“Feeling better now?”
At the sound of Chrysalis’ voice, Twilight squirmed, loosening the changeling’s grasp on her. Massaging her eye with the back of her hoof, Twilight could still feel the sore stinging across her irritated skin. At the very least, she managed to stop crying.
“Yeah. I’m alright,” Twilight said, rising from the water. Her hoof moved to her other eye and ministered to it as well.
“Good.” Chrysalis turned her nose up. “Now, we should discuss--”
“I know you don’t want to come back to Canterlot with me.” Twilight said through gritted teeth. She started toward the door, stopping only briefly as she continued to talk. “I thought I could hold it together. I thought that just having you around would be enough for me. But it wasn’t.”
Chrysalis frowned uneasily. “Twilight . . .”
“No.” The alicorn shook her head. “Don’t say anything yet, please.” She paused, listening to the babbling waterfall as she worked up the courage to make her point. “I really thought I could handle it, but clearly I can’t. Every day, my memories of that dream grow a little hazier. But everytime I look at you, I still feel drawn to you. As strongly as ever.”
Twilight inhaled sharply. “But that’s not what you want. I get it. So I won’t ask you to come back to Canterlot with me. But I at least want you to make me a promise.” Her gaze focused on Chrysalis, waiting for her to answer.
“And what promise is that?” Chrysalis asked, climbing to her hooves.
Twilight turned back to the door. “I want you to be happy. Wherever you end up, whoever you end up with . . . promise me that you’ll take care of yourself. That’s enough for me.”
“Clearly, it isn’t,” Chrysalis muttered. “Or else we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
With a huff, Twilight drove her hoof into the stone floor, sending ripples through the pool. Despite the rigidity of her movements, her voice came out soft. “Then what do you want me to do? Just forget all of that? I can’t.” She sighed. “It was only a few days for you. It was a lifetime for me. So, no. I won’t forget you. But I will let you go.”
“Even if it breaks your heart?”
“Even if it breaks my heart. Goodbye, Chrysalis.”
Letting her final words echo off the chamber walls, Twilight stepped onto the first step back up to Chrysalis’ chamber. As she climbed them, she let her hooves fall heavy against the stone. Their ringing thud managed to drown on the quiet whimpers under her breath.
“Twilight, stop right there.”
Chrysalis’ words sent a shock through Twilight. She gnashed her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. This was torment. Agony. She just wanted it to stop. “What?” she asked, unwilling to look back.
“What about Celestia?” A soft splash signaled a step forward from the changeling.
“What about her?” Twilight asked.
“She’s still in trouble, isn’t she? And I promised that I’d help you save her, didn’t I?” Another splash. Another step closer. “I’m still offering my help. Will you take it?”
Twilight exhaled slowly through her nose. “You know that if you go back to Canterlot, then you might not be able to leave again. I won’t ask you to do that.”
“You don’t have to ask.”
That made Twilight turn. Chrysalis was standing only a few feet from her. “First you tell me that you’ll never love me. Then you run away. Then you lie there, comfort me, and tell me you want to come home with me?” She shook her head. “I can’t get a grasp on you, Chrysalis. What do you want?”
“I . . . I want to go back to Canterlot with you.”
“Why?” Twilight’s words were more sad than angry.
“I . . . I just do.”
“Goodbye, Chrysalis.” Twilight turned to leave again, but a transparent green barrier stretched over the doorway, blocking her escape. Behind her, she heard a pained gasp from the changeling. Though quiet, the sound broke Twilight’s willpower.
“Don’t you walk away from me, Twilight Sparkle.” Her bravado crumbled as Chrysalis tried to step forward. Her knees buckled beneath her, sending her sprawling toward the ground and causing her magic to fizzle.
Twilight rushed forward, catching Chrysalis before she could hit the ground.
“Are you crazy, you--”
“Listen to me, Twilight.” Chrysalis tried to stand, but clung to the pony beside her as a crutch. After a few false starts, she collected herself with a deep breath and forced her words out. “I don’t know what I want anymore. I came here with a wish to rebuild my empire. But seeing this place . . . It’s nothing but a ruin now. Just like me.”
“You’re not a ruin,” Twilight said, scrunching her muzzle.
