Had she not the aegis of her resolve, the end would have long come. Chrysalis would have broken her down—allowed the desolation of her mind to leave it free for taking. Of course, Luna never really knew how relentless the attacks were, being that the queen had left something of a numbing agent within her mind: the constant eroding and reconstruction of memory.
But that was it.
Chrysalis’ abilities were not that of a god’s, nor were they capable of simply undoing the primordial duties carried within the reaches of Luna’s conscience. The queen’s manipulation was constricted to the most recent of memories: the illusions and the polluted ideas that struggled to prod the princess’ worldview. True, she could observe the ancient’s reactions, but she could not actually interfere with them; her games were, at best, experiments in personality.
And that was all she ever really needed.
--~~--
“This is not good—not good, not good….”
There was that noise, buzzing in her ear. It kept speaking, but never did it have anything interesting to say.
“Wake up, OK? Wake up….”
Always the same—always, the noise yanked her back from the warmth, if only for a moment.
“Shhh… Shhh… I can hear you breathe. You can hear me. You can hear….”
Luna struggled to push the voice to the back of her mind as she floated through the void between worlds. Here she’d stayed for days, bouncing between sensation and nothingness, left only to her dreamy thoughts. Every so often, she might feel the cold of a stone against her face or the faint shuffling as a hoof struggled to shake her, but those events were fleeting—a flicker of reality that could not reach the princess’ consciousness, which drifted far from its home.
But this one time, the noise didn’t leave. Rather, it continued buzzing in her ear, echoing over and over until the droning boiled in her skull. The voice became crisp—physical—beyond anything else she’d felt in the void.
There was a slight rocking in her sternum; she could feel a pair of hooves pushing against her numbed ribs, shaking violently as they pressed harder and harder into her skin. “You and I… We can stop her….”
As the voice trailed out, a thought came upon Luna’s floating mind—one she had not experienced until that very moment when her senses twisted between being and illusion. Could it be real? The princess was silent; she let her mind fall away so that the sensations might take its place. The further she pushed herself away, the better. The lust for truth had already taken hold of her or at least the thought that it might be within reach for once.
Sense returned, slowly but certainly.
First came feeling: the cold of moist stonework against the whole left of her body. There was, for a moment, a breeze. The air was warm, humid—far too humid for the outside world. No, they were underground or somewhere sealed so that nothing might escape, not even water.
Then came the noises: she heard the voice whimpering—crying—in the darkness, caught in whispered fears. There were chains too, moving along with the tortured soul, but they carried no weight in them. The speaker moved freely among the chamber, leaving them to rattle against the floor as he paced back and forth around her. The clatter wrung its way into her head, synching with the voice in the constant droning howl.
Death—then came the scent of death: of rotting flesh buried in shallow graves amongst the stonework. Fear and moisture and sweat all came upon her in a shameless toxin that sunk a deep sickness in her stomach.
Scent became taste, and the sickness writhed within her gut. No such food—no such grace or perfume—could possibly break her of that putrid sensation: it was the bread of war beside the wine of stolen bloods, nameless but taken in whole, thrown together in one universal body that could only be described as suffering.
Then light.
Then came the glorious light, bringing Luna from the static and grey haze into warmth and color. But color could not simply describe it: it was a specific range of lights. Through her own blurred eyes, Luna could make out the copper and orange of torchlight, but there was little else. Red and orange and black—never had there been a world isolated to the realms of such hate.
Luna looked down at herself, seeing only blackness against the stone. It was uncanny: the last time she’d seen herself painted by darkness, she’d fallen into it. And for a moment, she laughed; here she was in the belly of whatever dungeon Chrysalis’ had placed her in, and yet, her thoughts revolved around how her hair looked in the lighting. Perhaps she was more Equestrian than she had thought herself to be.
