CANTERLOT TRIBUNE: PRINCESS CELESTIA CLAIMS GODHOOD
Today at three in the afternoon, Princess Celestia Del Sol proclaimed in a loud voice that the words "princess" and "goddess" made no difference in the equestrian language. After our top linguists thoroughly examined most of the current dictionary editions, it appears that we've all been fooled. Most of the noble class citizens that we had interviewed for such breaking news have been baffled and shocked. Pop culture star Sapphire Shores expressed concern over the lyrics of her songs following this turn of events. "I had never been concerned with using Princess Celestia's name in vain before," She said. "Now I suppose I'll have to get my lyricist to rewrite most all of them"
Prince Blueblood, Princess Celestia's nephew claimed it as "Utterly terrifying to have a goddess for an aunt". When asked about how this would affect their relationship, The prince refused to comment. The popular noble couple Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis were not available for an interview. More news on the daily lives of the princesses shall be available tomorrow.
Twilight put the paper down, having finished reading it aloud. She heaved a sigh. "Celestia, do you know what this means?" Gathered around her was the strangest group to ever be found. Around thirty students and one schoolteacher were mixed and mingled with fifty changelling nymphs and their own mother, standing in front of them all. Five heroes of Equestria sat at her side, looking on with stern glares or sitting in uneasy postures. Twilight's focus was upon the three sitting right in front of her, wings fidgeting and hooves tense. The worst of it was that the two princesses in question had the worst beaten puppy looks she had ever seen. Luna's head was near the floor and Celestia still couldn't stop sniffling, apparently trying not to cry. There was a time that Celestia crying would have broken her heart… But now there was nothing. "Well?"
Luna chuckled dryly. "I suppose it means that Blueblood will not be bothering anypony in the castle for a while."
"No, it means the everypony within a hundred miles heard what you said!" The poor newspaper that she was holding in her magic was ripped to shreds, suddenly being turned into fine confetti. Twilight fell forward, head in her hooves. "No words," she mumbled, shaking her head. "There are no words to describe this all… But I'm sure as hay going to try. There are a lot of things that need to be said…" After a brief silence, Twilight cleared her throat, beginning another long speech, similar to the one that she had made after the breakfast that morning. "Celestia… What you did was—beyond a doubt— one of the worst examples of throwing a royal fit I have ever heard of."
"I'm sorry Twilight," Celestia whispered.
"Seriously, that was immature."
"I know…"
"Like, everypony could see and hear it for miles."
"Twilight—"
"You really need to get that in order."
"Twilight, I get it!" Celestia snapped, getting tired of apologizing. "Where are you going with this?"
"Seriously??" Twilight snarked. "You intended to kill a ruler! Celestia, that is unacceptable!"
"…Thrash, actually."
"Fine, you intended to thrash a ruler! And for what? Taking her kids on an excursion to Equestria and putting a few ponies in cocoons? Nopony got hurt!"
"Twilight," she reminded her student, "Aren't you forgetting the things she did in the past?"
Twilight sighed. "No, I'm not… I'm not worried about whether she's guilty or not of various tyrannical behaviors; that is quite obvious. I'm worried that if we do the wrong thing, we're going to hurt far more people than just Chrysalis." She took a deep breath. "Do you even know what these nymphs are?"
"I don't know… Little children who just happened to be in one group?"
Twilight stared. One hair on her head popped out of place. "Have you even been listening to any of the ponies explaining everything to me before I even started this little meeting?! These nymphs— Right here—" She waved a wing at one of the nearby changelings. "—are freaking zealots for harmony and peaceful love consumption! Does that not mean anything to you?!"
