//------------------------------//
// Chrysalis 
// Story: The Tiniest Changes 
// by Venlinelle 
//------------------------------//

Starlight considered, not for the first time, teleporting out of the train. In her new form, the energy required to teleport back to Ponyville from the base of the Canterhorn would barely even register to her magic reserves. Only the thought of Twilight’s disappointed face kept her fidgeting in her seat.
It had taken Twilight the better part of a week to convince the new alicorn to visit Canterlot, and it’d taken every argument, bribe, logical deduction, and rhetorical flourish at her disposal to do it. Normally, Starlight wouldn’t terribly mind visiting the capitol. Though the unicorn aristocracy left the city positively drenched in pretension, and she could never speak to Celestia nor Luna without the nagging feeling that she was one wrong move from being banished to the moon, it was a beautiful place, and one she could stand to get acquainted with, given her new status. She had the luxury of remaining in Ponyville now, but she couldn’t believe that could last forever; not with how Twilight’s life had gotten ever more complicated with each week that passed since her ascension. 
Faust above, she was a princess. If there was ever to be a day when she awoke and didn’t do a double-take at the fact, it was as far off as the moon she maybe wouldn’t be banished to.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t just any visit to Canterlot. Normal though the city looked from her train window as she wound through the mountains—no shimmering shield, no apparent increased security, no extra wards she could detect—it was currently playing host to a particular guest.
Queen Chrysalis had come to negotiate. 
Technically, the Hive had entered a state of negotiation with Equestria as soon as its location had been discovered. Equestria’s governance might have been lax by the standards of some, but a new city-state home to an independent species sitting on the edge of the Badlands was as much a magnet for difficult paperwork as a bowl of candied lawyers. 
After Starlight’s ascension and the events at the Hive, though, Chrysalis had requested (in a stunningly shaky message delivered by an equally shaky changeling who had fled out a window the moment Celestia offered her tea) a temporary postponement of meetings in order to “Get things in order in this abhorrently stupid situation,” as she’d put it. 
According to a letter from Celestia, today was the day the queen would finally arrive. And Twilight, in her infinite wisdom, had insisted Starlight be present.
Nevermind that she was certain to be the pony Chrysalis hated most right now, and no matter that the only part of politics Starlight had any expertise with was lying, and forget that she had a history of dealing… poorly… with high-pressure situations.
She didn’t care that the wings on her back supposedly meant she had grown enormously as a pony. The business with Trixie, Discord, and Thorax was an isolated case, she was sure. Besides—
Oh, the train had arrived. 
She swallowed, mentally reviewed the directions to the palace (she could teleport, having been there before, but that would involve arriving faster), and plodded reluctantly out.







Starlight’s footsteps echoed ominously in the hallway.
She was pacing outside a nondescript room in the palace, in a hallway decorated with Canterlot’s characteristic minimalist white decor. Rarity would love it. She’d passed a not insignificant amount of time gazing at the glorious view of the mountain and lower city after being directed here by a suspiciously kind guard. 
…Or a guard showing a new member of royalty the respect she deserved and doing the job they’d signed on to. But Starlight could never quite shake the instinct that every conversation she had with an authority figure without being thrown in a cell was a loan from fate, and that, eventually, her debt would come due.
…Twilight might have a point about the guilt complex. Maybe she should’ve volunteered to stay home and discuss that rather than coming on this trip.
Without warning, the click of the doorknob interrupted her inner monologue. She jumped; each room in this hall was enchanted so as to prevent discussions inside from being overheard by passers-by, and while she could probably have easily overcome such safeguards even before accidentally acquiring an extra set of limbs, it seemed an impolite idea.
The door swung open, and Starlight opened her mouth in relief to greet Celestia.
Instead of Celestia, she was faced with an enormous insectoid figure, with a light blue mane, an even lighter blue coat, a curved, sharp horn, and four shimmering wings. 
Ponyfeathers. 
