//------------------------------// // 94 // Story: Twilights Mane Passion // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// It was two weeks later; things were settling back into the norm. The Trouble Takers business took a bit of a nosedive, while Trims and Tresses had a mild upturn in business. Tress was especially making a tidy profit for her minty smelling cleanser as a perfect chewing gum removing agent; Bonbon was a constant advertisement to the effects. Daring left Ponyville after only staying for six hours, she stayed two hours to get into contact with her distant relative who looked almost exactly like Derpy Hooves. She even asked Twilight to look into Celestia about the wing clipping thing personally, she spent three hours with Scootaloo while disguised almost perfectly as Rainbow Dash given their similar builds even if she were older. Twilight couldn’t alter or change cutie marks and Rainbow would never wear a dress unless the occasion saw fit to put her in the path of some Wonder Bolts that required it. There were several winged equines in Ponyville that were grey coated and had blonde hair. They were all friends with the muffin loving Derpy who was currently taking some back roads through time and space at the moment. None of them were related by blood despite sharing very similar outward appearances. Ditzy Do understood the meaning of family quite well; she was raised by Timber Wolves before moving to Ponyville after all. Leaving her to the wooden wolves was an assassination attempt to stamp out the Do-gooder line, one that somehow backfired magnificently. Scootaloo was family to Ditsy and she would look out for filly when she wasn’t too busy. No pony knows how Ditzy managed to get a job with heavy parcel services as a mail pony, much less became a licensed nurse and learned to speak equestrian. She was just a mare whose special talent was a ludicrous resilience to all forms of injury, including having survived being swallowed alive by a hydra after being thoroughly chewed with only a mildly sprained hock to show for it. She had a big bubble enwrapping smaller bubbles for a cutie mark. Scootaloo was almost fully capable of flight now as Fluttershy had kept her out of sight and out of mind; the guards were none too happy and knew that she was still around Ponyville somewhere by word of mouth. She was happy to know she was related to Ditsy, if only the mare in question wasn’t so hard to understand and would stop speaking in weird metaphors. Everything was almost right with the world for the little filly; Fluttershy had even started reading some Daring Do novels to her. At the Sparkle and Ravel residence, Tress was rubbing Pal’s belly after he had been fed some reheated flying spaghetti monster. Pal purred happily as it stretched out on the couch, his master was in a relaxed state and in good mood. They weren’t about to run out of food for him at this rated with at least a few pounds of magically preserved food monster, of which anyone could feasibly eat in a pinch as well. Turning back to the book Tress continued to read it alongside Twilight with Barb sandwiched between them. Daring’s latest hit, the mare knew how to write a compelling book when she had the spare time to work out a few chapters. “So what actually happened and what did she embellish?” Barb was curious as ever, she heard that books could take you places. The young dragon never thought her mother meant it literally; then again her mother was sucked into a comic book. “She’s been pretty good about it so far my little flame, I just feel bad that she can’t raise Scoots like I raise you.” Twilight knew what she’d be feeling if she couldn’t raise Barb herself and had to leave it to some other pony for prolonged periods of time or no pony at all. She immediately started nuzzling her daughter. How Daring can stand to crack jokes and continue living when she can’t watch over the most important thing to her? It was a bit heartbreaking to think about. “So, do you want Tress to make one of the recipe’s she picked up from Saddle Arabia for dinner?” “I sometimes wish I could eat like you guys. Sunlight tastes like nothing but forty flavors of ice cream constantly being dumped down my tiny throat.” Smart was reading along with them and hadn’t been too mischievous since they left or came back. She was running liaison duties with the mayor about how to prepare for the Summer Sun Celebration and how best to talk Luna down from committing omnicide by eternal night. “Say, did you remember to put the elements back where they belong four days ago?” “Yes, I took the elements back to the tree of harmony. The tree really had an interesting reaction to