"Twilight, I can appreciate your love for friendship, but… I'm not seeing how it's beneficial to have them around with us. They're just a bunch of children—"
"They're the next generation!!" Twilight hollered, springing several hairs on everypony's head out of place, including her own. "Impressionable young nymphs, believing of most anything, especially the truth! These are the ponies which will reflect public opinion of the changeling population in the future, and a good impression means we're that much closer to friendship with them…" Twilight had only barely noticed that she had gotten up, now pacing around the room, back and forth. "…But if we were to punish Chrysalis in a drastic manner that would upset these nymphs, it could mean some awful things… Things like further hatred of our races towards each other, which could mean a war on our hooves, and it's been years since we've had a full on war with any other kingdom!" Twilight was slowly getting more manic, but if she knew it, it was hardly like she cared. What she was saying was just far too important for her to back down.
"Not only that, We'd also have to deal with grieving children if we happened to make the decision of outright killing her for her actions! I've never had experience with grieving children, so I'm not even sure how to handle that situation…" Twilight paused, nervously chewing her hair. " But seriously, it would be a bad idea to hurt their mom over all of that!"
Celestia sighed. "Twilight… I think you're overreacting. Beside the point, it's not like they're really that well off with Chrysalis as their mother—"
The ex-student cut her off. “Celestia, No.”
She shrunk back, confused. "I—What?"
“Just don’t! I don’t care if there are better guardians out there for them! Isn’t it obvious that they love them? Yes, one little changeling springs into mind, particularly one by the name of Lepidos. Yeah, that changeling absolutely adores her, to the point of insanity! Love is blind; we all know that, Cadance knows that, most ponies with any sort of understanding of love know that. Beside the point, if she really was a bad mother, wouldn’t they be scared of her?”
Celestia weakly shrugged. “It’s not always clear that somepony’s a bad mother...”
It was subtle, but something in the poor unicorn’s psyche snapped. One little hair by her left ear popped out of place, and her right eye twitched. "You know what?? Fine! Be that way! Why should you understand?! Why should you care that the pony you're punishing has a family?! Who cares at all??"
"I’m sorry Twilight, please don't be mad—" Celestia drew a hoof to Twilight, now pulling at her mane, but as she tried to reach to her, Twilight simply drew back further.
"Darned be the consequences of hurting family, terrorizing children and creating wars! Darn it all, because Princess Celestia is sour over her first defeat in battle!"
"Twilight, I already said I'm sorry, okay?!"
"I KNOW!!"
It really is quite amazing to watch a pony like her go into a conniption; the sudden raising of room temperature, the way her eyes turn bright red, her normally purple coat turning white and her mane turning into a mass of plasma. What is the most impressive part, however, is how quickly she reigns it all in, turning back into herself, the only thing showing her physical change being a smouldering mane. Taking a few deep breaths with the help of her old foalsitter's breathing exercises, she calmed down enough to talk slowly and deliberately.
"I— Yes, I know. It’s just...” She blushed, glaring at the poor state of her mane and tail. “I really… really think this was a severe lapse of judgement on your part… And you know how worked up I get over things not going just so. Would you—” She cleared her throat, trying to remove the scratchy feeling from yelling. “Would you please tell me again? I think I kind of need it...”
Celestia held her calm, relieved that she could probably settle this quickly with the correct response. "I'm sorry, Twilight, for losing my temper and attempting to severely maim Chrysalis because I lost my temper."
True to her guess, Twilight let out a breath she hardly knew she was holding, sighing contentedly. "Well… thanks, Celestia, for understanding." She smiled, rubbing her mane with an idle hoof along her mussed up curls. "I guess it's time to move on with this, and discuss what's going to happen to Chrysalis." It was at this point that Chrysalis—silent for most of the time— let out a giggle in wicked delight. Twilight snapped her head at the changeling queen. "What's so funny?!"
The queen continued chuckling, waving her hoof. "Oh, nothing! Nothing at all! Just a little deal that Celestia's dearest sister promised me!"
Twilight paused, unsure that she actually heard what she thought she heard. "…A deal?"
"A deal."
Twilight quirked an eyebrow. "...What kind of deal?"
All present gazed at Chrysalis intently as she cracked a smile. Luna was not feeling remotely comfortable in her spot. "A very bad one, if you want my opinion… Do you know what she promised me?"
"Spit it out," Twilight growled.
