Chrysalis spent much of the rest of her day on literary fetch quests for Twilight. She could only assume that her continuing with this specific line of work was meant as some sort of contrived punishment for failing to find anything pertaining to communication spells, as per the original request. She’d been sent to scour the shelves for history texts on Star Swirl the Bearded, operation manuals for some equipment in her basement, a random book of old foals’ stories, and anything else the unicorn could think of. She couldn’t help but pity that dragon assistant of hers; he had gone right back up to his bed, a clear indication of appreciation for the sudden lack of a demanding workload.
As the sunlight illuminating the library began to obtain a tint of orange, Twilight came down from her room. “Up for some more work? Of course you are.”
Chrysalis groaned. “What do you need now? And will there be any point to what I’m sent to find this time?”
“It’s not another book search,” Twilight clarified, “but it may involve more of them. I’m going to step out for a little while to see if I can buy more parchment before the store closes, so I need you to watch the library in my absence. You can handle taking my form until I get back, can’t you?”
A request to watch over the library. To take care of the place while the master was away, as it were. A seemingly inconsequential and innocuous request in itself, but Chrysalis viewed it as Twilight slowly lowering her defenses. She was being trusted more or less alone in the building while she left for the market. It wasn’t much, not at all, but it did seem to be a step in the right direction. If she continued to play her cards right, then with any luck, she may even have her audience with Celestia within two days’ time! Not that she was entirely sure what cards she had to play... but this small surrender gave her a much-needed boost of confidence.
“This is an interesting turn of events,” Chrysalis observed. “Finally warming up to me, are we?”
“I just don’t want you slacking off while I’m out, changeling,” Twilight retorted. “Don’t forget, you’re supposed to be working. And it’s better for everypony if I know where you are; who knows where you might run off to if I sent you out instead?”
Chrysalis merely gave her a bemused look and gestured towards the gauze wrapped around her chest. “I would not have gotten far even if I’d wanted to. Is this even necessary for me to do? Nopony has come into the library since myself and your friends.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Twilight answered, and quickly took her leave, the door slamming shut behind her.
Chrysalis sighed, bemoaning the fact that she could not even rest in Twilight’s absence. Well, she technically could if it was her wish, but the last thing she wanted was to betray what little of her host’s trust she managed to gain through her diligence. She made it this far by demonstrating her willingness to put up with whatever Twilight threw at her (which, thankfully, required minimal physical movement on her part), and she could not afford to squander that. Not while the lives of an entire kingdom were on the line.
The fate of the changeling race rested on her watching a library. There was a thought.
Accepting her fate, she transformed her outward appearance into that of the recently-departed mare and sat by the desk in the center of the room, patiently waiting for somepony to arrive.
To her surprise, about twenty minutes later, somepony did.
This was an uncommon thing for Applejack to do. She was very used to going to the library to visit Twilight, but now she was actually going to the library to get a book. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been there for that express purpose, but she knew for sure that it was long before Twilight came to town. She didn't even know what book she'd gotten or whether it still existed on those shelves. Luckily, she did know what she wanted this time around, and she could swear she'd caught a glimpse of it the last time she visited. She also figured she might ask for clarification on bits that went over her head; no use repeating the events of the previous applebuck season by jumping in blind and alone, was there?
Soon enough, she came to the front door of the Golden Oak Library. She'd been here so many times recently, but she'd almost forgotten the proper name of the place. She considered knocking on the door for a brief moment, but she figured that it wasn't necessary if the library was still open, which it seemed to be. Plus, it was Twilight; she didn't think she'd object to a friend dropping in unannounced.
Her course of action now clear, Applejack allowed herself into the hollowed-out tree that made up the building, and sure enough, her friend was there by the center desk. She seemed lost in a story (classic Twilight), but at the sound of the door, she looked up to greet her guest. "Oh, hi there! How may I help you?"
...well, that was an odd way for her to greet one of her closest friends.
The Stetson-sporting earth pony mare in front of Chrysalis gave her a strange look. What, was that not the right way to greet library guests? Perhaps she was meant to greet her with more familiarity, but while she had to admit the orange mare looked familiar, and looking upon her gave her the sense that she was forgetting something obvious and important, these ponies really all looked the same to her, coloration notwithstanding. She had to focus on maintaining her disguise and tending to a potential book borrower.