The princess rubbed the fog from her eyes before pulling herself from the floor. Strangely enough, her bones were just as spry as they’d been when she had gone under, whenever that was. No, it was not her muscles that brought her down, but the intense, spiking sickness burning that burnt inside her gut. Luna stumbled for a moment before collapsing with a pained gasp.
She dug her hooves into the rock, and pushed.
Pain ripped through her back, biting into her skull. Static and screams poured into her ears, yet she still pushed harder.
Her muscles failed.
The mare slammed her jaw against the floor.
But she pushed again.
Luna shuffled towards the light, eyes glazed with emptiness. The sickness crept up through her, yanking her back, but still she limped onward.
When she reached the light, the mare fell once more to the stones. Pain had reached its highest point within her; light and sound twisted around her, but she only smiled. Somewhere within the suffering and the unrelenting chaos, euphoria had taken hold of her—a moment of joy, which numbed her to the wracking within her.
She’d been taken by simplicity. All the pain of illusion and lies and doubt had been taken from her, and trust returned to her senses. For a moment, Luna questioned her own memories: had the queen been killed? And just as the faint hope passed over her, the pain ceased.
She coughed, and blood spattered across the floor.
Luna slumped, losing hold of all the senses she’d fought so viciously for.
But there was peace.
The world returned to its haziness, yet the princess’ sense of certainty remained with her. She was alive and very much awake—she could see movement beyond the blur, and she could feel the embrace of gentle hooves as they dragged her from the shadows.
She could hear the voice again, trembling beside her, sputtering on about mercy—safety—for the foreigner. She never heard the response, but something inside her held the belief that his wishes had been granted.
Time passed, and the stones under her grew warmer—softer, too. Rock became dirt, and dirt became soil. What had once been a world of shadows quickly turned to sky-lit plains. What had been silent muttering had become the clashes of metal and toil and productivity; she heard chattering and noises beyond what she’d ever experienced, but still they seemed so close—as though home was just beyond the next root or pebble.
The princess struggled to look back at her caretakers. The world was still in blur, but she could just barely make out two of her kind struggling to pull her through. One, a tawny stallion, would frequently stop to ask the other in senselessness. The other, who carried much a darker color—black even—just nodded or shrugged as she dragged Luna by the grip of her jaw.
For a moment, there was color in its face—glimmering like jewels or stars suspended in the midnight sky.
The color of emeralds.
Luna bowed her head, and remained in peace until the final tug came through—until the stallion rolled her over to face the clear blue skies. He smiled and said something, but noise had cut him out—a ringing. The shadow appeared beside its partner, and the two smiled.
The ringing grew louder and louder, building within her. The world grew clearer, and the sound more distinct. Faces appeared in the blurred color, and clouds separated from the blue. A cold breeze rolled over her, and all went to silence.
Luna stared into Chrysalis’ eyes, which trembled with weariness. Bandages and open wounds painted her skin; there was a genuine suffering within her caustic smile.
It was her.
No illusions.
It was simply her.
“Why?” Luna asked, counting her blood-marks and bruises.
There was a long pause before the queen replied. “I thought it time to be honest with you, and I had a hope that you might let me speak.”
Luna planted her hooves in the grass and pushed herself up. The three stood in the center of an empty field—the same field she’d stood in when the queen had first taken her under. The golden earth held her with warmth and endearing grace, as though begging her to remain. There was no pain when she stood—there was only the faint embrace of the southerly winds and the heat of the sun.
Luna looked at the queen, mustering as much sympathy as she could in trade for the honesty. Somehow, the desire to kill had been put out; perhaps it was the strangeness of the situation or the hours of mental burning, but something told her that the slaughter could wait—if only for a moment.
“You’re risking everything for simple words, Chrysalis. Do you think them to be worth it?” Luna lifted her chin. “I will grant you a few minutes, but do not take me to be in the generous mood, understand?”
Chrysalis shrugged. “Well, I’d match your cordial voice, princess, but you don’t consider me to be a ruler, do you?”
