//------------------------------// // Focus // Story: Emerald Eyes // by TheApostate //------------------------------// ‘The Prince of Crows rises where twilight beckons.’ - Changeling quote. [Couple of years later;] The Batpony sighed lengthily. ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Cadance. ‘Something on your heart?’ She smiled. ‘Why do I bother?’ she mumbled. ‘You’ve volunteered to help me gather crystals. Blame it upon yourself,’ she laughed. ‘If I am the problem, please tell.’ She had hoped Cadance would have not heard her. ‘No, Princess Cadance. You are by far the least of my problems.’ She paused. ‘It just is taking too long.’ ‘Ha!’ exclaimed Cadance. ‘My same line of thinking when I was under Canterlot. I think Celestia had told me of that place before. Weird, I had to wait for a Changeling to remind me of it. Not that it is bizarre for a Changeling to do so, mind you.’ She put a hoof on Coccinelle’s shoulder. ‘But it was the least of my expectations.’ ‘Hm.’ Coccinelle rolled her eyes and continued mining. ‘Those undergrounds were once used as a sort of temporary prison for wayward Unicorns not capable of controlling their abilities. I could have landed there,’ Cadance moved rocks and broke two geodes in half, then examined the blue and white crystals within, ‘when I was young.’ ‘When you were a new Alicorn?’ ‘Difficult to control yourself when bestowed with new powers. I knew how to fly, but not that whole magic thing. I almost blew up my room with Celestia in.’ She laughed awkwardly. ‘Good thing you don’t have to worry about either of those aspects.’ ‘Lucky, I guess.’ She taped a rock to let it fall. It continued toward an oblivious Cadance until it hit her on the leg. Coccinelle did not excuse herself. ‘You should be more careful.’ ‘The hazards of my work.’ Cadance crooked her head and winced. ‘Indeed. It arrives.’ Coccinelle shrugged. Cadance ignored her and began to hum a song. It sounded familiar in a way Coccinelle could not pinpoint. It reminded her, perhaps, of school; her math teacher used to sing them songs they liked. She never participated and was ridiculed for her unwillingness to do so. She did not hate nor like these moments, but compared to other lessons, his used to be the most entertaining. Her grades were good, so no hard feelings on the professor’s part. Cadance changed the song, louder this time. Cooky used to run away when she would put a song up. She did not get another cat after his death. Chrysalis had offered two kittens, but none had the detachment Cooky had. She eventually came to gift them to Alkanex. And after his demise, she took care of the two. They were left to freely roam the Hive. At some point, she never saw them again. It was better that way. To have fewer things made her somewhat tied to Chrysalis. Coccinelle thought of running away from all the stupidity that she made her life be. But she was tracked. Chrysalis knew exactly where she was and the form she inhabited. Desperax tried to run away – he was killed less than a few months after his run. Chrysalis will never remember. She would always lie and hide the truth. The whole thing could have been a charade from the very start, and Seli – the real one – dead. A falsification of grand amplitude just to take a grab of her. The Queen of old was capable of this. Chrysalis was turning madder and madder by the year. Her drumming did not abate by the slightest; only accelerating and becoming more frequent. Her orders turned more random and nonsensical. At one point, so desperate was she to be left alone to play with her old camera, she ordered the entire palace be evacuated for an entire day. A day that stretched into five as she forced the returnees out. When she eventually let them back in, they found their Queen sitting on the flour, staring aimlessly at the clouds above. Coccinelle had sat beside her, but to all the mare’s attempts, Chrysalis had remained silent. The air in the palace running foul. ‘Are you ashamed?’ Coccinelle had asked, attempting to make it pass as a jest. ‘Is that realization?’ Chrysalis did not answer. She looked more exhausted than ever before. Her skin bared the sign of recent altercations. ‘What did you take pics of? Can I see?’ ‘The camera is broken,’ she whispered, emotionlessly. ‘I broke it.’ Coccinelle did not want to know how – it seemed obvious now. ‘You can get a new one.’ ‘I lost my rosary.’ Her expression remained unchanged. ‘You still have the crown.’ ‘I hate it,’ she rasped. She got up and yelled as she exited a room desperately needing of cleaning, ‘It is not my emeralds!’ From allegiance to allegiance. From a crown to another. From one that wore it proudly and nobly, to one once good but now hateful creature. Coccinelle betrayed Equestria and her kind and continued to do so. She knew Chrysalis laid some sort of twisted attachment to her. Something that kept her in check, tethered to a reality that she felt hated her. To prevent further calamity from falling upon Equestria, better let the clock turn. Maybe she could establish herself anew in that Crystal Empire… She had worked her way to get alone time with Cadance. Her colleagues hated the methods and politicking she took part in for that honor, relocating to the Empire should be simple. ‘Princess…’ ‘Yes?’ ‘How do you accept that a friend you once held dear, a friend you’ve been looking forward to reunite with for years, turns out to be dead?’ ‘That’s a lot in just one question.’ ‘It is my question, though.’ Cadance snorted. Coccinelle laughed softly; the question was a silly one, yes. ‘Is the Crystal Heart truly the heart of the Crystal Empire?’ she asked Cadance. ‘Yes.’ ‘Can it truly propagate love to others?’ ‘Yes.’ Coccinelle took her breath in. ‘Must have been an experience to rule over a people like yours, no?’ ‘Better die than to rule over scum like you.’ A low chime slithered down the mare’s soul, puncturing her ears in a ravenous wave of unrestrained fury. ‘Hein?’ ‘Greetings, Creature,’ Lonima hissed. A jaw lined with serrated teeth replaced Cadance’s beatific expression, and a reptilian tail wrapped Coccinelle’s neck with slashing speed. Predatory, bright, purple eyes glared down at her as long, slashing claws seamlessly cleaved through Coccinelle’s belly. Then Lonima ran the claw up her victim’s flesh like pushing in new snow, tearing through Coccinelle’s clothes. She reached the mare’s heart and grabbed it, held on to it, and clenched it. In a last motion, in a last act of loyalty, one she knew no one will remember but benefit all O so greatly, Coccinelle bit Lonima, piercing the skin with her fangs, releasing a deadly toxin within the shifting form of the Deranged. I did good, at the end… She made a shy, blood-covered smile. Fuck you, Luna… she last thought before falling into her final good night. No scream was heard; only the echo of bone snapping rippled through the empty cavern, followed by the lamenting yelps of a wounded animal. Only a call followed. A call with only a recipient. **** Her gaze was lost on the polished, black tiles of the throne room. She expected no one to come that day – she had made sure of it. The tremendous downfall in the aftermath of the Canterlot Disaster had sapped everything out of her. More came out in complaint of her failed endeavor; more came out to admonish her rule, for her to end it and step down. Once loyal subjects rebelled and declared her rule illegitimate outright as the once united army broke into infighting. Some joined back their home hive, others stayed under the service of the Queen, and others still became their own entities. One of the leaders of her armed forces, Flavian, had the audacity to name himself king in Chrysalis’s stead by making his troops believe she had perished in the sorrow of her defeat. In the Battle of the Sardonic Hills, she showed herself to them, but they did not care. They attacked her, and in the subsequent fighting, Chrysalis thought she had heard her being named as a traitor to her kind. The usurper perished, and with him, all the flames of rebellions as her agents enacted her purges of the higher-ups. And for the past years, the situation had stabilized. Her fingers twitched in awkward motions. She pressed them on the handle. She knew the effort to be futile, but the act of giving a damn about a thing she could not control was somewhat satisfying. The air caressing her naked neck gave her a pause in the brief satisfaction wrought. Her horn hurt, then. As always, she ignored it, not registering it. Yesterday, she had enjoyed a small concerto in the garden. Alone. If anything, she recalled the sound of music more keenly than any other. Chrysalis could hum and recite every melody and every song, from every artist she came across or sought. She welcomed all instruments but explicitly prohibited percussions. The sound pained her too much for it to be even slightly appreciable. In the garden, it had been the same melody she used to enjoy listening to in the early years of her reign. It was an old song, a very old song. Ancient even. Perhaps the first ever song recorded on stone or paper in history. It counted as a tale. The tale of a beginning, of when all began. The first recorded epic of history. It went as so: In those days, In those distant days, In those nights, In those ancient nights, In those years, In those distant years, In those ancient days when all things had been created, In ancient times when all things were given their place, When bread was first tasted in the Land, When the ovens had been lighted, When the heavens had been separated from the Earth, When the Earth had been separated from the heavens, When Changelings had been established […] She hummed the song, playing its melody with her fingers. A story retold again and again