"Uh... howdy, Twilight," the mare greeted. So she did know Twilight; that was a slip-up on her part then. "Ah know this ain't what Ah'm normally here for, but Ah actually need a book."
That accent, that familiar informality... not only was this a pony Twilight knew, but it was clearly one she should have recognized by now. There was something glaring she was missing here. Something that would make her feel like an idiot when it finally came to her. But... nothing was coming to her. At this point, she just needed to get this mare out with what she wanted before she did something that blew her cover.
"Well... that is something I didn't expect to hear from you," Chrysalis stated, silently praying that she'd saved some face. "What kind of book did you need?"
"One on apples," her guest replied. "Ah know. Big surprise, right? Well, Ah wanted t’see about plantin' new types of apple trees, but Ah also heard there could be problems with puttin' a new plant in with the plants that are supposed to be there. Takin' all the nutrients and overrunnin' the population and all that. Ah wanted t’know if there were any kinds of apple trees that would do that, or at least not do it as much."
Well. That would be easy enough. She may never come to understand the categorization method Twilight used, but Chrysalis had scanned these shelves often enough to know the general location of the agricultural books. "Of course! Coming right up!"
Thankfully, the section she needed was at eye level, so she would not have to risk much movement or tear several books off the higher shelves. It didn't take long for her to find something that looked to match the given requirements, and after a quick scan of its contents, she levitated the book over to the waiting earth pony.
"There you go!" she declared. "I don't think introducing a new species of apple tree into a controlled environment should be an issue, but I'm certain that should help.
"And if there's nothing else you need, then... thank you, and come back soon!"
That's what finally tipped Applejack off to the fact that something was very wrong with Twilight. There was no way she would try to rush her out the door like that! Even if she wanted to be left alone, wouldn't she have just said so? This wasn't like her at all!
"Somethin' wrong, Twi?" Applejack inquired. "It ain't like you to just get me out the door. Ah thought you'd wanna chat for a while before Ah left."
"Well, uh," Twilight stammered, "I-I have a lot to take care of before the end of the day, and I'd appreciate it if—"
But the unicorn didn't finish that sentence. Instead, she stared at Applejack with widened eyes, as if she suddenly had an epiphany.
"Oh."
Applejack. This was Applejack. The Element of Honesty, the baker for the wedding. One of Twilight's closest friends. Of all the Element bearers to forget, and of all the times at which she could have forgotten... Twilight was going to kill her for this, or at least try again.
"Of course," she commented, feeling like an idiot. "There is no excuse for me not recognizing you, Applejack."
"Ya think?" Applejack replied. "There's somethin' real funny 'bout the way you're actin', Twilight. Heck, are you even Twilight?"
Her cover was blown. Again. She was never any good at salvaging it once it reached this point. The issue, then, was what to do about it.
There was only one good option, and that was to reveal and explain herself to Applejack. Admittedly, she knew very little about her from personal experience, and her recollection of her scouts' intel had failed her up to this point, so she could only imagine how the mare would take to the information. Though if what she recalled about stubbornness was accurate, then it would not be easy to convince her to listen. Perhaps if she found a way to ease her into—
"Hey, Twilight. I was just coming down to get dinner set up. I could whip something up for you too, AJ, if you plan on sticking around."
Chrysalis glanced towards the stairway, and just as before, Spike was descending from his room. She could swear that dragon had an unnatural sense of convenient timing.
"Uh, Spike," Applejack responded, "ya might wanna stay back. Ah don't think that's Twilight."
"Well, who else could it—" Spike began, then apparently remembered the day's previous events. "Oh yeah, right. Good one, Chrysalis, but don't make a habit of throwing me off like that. Where'd she go?"
"Out to the store to purchase parchment," Chrysalis answered. "Or so she said. She asked me to manage the library in her stead. I expect her back any moment now."
“Awesome. Cooking for four, then?”
“You ain’t cookin’ for nopony ‘til y’all explain what’s goin’ on here!” Applejack shouted, starting to become angry as well as confused.
“...I might as well,” Chrysalis replied, and promptly shed her disguise right before Applejack’s eyes.
Applejack’s mind was completely overloaded. What she just saw only added so many more questions to the ever-growing pile. Why was the changeling queen in Twilight’s library? Why was she disguised as Twilight? How did Spike know who she really was? Why did he call her “Chrysalis?” Why was he not making a big deal about there being a changeling in his home? Why did she drop her disguise all of a sudden? And... why was her midsection bandaged?
