//------------------------------//
// The Wolf's Howl 
// Story: The Queen and The Infinite 
// by TheApostate 
//------------------------------//

‘So you met them?’ asked the voice.

She did not answer.

‘If you had been taught right, you know to answer to the ruler in their domain.’

‘It is my mind,’ she said behind gritted teeth.

‘A point well-made. But I am the Mistress of Dreams, and I sensed your tribulations. I arrived.’

‘And I am Queen.’

‘With no land nor people.’

Chrysalis stayed quiet. Luna sensed her seething; she saw the living dark turmoiling void surrounding the apparition of the Changeling. The accumulated bottled-up resentments and sentiments.

Luna did not dare to approach her. It was already enough. She had done enough.

‘Why are you here?’ asked Chrysalis in a voice that terrified Luna for its familiarity. ‘You should not have been here. It is my prison. I don’t want a weak-minded wannabe ruler here.’

‘You met the Infinite and his peers?’ Luna asked.

‘Yes. Now leave.’

She recalled her sister’s and Starlight’s words about the methods utilized by the Infinite in their “discussions”. But for Chrysalis’s case, it must have been different – she felt. She wasn’t an Alicorn, nor was she… young. She could be gravely hurt. ‘I just want to check-’

She turned green, baleful lanterns peered behind the void-fog and shouted in a piercing howl. ‘You are in breach of our agreement!’

It threw Luna to an imaginable distance. The Princess stopped her unending fall. She felt… dizzy. It should not have been happening there.

‘You are weak!’ Chrysalis shouted once more. She snarled like a wounded wolf, ready to jump into its prey once again. ‘I’ll be back for you in revenge for a broken contract!’

‘Aren’t you overreacting?’ shouted Luna, something gnawing in the back of her mind.

‘I humiliated the Infinite. I made him shut up! Something neither of you accomplished! I am Queen! Remember this! Leave!’

‘You have no authority here!’

‘It is my realm!’ The shout rumbled the world, making Luna stumble. ‘You are weak, Luna. Harkening yourself to the very scant authority you can wield. An act to fool yourself into a piece of mind you so thoroughly lack.’

Luna stayed her ground. Arks of lightning of the deepest white hit in a soundless thunder; the sitting figure of the fanged, serrated teeth Queen flickered in and out of existence. Stygian claws wreathed in white flames took shape from the void, rising to meet the intruder. 

Luna stayed impassive. Nothing would harm her in her realm.

The claws reached their target. In a brief moment of doubt, as contact was made, Luna closed nothing and heard nothing, reclusing herself. She hoped the silence would soon dissipate. The silence discomforted her. Too familiar, too habituated to its unwelcomed embrace. The Princess opened her eyes, shedding the darkness. The claws were retreating. Nothing had harmed her. She wanted to believe it did not surprise her. She stayed calm. Something was creeping into her being. A ghost wound. 

Was she harmed? In her realm? 

The dream realm began to crumble. Luna left, leaving emerald-sapphire eyes radiating in the darkening void. Unsure of what had just happened, the memory immediately began to fade, replaced by the memory of howling wolves.