//------------------------------//
// 2014 Retelling: Broken Without Salvation 
// Story: Queen No More 
// by BlackWater 
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Pain. That was the way of changeling life for so long that Queen Chrysalis had to strain herself mentally to remember anything else, and even then the memories felt dull and made-up. Were they even real? Had she ever experienced fullness not just of the stomach but also of life itself?
She was taller and stronger than any of her fellow changelings. She was, after all, the queen. But she was more than that to her precious hive. She was their master, their mother, their leader, and their hope. Or, at least, she had been. At some point things had started to change and it was not just the outward appearance of her own shape-shifting body.
It was years of segregation, years of starvation, and years of being rejected by the other races that had pushed her past any semblance of sanity in her decisions. Once she had been calm, kind, and even gentle. What she had turned into was a monster that laughed at the pain of others. She didn't just want love to feed her own kind anymore. She wanted to see the ponies squirm and suffer, as if inflicting pain on them was a triumph of justice for all the years of pain she had to endure.
It wasn't a new concept. Ponies had known for centuries that those that endured long and strenuous bouts of suffering would seek ways to vent their frustration. They would seek something or somepony to lash out at in an unusual and indirect attempt af revenge. In some cases it was just an attempt to force others to experience the same pains, as if making another understand one's own experiences was more important than anything else. It was a simple desire to be accepted that was so twisted by the pain that it was hardly recognizable as such.
Queen Chrysalis would never think of such things, though. Her mind was consumed with fleeting curses of hatred as the magical blast of energy from Shining Armor and Princess Cadance blew her and her kind from Canterlot. But even those last shreds of anger were dying out because, truth be told, she was as well.
The queen had thought herself at her zenith, a miracle that she had cheated death and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. The scythe would not deal her its fatal blow! Such was her certainty when she had thought Canterlot taken and the ponies defenseless. She had won. The hive would be fed and the ponies would begin to understand in at least some small way what the changelings had been forced to live through. No more were they outcast and kept from the plenty that Equestria offered.
Things changed. The impossible became possible. Love, the greatest source of nourishment for the hive, became its greatest bane. And in that one moment, everything reversed. For the ponies, they saw their own personal hope and freedom. For the changelings, they saw a defeat magnified more than any other and a dark old changeling myth hooded with scythe waiting impatiently. Life had become death and someone was ready to collect.
Thought. It happened in a heartbeat. A thousand ideas could zip along even if Chrysalis wasn't listening in to her hivemind. There could be billions of thoughts there, mixing about to occasionally provide a few golden examples. Each of the thoughts now consisted of “look out below” and “oh, darn.” A few of them flooded with thoughts of pain. Probably the changelings that had the lowest trajectory upon being hit with the royal couple's magic. Those falling within close reach of Canterlot would likely deserve the most pity since they would likely be executed by Royal Guardponies if the fall didn't do the job.
Where she, the queen, was headed...well...that didn't matter. There was nothing she could do about it as the ground, so far below, passed along at lightning speed. At first, the blur below was of a deep emerald green. The trees of Mt. Canter were left behind to those of the summit and then the surrounding forest. When those gave way, there were green fields and then prairies after that. A lake was mixed in somewhere, giving a splotch of blue against the green backdrop. The green gave out like everything else to become dustier colors, though it had been losing its richness to pastels all along.
As the land soared below and Chrysalis soared above, the speed only decreased gradually in tune with her arc. There was a marked difference between having wings and being able to fly in her current conditions. Forgetting all notion that she and her children were now too weak to fly on their own, it was simply not possible to make any corrective action at this point. A bird could fly on its own just fine but could do very little to control its destiny should it be shot out of a cannon a hundred hooves per second. This was not to say that Chrysalis didn't try anyways.
A kind of scrubland desert was taking over as the next biome below when the queen made her first attempt to take corrective action. Perhaps, she thought in disregard to the realizations of her children, she could at least turn her body in such a way so as to minimize damage upon inevitable terrestrial impact. She should never have bothered.