All of it ended up boiling down to one central thought, one pressing issue. The changeling queen was back in Equestria.
“Ah can’t believe this,” she stated. “Ah dunno why you’re here, and frankly, Ah don’t care, but you’ve got some nerve showin’ yer face ‘round these parts again. Ah oughta buck yer behind back to wherever ya came from right now!”
The thing before her—“Chrysalis,” apparently—winced at the mention of violence. Whatever wound she was keeping wrapped up must have been a recent one. “Yes, Twilight Sparkle may have had that in mind as well. Possibly somewhere lost within her urge to kill.”
“Urge to—what!?” Applejack could only gape incredulously at the queen. Of all the things Chrysalis could have accused Twilight of, she had to pick murder? “Ya can’t expect me to believe she’d ever—”
“I’d have thought that too,” Spike interrupted, “but she basically lost it when Chrysalis here showed up. We still haven’t patched up the hole in the ceiling from her magic blast. I’m kind of surprised you didn’t notice that.”
“That blast was meant for me,” Chrysalis explained, “and the one before it managed to connect. It’s still quite painful, and if you insist on using force to expel me from Equestria again, I would ask that you avoid striking the affected area.”
Another bombshell of information. More that needed to be processed but was having trouble processing. As if everything prior wasn’t overwhelming enough, she had her own friend’s supposed actions to question as well. It was difficult to imagine anypony, let alone Chrysalis, driving Twilight to such an extreme.
But that much she was sure of. She was driven to it somehow. As... emotionally volatile as the unicorn could be under stress, she would never have simply attacked with intent to kill on nothing more than a whim.
“Ya did somethin’ to her, ah know it,” Applejack insisted. “Ya had to do somethin’ t’get her riled up, or she’d never have done it.”
“And I believe you’re well aware of what that ‘something’ was,” Chrysalis answered. “And part of the reason I am staying here in this library is to atone for my actions, as necessary as they were.”
“You’re callin’ a giant attack on Canterlot in the middle of a wedding necessary!?”
“You’re calling the prevention of mass starvation unnecessary?” Chrysalis spat back, slowly growing more agitated.
Applejack had never considered the motivation behind the changeling invasion. Maybe it was just the last-ditch efforts of a queen to feed her hungry subjects... but it was still a full-scale invasion that put so many ponies’ lives at risk, and she wasn’t ready to look past that fact. “Well, whatever yer reason was, yer work’s cut out for ya. The whole thing really did a number on Twilight, and Ah wouldn’t be surprised if she never let ya off the hook for it.”
“I’m willing to settle for that,” the changeling replied, “as long as I can convince her to help me with something extremely urgent!”
Help her!? She never expected to hear that from the queen of the changelings, especially not in the same context as any of her friends. She never expected to see the queen of the changelings again, either, but that was another matter entirely.
“And ya really think ah’m gonna believe that?” Applejack inquired. “You’re a changeling! Yer whole life is based on lies! Ah have half a mind to just ignore everythin’ ya say!”
“Then listen,” Chrysalis challenged, “and judge for yourself.”
So Applejack seated herself there on the library floor, and listened as Chrysalis told her tale. Now, when she put conscious effort into it, Applejack was relatively adept at identifying the truth or falsehood of a pony’s words. If she stopped, listened, and absorbed the words spoken to her, she could make a decent judgment call about whether any of it was to be believed. She seldom utilized this skill with her friends, since they rarely gave her reason not to trust them, but it aided her in the marketplace, both when making purchase decisions herself and when dealing with customers at her apple stand. And of course, she watched Chrysalis’ every expression and movement and listened to her every word.
It all added up. She looked legitimately anguished, legitimately concerned for her dying race. She looked desperate, like she didn’t even want to be here in Equestria but had nowhere else to turn. Her words were disheartening, and her tone was pleading. It was almost as if the queen wanted her to help the relief effort, even though she had no idea how she possibly could. Despite herself, Applejack felt true sympathy for this thing she once thought a villain.
At last, Chrysalis finished her story. After taking a moment to register everything, Applejack was ready to make her judgment call.
“...Ah’m sorry, Ah still don’t know if Ah can forgive ya, even after all that. But Ah do believe ya. And Ah guess Ah can trust ya too, at least for now.”