“You’re a parasite to me, and little more. Speak as you wish.” Strength built in Luna’s heart. For once, she felt in control of the situation. For once, she felt herself in control of the changeling, even if it was under suspicious pretenses. “Well, what say you?”
“Luna, do you know how long you’ve been here? Do you know how long I’ve kept you from your people?” Chrysalis chuckled, but receded quickly. “Your sister is making assumptions.”
“Well, I do not blame her. I’ve spent far too long with your kind—I’ve played for far too long.” Luna smirked. “What has it been? A week?”
Chrysalis shook her head. “Closer to a month, your highness.”
Luna blinked.
“Celestia is launching an attack on me. Did you know that?” The queen looked up at the sky. “She’s gathered her guards from all over—yours too—and is sending for my weary head.”
The princess completed her thought. “So you’re looking for mercy, then, are you? I don’t know if I—“
Chrysalis smiled. “They’re walking into an ambush, Luna.”
The princess went silent.
“You’ve created the greatest war of virtue that Equestria has ever faced, Luna. Celestia is sending almost all of your soldiers into a trap, and you are at the heart of it.”
Hate took hold. The images of Chrysalis’ death wrapped around her conscience, but still she remained frozen.
“You see, you might not consider me much of a ruler, but you’ve never really seen my domain, have you? You’ve seen only what I’ve showed you, and every choice I’ve made has been to get you right here—right now.” Chrysalis rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “The threat made against Canterlot, the attack—come on, Luna, think about it. How would I benefit in any way from stealing your throne? Fear isn’t what sustains me, princess.”
Luna staggered backwards.
“I knew that you were a great asset to your country—that they loved you so much that they’d throw everything into your safety. Then, I found out what you wanted—I found out about the ghosts in your closet, and what it would take to bring you from shelter. I found out that you wanted redemption, so I made the perfect opportunity. I attacked your country, I was defeated, and I was let off without so much as a few bruises. Remind you of something?”
The attack was far more than personal. Luna thought back—she thought back to the first mistake Chrysalis had made in Canterlot, and how she’d nearly perfectly set herself up for escapable failure. “You didn’t—“
“No, I didn’t attempt an attack on Canterlot through the most unconventional means, actively damaging my own standing by allowing for the most obvious, simple methods of retaliation. No, I didn’t make my position in Canterlot jeopardized by warning the royal guard. No, I didn’t cast my only two threats—that Cadance and the element of harmony—into a pit that they could simply step out of.”
Luna managed only to stare at the psychopath. There were no thought—no words—that could take her.
“Did you really believe that a queen, who lives solely by the powers of manipulation and strategy, would do something that ridiculously pointless? Did you really believe that I would make every attempt to topple my own scheme in attempt for a treasure that would be absolutely useless to me? You Equestrians really are as stupid as you look.”
“But you were—“
Chrysalis cut in once more. “But I was dramatically villainous and appeared to be ‘foiled once more’? Luna, my only talent is domination and control. Would your greatest artists spend years of practice to draw a house with crayon? Would your finest classical singer spend all their resources in making the perfect song about oral hygiene?”
There was silence.
Chrysalis laughed. “I also find it comical that you believe that the only followers I have are the ones I used to attack Canterlot. Since when did any good strategy involve throwing all of your subjects against a well-entrenched foe? Luna, I’m a ‘queen’, and I think we’d both agree that such a title does not fit a leader of hundreds. Thousands, perhaps, but hundreds are closer to something of a tribe.”
Once again, silence.
“Princess, I’m a ruler just as you are. I’m not looking for blanket chaos like Discord, and I’m certainly not polluted by the Equestrian mercy like your pathetic little nightmare. I am willing to kill, burn, and shift my way through fire and blood for the glory of my subjects; I would never make such a mockery of my own existence as that Canterlot fiasco.”
Luna could not bear to see that face any more. She dropped her head, barely holding back the tears.
