//------------------------------// // 52: Something Intimate // Story: Death of a Queen, V2. // by Arkane12 //------------------------------// “Changelings feed on love.” Thorax said it so matter-of-factly that it caught Twilight off guard. He stopped, clearly waiting for some response.  “I . . . am aware of that,” Twilight said back, her brow furrowed.  “But it’s not quite that simple. There are a lot of different types of love in the world. And even more meanings to the word outside of that.” Twilight thought of interrupting, but decided against it. Instead, she cleared her mind, readying her mental notepad. “But rather than all of that, you have to learn the ways of love the same way changelings do.”  “I’m ready,” Twilight said, her nodding.  “The first thing you’ve got to learn: a changeling doesn’t always have to feed directly from you. Sometimes, just being near somepony they love is enough to keep them going. Or, at the very least, to slow down how often they need to feed.” If Thorax still felt hesitant to aid Twilight in this endeavor, he didn’t show it. His voice sounded confident and neutral, the same way a teacher’s might.  “This is what you were saying earlier, right? About her being around me?”  Thorax nodded. “All living things exude an aura, Twilight. It acts as a sort of emotional barrier between them and the world around them. And, even if you didn’t realize it at the time, you’ve felt these auras.” He motioned toward the door with a hoof. “Think of Doctor Heart, for example. He’s able to keep his cool even in the most chaotic of situations. And you can feel that. That calming influence.”  Twilight shook her head. “I don’t know about that. Usually, if Doctor Heart’s showing up, it’s something I should be stressed out about.”  “As I said, you might not always be aware of it, but you do feel it.” He shrugged. “Why do you feel happier around friends? Why do you get a sickly feeling about someone in your gut before you’ve ever met them? Sure, there may be things you notice about them, but that aura is helping nudge you in the right direction.”  “Okay.” Twilight closed her eyes, imagining her quill marking down her words. “All living things exude an emotional aura.”  “Yes.” Thorax watched her short ritual with a raised brow. “Including love. You know that warm, fuzzy feeling you get standing beside someone you love? That’s the sort of love a changeling can feed off of.”  “Alright. So . . . how do I feed her with that?” Twilight asked, her lips pursed.  “You don’t. If you really love her, then standing beside Chrysalis’ magic will be enough to take care of that. You won’t even notice it’s happening. And honestly, she might not either.” Thorax started to twist his hooves, as though it might somehow clarify this abstract concept. “The aura itself is energy released from you. If Chrysalis consumes it, you won’t feel it.”  “Then how did this happen?” Twilight asked, motioning toward the sleeping Chrysalis. “I was only away from her for a few minutes. And besides, I’m here now. So, why isn’t it working?”  “And there’s the catch to indirect feeding.” Thorax said, shifting his weight. “It hardly provides any energy to us.” “Then what-” “It might not be enough to get us back up and running if we’re injured or if we burn too much of our magic, but for calm, daily life? If the love is consistent, it will keep us sated for maybe an extra week or two before we have to feed again.”  “I still don’t see how that helps us here,” Twilight said, gesturing wildly between herself and Thorax.  “It won’t.”  “Then why are you telling me this?”  Thorax’s shoulders heaved as he took a deep breath. “Like I said, I’m leaving. This is stuff you need to know if you’re going to be with her, and I highly doubt that she’s going to teach you these things, so somepony has to.”  “I get it,” Twilight scoffed.  “Okay then, next lesson.” Thorax took a moment to recover his mentoring tone. “When Changelings feed, we split off a piece of your life essence, your love. Almost immediately, you’ll feel tired. You won’t be able to think clearly. That tiredness will grow into exhaustion. You’ll probably pass out. And past that . . . you’ve lost too much.” He hung his head, seemingly ashamed of his species. “You won’t be able to feel anything anymore. You’ll never be happy, excited, or anything like that.”  “I’ve seen that for myself,” Twilight said quietly.  “Far too many ponies have.” Thorax sighed and waved a hoof toward Chrysalis. “And if she takes everything, it’ll feel like you’re falling asleep. Your heart will keep beating, you’ll keep breathing, but you’ll never wake up.”  Twilight blinked twice. “Wait, what? I didn’t know that last part.”  “Yeah. Even most changelings have never experienced that. It takes an immense amount of power to drain that much of something’s lifeforce. And with little profit from it.”  “Profit?” Twilight asked.  “That’s my word for it. When we feed directly, we have to use our magic to separate a piece of our victim’s lifeforce.” Thorax cleared his voice. “That sounds a little gruesome, but I promise it isn’t. It won’t hurt. And you’ll be back in tip-top shape after a good night’s rest.” He paused again. His words were coming more and more slowly. He was stalling, Twilight realized.  “Thorax?” He glanced up at her. “There’s something I need you to understand. Okay?” He nodded, slowly at first, but growing more enthusiastic. “This is my choice. Whatever happens, you’re not responsible for it. You warned me the best you could and made sure I was prepared for this. If something does go wrong, it isn’t your fault.”  “You realize that if you fail, it won’t just be you that dies, right?” He stood and started to pace, his steps heavy and slow. “If you die, then Celestia dies. If Celestia dies, Equestria dies. And I doubt they’ll be willing to show Chrysalis any mercy either. And after all of that, what happens next? Do the changelings die too?” He stared out the window, hoping that an answer would flutter by in the snow. “There’s so much riding on this, Twilight. Too much for me to ever be okay with this.”  Twilight frowned. “You’re right.” She laid back, staring up at the ceiling. “I mean, that might be the worst case scenario, but I get your point. I’m putting more than just myself at risk by doing this.”  “Knowing that, do you still want to do this?”  “Yes.” She was starting to get flustered now.   Thorax rested his forehead on the windowsill, groaning. “Twilight, you’re going to be the death of me.” He took a deep, dust-filled breath. “Fine. Let’s get this over with. Listen closely. This part is important.”  “Is that implying the rest of it isn’t?”  “Well, clearly the warnings didn’t work, so I guess not.” He shot Twilight a sour look from where he lay. “Anyways, I told you a bit about how our feeding works.”  “She takes a piece of my lifeforce,” Twilight remembered.  “And how nourishing that piece is comes from the relationship between the feeder and their meal. Despite how it might seem to those outside, changelings don’t like feeding off those who hate them. It makes the energy bitter and borderline useless.”  Twilight raised a hoof to stop him. “I’ve seen Chrysalis steal energy from plenty of creatures that didn’t like her. Including me.”  “In an emergency, yeah. Makes her pretty deadly in a fight. But it doesn’t do much for her nutrition-wise. No, in order to maximize the energy we can consume, we trick our victims into loving us.”  “Can you . . .” Twilight bit her lip. “Can you call them something other than victims?”  “Sure.” He shrugged. “The point is, the creature we’re feeding from needs to, at the very least, like us for us to get anything out of feeding. I know that might seem like a pretty small pool, but that’s where our magic comes in. If we take on the form of a loved one, or just a pony that they find cute, we’re able to get a bit more out of it. But even that has limitations. Love built on a lie is stronger than no love at all, but not by much.”  “Love built on a lie?” Twilight asked.  “Yeah. Remember what she did to Shining Armor? She tricked him into believing she was Cadance. Even though Chrysalis could feed directly off this love, she wasn’t actually the intended recipient. Therefore, the energy is weaker.”  “By the end, she was controlling Shiny.” Thorax nodded. “That’s what long term exposure to a changeling’s magic can do. The more we feed on our vict- our meal, the deeper we sink our hooks into them. We can start being more lax with our tricks. Their mind warps and starts to deteriorate due to them fighting against their own reality.”  “Yeah. That’s one way to break a mind,” Twilight muttered.  Thorax tossed her a sullen glance. “I guess you would know.” He turned back to the window and cleared his throat. His voice was slowly returning to a lecturing tone. “Honestly, just being around a changeling for extended periods of time can influence others’ feelings toward us. When you’re closer to Chrysalis, you feel more love for her. When she’s feeding off you, you’ll want her more than anything.”  The words he spoke stuck in Twilight’s mind. Was there such a thing as true love with a changeling? Or was Shiny right, and she was under a spell? Either way, it didn’t matter at this point.  “But all of that is nothing compared to what you’re preparing to do.” He finally left the window, returning to Chrysalis side and sitting across from Twilight. He seemed to be looking everywhere except at her. “This feeding will be something I’ve never experienced before. Something that no changeling has experienced before. You’ll be feeding her voluntarily. Not out of pity, duty, or coercion.”  “Is it really that rare?” Twilight glanced down at Chrysalis. “For somepony to love a changeling, I mean.”  “It’s rare that prey falls for their predator,” Thorax said. “I’m not prey,” Twilight said back.  “True. Which is why I’m trusting you.” He glanced at her for only a moment before turning away again. “So, this feeding will be different. I honestly don’t know how long a feeding from you could keep her going. Could be months, maybe years, depending on how well she rations. And then there’s how you’ll feel. As I said, being fed on makes you tired, lethargic. But in your case, it’ll make you feel . . .” Thorax leaned back and forth. “Let’s just say it’ll make you feel close to her.”  “You mean, like . . .” Twilight felt a tingle in her cheeks as they burned red. “Possibly. Needless to say, it’ll be intense. Your love for her will overwhelm any thoughts or instincts that you have. She’ll be the only thing that matters to you. And Chrysalis will feel much the same. She’ll drain you dry without a single thought of hesitation. And by the time you realize that she’s killing you . . . you’ll want nothing more than to keep going.” Thorax rolled onto his side. “And that’s everything, I think. Understand?” “I think so.” Twilight took a deep breath.  “Having second thoughts?”  Twilight shook her head. “No, I just think it’s kind of funny.”  “Oh? Something to share with the class?” He asked, sitting beside her.  “Yeah.” Twilight giggled softly. “Before all of this, I didn’t have the slightest interest in romance. I’d never even stopped to consider that someday I might fall in love, but . . .” A warm smile crawled across her face. “But now I spend a lot of time thinking about it, about her. I keep having these daydreams, wondering what our life will be like when all of this finally blows over. I’d never even had so much as a crush on another pony before. I don’t know how it happened, or why, but now I can’t imagine my life without her.”  She heard Thorax sigh, but couldn’t draw her gaze away from Chrysalis. A delicate hoof drew up over her cheek, teasing a few strands of her mossy, blue-green mane and causing the changeling queen to stir. “Yeah, I know it sounds crazy.”  “Everything about this situation is crazy, Twilight.” He laughed. “I don’t know if you realize this, but changelings don’t fall in love. And I don’t even mean we struggled to get anypony to like us, I mean that most changelings don’t really feel love for anypony else except each other.”   Twilight smiled and caressed Chrysalis’ cheek. “She told me it wasn’t the first time she felt this way.” “Yeah, well, I guess Chrysalis has always been a little strange.” He put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder, but she didn’t react. “Listen, I’m not saying that she doesn’t love you, I’m just saying that I’m not entirely sure what will happen because of it.”  “Whatever challenges we face, we’ll face them together,” Twilight promised, still focused on Chrysalis.  The room descended back into silence. Twilight chewed on his words as she played with Chrysalis’ mane. It didn’t feel like she was lying. But in the back of her mind, a seed of doubt had been planted. Was this just the awakening of her romantic side, clamoring for anyone to love? Or did she actually love Chrysalis?  Is this what it was supposed to feel like? Everyone around her kept telling her that this was wrong, that this was crazy. And she ignored them all. But what if they were right? What if this was some sort of trick, not from Chrysalis, but born of Twilight’s own mind. What did she know about love? How could she make that call? “Twilight?”  The princess gasped as Thorax shocked her back to reality.  “Sorry.” Twilight turned away. “I was just lost in thought for a second.”  Thorax let his mentor’s mask fall as he inched himself over to sit beside Twilight. She waited for him to say something, to offer some hopeful platitude that would make everything okay. But instead, he stayed quiet.  “Is it really so wrong to love her?” Twilight asked, turning her head just enough to watch Thorax’s expression out of the corner of her eye.  “I couldn’t say for sure.” He bit his lip. “You know, I’m not telling you all this to drive you away from her. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you do love her. Like I said, I don’t really have a clue what I’m doing here, Twilight.”  “It certainly sounds like you were trying to drive me away,” Twilight muttered.  “I’m sorry.”  “Thorax, I want to believe I love her. I really do. But everyone keeps telling me that I’m wrong, that I’m out of my mind.” She paused. “I don’t know what to think anymore. I’m out of my depth here.”  “I know. I’m sorry that I’m not much help.” “What would you do in my situation?”  Thorax hummed as he thought. “I’d ask you what you’d do in my situation,” he finally answered. He tried his best to deliver the line with a playful smile. And to his credit, he did manage a chuckle from Twilight.  “Thanks.”  “What can I say, I’m just helpful like that.”  Another round of silence. Heavy silence. The kind that Twilight felt might crush her if it lingered too long. “Is this a bad idea, Thorax?” Twilight asked. Her voice was starting to quake.  “You really want to know what I think, Twilight?” He asked. She looked up at him with pleading eyes. “I think you should tell me to shut up.” Her head tilted to the side. “I don’t necessarily mean it as a joke this time. I know the danger, but I don’t know how you feel. If you really love her, then I won’t stop you.”  “How do I know if I really love her?”  “You don’t.” He shrugged. “Are you still willing to do this?”  Twilight closed her eyes. She clenched her teeth as a cacophony of voices called out to her, doubting her, telling her what to do, who to be, how to be. And just as the choir grew loud enough to break her, a single voice drowned out all the rest. And with that voice, a single touch. A soft brush against her lips.  “You know what?” Twilight wiped the tears from her eyes and sat up straight. “Shut up, Thorax.” She smiled, and he responded with one in kind. “I’ve learned a lot about right and wrong over the last few days. Enough to know that I don’t care if this is the wrong choice. It’s the choice I want to make. Is it selfish? Maybe. Is it crazy? Absolutely. But it’s my choice to make.”  She crossed her forelegs over her chest, pouting. The scene made Thorax laugh.  “Glad to see you’ve figured that out.”  “I haven’t figured anything out,” Twilight explained. “I’m just tired of thinking. I’m tired of wondering what I should do. This time, I’m choosing what I want, and I’ll deal with whatever consequences come from that.”  “Spoken like someone in love,” Thorax said.  “Now, if you’re done trying to talk me out of this, tell me how to save her.”  Thorax’s gaze went from Twilight to Chrysalis and back again. “I did.”  “I mean, you taught me a lot,” Twilight began, “but it might be helpful if you told me how I actually get her to feed off me. There’s a good chance that she kept this from me because she didn’t want to put me in danger. Any suggestions?”  “Don’t give her a choice.” Thorax sniffed.  “I could use a bit more than that.”  “It’s based on her love for you, Twilight. Make it so that she wants you. That she needs you. You have to overwhelm her sense of caution. Might even try to make her a little reckless.”  A few ideas settled in Twilight’s head. “So, I guess I should get started then.”  “Wait.” Thorax stood. “I . . . I can’t really be here to watch this.”  “I wasn’t planning on g-going that far.” Twilight blushed.  “You don’t have to be embarrassed about that, Twilight. Changelings are pretty open about that sort of stuff. Kind of comes with the territory when you share thoughts.” A fit of coughing helped alleviate the tension in the air. “But this is a little different. Like I said, love is special for changelings. To us, a feeding between a changeling and their loved one is . . . it’s sacred. Intimate. Private.”  “Oh.” Twilight turned away.  “Yeah.” Thorax scratched the back of his neck. “I hope that helps you understand the gravity of the situation.”  “It . . . It does.” Twilight looked down at the changeling’s head resting in her lap. The weight of the moment had finally come down on her shoulders. It turned her stomach the same way exams used to. But there was another part of her, deep down inside, that wanted this.  Wanted her.  “Good luck, Twilight.” Thorax wore a sad smile.  “Thank you, Thorax. Now go. Take care of yourself and your changelings. I’ll see you again. Soon.”  “I hope so.”  Still wearing his shame and guilt, Thorax turned and walked out, shutting the door behind him. Twilight lit her horn, turning the door’s lock. She was alone now. With Chrysalis. There was no going back now. She laid Chrysalis’ head down gently and moved into a better position. She lowered herself onto the makeshift cot, lying stomach-to-stomach with Chrysalis. One of her hooves looped around Chrysalis’ barrel while the other took her by the cheek. The changeling stirred, pressing herself against Twilight’s touch.  “Chrysalis? I need you to wake up. I’ve got something for you.”