A while after Discord disappeared from the castle, I take Aita to bed so that he- wait… SHE can get some rest, Carve accompanying me. We don’t say anything until we start back for the throne room.
“So, Discord was right. Aita’s turned the identity…” Carve turns her head to face me. “Chrysalis, I know for a fact that I’m ready to accept your throne, but not everyone was ready to hear that, especially not her.”
“I’m aware, Carve. I’m sorry I let the announcement slip so soon after Celestia and Luna’s. If I didn’t know Starlight and Sunburst were an item, I’d be more willing to delay my retirement, and now it’s not so simple. But I swear I will make it up to Aita.”
As we pass the library, I float a loose scroll from a pile on the roundtable as well as a quill, beginning to write a letter for advice on what I should do.
“So, where are you going to live now?” Carve inquires as I start writing.
“I was originally going to stay with Mother, but that’s obviously off the roundtable. But, I suppose living here won’t be so bad…” While writing, I suddenly make a connection about Aita and her past. “Um, Carve? Do you think Aita’s reaction stems from having to leave the real world?”
“I… I think you’re right. Losing Carina is what lost your trust in mostly everybody there. It wasn’t exactly a smooth move for Aita. But it was obviously for the better for Twilight, considering how she and I first met.”
I sign my name and put the last period on the bottom of the scroll and send the completed letter to its recipient using magic. “There. Our guest should be here any minute.”
“Who is it?”
“After Aita, Sunburst and Starlight’s adventure to Sire’s Hollow, Aita told me how he- excuse me… she got to suggest going there in the first place. And her imitation just so happened to resemble one of Cranky’s friends.”
At the castle throne room, Carve and I sit on Rarity and Pinkie’s thrones respectively, exchanging songs with our wings, one in particular that I play being the same one I performed for Carve a year ago. We hear a knock on the door, prompting me to hover over and open it. Behind the door is revealed to be a white upright wolf.
“Ah, Greetings Chrysalis, Carve.”
“Come on in George, and have a seat.”
George, as the wolf is called, gets on all fours and runs to Fluttershy’s throne as I hover back to Pinkie’s.
“So, you wrote to me, saying to meet you here. Tell me what’s on your mind,” George causally and calmly commands.
“Well you see… did you hear the news?” I ask him.
“The princesses retiring? Yes if that’s what you’re asking.”
I sigh relief that George knows. “Good. Then you already have the context of this conundrum. It looks like with Twilight and Spike taking the princesses’ place, and Starlight moving in with Sunburst, that I will need to retire myself and take care of this castle due to the remaining resident - Aita the changeling - being a child. He… um, she… didn’t take any of the news very well.”
“Ah, I can see you’re telling the truth, judging by how you corrected yourself,” George evalutates, hammer-spacing a pen, paper and clipboard. “This had to’ve been a recent development as well. Tell me what symptoms this young changeling experienced.”
Carve starts listing off everything that we noted of, which George writes down. “Quivering, sweating, hyperventilation, headache, anterograde amnesia, body dysmorphia.”
George scratches his head. “Oh dear… Aita must’ve taken the news pretty hard. Symptoms like those tends to point to a nervous breakdown. Unfortunately Chrysalis, there doesn’t appear to be anything you can do about changing plans, unless you talk to Starlight.”
“I’ll talk to her anyway,” I announce. “I am aware Sunburst is special to her. But I’d rather have my changelings in top mental condition. I’ll even talk to Aita if need be.”
George taps his cheek with the pen. “Actually, I was thinking that was the first thing you should do.”
I look up to the Golden Oak Chandelier. “The first thing?”
There are many gems hanging from the roots, each having a memory from as recent as four years ago. One of them shows the time Carve and I first made up, but right before that very moment, when two of the changelings went to protect me from the Elements of Harmony, who were cornering me after all I’d done at that point. They’d been there for me, even at my worst.
Carve taps me. “What’s that you’re looking at?”
“One of the gems up there… it appears to visualize the very moment before we made up. I still remember it like it was yesterday.” That moment makes George’s statement click. My eyes widen. “You’re right, George. It took a minute to realize, but it is because of my changelings’ devotion for me that I’ve gotten through my even worst moments. I shall repay each and every one of them, even if they live outside the hive, and that includes Aita.”
George nods, signifying that was exactly what he was thinking.
“Thanks, George. I may be retiring soon, but I still have dues as queen to pay.”
“Happy to be of service, Chrysalis. Thanks for inviting me here.”
So, George leaves the pen and clipboard on the map as he walks on two’s back the way he came.
“So… where does this leave us? We talk to Aita?” Carve asks me.
“I will talk to Aita. She needs me more than anyone else. Go get Starlight and Twilight and meet me in front of her room. From there, we will update the princesses in Canterlot with the three of them in tow about Aita’s situation.”
“I’m on it, Chrysalis.”
Carve dashes out of the throne room, leaving me the only one left in here. I sigh.
“I really hope this works, that George was right.”