“That’s not what I mean.” She frowned. “Look at me. I’m just as broken as this mountain. And I don’t just mean my body. My thoughts, my hopes. They’re all broken. I don’t know who I am anymore, Twilight.” Her gaze fell to the floor.
“Do you know what I do with broken things?” Twilight asked, shifting her body to take on more of Chrysalis’ weight.
“Toss them in the trash?” Chrysalis guessed.
“No. I try to fix them,” Twilight said. “And I don’t like to brag, but I’m pretty good at it.”
“Even something like me?” Chrysalis asked.
“Even something like you.” Twilight smiled, but it quickly faded. “But what about us? The way I feel about you? I tried, but I can’t change that, Chrysalis.”
“We can discuss that later.” The changeling gathered her strength, stepping away from Twilight unsteadily, but upright. “For now, I could use a nice, soft bed.”
Twilight pointed to the door ahead. “What about your--”
“That isn’t covered in a layer of dust,” Chrysalis added.
“Right. Are you able to walk?”
“Well enough,” Chrysalis tested her weight on each of her three legs. “Though you might want to be ready to catch me, just in case.” Together, the two of them shared a moment of quiet laughter before they started up the stairs.
Chrysalis tried to walk, but Twilight never let go, even as they reached the top of the stairs. Through the first door into the bedroom, Thorax greeted them.
“Of course you were the one that led the ponies here.” If Chrysalis were capable of it, she would have rolled her eyes.
Despite her hostile tone, Thorax threw his hooves around her. “I was worried I’d never see you again. I’m glad to see you’re alright.”
“I’m quite far from alright.” Chrysalis pawed at her damaged eye. “But I’m alive.”
“Right.” Twilight led the group up into the throne room. “Once we get back to the ship, you’ll be able to rest.”
“Ship?” Chrysalis asked.
Her question went unanswered as Shining Armor, Dusti, and Quartz finally caught sight of them. Aside from Quartz, the trio approached cautiously, as though waiting for Chrysalis to make another break for it or fight back. The third soldier, meanwhile, seemed relieved more than anything else.
“You found her,” Shining said, his voice emotionless. Twilight tried to read the look on his face, but found herself unable to discern it. An eye twitch. A slight smile. None of it. It looked as though he himself didn’t know how to react.
“I did.” Twilight nodded. “Which means we can go back to the ship now.”
With a twitch of his head, Shining Armor ordered the team back the way they came from. Their journey up the mountain would have taken probably twice as long with the limping changeling in tow, but Chrysalis took them by a different route that cut their traveling in half.
“I thought you said you knew the layout of this place,” Dusti said, frowning in Thorax’s direction.
“I don’t think I ever said that.” Thorax tapped his chin. “In fact, I’ve never actually been here. This hive was abandoned long before I was born.”
“You seemed to get us through it alright,” Quartz chimed in.
“Yeah. Thank her for that.” Thorax motioned toward his former queen.
Quartz looked back and forth between the changelings. “What do you mean?”
“Chrysalis’ memories led me through.”
“You remembered the layout from my memories?” Chrysalis asked, edging on a laugh. “That’s quite the feat. Then again, you always were more perceptive than your siblings.”
“You changelings are odd creatures,” Dusti said, hurrying out of the conversation.
As they neared the entrance to the hive, Shining Armor ordered the group to a halt. While they all settled in to rest, the captain himself went over to the gap in the rock before launching a magical bolt high into the sky. The pink bolt soared into the sky and stayed there.
“Now we just have to wait for Captain Shield to see it.” With that done, Shining settled beside the exit, pulling his helmet over his face. “That could be a while, though. So I suggest you all get comfortable.”
Quartz and Dusti sat beside their commanding officer. Thorax kept to himself off to the side. Chrysalis shifted her weight against the wall and slid down onto her haunches with a sigh of relief.
“You okay?” Twilight asked, likewise lowering herself to the ground.
“Hooves hurt. Oddly enough, the missing one hurts the worst.”
“I’d bet.” Twilight watched Chrysalis closely, trying to decipher if her previous statement was meant to be humorous or honest. When she failed to reach a decision, she changed the subject. “You know, you were wrong about what you said back there.”