Chrysalis had already arrived. 
Starlight’s mouth remained open. Chrysalis’s joined it in short order. 
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a staff member awkwardly standing behind the frozen changeling queen. They finally resolved to squeeze their way around her into the hallway.
“Ms– Star– er, Princess! I apologize for the wait; the Princess, um, Celestia, asked me to brief Ms, well, er, the queen, on protocol and security, and, I, um…” He (it was now apparent that he was a stallion, though she hadn’t taken her eyes off Chrysalis) seemed to realize the rapidly thickening tension in the hall, and trailed off awkwardly.
Chrysalis found her voice first. “Leave us,” she said emotionlessly.
The stallion nodded rapidly and took off so quickly it was a wonder he didn’t slip on the polished floor.
The staring contest continued.
After what seemed like an hour, Starlight’s mind managed to resume functioning, and she rapidly took several steps back from the door, as if to make up for lost time. This was okay. She would be okay. Chrysalis wouldn’t be here if the princesses didn’t trust her to stay out of trouble. Dammit, Starlight should trust her to stay out of trouble! Everypony apparently managed it for her, and she felt like she even deserved it sometimes, so why should Chrysalis be any—
“You’re drooling.”
Ah. So she was.
She hastily cleaned her jaw with a telekinetic swipe. “Sorry.”
Chrysalis sneered, the first sign of emotion other than shock she’d displayed. “Don’t apologize to me unless it’s going to be for something that actually matters.”
Starlight winced. She’d been expecting this attitude—she was used to expecting it, if for different reasons—but it still stung.
Chrysalis continued. “You know, I really thought I might never see you again.” She straightened, shoved the door closed with a flash of magic (now nearly the same color as Starlight’s), and began to pace. “How utterly foolish of me. When would I be so lucky.”
Well, that wasn’t entirely fair. “I didn’t expect this to happen,” Starlight protested, flicking a wingtip, which had an effect closer to mimicking a localized seizure than to anything she intended. “You’re royalty. I’m… royalty. We’re going to have to get used to seeing each other sometimes.” Chrysalis glowered. “It was Twilight’s idea,” she added reflexively, mentally smacking herself the instant the words came out of her mouth.
Predictably, that did little to defuse tensions. “Do you really think trying to deflect responsibility and invoking her name is going to help your case, Glimmer?” Chrysalis glared at her. “I wouldn’t care if you were the empress. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want you alive, though unfortunately I can’t do anything about that—for now.”
“Why stay, then? You can leave whenever you want.” Idiot, why am I antagonizing her?
Chrysalis lunged towards her, ending up a mere foot away and hissing furiously. The sound was arguably more terrifying coming from her soft, blue form than it ever was before. “Maybe, you insolent pony, it’s because I’m hoping I’ll overcome whatever ridiculous pretension of peace is keeping me from draining every drop of love you’ve ever felt and watching the light leave your eyes forever!”
It took every ounce of willpower in Starlight’s mind not to cower---if nothing else, simply from the height of the creature threatening her life. But if she was going to run, it wouldn’t be from an empty threat. “You couldn’t do that if you tried, and you know it. You don’t have your nullifying throne anymore, and you’ve heard what I could do before our last meeting.” She didn’t particularly enjoy pulling the ‘I’m more powerful than you’ card, but it could be satisfying on occasion. It also had the undeniable benefit of being true.
Chrysalis backed off perhaps an inch. “Oh, maybe I could, maybe I couldn’t. This city is positively stuffed with love; I could scarcely skim off the surface and feed myself better than ever before. I don’t think you want to take unnecessary risks.”
“Well, you don’t have to do that now, right?” Starlight retorted, attempting to de-escalate the conversation. She gulped as Chrysalis’s eyes narrowed. “You aren’t hungry anymore. None of you are.”
Some of the rage left the queen’s eyes. “No.” She leaned back in. “But do you really think I’d pass up a chance at the revenge I so dearly deserve because I don’t have to?”