Chrysalis let out a sigh, some of her distress giving way to relief. “That’s all I ask of you. I can deal without true forgiveness, but I wanted it to be clear that my intentions were—”
Applejack never heard the end of that statement, because it was cut short by a voice from the doorway shouting “What in Celestia’s name are you doing!?”
Twilight gave that changeling freeloader one job. One job. She could’ve sworn it would be an easy one for her to do, since she’d been doing alright with most of the book searches she sent her on throughout the day. But no. The minute she opened the door, she saw Chrysalis, completely undisguised, sitting there and talking to Applejack.
“Oh, hey, Twilight!” Spike greeted, meeting Twilight at the doorway. “I was waiting for you to get back. Anything you want for dinner?”
Twilight looked incredulously between the two conversation partners and her assistant, who was somehow not fazed at all by what was going on. “How are you so calm about this right now, Spike? I told her to watch the library, and not only is she blowing that off, she’s—"
“Doin’ nothin’ wrong, far as Ah see it,” Applejack interrupted. “We were just talkin’. And she ain’t blowin’ off work, either, ‘cuz she did get me the book Ah came here for.”
“Well...” Twilight was almost reaching for something to scold Chrysalis for at this point. “...you shouldn’t have dropped your disguise, if you even had it up in the first place! What if somepony else came into the library and saw you?”
“I was disguised when your friend Applejack arrived,” Chrysalis insisted. “I admit that she saw through it due to a lapse of memory on my part, which is why I shed it. I doubt she would be as willing to listen to me if I were still wearing your face, anyway.”
“Listen to you? So you told her—"
“Everything,” Chrysalis confirmed. “Excluding the monotony of the book searches, of course. And if there still exists doubt in her mind, she may seek confirmation from Fluttershy or Rarity.”
“Ah just might,” Applejack replied. “But for now, Ah say this all checks out. And speakin’ of checkin’ out, Ah got what Ah wanted here, so Ah guess Ah’ll be headin’ back t’the farm.”
“Wait, so soon?” Twilight asked. She’d have thought Applejack would enjoy sticking around for a while to just talk!
“Twilight, Ah may as well have just listened to Chrysalis’ entire life story. Ah’m a bit beat. Plus, just ‘cuz Ah don’t object to what she’s tryin’ t’do here don’t mean Ah’m too comfortable bein’ around her for too long.”
“Now you know how I feel,” Chrysalis retorted.
Twilight sighed. “You’ll at least keep this quiet, right, Applejack? It wouldn’t look good for anypony if this got out.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Applejack answered. “Whatever ya wanted t’do here, that’s yer own business, and Ah won’t get involved or involve anypony else if Ah don’t need to. Well, see ya ‘round, Twi!” With that, the farm pony cantered out the library door, borrowed book in tow.
“Looks like I’m just cooking for three, then...” Spike commented, himself retiring to the kitchen to prepare dinner.
Chrysalis turned to face Twilight. “And I suppose I’ll still be searching for—”
“Just sit there and keep quiet, changeling,” Twilight interrupted, ascending to her bedroom and leaving the confused monarch alone in the lower level of the library.
This entire day had been mentally exhausting for Twilight. There was no way she could have prepared for the changeling queen barging in disguised as Fluttershy and having Rarity and the real Fluttershy come in as backup. If nothing else surprised her, it was her friends supporting the one living creature in the world she could legitimately bring herself to hate on a personal level, not counting the petrified Discord. Even Applejack, the most stubborn pony she knew, took her side over the course of what she assumed was a single conversation.
She didn’t like this, not one bit. As adamant as she was being about not succumbing to pity and keeping hold of the powerful and justified contempt she had for Chrysalis, the queen was winning over all of her friends with ease. And all it was taking was a sob story about all the changelings dying and having to turn to Equestria to save the ones that were left, which Twilight was still not letting her do.
She dwelled on that last point. She was the obstacle standing between Chrysalis and Princess Celestia, between her and the aid she could get for her struggling race. She figured she was making the changeling queen pay slowly for the emotional damage she’d done, but now began to wonder if she was only damning them all for the actions of one.
What terrified her was the fact that she didn’t even know which she was doing at this point.
She skipped dinner and sat in her bed for the rest of the night, turning in for a restless attempt at sleep with the thought lingering in her mind.