“You may wish to be more specific.” Her eye turned lazily to Twilight. “I said a great many things back there.”
“About you not being my ideal version of you.” Twilight stared off into the dark as she leaned against the cave wall. “But I’ve been thinking. The dream version of you and the real version of you aren’t actually that different. And I think I know why.”
“You know, I’m starting to regret showing you compassion,” Chrysalis snarked.
“I’m serious,” Twilight shot back. “I used to think you were a monster. A predator that stalked the dark corners of Equestria, preying on the innocent.”
“I was,” Chrysalis deadpanned.
Twilight hesitated. “Alright. That’s all I thought you were. Better?” Chrysalis nodded. “But after I brought you and Celestia back from this hive the first time, I think that started to change. Seeing Celestia protecting you made me reconsider everything.
“But I don’t think I really noticed anything until that night that I came to you, asking for your help in saving Celestia. I expected to be mocked and ridiculed. Or, worse than that, I expected that you would agree, but only if I offered you the Equestrian throne or something crazy like that.”
“Yeah,” Chrysalis coughed. “That certainly is crazy.”
Twilight elbowed her. “But you didn’t do any of that. You saw my pain and had sympathy for me. Or, at least, tolerated me. And the more time we spent together, the more I started to realize just how wrong I’d been about you. I got to see a whole new side of you. A kinder, gentler one.”
Chrysalis blinked a few times. “Didn’t I kick you through a chair?”
“Yeah, but you also snapped your leg like a twig in the process. I’d call that even.” Twilight smiled. “And yeah, we had our fair share of bumps and bruises along the way, but that just made me realize that you weren’t some mythical monster. You were just a mare. A cunning, cruel, and eccentric mare.”
“That was almost a compliment,” Chrysalis mused.
Her overdramatic annoyance made Twilight chuckled, but her humor faded just as quickly. “All the stupid things you did nearly drove me up a wall. But then Thorax told me all the things you did for him when he was young. How you protected him. How you saved him.”
“He’s being overdramatic.”
“No, I don’t think he was,” Twilight argued.
“Yeah, well, no one asked him.” Chrysalis shot back.
Twilight shook her head. “Regardless, I saw that side of you more and more. And for the first time, I felt like Thorax might have been right. Maybe there was a kind, gentle changeling somewhere in there.” Twilight returned to staring at the darkness. “I just never realized it. Not until the dream. Not until I fell in love with you.”
A long pause, filled with thunder and rain.
“Am I wrong?” Twilight finally asked.
Chrysalis shrugged. “I’ve done plenty of terrible things, Twilight. Things that most ponies would never forgive me for. The bloodstains on my hooves won’t ever wash off.”
Twilight chewed on that thought. “But you did them for the right reason. You wanted to protect your empire. Your children.”
“You make me sound like a saint, Twilight.” Chrysalis turned toward Twilight, a thin-lipped smile on her face. “But I’m not. Good cause or not, those things were atrocious. And that’s not including the things I did out of a selfish desire for power.”
“You think you’re the only one that’s done terrible things?”
Chrysalis choked. “Is this the part where the goody-two-shoes princess tells me that she’s actually an evil mastermind?”
“I wasn’t referring to myself,” Twilight said, pressing a hoof to her chest. “But that doesn’t change my point. It might take a long time, but everypony deserves a second chance. Even you.” She closed her eyes. “At least, that’s how I like to think of it.”
“I think you’re an idiot,” Chrysalis said, following Twilight’s lead and resting her head.
“Maybe. But I’m the idiot that beat you. Twice.”
Twilight punctuated her statement with a confidant hum. To her surprise, Chrysalis burst out laughing, startling the three soldiers just out of earshot. To Twilight, though, that sound calmed the stormy sea of her mindscape.
“It seems you do have fangs after all, Sparkle. I knew there was a reason I liked you.”
“Are you sure you only like me?”
“Don’t push your luck.”
Their conversation came to an end as the sound of engines overcame the storm outside. Through the gap in the rock, they saw the ship pull up along the mountainside, waiting for them to climb aboard. Shining and Dusti put up their shields and led the group outside.