“Yes, I do,” Starlight said, with more confidence than she felt. “Chrysalis, you’re not stupid. You know you can’t touch me here, and you probably couldn’t anywhere. You’re not going to risk your children for my sake.”
Chrysalis hissed again. “Don’t even speak of my children. You have no right.”
“Maybe not, but… Look, you called this negotiation. I can leave if you want, but I know you won’t, and I don’t know why you’re going to act like this if you really care about them!” Chrysalis opened her mouth, likely to deliver some elaborate threat, but Starlight pushed on. “I’m sorry, okay? I don’t know what I did, but I clearly hurt you somehow, and I want to be able to exist in the same city as you without this happening! Can we at least… I don’t know, try again? Get a fresh start? I know we have plenty in common.”
“When Tartarus floods and your precious sun falls out of the sky,” Chrysalis spat.
“Why? You’re already lost. Trust me, I know how you feel, but what else can happen?  What’s the point? Why can’t you accept that things are different, and the past is—”
“I will never do that!”
“Well why not?!”
“Because I’m scared!” Chrysalis shouted. 
Both of their eyes widened simultaneously. Before Starlight had time to blink, or even open her mouth in astonishment, Chrysalis had jumped back, pried open the door to the conference room, bolted in, and slammed it shut behind her. 
Oh no you don’t.
After a brief moment of shock, Starlight focused and teleported into the room Chrysalis had retreated to. She saw the queen sitting and apparently staring at a wall, before she noticed Starlight’s presence and immediately lit her horn. 
Thinking fast, and banking on the fact that Chrysalis was planning on fleeing and not disintegrating her, Starlight mentally ran through, and cast, every barrier spell she could think of on the door (she didn’t think that list used to be alphabetized, but living with Twilight for so long was sure to leave a mark). She froze the handle in a stasis enchantment, melted the lock with a burst of heat, spread a thin layer of crystal across the floor and walls like frost, and rendered the windows hard as diamond with a spell of her own design. In five seconds flat, the room was likely the most secure place in the city outside of the royal vaults.
Chrysalis’s horn had dimmed, and she was gaping at Starlight. “You… how…”
Starlight harrumphed. “I told you you couldn’t fight me without your throne. Now, what—”
“Release me at once!” the queen commanded. “I’m here on a diplomatic mission. I don’t know how you imbeciles do things around here, but you can’t act with direct hostility while I’m here.” She paused. “...I checked.”
“Who’s being hostile?” Starlight asked innocently. “I wanted a place to talk, so I created one. You’re perfectly safe—safer than almost anypony in Canterlot, actually.”
Chrysalis growled. “Don’t play—”
“And even if I was being hostile… well.” Starlight made eye contact with Chrysalis. “I was like you not that long ago, even if you don’t want to admit it. It’s really only been a few months. Try me.”
Chrysalis considered. “I could fight you.”
“You could, and it probably wouldn’t end well for either of us, and then you’d have to explain to Celestia why her favorite student’s student was injured at your hoof during a peace conference. It’d be your word against mine, and I think we both know who has the authority now.”
Starlight desperately hoped her threat rang truer to Chrysalis than it did to her own ears. But after a second, the queen’s lips curved into a small smirk. “Maybe we aren’t that dissimilar. What do you want.”
Relieved, Starlight relaxed her magic and sat down at the table, looking intently at the tall changeling now across from her. “Tell me what you meant by saying you were scared.”
Any positive emotion evaporated from Chrysalis’s face like pollen in a forest fire. “No.”
I’d hoped I wouldn’t keep Celestia waiting… again. “I’m not going to gain some advantage over you when you answer this question,” Starlight sighed. “Being understood can literally only be an advantage for you right now.”
“Knowledge is a weapon, Glimmer. I invented manipulation. Don’t tell me what is or isn’t an advantage.”