until, maybe, nothing of the original remained. A clan had made sure to preserve the song through the ages, a group she had prevented from falling into oblivion. Chrysalis sighed. She closed her eyes, sleep slowly invading her mind. The door opened. Their past, their heritage as a race had been preserved through her actions. That she knew to have succeeded. But for the future, she lamented her failures. She failed – that was the final statement of her reign. Canterlot was a failure. Diversifying raid sources was a failure, only bringing more animosity. Her experiments were a failure. She had creatures killed for a goal unattainable. She knew already of the “evil” character she was being depicted as, be it within her domain or outside of it – and she did not care. Chrysalis will be remembered in the books as a tyrant, as evil incarnate, and she did not care. It did not matter. There was solace in this thought. Everything will be forgotten eventually, and she won’t escape that inevitability. Thus was her curse, self-inflicted, and thus she accepted it. ‘I should leave,’ she thought aloud. She wanted to sleep. She could dream of success, but no more. Coccinelle will return one day. She had to remember. She must… She wanted to have that true good night. Maybe that Crystal Empire will be the key. Maybe it will all be in vain… Maybe she could finally have that good night… Maybe she should stop bothering. ‘The Arriver is dead, my Queen,’ a female voice said. Chrysalis lifted her eyes, expecting the voice to be coming from far away. She had been looking directly at the messenger. ‘Repeated,’ she disinterestedly said, waving away with a snarl at the error of language. ‘The Arriver is dead, my Queen.’ Chrysalis pondered long, endeavoring to comprehend what each word meant. ‘No,’ she whispered between clenched teeth. ‘We have the body, my Lady.’ Chrysalis demanded for it to be brought in front of her. She wanted to sleep. The Queen opened the black bag with a solemn expression. It was a corpse – the definition applied perfectly. Though to call the ravaged creature in front of her Coccinelle, was a stretch her mind could not reconcile. The heart was gone, crushed utterly. The neck was twisted, seemingly capable of being distorted in every possible direction. ‘How were you informed?’ asked Chrysalis, disinterestedly. ‘The local Canterlotian force enforcements had received a message of a body found where Princess Cadance had gone – in the crystal mines of the capital. She was not there; Cadance was in Manehattan per Argentax’s report. It was Agacris that told me of the Arriver’s death. And, my Queen, the corpse of Lonima was found too. Dead by poison,’ concluded Captain Nefethor. ‘Her body?’ ‘In the crematory.’ It was how her predecessor, Alkanex, had proceeded. It was only then that Chrysalis took note of the smell of putrefying flesh started to fill the air. ‘When was this reported?’ she almost accused. Nefethor frowned. ‘As soon as I was told of it, my Queen.’ Chrysalis nodded and walked back to her throne – not sitting upon it. ‘Leave me,’ softly said Chrysalis. Nefethor obliged. Things never change. Things revert to an original point at some point. Chrysalis was used to that statement. Truly, her life was in vain. ‘All is gone,’ she mumbled, staring blankly at Coccinelle’s ruined corps. ‘Alkanex would- hng…’ She tried to focus on other thoughts. But, once again, began her mind to churn. It roiled in a cascade of overlapping imaginings, each she strove to push aside. However, the avalanche could not be ceased. A spike of pain brought down her head, almost crumbling her legs. She closed her eyes and tried to focus. She tried to forget – to ignore – her pain. This world hates me, she rasped internally. Her pain eased at it. Focus! she cried in brief relief. Chrysalis raised her head and snarled. Her temper flared. ‘Gone because of them!’ she roared, stomping the ground with the force of an elephant. The pupils in her eyes stilled, sharpening like diamonds. ‘No mercy. Equestria will burn. Equestria will fall. The Alicorns will curse the day they put us in that situation. All will burn. The honest and deceitful. The sturdy and weak. The loving and the hating. All will burn in the fires of my wrath. No pity. No remorse. No-’ She paused to take a deep breath and clean her face. ‘No… No! Not like that! The paths have proven untrustworthy. A burden!’ She felt her head being freed from an immense burden. She became more focused, a cold, cold focus, like a sensation that had eluded her until then. ‘The Serpent calls. The Stars call. No other matter. Power is held in those alone. For long have we let things stir. For long have we accepted the status quo. No longer. The Alicorns will finally fall, and I will be their tempest. I will be the end and the death. I will make the Changelings rule echo through eternity! I will be the Changer of Ways!’