them, but it’s not my business anymore to worry about them.” Twilight shrugged, she figured life would be better without forcing things to happen through the use of ancient magic. The tree glowing and the sprouting a new flower was none of her business, especially not when she didn’t know where the tree came from originally and she wasn’t about to mess with it. Turning back to the book she was levitating she continued to read. “Where were we again? Ah yes, Daring Do was in the middle of rescuing Princess Jasmine along with her bodyguard Rough Heed and were evading the guards still in the city. The guards were under the control of the grand vizier who was off chasing the thief with a golden heart who met the princess a week earlier and fell in love with her. It’s really interesting to know how Ballad Din played his part; he’s got a pretty good singing voice when we heard him serenade Jasmine.” “He’s a good stallion, too bad he’s already taken with someone else. The good ones are like diamonds in the rough. All they need is little polishing to really shine.” Tress smiled, she couldn’t wait to see how they ended up as part of the story personally. Being a fictional character twice over was quite amusing for the comic book character. “You know if I’m in this book, doesn’t that make me a cameo?” “Only if she knows you’re super villain name and uses it can it be a cameo. Hey does being in this book mean you’re super fictional?” Barb could now feel the same amusement that was showing on Tress’s face. Her mom started giggling into her hoof. “Can we not degrade ourselves with more puns please? It’s bad enough that I do that when I’m full on Mane-iac, I’m a braid I wouldn’t be able to quit if I got started as just myself.” Tress couldn’t help but blush at making yet another hair pun. More laughter resounded from the two ponies and dragon on the couch, before they continued. “Say, didn’t you guys say you have an airship? Where did you even put it? You just walked into town.” Smart was just being overly curious since Ponyville didn’t exactly have an airship port to speak of. Before Twilight could answer where the airship went to, a knock at the door stopped her. Barb squeezed out from between her mother and Tress; she made her way to the door and opened it up. A pegasus stallion was at the door with a sickly looking Chrysalis draped across her back. “Who is at the door Barb?” Twilight placed a bookmark into the book and closed it before standing up and stretching out. Tress did the same about to go start dinner when what Barb said next drew their attentions. “It’s Mr. Thunder Lane with Chrysalis draped across his back mom. She looks really ill.” That news from Barb brought both mares to the front door immediately with questions dancing amidst their tongues. “Hey, I’m sorry about disturbing your evening, but she insisted I bring her to you instead of the hospital. Goodness knows why, she’s been coughing up a lot of this really strange stuff.” Carefully the dark grey stallion with the two toned blue mane and a dark cloud spewing a lightning bolt for a cutie mark gently put down the changeling. Chrysalis shakily stood up and then held up her left hoof to her mouth and coughed up a blob of green goo into her hoof. She flicked it away and teetered slightly before being aided by Tress to even stay standing. “Where did you find her?” Twilight wanted to know if she was being bullied or if something was making her sick like this, Chrysalis looked positively pale. “Also I don’t think a hospital would have really been helpful as ponies don’t really know much about healing changelings.” “I was with Flitter and Cloud Chaser when I saw what I thought to be a mare collapsing on the ground around Whitetail Woods. I found out it was just Chrysalis and then I noticed something was off with her.” Thunder Lane much like any pony who lived in Ponyville long enough learned to accept that the changelings were a rather benign species, even if they could be more harmful and dangerous by choice. “She wasn’t being mauled or was already in the state of having been mauled, she didn’t look to well then and now she looks even worse.” “Basement please, I need to get to the basement.” Chrysalis sounded short on breath as she coughed violently. “It’s my time.” “Really you’re going to let something like a little cold take you…” Tress started out, before Chrysalis glared at her making her go quiet. “Not a cold, not dying… cocooning phase.” The realization struck both the mares at what Chrysalis meant, it was time she entered a year long process to fully become a queen. “Thank you for getting her here safely Thunder. I appreciate you looking out for our friend, we’ll