The atmosphere between the race and the next event was tense and volatile, simmering with accusation and resentment between the two schools. Sunset and Chrysalis escaped, pretending anxiety and distress over the whole affair - and managed to secure a quiet room together to relax and bask in what they’d wrought.
“Cheers,” Chrysalis drawled, offering Sunset a juice box. Apple, smelled like. Sunset stabbed the little plastic straw into it and took a long draught. “Well done on your part of the plan. The students are at each others’ throats; every unfair loss, judge’s scrutiny, and budding friendship broken strengthens their despair and strengthens my flock, even as their resolve weakens. Soon we will strike.”
Felt like this was getting into supervillain territory, but Sunset nodded. In for a bit … “Kinda sucks seeing someone nice as Shining Armor getting chewed out for cheating he didn’t do, though, huh?” Sunset reflected rhetorically.
“All the better to drive him further into my arms,” Chrysalis answered. “A strong spirit like his may need … some work to become amenable to joining our flock. You are simply helping him get there more swiftly.” Chrysalis gently brushed Sunset’s cheek, taking a reassuring tone. “You shall be a great leader beside me, Sunset, guiding all of these lost and hypocritical humans into a truly powerful community. With our ambition, their resources, and my magic, nothing shall stand in our way.”
Sunset stared into Chrysalis’s verdant gaze, envisioning the future Chrysalis painted for her. A fey army, confident and organized rather than scrabbling for resources in the shadows, obedient to her command - it was a heady brew.
Beside her.
She … didn’t mind the thought of sharing the top position. It’d always been in the plans; she’d hardly intended a coup against Princess Celestia after all. (Back then, at least. Currently … she felt a bit more flexible.) And Chrysalis …
Now or never.
“Chrysalis, I…” Sunset took a breath. If Chrysalis was reading her thoughts, she wasn’t letting Sunset take that as a shortcut out of this, instead patiently waiting for Sunset to express herself. (It felt a little like being toyed with. But it was probably the right thing to do.) “You’re kind of amazing, you know that?”
“I do,” Chrysalis answered, with a warm but fanged grin and without a shred of false modesty. Sunset giggled.
“Like that. That confidence. I love that,” Sunset told her, plowing forward with a smile. “And how commanding and clever and ambitious you are, leading your flock and - I appreciate everything you’ve taught me.”
“You have the seeds of greatness,” Chrysalis tells her softly. “Everything you see in me, I see in you.”
Sunset feels the blood rush to her cheeks and ears, swallows and forces the words out.
“I love you.”
Chrysalis listens, answers softly.
“I know.”
That rush of blood is roaring in Sunset’s ears and she tries to clear her head of giddy anger at the stupid reference, the non-answer, the confirmation that Chrysalis has seen her heart as she told Sunset from the start, it was idiotic to think otherwise -
Chrysalis wasn’t leaving it at that. She let the line hang for a moment, then continued to speak, still in that soft voice.
“I can taste it. Feed on what you so freely offer … to me. The saccharine sap I sup on from Shining Armor is true, powerful, sustaining - but it is for Cadenza. My flock respects me, but it is respect for their leader, as it must be.”
“With you - I am who I am. The heat of ambition, the zest of banter - it flavors your love. What is a good comparison? Perhaps the difference between dining on cake and savoring the best curry I have ever had.”
Sunset listened, anxiety temporarily displaced by a deep curiosity about Chrysalis’s sensory experiences.
“I do very much enjoy our time together,” Chrysalis tells her, “And I am drawn to who you are and who you might be. Love can distract from the pursuit of power, but we - as a team - are more powerful together. I want you as my partner when I rule. I -
I feel the same.”
They were so close, already.
Sunset leaned the rest of the short way in to seek a kiss.
And then there were no words, no anxiety. Nothing but Chrysalis, their connection, their contact, and the fire that burned with pleasure rather than pain between them.
All was right with the world, for all the time they had left.