She’d destroyed her own country through egoism and accident.
She’d been drawn out like a fool and beaten savagely into the ground.
The end was upon her, and Chrysalis could see it in her desperate, shaking body.
A tawny hoof came over her neck. “Luna, don’t do this to yourself. It isn’t your fault. Nopony blames you.” The stallion was empathetic, but spoke without name. Luna looked up into his eyes, which too had been torn with deceit and pain. He smiled. “And if I’m not mistaken, the queen has something yet to offer you.”
Chrysalis looked over at the pair with ambivalence. “Why don’t you tell her? I believe I’ve said quite enough, hm?”
The stallion stared at the parasite with hate, which, oddly enough, pushed the queen back to staring into the sky. “Your majesty, the queen is offering you a chance to save your people. You can’t do anything about the soldiers—it’s too late for them—but you can still protect them from the things that come afterward, if, that is, you’re willing to make a sacrifice.”
Luna nodded, too choked to speak.
“Help her take control without bloodshed. Help her get what she wants, and so long as you help her, they will remain unharmed—physically, that is.” The stallion waved for the queen to come closer, but she simply ignored him. “Do you think you could do it? Could you make the right choice even though no one else will recognize you for it? Can you make the right choice, even though your loved ones abandon you for it?”
Luna coughed, “…what if I say no?”
The pony just stared at her and frowned. “Without your words, the Equestrians will be more likely to resist. The Elements of Harmony and those two Canterlot lovers—they’ll have to be handled with more… certainty—your sister too. Basically, you’re our key to effective crowd control.”
“So you’re with her, then? You—an Equestrian—gave in? Why?”
The pony sighed, “It’s more complicated than that. I don’t wish to be here, if that’s what you want to know.”
“Oh, no, he’s just as much as convenience to me as you are, princess!” Chrysalis noted, turning from the sky. “Luna, your people will be kept in line—whether by my methods or by yours. I’d still prefer it be the latter.”
“So, how does this make it any different than your first attempt?” The princess barked. “It’s subordination all the same!”
Chrysalis shook her head, “No, no, again you’ve jumped over logic and prefer to paint me a standard villain. Don’t you think I know that plain warfare will grant me no reward? Yes, we’ll be taking Canterlot, but not before a far more complicated sort of invasion, you see. Have faith in my strategies, hm? They’ve all gone so perfectly thus far.”
A desire returned to the princess—a desire for blood. Luna could feel the hatred charging through her spine and into her skull; it would be all too easy.
Chrysalis could see the anger growing by the slight movements of her face. “Ah, but before you do that, Luna, I think you should know the consequences. Changelings aren’t particularly smart creatures, you see—they have minds, but they need me to do most of their work for them. That being said, I choose very specific things to tell them.”
Luna furrowed her brow.
“For example, my subjects, at this current moment, have two directives. First, they’re going to deal with the invaders who are so foolishly going to try ‘chasing us’ into a cave system. Then, they’re going to circle back to Equestria. Now, what they do when they arrive is up to me, but if I am silent, they’ll just kind of follow whatever whim carries them, and let me tell you now, after having just slaughtered your armies, they’ll be a bit riled up. Do you understand?”
Luna’s hate melted. She dropped her head again.
“Good girl. Now, we’ve got things to do in Equestria before they arrive, so can I count on you to play nicely?”
A tear dropped from Luna’s face into the golden earth. Between the fear and shock, she had barely the strength to find breath. “Do I have much an option?”
“That depends. How many do you want to die?”
Luna never responded. She had only the energy to sit and watch emptily as the queen watched the skies. Her partner, the unicorn, looked as though he wished to sit beside his princess, but he lacked the courage.
Had she not the aegis of her resolve, she would have never left Canterlot. She would have never felt the duty, and she would have stayed in the shadows of her own safety.
But things were not so merciful towards the wayward princess…
…nor had they ever been.