"Why yes, she promised me a throne over Equestria in return for helping her calm Celestia down! And I barely had to do anything anyway!"
Twilight's jaw dropped. "She what?!"
Chrysalis scoffed. "Of course you didn't hear me the first time… I said that she promised me—"
"I know what you said! Oh, I can't take this…" Twilight was slowly nearing her wits-end as it became clear that Luna's own foolish actions were far more severe than the unicorn had originally thought. Being in such a disheveled state, Twilight walked over to Princess Luna and did the only thing she actually thought was reasonable for endangering the entire country.
Crack!!
Twilight smashed her hoof against the side of Luna's cheek. Luna recoiled and put a hoof up to the burning spot, shocked, then infuriated. "Twilight, why in the hay did you hit me?!"
"Because Luna, what you've done is potentially worse than Celestia did! Anypony can argue that doing anything to hurt Chrysalis would jeopardize our relations, but we can't be that close for you to give her rights to the Equestrian throne!"
"I— It's not like I intended to hold out on that promise!" Luna said, attempting to defend her position.
"Wow, do you have any Idea what the little changelings think of that?!" Twilight rolled her eyes, waving her hooves around. "'Oh! Oh! So typical of a pony! So very predictable! I'm not surprised at all that a pony lied!'"
Luna gulped. "Well yeah, they do, and so does every other creature from time to time, right?" Twilight grabbed Luna’s mane — a larger amount than she probably should— and shook.
"Oh yeah, they do! But does any creature with a sound mind lie compulsively?? Because yes, that's what all these little children think we do! They think we're all freakin' liars!"
"Twilight— Ouch— You’re making assumptions—" Twilight only shook harder, threatening to pull hairs out.
“I’m assuming nothing, because we’re dealing with a mother who says that only Applejack doesn’t lie out of millions of ponies! Get. it. through. your head!”
“Okay, —Ow, please don’t! I get it! Stop!” Luna finally got a grip on the pony, forcing her to let go of her messed up mane. “What’s your point?!”
Twilight backed up, heaving a sigh. "My point…" the disheveled pony muttered, almost jumping right back to pacing around, but sitting down instead. "My point is…" She groaned, shrugging. "My point is that I probably shouldn't be talking anymore right now… There was something else I wanted to talk about… but it's slipped my mind." Twilight tapped her hooves together, worrying over the state of her hair. That… did not go as she had hoped. For one, she had hoped to keep her emotions in check. While she had believed her logic to be sound, the way she lost her senses at the end really put a damper on her ability to be convincing. Secondly, she knew rather clearly now that she needed something essential. She needed a nap.
Thankfully, one orange pony was there to step in for her. Smiling, Applejack put a hoof around Twilight's shoulder, gently pulling the flustered pony closer. "Alright Twi, I think you've said quite enough."
"Applejack?" Celestia's ears perked up. "I almost forgot you were even there what with Twilight's rather loud scolding."
Applejack tipped her hat. "What can I say? I usually work in the background." She let Twilight go, who returned her a grateful smile, and joined her other friends. "Today's gonna be a little different though…" Her smile dropped, turning into a proper frown. "We've got a very bad changeling to deal with."
All around her it was silent, everypony waiting patiently— or impatiently— for Applejack to say what she had to. It was worrying to Celestia how tense the little changeling nymphs were now, seeing that they all heard Applejack speak of Chrysalis as "a very bad changeling". The queen turned away from Celestia and Twilight towards the earth pony, projecting her opinion of Applejack as inferior to her, and almost laughable.
"Really? I'm a 'bad changeling'? Is that the best insult you could do?"
"Oh don't you worry none about that; I've got plenty of other colorful names ah could have called you, just none I wanted to say in front of a bunch of foals." She crossed her hooves. "But… here's one that I find simple, family friendly enough for young ears and to the point: Yer an idiot."
Chrysalis chuckled. "Oh, spare me! If I'm so idiotic, how could I have ruled over my hive since I became its queen?"
"Simply put: because without the princesses to save yer sorry butt, you'll have doomed yer race as efficiently as possible."