see to her now.” Twilight levitated Chrysalis and made for the basement door, they currently had no experiments going on down there. They had long ago installed a closet for Chrysalis, having promised her that she could use their basement for this purpose. “Can I watch this cocooning thing?” Thunder was now less worried and was intrigued to know what was going on. “Only if it’s okay with Chrysalis, this could be a very private matter for her.” Twilight turned to Chrysalis who nodded her permission to witness the stage to fully becoming a queen. She turned to her daughter and addressed her even as Tress started trotting down the stairs to the basement. “Barb stay here, this might get a bit gross.” Barb nodded; she did not want to watch this and would stay in the living room. She had to find something else to occupy her time with until Tress started cooking dinner. Goodness knows her mom couldn’t cook to save a pony’s life and would most likely be the cause of the danger in the first place. Pal padded up to her and meowed softly, he pawed at her leg affectionately wanting some attention. Launch the cat toys! In the basement Twilight opened the closet and sat Chrysalis down inside, Tress and Thunder just stood aside watching with interest as the changeling started barfing up more green sludge. It became apparent what that the stuff was when it started building up around Chrysalis’s hooves. “Is this closet good enough Chrysalis?” Receiving a nod Twilight watched as the changeling continued to spew sticky looking fluids all over her body. Her front two hooves started working the material into a shape. “Sure you’re not uncomfortable?” “I’ll be fine, the process is almost exactly a year long, give or take some time.” Chrysalis’s carapace opened slightly and spilled out more of the green substance filling in the immediate space around her. She could just feel Twilight was having a hard time saying goodbye to a friend. Differences between races aside, for Chrysalis it was going to be but a blink of her eyes. Tress would likely miss being able to throw those jabs at her inability to fend off tiny, if very vicious, woodland creatures. “See you guys in the future and have fun facing Luna without me.” Chrysalis was having a hard time talking as every other word had bits of fluid slowly falling from the sides of her mouth. She thought better of talking anymore as she continued the process of wrapping her body in a snug jelly filled jelly bean shaped blob. Said blob was made from questionable substances that ponies wouldn’t find nearly as pleasant as a changeling would. “This is really disturbing, yet I can’t look away.” Thunder Lane’s ears fell back and even he looked a bit green at the half formed cylindrical cocoon slowly making its way up Chrysalis’s body. “I know exactly what you mean.” Twilight studied the rubbery substance as Chrysalis slowly engulfed herself. The changeling’s presence would be missed, even if Twilight still hadn’t entirely gotten over the napalm spell thing. “Well at least it doesn’t smell horrible, you’d expect the bile she’s spewing to at least have some sort of funky smell.” At Tress’s unique bit of insight the cocoon was three fourths of the way finished and already filling up with a fluid substance. In fact, after a sniff from her own olfactory senses, Twilight could tell that Chrysalis wasn’t going to stink up their basement. She smiled sadly as the changeling pointed her mouth upwards and started to create the top of the cocoon, a massive fountain of goo that flowed from her throat completely encompassing her head. Twilight could go for some frozen cow juice right about now, watching as Chrysalis’s eyes blinked slowly and then slid shut. “We better make sure there is a future for her to come back to, The Summer Sun Celebration is coming up and we need to prepare for all eventualities. Now if you’ll please get out of our home Mr. Lane, I’m sure you have a busy day ahead of you tomorrow.” Tress watched as the stallion rubbed the back of his head and then started for the stairs. “Can I hire you for something right now or can I reserve first dibs for tomorrow?” Both mares looked at him as he stopped halfway to the front door. “Depends on the nature of your trouble, is it world ending or immediately dangerous to pony lives? If not then I’m sorry, you’ll have to drop in tomorrow and we’ll look into it then.” Nodding the stallion left without a word, as Twilight shut the door she motioned to Tress to start cooking dinner with the barest flick of her left ear. “Probably has a hot date with Flitter and wants to ask us to foal sit his little brother Rumble again.” Tress mused as she walked into the kitchen.