The second she started moving her wings to reposition herself in the air, she was introduced to a new kind of pain. That was saying quite a lot considering how many raw years of it she had been through. She had broken a wing before for certain but never like this. The way the wind cracked its forward spine and literally tore the upper half clean off was...there was no word for it.
Chrysalis screamed. It was not the same scream she had given upon the initiation of this whole event. It was a different scream altogether that said “death is sweet compared to this.” Thankfully, as she was certainly not being appreciative of in the moment, changeling wings were worlds apart from pegasi wings. They were not irreplaceable and could, in fact, grow back to some degree so long as a part of the forward spine remained. She had learned this once from one of the anatomy tutors that her mother forced upon her a few hundred years back. She was not remembering any of it right at the moment, however, because it didn't matter so far as the evil pain was concerned.
Some of the changelings in the hivemind noticed the mental plight of their ruler and, for some strange inexplicable reason, did not inquire whether or not she was okay. They continued their own individual tirades about defeat, doom, and dissatisfaction. Not necessarily in that order.
As more and more changelings ceased their acrobatics, the hivemind became less and less vocal. That was odd. It should have been alight with discussion about what had happened or, at the very least, be in some form of panic. But instead, every second brought with it an unnerving and growing void that Chrysalis had never quite experienced before.
Time was running thin now. Her painful flight was reaching a low arc and velocity. A short strip of open desert had passed by below and reopened to greenery that she could only guess in the hectic moment was somewhere in the vicinity of Neighagra Falls. A few other changelings were crashing with her nearby.
With all of the trees being tall and unforgiving, she knew this part was going to hurt. There was no avoiding collision with a few before she hit ground. Her magic was spent, her body broken. Oh, but that was not enough. It was going to be even more broken as soon as the-
Crack!
Chrysalis hit and broke an upper branch of a pine with the top portion of one of her forehooves. It happened so fast that she hadn't even had the time to attempt moving her leg out of the way and the impact was so blunt that it wasn't until she hit the second tree that it really began to register in her mind. After all, the pain of it had to overcome that of her broken wing. There was little time for either of those, however, because she hit the branch of the second tree at a lower height. One of the holes in her left leg caught on it and wrenched her in a sickening new direction.
Her mind, regardless of all hivemind enhancements, could not perceive everything that happened after that since it was simply a fast blur of color and pain. She saw green. Whether it was the pine needles or the underbrush was unclear. She felt impacts all over her body. More things cracked and broke, some of which were her own.
There was the taste of tree bark and the smell of broken blades of grass while the sharp flavor of blood rapidly filled her mouth. Finally her voice caught up and managed one shrill but gurgled scream before going silent. Nothing came from her for a long time after that. As far as her mind was concerned, there was an expanse of approximately five hours in which she was simply not alive.









When she came to, everything but the kitchen sink wasn't working. That meant that her reawakening was incredibly unpleasant and began with not but one eye opening halfway. She didn't see very well with it because her vision was blurry and determined to shift back and forth even though she was certain that her body was not making those movements yet. There were fresh tears in the working eye, as if she had been crying while she was still unconscious. There was also forest detritus obscuring most of her view because her head was pressed sideways into the soft soil.
Not a single part of her body responded when she tried moving. She panicked at this but it didn't do any good until she got a response from her right forehoof two minutes later. It was more than she got from the hivemind, which was completely silent. Dead silent.
If Queen Chrysalis had anything to be worried about then it wasn't her broken body or the failed invasion. It was the hive itself. Her conscious flared with concern compounded by all of the negatives that were overwhelming her. Some changeling – any changeling – had to respond!
Her right forehoof rustled some piles of dead pine needles as it was dragged over her limited field of view. Not good. There was blood all over it and she could see new unnatural holes as well. She already had too many to begin with and having more meant she was getting dangerously close to death's door.
She kept trying to move other parts of her body so that she could stand. There was no way she was going to be flying any time soon, she could remember that much. As she kept at it, gnashing her teeth through all of the scream-inducing pain, the hivemind finally came back in a quiet murmur. How could that be? It was as if the sounds of her children were being muffled under a thick blanket, keeping her from making sense of the words.