Starlight flinched. It sounded discomfitingly familiar to something the old her would’ve said. She shook her head to clear it of unwanted memories. “What do you stand to lose?”
“Myself.”
Confused, she stared at the changeling. “You mean more than your body? Because, I’m sorry, but… You’ve already changed. You’re here, in Canterlot, negotiating with ponies. You’ve already made huge progress; for your hive, sure, but also for yourself.”
Chrysalis stared back intently. Multiple times, she opened her mouth, only to shut it again. 
She inhaled.
She let out a long, long sigh, and slumped down in an ill-fitting chair.
“Fine. That is exactly my concern. Happy?”
Starlight blinked. “Your concern? You mean what you said you were—”
“I’m not saying it again.” 
That was… fair. Not something Chrysalis would get away with for long, if Starlight knew Celestia at all, but she certainly knew the feeling. 
Chrysalis continued. “Let me tell you, Glimmer, what you are. You’re powerful, yes—you’re a princess now—but fundamentally, you are just a pony.” Starlight listened, not entirely sure where this was going. “You had a perhaps unfortunate but ultimately incredibly average foalhood, you did plenty of impressive but idiotic things, and, through some ridiculous quirk of fate, ended up friends with the most powerful ponies in the world.
“Your life has consisted of you idly making one poor decision after another and bouncing back and forth around Equestria until you somehow ended up here. Sound correct?”
Starlight frowned. “...Yes, but you don’t need to be rude about it. Trust me, I’ve considered my poor decisions enough for both of us.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” Chrysalis snorted. “The point is that you are normal.” Seeing Starlight open her mouth to argue, she amended, “Relatively speaking. You told me, once, that we were similar. In the ruins of my throne room, surrounded by the debris of my failed plans, you convinced me to give up everything I was, in favor of…” She looked distastefully at her light blue, soft-furred body. “...This, by saying you knew what I felt. Well, I’m here to tell you now what I should have told you then. We are nothing alike.”
“How can you say that?” Starlight asked in disbelief. “You know what I did, right?”
“Yes, as I just explained. That’s not what I’m talking about,” Chrysalis said. She paused. “Do you know where I came from?”
Starlight opened her mouth to respond, and realized suddenly that she didn’t.
She’d wondered, idly, on the occasions she wasn’t freaking out about her new body or panicking about something or other. Twilight had even mentioned Chrysalis’s past at one point, but she hadn’t bothered to ask after further details. 
Chrysalis was watching her expectantly. No point in hiding her ignorance. “No, I don’t; I’m sorry.”
“Apologize to me again and I’ll stop caring about who blames who if we kill each other in here,” Chrysalis growled. “Well, let me enlighten you. I’m sure you imagine I have some tragic past, some excuse, some reason, some logic that let me do what I did for so long. But you’re wrong. I was born exactly the way I always was.”
“What do you mean?”
“Changelings are not a natural race, Glimmer. I would’ve thought your teacher had told you this, but I suppose she was preoccupied when it would’ve been relevant.” The queen gave a cruel smile, but it left her face rapidly. “But… We, and I, simply came into existence one day, long ago. We weren’t corrupted into our forms the way I’ve heard many of your kind speculate. We appeared, and we did what we always did best.”
Starlight wasn’t sure what that meant, though she was beginning to have an uneasy sense of what the conversation might be about. “What exactly do you mean, you… appeared?”
Chrysalis hissed. “Do you need it spelled out for you? Some ridiculous spell went wrong, or some curse went too far, or something, and I walked out of the earth.” Her voice was rising at an alarming rate. “My race, my people, my children, are an accident.”
“But that doesn’t mean anything!” Starlight protested, pushing the fascinating magical implications of such a claim aside. “It doesn’t matter where you came from, just that—”
“I don’t care where we came from! I care that you foalish, harmony-addled, insipid idiots are treating me the same way you would a pet that made a stupid mistake. I care that you don’t care.”
Starlight’s mind swirled. “You want us to treat you harshly?”
