//------------------------------// // Untranslated // Story: Unchangeable // by TAW //------------------------------// Unchangeable Everything was dark. Chrysalis tried to raise a hoof, but the struggle overcame her, and she slipped back into unconsciousness. Shining Armour's trademark shield spell had done its job, and done everything Chrysalis had tried to stop. Those of her people lucky enough to be in the sky, or on a road leading out of Canterlot, were scattered across Equestria. Those who weren't so lucky would be scraped off of Canterlot's stone walls over the next few days. Chrysalis would have wept for her children, were she awake, but she had not been as lucky as some. So close to the spell, cast powered by the love and hatred of the one she'd been feeding from, she had been crippled, with barely enough energy to survive the unwanted trip. The last thing she remembered before everything went dark was desperately holding out her wings, trying to glide into a soft looking field, rather than smash into one of the nearby mountains. Her resolve had faltered, one wing going with it, and the last thing she saw was a barn roof. Then everything had gone dark. She awoke, again. This time, she tried with all her might to open her eyes, and though the effort almost overcame her she managed it. She was a wreck - her body flickered, spasming between her true form and that of the pretty pink princess, Mi Amore Cadenza, that she had been imitating mere hours earlier. Everything had seemed so much surer then. The light she could see by came from a small hole in the barn roof, presumably from her crash. A few battered looking bits of wood and cloth lay around her, and a bale of hay had broken her fall, probably saving her life. Chrysalis, queen of the changelings, lay broken and defeated. She felt what little vision she had begin to fade, and she knew that this was it. Her advisers had told her that a direct attack on Canterlot was insanity, and she guessed that they were right. She laughed, spluttering as the sensation almost overwhelmed her, and began to cough. This was it, she thought. She just hoped that her children had fared better, and this wasn't the end of her people. "Hello?" a voice called as the barn door creaked open. A figure stepped inside - much shorter than Chrysalis, about the right shape and size for an earth pony. Great, Chrysalis bitterly thought, she had been hoping for an honourable death at least, not one at the hands of some commoner. "Hello, is there anybody in here?" The figure continued into the barn, looking up at the hole in the roof and muttering to himself something that Chrysalis was too weak to hear. He followed the angle of the hole down, until he saw the dark, broken figure that lay on one of his hay bales. Chrysalis thanked, well, Celestia herself that the barn was too dark for either of them to make out any details on each other as the figure leaped over to her. "Are you okay? What happened?!" he asked, his voice dripping with concern. Love is a special thing. There are some who say that love is what makes the world go round, and others that deny its very existence. Chrysalis knew from experience that love was one of the most powerful forms of magic that existed, and even the smallest love was a feast that could easily have brought her back to a powerful state. Compassion, though, is something else. It isn't love, but it's not trying to be. It wasn't a feast to the broken changeling, but it wasn't a last meal, either. It was enough. Chrysalis felt her vision slowly begin to brighten, and the edges of her eyes began to work again, removing the tunnel from her sight. She tried to talk, but that was still beyond her. The resulting groan of agony, however, did perform its task, and the figure pressed his hoof against her head. "You're burning up," he said, "I'll go get you some water." Kindness is another thing. Kindness is inherently a gift - it cannot be taken, only given. At her full power, Chrysalis could feed for days off of some of the gifts she'd been given - a city here, a kingdom there. Vast gestures of well-meaning kindness weren't new to her. They meant nothing. Nobody had ever given her a glass of water. The knowledge it was coming kept her awake during all the time it took the figure to retrieve it, and when she finally felt the sweet liquid slip between her lips, it was like being given a castle, in some remote but beautiful area of the world. Something with incalculable value to anybody but herself. Her throat now less sore, Chrysalis managed to choke out a "Thank you." She didn't mean it, but she needed the affection, and that meant doing what she did best - trickery and deception. "Can you walk? Are you hurt?" the figure asked, running his hoof over her foreleg and