She tried casting her mental voice into the hivemind but nothing happened. It was as if she had become mute there in the one place she knew for hundreds of years she had been safe from the terrors of the real world. Something dropped from beneath her, but it took agonizing minutes for her to realize it wasn't the mushy forest soil she was half buried into. It wasn't anything physical at all. It was everything she had relied on and taken for granted in her long life.
Eventually, she regained control of her neck and shifted her head around to find out why her left leg was not responding. It was dug into the ground at an anatomically incorrect angle. Clearly, the joint at the shoulder was not currently connected. It was funny that she didn't feel that in particular amidst the pain that wracked her entire body. 
As it turned out, her body only had to catch up on the overload of damage. She sadly regained enough of her other bodily function to attempt standing up. It was a mistake, but she didn't know it until one of her back hooves twisted a bone fracture and she fell back onto her left shoulder. 
She passed out again.









It was dark. Once more, Queen Chrysalis awoke with only her left eye opening and a wall of pain that meant nothing but torment to her. This was going to go on forever, wasn't it? The light of the sun may have been in the twilight phase but it might as well have been night because even that dull glow from the edge of the horizon was dim.
She had no magic and very little of her body left to work with. There was something critically wrong with the hivemind and she couldn't honestly expect help from her children anyhow. She was their leader. She was supposed to be taking care of them. And even if they could help her, the closest one that had been with her in the air had probably landed a good five thousand hooves away. There was no guarantee he had survived.
She tried to be more careful this time. Instead of standing, she crawled forward with her right hoof. It ached badly but so did everything else. She had to do something about that left leg if she was going to survive but she didn't want to pass out again either. After some very delicate testing that wound up excruciating anyways, she found that it was her rear left leg that had fractured. Her right one was still good!
“Thank The Spinner,” she gurgled in her beaten voice. It was the first thing she had spoken in quite a while, not being able to help expressing some kind of relief among all of the immediate problems.
She could have worried at any point about ongoing bleeding or internal injuries but any such thought was utterly pointless. She couldn't do anything about such things if they were a problem and she didn't think they were fatal since she happened to be currently alive. Weak reasoning but it was a waste of time to fret over matters that were out of her control.
A few more hooves distance of crawling brought her to another pine tree's thick and slightly damp moss-covered trunk. Chrysalis positioned herself up against it using her right limbs and used her teeth to break off a low branch that was thin enough to remove but thick enough to clench in her mouth. She could focus on digging into it with her teeth while she did what needed to be done.
There was no way she could get to any place with love to steal for regeneration so long as she had to crawl on just her right-side limbs. She might be able to force a splint for her back leg if she got something to bind it with but, right now, her best bet was to reattach her left foreleg at the shoulder. If she passed out again, she only hoped it wasn't for half the night.
The tall changeling ground her right rear leg into the soil until she had good leverage. Her chest was pressed into the tree trunk at an angle that would allow her the best position to do the deed. Never in her long life had she needed to pop a bone back into a socket but she figured it wasn't as easy as a quick tap. She angled her left side down towards the trunk and reached over to the limp limb with her opposing forehoof. She had been breathing heavy this whole time but only now did she take even greater pants as she mentally prepared herself.
It happened as quick as she wanted it to. She grabbed the top of her left foreleg as best as she could with one hoof and no magic, the pain so immediately searing that her vision started fading just as fast. At the same time as she touched the limb and moved it up to the socket, she thrust with all of her body weight off of her right back leg. The stray limb crashed into the hard tree and mashed into the joint. It did not, however, pop in.
The pain was freshly acute and Chrysalis lost vision out of her one good eye again. When her body knifed sideways because of her loss of bodily control, the leg made a magical little pop and fully reattached. She realized this fifteen minutes later when she came back around to consciousness and also realized that she had not, in fact, hit rock bottom yet. For now she had three usable legs. Painfully usable legs. She tried not thinking about that word but it wouldn't get out of her mind any more than it would get out of her body. Pain.
The left foreleg was, of course, usable only in the sense of her using it or dying. It was pounding with so much tear-inducing sensation that she considered death as an immensely viable option. Regardless, it was still better than putting any weight at all on that rear left one. Her vision went in and out very time even the slightest tap went to it.