“No, I want you to stop denying reality,” Chrysalis spat. “You were a stupid foal, and the Elements treated you accordingly. You were born a blank slate, and you’ve managed to write something you can live with on it. You chose, and when it stopped working for you, you chose differently. Do you know what of my life I chose? Do you know what I did to end up queen? NOTHING! I didn’t choose to be the queen, I am the queen! My children didn’t choose to be monsters, they are! We didn’t choose to feed on love, we didn’t choose to hunt ponies, we got nothing while your kind sat here in your paradise with the world at your hooves!”
Chrysalis was panting at this point, and Starlight took her pause for breath to interject. “But you had options. You just need love, you don’t need to steal it, right? You don’t even need to take it at all, now!”
“Oh, of course, we could’ve just asked,” Chrysalis mocked. “Asked the ever-generous ponies who nearly destroyed their own species with pointless infighting to help the monsters that crawled out of a swamp. It simply never crossed my mind.”
A swamp? What—no, it wasn’t the time. “...You’re right, I suppose, but you must have known that there was some way to be better-received? Equestria had peace for a thousand years before this past decade; why wait until your hoof was forced?” Starlight wasn’t sure what she even wanted to know. She only knew that she hadn’t seen Chrysalis so emotional since her defeat at the hive months ago. How long had she been thinking on this?
Chrysalis stood up abruptly, knocking her chair over and several feet across the room. She didn’t notice or care. “Because I. Am. It. Maybe we could’ve done that. Maybe we would’ve been received with the ridiculous kindness you value so much. Or maybe we wouldn’t have—and then what? When I said I am the queen, I meant it! The only queen. Ever. I am responsible for my children because they are my children, and I am responsible for myself because I’m the only mother they will ever have. If I die, they die.” She paced faster and faster. “Equestrians have royal bloodlines. But the birthright of a changeling queen—the only changeling queen—is more than blood. It is the leadership, motherhood, and command of an entire species that fate has placed on my shoulders and that I can never, ever set down. And that is why– that’s why–”
Chrysalis’s voice caught, and Starlight’s eyes widened as she realized how disheveled the changeling queen looked. Her teeth were bared, she was blinking rapidly, and her breathing was only accelerating even after she’d stopped talking. She looked like Twilight when her mental state was in a particularly steep spiral. She looked like Starlight’s own reflection in the mirror after she broke down thinking about her new immortality all those weeks ago.
In fact, she looked like every anxious, overworked, barely-held-together pony Starlight had ever seen in her life. Starlight swallowed, her own breathing quickening at the horribly familiar image.
Questions later.
Instantly, she stood, teleported to Chrysalis’s side, and, before Chrysalis had recovered from her resulting start, Starlight placed a wing awkwardly over the taller mare and leaned into her shoulder. It was astonishingly soft.
Chrysalis froze, and looked down at Starlight in disbelief. “...What are you doing?”
Refusing to blush, Starlight looked back steadily. “Getting you to calm down.”
The queen’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly.
“If you can honestly tell me it isn’t helping, I’ll move.”
Chrysalis growled softly. Then, after a few frozen seconds, she hesitantly leaned down and placed her head on Starlight’s. Slowly, the fluttering of her chitinous wings calmed. 
Feeling Chrysalis’s breathing return to a level approaching healthy, Starlight closed her eyes and instinctively nuzzled into the queen’s shoulder softly. Then her eyes shot open as Chrysalis jumped away like she’d been struck by lightning.
Oops. 
“No. I– you– no.” Chrysalis shook her head rapidly as Starlight lost her balance and nearly collapsed onto the plush carpet. “Ugh… Tell anyone anything about… any of that, and I’ll—”
Starlight held back an unreasonably wide smile. “I know.” She stepped over to Chrysalis, careful not to touch her again so soon. “Better?”
