her this moment. The last thing she needed was for her sister to ignore her now. “Good morning, mistress,” Silent Moon greeted as Spirit Wave left her room. “Dahlia went to work early today to see what the ponies will do next.” “That’s nice of her to do,” Spirit Wave said, taken slightly by surprise at Dahlia’s initiative. That was what they needed right now: everypony working for the good of the hive. It was unfortunate her sister didn’t seem to understand that. “We’ve got two appointments scheduled today,” Aeon came into the foyer, clipboard in hoof. “Not counting any surprise guests we might get through the rest of the day.” “At least it helps take our mind off the situation…” Snowy dipped a hoof in the pond. “Things used to be good. Sometimes I just wish I could drift through the pond and go back in time.” “Yes, well…” Aeon sighed, but otherwise did not seem at all bothered. “We open in an hour. I suggest we all get freshened up for today’s shift.” “Yeah, yeah,” Ruby said, emerging from a side door, fixing her name tag. “Another day, another new batch of secrets and shames to add to our collection, hey?” “Oh, yes indeed,” Ruby’s mistress seemed a little more upbeat today. “Not to mention our spa has a reputation to uphold. We can’t let our title as one of the most prestigious massage parlors in Canterlot slip, now can we?” “No, we cannot,” Snowy Skies agreed. “I’ll just go see if the bar has enough ice. Nothing like a cold, stiff drink after a nice massage session.” She trotted off to the room that contained all of the spa’s alcohol. The day passed about as normally as Spirit Wave could expect. She did a little work as Harpsy Chord, playing her harp to relax the guests who stopped by to relax, and managed to suss out a few pearls of gossip for the stash. By closing time, everypony was feeling rather more chipper than the previous day.  “Well done, everypony,” Spirit Wave told her employees as they began to clean up. “I think we’re well onto getting back on track, as far as service goes. What should we do for dinner?” “I don’t mind cooking,” Ruby Gleam offered as she and Golden Lily hoof-bumped. “I think we still have some protein left in the fridge.” “Sounds good.” As Ruby went off to the kitchen to start cooking, the doors to the spa swung open. Dahlia had let herself in, and she looked pale and slightly ill, even while disguised as a pony. Still looking stricken, Dahlia sat down in the lobby, breathing shallowly. “Dahlia?” Aeon asked quietly, coming over. Snowy Skies handed Dahlia a glass of water. “What’s wrong? Did something happen at the castle?” Spirit Wave felt a familiar pit begin to form in her gut. Changeling intuition was never wrong, and something deathly awful must have happened if the unshakeable Dahlia was in such bad shape. “What do you have to report?” Spirit Wave asked, looking Dahlia in the eyes. “Tell me.” The castle maid gulped another breath of air and said in a trembling voice, “It’s Queen Chrysalis, mistress. She… she’s been captured.”