She still couldn't stand due to her condition, knees not being able to take her weight, but she could half crawl and half crouch along much faster than she could before. With the possibility of movement came the question of where she needed to go. She needed some kind of love to leech off of immediately and that meant some pony house or establishment. 
She had no clue where the closest one was. Her memory of her flight only involved blurs. She didn't even remember seeing the trees from above because there was...something wrong with her memory. Finally, she realized that she didn't know why she wound up where she was. There was the invasion of Canterlot. She knew that. But how had she gotten thrown out here?
Chrysalis paused and squinted. Her right forehoof slid up to her head and she felt more wounds and crusted blood there. Her horn was jagged as usual but otherwise fine. Ah, she found her conclusion. There was a searing bump hidden in her mane on the top of her head. Now she had a concussion as well. In a nutshell, it just wasn't her day.
The queen continued limping and crawling along the forest with the impossible hope of finding somepony to work off of or perhaps even one of her changelings if she was particularly lucky. She wasn't sure how luck could play into any of this since she was obviously cursed from birth but, what the heck, it couldn't get any worse...right?
At some point she started singing as she carried along. Her voice was full of cracks, her mane a tangled mess of sticks and leaves, and her mouth tasting always of blood. She sang anyways with words full of mixed brokenness and hysteria.
“This...”
Something tugged at her one operational eye.
“This...day...”
She sniffled to keep her nose from running. It was one more place she didn't need blood to come out of.
“...day...is going to be...”
New tears started slowly dripping down, having to work their way first past the dirt and dried blood on her face.
“This day...my day...my...”
She chocked up as she limped along the now pitch dark forest alone. Something new had broken and it wasn't her body.
“My wedding.”
She giggled in a daze, spirit crushed.
“My...Shining Armor? Where are you?”
Chrysalis stopped in her tacks. Endless seas of pines surrounded her and nopony was in sight, but she looked suddenly panicked. Something was incredibly wrong. The hivemind was silent again and her Shining Armor wasn't with her. Her memory was telling her that he was supposed to be with her. She wasn't supposed to be alone.
“Shining Armor! We're getting married!” the changeling cried loudly in wide-eyed horror at his absence. “We can't get married if you're not here with me!”
She started crying bitterly. As she bawled, she slumped down onto the forest floor and cried out for the white stallion repeatedly.
“This day was going to be perfect,” she sobbed. “Today is our day. Our special day...”
The tears ran out, the pain kept on, and she laid in a blank-stared shock until a little laugh crept up from her grainy throat. It grew until she was laughing hard. It didn't matter that her vision was filling with black dots. She could hardly see them anyways because it was already nighttime and the moon was not generous where she was.
“I love you, Shining Armor!” she laughed out hysterically. The act made her feel freshly hurt all over. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. 
“I love you!”









Chrysalis didn't remember how she got there. Her mind didn't hold things anymore and the hivemind was far away from her. She forgot how to walk properly, which was a good thing considering her back leg that was still broken. There was the feeling that she had something she really hated but exactly what that was...she just couldn't remember.
It was morning. She knew that because she was at the edge of the forest. The sun was rising with an annoying glare that seemed to have it out for her. With no more trees to block it out, it was like a slap in the face. But she had the urge to stay where she was because there was still a shrub big enough to hide her and the carriage path was right there as well. She forgot why that was important to her but she was dying anyways and so figured that it didn't matter.
It made sense. Something did. Perhaps she hadn't already passed into the stars because of her battle-worthy age or maybe her strong passive magic kept her alive. Whatever it was, it was just about gone. Her memories were badly jumbled now and she saw ponies mixed in with the memories of her changeling hive. There was a white stallion in a lot of them but she didn't know his name. There was also a pink one but she never talked for some reason.
There were others as well, such as a crazy pink one different from the other and a hard-working orange one. A white unicorn mare seemed to fuss over her wedding dress while a shy yellow pegasus was doing something with small birds. It was unbelievably bizarre. There was also some blue pony painting on a big canvas. She was using a wide variety of colors but her painting looked like a mess. There were depictions of starvation and death mixed with hatred and evil glee. The ponies in the painting were badly messed up.