Chrysalis mumbled something that might, in some dialect of bear only Fluttershy would be familiar with, have qualified as a ‘yes.’ Then she shook her head again, and continued. “As I was saying. That is why we’re nothing alike.”
Starlight frowned in concern. “Are you sure you want to keep talking? I think I more or less—”
“I am not a coward, or a nervous wreck, despite what I’m certain you’re thinking,” Chrysalis grumbled. “I’m not finished. Not even close. My point is that you chose your actions. My actions chose me. They chose all of us.”
Starlight didn’t want to question the still-stressed changeling too harshly—then again, she’d insisted she wanted to continue—but that brand of logic felt uncomfortably similar to what she had used herself to justify her own line of thinking back in her village. “But you still acted that way of your own accord. Even if it seemed like the only way.”
“Oh, please, don’t write me off as some repentant whelp like the rest of your motley crew,” Chrysalis sneered. Right, she’s feeling better. “I enjoyed every second of it. That was just how it worked. Have you been fed on by one of my kind, Glimmer? It isn’t pleasant. And we need– needed– we had to do it to survive. If we hadn’t enjoyed it, and if I hadn’t let myself relish every single time I watched the happiness in a helpless pony’s eyes fade, or watched a perfect lie play out, or punished a disloyal infiltrator, we would have starved a thousand years ago.” 
Starlight was not at all sure she was comfortable being in the same room as the expression Chrysalis made while reminiscing about feeding on love.
“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Chrysalis said, rolling her eyes. “I couldn’t do it now even if I wanted to. But this is exactly what I mean. This is what I am. It has always been what I am. So when you ask why I’ve done what I have, I’ll tell you what I told Sparkle, the second time we ever met: There is no story. I was born this way.” She looked Starlight dead in the eyes, daring her to disagree. “So what am I now?”
At last, Starlight understood what Chrysalis was scared of. And no matter how much the queen insisted otherwise, as she looked into her bright blue eyes, she felt like she was staring at her old self. Not the evil one, but the miserable one from the first weeks she was in Ponyville. The one she still felt echoes of sometimes, when she walked past a guard and wondered if they could see straight inside her and read her rotten soul like a book. 
She had to make Chrysalis see that.
“I understand how you feel.”
The queen stared at her as if she’d just said the Crystal Palace had been carried off by butterflies. “Are you not listening to me? Are you just standing here for fun, keeping me in here so you can… do whatever it is you want to do?” Her eyes flitted to the side almost imperceptibly, to the spot Starlight had stood a minute or two ago as she awkwardly hugged the queen.
“I am listening, Chrysalis, but now you need to listen to me,” Starlight said calmly. “If it helps, you don’t have a choice.”
Chrysalis let out a slightly hysterical, buzzing laugh, but didn’t speak.
“You’re right, I’m not the same as you. No two ponies are the same. But I don’t need to be. Tell me if I have this wrong.” She watched Chrysalis’s face closely. “You think—”
“I know—”
“—You think that you haven’t had any say in your life. That something, magic or fate or Harmony or whatever, is the only reason you’ve ever done anything, good or bad. You’re the way you are, and that can’t change. And normally… somepony would think that because they didn’t want to feel responsible. But all you feel is responsible, even if you don’t think it’s why you are the way you are. And because you’ve had to do terrible things, but you also have so much power, you feel as though terrible things—whether you enjoy them or not—will be the only thing you ever do. You feel like they’re what you are, and that anypony who thinks you can or will be anything else is wasting their time, and the more they try to convince you, the more you hate them for it.” She kept eye contact evenly. “Am I right?”
Chrysalis looked away, and resumed her pacing. Starlight swiftly stepped in front of her. Pacing was all well and good—she was friends with Twilight, after all—but she needed an answer, and the thought of seeing Chrysalis in the same state she ended up in before made her chest tighten. “Please, just tell me if I’m right.”
There was silence for what felt like ten minutes.