feeling the holes. "Of course I'm hurt, you-" Chrysalis began to snap, roughly hissing with an injured voice. "I mean, no, I can't walk. I can hardly move." "Well, then, let's get you onto my back." he flatly stated, pushing himself under the hay bale and lifting Chrysalis up. That was bad. The moment they were out in the open, Chrysalis would be revealed for what she was. The figure seemed to think she was equine for the moment, but that would be blown as soon as she was out of the door. Chrysalis knew she wasn't strong enough, but she had to try. Reaching out, she tried to probe into the figure's mind. He wouldn't resist, he wouldn't be prepared, nor trained, but it would still be difficult, maybe impossible. Once she was inside, Chrysalis made a random swing for one of the most prominent images in his head, grabbing on to the strongly-held vision of a pony and bringing it inside of her. Her flesh began to bubble, and her skin began to boil, and within a few moments, Chrysalis' form had changed completely. Exhausted, she fell unconscious yet again, having expended every last drop of her power on a desperate transformation. Some unknown time later, she awoke. She felt warm, but trapped. Like she was in a pod, but without the comforting link to the hivemind telling her it was okay. Chrysalis realised that she was alone - for the first time in longer than she could remember, she couldn't sense her children. That could mean one of two things - she had, at some point, become so weak she couldn't even maintain a connection to the group conciousness. Or, worse, there was no group conciousness to connect to. Chrysalis felt alone. A few minutes later, she gathered the strength to open her eyes, and look around wherever she was being held. Her transformation must have failed, and she must now be in the dungeons. Perhaps they had interrogated her and used that knowledge to wipe out her species, and were only allowing her to live as some esoteric pet. That seemed likely. Instead, she found herself in a bedroom. It was small, and overwhelmingly wooden. The wooden walls were lined with wooden picture frames, containing pictures of wooden structures. The wooden cupboard and dresser stood at the opposite end of the wooden floor, and the wooden bedframe supported the sheets and materials that Chrysalis was currently embroiled within. Chrysalis looked to her side. There was a wooden clock on the wall - it read midday. She had been defeated just after midday, so at very least she had been unconscious for twenty four hours. Looking around further, she noticed that the bedside table was covered in photo frames, each detailing a different pony. None of them had names. There appeared to be one missing, though - they were all tightly compacted, and yet there was clear space for another, and a gap in the dust implied that one had laid there not too long ago. "Oh, you're awake," a voice called, as it entered the room. The voice belonged to the figure, or so Chrysalis assumed. He was a golden yellow earth pony, with a brown mane, and his cutie mark - though Chrysalis detested the term - was a wooden staircase. Chrysalis assumed this was his bedroom. "Are you feeling better now?" Chrysalis coughed, trying to speak, but failing. The earth pony walked over and raised a glass of water to her mouth, letting her drink for a few seconds until she felt more able to speak. "Yes, a little." she croaked. It wasn't a lie, she felt a little better. The pony's attentions were an easy source of food, and she needed nothing more than an easy source of food right now. It would be a good idea to play along, and try to milk this pony for everything he was worth, if Chrysalis was to try and get back to her people, and prepare a counterattack. Equestria would pay for what it had done to her. "Good. Well, I'm Longest Pine. I own this farm, and work it alone. What's your name?" he asked, with a glimmer of hope in his voice, as if there was an answer he was both dreading and desperate for. Name? 'Chrysalis' didn't sound very equine, and was far more likely to attract attention. Chrysalis had never needed another name, she always stole another - but she'd been too weak to take anything but this form's shape from "Longest Pine"'s mind. So she needed a name. Chrysalis needed a name. "Uh," she stammered, "Chris Alice?" Pine's chest fell, in only the way somebody trying to hide a crushing disappointment could fall. "Well," he said after an almost imperceptibly too long gap, "Chris, feel free to stay as long as you need. I have plenty of food, and honestly I could do with the company." he smiled. Smiles were good, smiles were tasty. Chrysalis smiled back as she felt herself becoming a little bit stronger, and took the first step on the long road back to power.