But something caught Chrysalis' attention as she laid in the over-sized bush. There was this one purple pony that visited her every day. She was very special because she would come over with flowers to her hive chamber and tell her that everything would be okay because she loved her. The unicorn mare was called Twilight Sparkle. She was nice.
Chrysalis began crying, though her tear ducts didn't have much to give. How could she forget Twilight? She was the most important pony in her life. She had even organized all the plans for their wedding. They were going to be married! She had to say goodbye to Twilight before she closed her eyes for the last time. At the very least, she had to tell Twilight that she would always love her even after she was gone.
Wedding...wedding...what wedding?
The sound of carriage wheels started emanating from the distance. Something was coming down the path. Chrysalis didn't know what it was but her heart picked up pace rapidly. She moved some of the shrubbery with a forehoof so that she could see whatever it was. She couldn't get up even if she wanted to and had to settle for turning her head and hoping for a good view.
Looking through a thick bush with one good eye didn't provide the best of visuals but she could positively make out the fact that the carriage rolling along was a big expensive one. The ponies that were inside were probably important royalty. What she found interesting was the feeling that she got from the occupants as they rode straight past her hiding shrub.
It was love.
There were two ponies in love within the confines of the vehicle. Perfect!
Chrysalis' horn lit with a green glow as she began a shameless siphon. Normally, such an indirect approach to feeding would provide minuscule nourishment, but something about this pair was powerful. Their love for each other was as deep as a bottomless well. Chrysalis would have taken a moment in awe if she wasn't dying in a shrub beside the road. As she was, she only cared about stealing as much of the emotion as possible before the carriage was too far away.
Eventually the changeling did lose her magical reach on the pair, but it was not before she had taken enough of it. The emotion had been bleeding over while the carriage was passing by and Chrysalis now had an active store of magic which she wasted no time at all in using. She was hundreds of years old, a changeling queen, and a master of powerful magic that even the world's best would find challenging.
Chrysalis' horn lit again with a fierce green and wrapped her entire body in a magical cocoon. It blasted apart a minute later to reveal a healed changeling queen. Well, healed only in the sense that she was farther from death's door than before. She was still covered in dirt, sticks, leaves, and blood. Broken bones remained broken and her memory wasn't much better. She did, however, find it easier to breath and she also had the strength to crawl back out of the bush. A few more precious moments had been stolen from greedy death and those moments might just make the difference for her survival.
Her first thought was to follow the carriage, but she quickly saw it in the distance and realized that it was too fast and too far away to keep up with. She had to survive, though. Perhaps she could resume her search for changelings or pony settlements. It was as she was restarting this plan that she tripped on some half buried rock and landed backwards on her bad leg. She cried out vocally and quite loudly.
Something made an “aha” sound from somewhere in the the sky and raced towards her. Chrysalis didn't even notice until it landed in front of her face. She had been too busy cursing herself, life, and whoever had it out for her. She also cursed pain itself for being a pain. She wasn't original in her curses but she figured she deserved to be a little rudimentary in that regard.
“Chrysalis,” buzzed some voice above her.
The queen looked up with an annoyed expression to find that the two black hooves in front of her belonged to an actual changeling. He was the one that had been falling with her just before she hit ground. Wait. Was that something that had happened? Her head was hurting in the most peculiar way.
“Chrysalis,” the non-descript changeling repeated, as if the name was distasteful. “It is our collective decision that another candidate is best suited to lead us as Queen. Your leadership has lead only to ruin and you are hereby banished indefinitely. Words of our new leader.”
Chrysalis blinked and then did so again. She tried to forcefully stand up but, unsurprisingly, found she couldn't. The pain from falling on her bad leg was crippling. She wanted to wring the puny child's neck for his insolence but she didn't have the strength for that either. She was powerless and the other changeling seemed to both know and enjoy it.
“I've waited my whole life to say that,” he went on with an infuriating little glee. “I never liked you, Chrysalis. Our new queen is making me one of her royal assistants for this!”