“...You’re right, you… you’re right.” Chrysalis squeezed her eyes shut in frustration. “But how can you possibly have felt like that? What you’ve done… it’s nothing. Not next to me, not next to us. You’re a child. I was born into this world a monster, I lived as a monster, and I will die a monster. You couldn’t do what I’ve done if you had a thousand years.” She shuddered. “Which you… do.”
Starlight smiled. “I mean, you’re right about that. You’ve accomplished more than I ever did.” Since she thought Chrysalis would appreciate it, she added, not untruthfully, “The old me probably would’ve been pretty impressed at a lot of it too. But that’s not really the point. You’ve lived… I don’t know how long, but over a millennium. I’ve lived less than thirty years. It doesn’t really matter what you’ve actually done; it matters how you feel about it. And you’ll just have to trust me here, but I’d bet that those first nights I spent in Twilight’s castle after she defeated me and dragged me there were as miserable as how you’ve been feeling lately.
Chrysalis frowned. “You realize that I just said I enjoyed—enjoy—being a tyrant, correct? I’m not guilty. I’m… uncertain as to my role now that my old habits are…” She shuddered again. “...Obsolete.”
“Maybe you haven’t felt guilty, but feeling like no one in the world will ever accept you isn’t much better,” Starlight pointed out. “You’re miserable. I’ve been miserable. That’s what’s important here. Most everypony you’ve hurt in your life is dead by now—you’re not, and that makes your feelings a problem worth caring about. You can be guilty later.”
Chrysalis stared at her in mild disbelief. “...You’re a princess. Shouldn’t you be telling me that guilt is how I learn, or some sanctimonious nonsense like that?”
“Er… probably,” Starlight admitted. “But I’m new to the whole princess thing. Besides, I’ve always been practical.” Chrysalis gaped at her. “Look, you feeling bad isn’t helping anypony. It took me a long time to figure that out, but I’m telling you now based on experience that nopony who you have any chance of getting to like you is going to be any happier because you feel like everypony is going to hate you forever no matter what.” 
“So what, you’re just going to tell me to… stop being worried?” Chrysalis said skeptically. “Forgive me if I refrain from bowing in awe at your wisdom.” 
“No, I’m going to show you how to stop being worried, or at least try.” Starlight allowed herself a smug smile. “And I can tell I’m succeeding, because you haven’t threatened to kill me in over five minutes.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I still want to,” Chrysalis said. “I’m just… distracted. For now. I can plan my revenge against you another time.”
Starlight sighed. “I think I’m contractually obligated to inform you that revenge is unproductive. Mostly because I tried it, and so did you, and, well. Look where we are now.”
“Look where we are indeed.” Chrysalis looked around the room with a mixture of disgust and admiration. “I have one question. Or… I have many, but I have one I care about the answer to enough that I’m going to risk prolonging this… interaction. Why?”
Starlight suspected she knew the answer, but asked, “Why what?”
“You know the answer to that,” Chrysalis said, resuming her glare. Honestly, it looked quite endearing on her new face, and would probably have looked even more endearing if the creature the face was attached to wasn’t a thousand years old and responsible for thousands of murders and foalnappings. “Why are you being nice. Why aren’t you shouting at me, or imprisoning me, or harping on about friendship? You could even try to enchant my mind, if you wanted to test your abilities.” She grinned, muzzle full of still-sharp teeth. “I’m something of an aficionado. You might even survive the confrontation with some of your capacity for love left.”
Starlight gulped. “I’m, uh, trying to break the habit.” There were many answers she could give to the former question. Most of them were probably deeply meaningful, and could perhaps inform Chrysalis about the philosophy of the inherent value of life and kindness omnipresent in the society she was about to enter. But they wouldn’t ring quite as true. “As for why… Well, didn’t you hear? I’m the Princess of Empathy.”
Chrysalis snorted. “Plainly admitting you don’t care, then?”
“Well…” Starlight shrugged. “I thought you might appreciate someone motivated by a role foisted on them outside their control.”
Chrysalis gave what might have been the first genuine smile of the entire exchange, if one looked past the fangs, and the clear frantic attempts to quell the rebellious muscles making the expression. She eventually gave in and settled for turning it into a smirk, before righting the fallen chair with her now-teal magic and sitting back down. 
There was a slightly less hostile silence, which Chrysalis eventually broke.
“Glimmer. Do you think I will succeed?”
Starlight considered. She thought about her own experiences, her conflicting desires for revenge, acceptance, victory, and love.
Chrysalis continued. “My first thought, the first thing I remember, was hunger. Deep, painful, aching hunger, and absolutely no care for what stood between me and satiation. It was the only thing I felt for years, and the primary thing I felt for centuries.” She looked at Starlight, desperation leaking through to her face. “What place is there for that now? For the kind of creature that hunger created?”
Starlight thought carefully. “Well… you aren’t hungry anymore, are you?”
“Oh please,” Chrysalis scoffed. “Of course I am. I might not need love, but hunger is just an omnipresent desire, and I’ve got plenty of those. You feature in several of them.”
It was comforting, in a way, that she wore her hatred on her sleeve. It might even serve her better than concealing it. For now, though, Starlight saw an opening. “Sure, I get that. But are you hungry now?”
The ensuing silence was answer enough. 
“Maybe that’s all you need. It’s going to take some getting used to, I can tell you that for nothing. But if you can live in the moments where things are okay, eventually, you can build a life out of them. A life without that hunger. And… Maybe the pony, or the changeling, that life creates can find a place here.”
Chrysalis seemed to consider that for a long while, and, eventually, Starlight decided she’d accomplished more than she could’ve hoped to in her wildest dreams, and that she really needed to collapse on her bed and hyperventilate until the tension she’d siphoned from her former archenemy had dissipated. It was as good a time as any to unseal the room. 
Stretching, she walked for the door, concentrated, and enjoyed the relaxation in her horn as the crystal retreated from the floors and walls, the windows ceased to be enchanted diamond and resumed being mildly magical glass, and the door became functional once more. She saw Chrysalis watching her closely from across the room, and opened the door.
She stepped directly into the second-largest pony she’d seen that day. “P-princess?”
“Starlight Glimmer!” Princess Celestia beamed, stepping back and allowing Starlight to get a better view of the alicorn. “We’ve been looking for you! I hope your discussion was productive.”
“You’ve– our– what?” Starlight stammered intelligently, before remembering who she was talking to. “I mean, I’m sorry to keep you waiting, Celestia.” The much older alicorn had politely but firmly requested Starlight only use her name, the same as Twilight had done since her ascension. Ironically, it had only increased her respect for the princess. 
“Oh, think nothing of it. I’m very glad you—”
Chrysalis, having seen the door would be remaining open, shoved past both of them. “What an unfortunate coincidence, my time has just run out! Apologies, Princess– er, Princesses, I’m sure I’ll be back later, I have to, to, goodbye!” Starlight stopped blinking just in time to see a turquoise tail disappear around a corner. 
“...Have you met with her yet?” she asked curiously.
“I haven’t, and I was quite looking forward to our reunion,” Celestia said, with what seemed to be genuine merriment. “But there will be time tomorrow. Besides…” She leaned conspiratorially in, despite Chrysalis most likely being halfway across Canterlot by now. “I think that was considerably more productive, wouldn’t you agree?”
It was Starlight’s turn to gape. “Did you… plan that?”
“I would never!” Celestia feigned offense, before losing hold of her expression and giggling. “But no, not truly. I just thought you two should meet before our negotiations had formally opened to get any avoidable tensions out of the way. That, Princess Starlight, was all you.”
Starlight was still too flummoxed to reply as Celestia began cheerily pushing her down the hall. “While you’re here, come with me! I’ve been trying to decide what sort of cake our guest would prefer, and it’d be wonderful to get a second opinion…”