Almost immediately, her smug grin fell from her face, replaced by a slack-jawed stare. "I what?"
Applejack quirked an eyebrow. "Did I stutter? Or did you simply not hear that?"
"'Doomed my race'?! I did no such thing!"
"Oh yeah, 'cuz a race that gets its energy from love does really well by terrorizing the creatures or beings it feeds off of! Yer an idiot."
"Don't call me that, pony!"
"Then speak up." Chrysalis scowled deeply, enough to form wrinkles on her chitin covered face—which normally doesn't wrinkle, being chitin. Applejack waved her hoof, urging her on. "C'mon, tell me! Surely with all yer wisdom and understanding, you've got a perfectly legitimate excuse for this behavior."
By now, all of the little changeling nymphs— and even some of the pony children— were weepy eyed. It was understandable, but still troubling nonetheless. Celestia made a mental note to bring tissues when this was all done. Chrysalis was having trouble making a reply, holding her head in her hooves. It was entirely amazing that she didn't outright attack anypony yet. It was probably because Celestia was still there to hold her back, but it never really stopped her before...
Chrysalis finally managed to open her mouth and say something: "Bad nut."
Applejack cocked her head. "Beg yer pardon?"
"I started out as a bad nut." She sighed. "Just another reject; a little acorn that a squirrel didn't even want to smell, so I was just left to turn into a proper tree…" She gulped, drawing in a shaky breath. "That tree ate a biting fly, and that's where we got our tendency towards a parasitic relationship… of course, with it being a biting fly… you know the rest."
"So… You're telling me that it’s simply in your nature to steal love and terrorize ponies, right?"
"Entirely. I was just born this way… It's really tragic."
Applejack clicked her hooves together, then pulled a smirk. "Well then, I guess we really shouldn't feel any remorse for disposing of changelings, should we?"
Chrysalis flailed her hooves around wildly. "What?! No no no no nonono, you shouldn't!!"
"Really? You sure?"
"I mean—I—Yes, you should!! I never said anything of the sort!"
"So that was a load of bull?" Chrysalis growled in reluctant affirmation. "Uh-huh. So what is it then?"
"I… I've been cursed."
"Cursed now?" Applejack questioned sceptically. "What, cursed to have to draw love from others to live?"
"Yes… Equestria and the changeling kingdom have been enemies for years, and I just got desperate—"
"I never heard of the changeling kingdom until a month ago," Celestia interrupted.
Chrysalis stuttered. "I—What—"
Applejack glanced over at Celestia. "She speaks the truth." She crossed her hooves. "Spirit of honesty. Try again, missy."
"I— Well I was hungry, just like all the rest!" She held her hooves out in desperation. "Right?" That made Applejack start laughing. "What?!"
"Wow, do you even hear this?? She says she was hungry at the time, all the while she had a hoot claimin' how she was gonna overtake Canterlot, then all of Equestria!"
"You be silent! I didn't hurt anypony!" She snarled, ripping into the library's floor carpet.
"Apparently, y'all killed a small feline citizen of a little village nearby your new hive."
"You don't know that!"
Applejack scoffed, and Chrysalis ripped the carpet further.
"That was collateral damage! A cost of war!"
"Ah had ta take my little sister ta counseling, and I insisted on her sharing my bed for a week, because she couldn't stop havin' nightmares over how you laughed over its corpse!"
"It-it's true," The younger sister replied among the schoolponies. "Ah was scared that I was gonna be next—"
Chrysalis shot up, snarl on her lips. "You insolent—"
"That's enough, Chrysalis," Celestia snapped a glare in her direction. The queen immediately froze up, gazing into her eyes. "Be nice." The victim of her anger meekly nodded her head, backing down. "Good." Twilight stared in awe at how Celestia handled that. It was almost as if she used Fluttershy's stare.
Following the rather easy thwarting of Chrysalis temper, Applejack resumed. "That was rather ugly, wasn't it? So are ya gonna try again, or can we all agree that y'all got no excuse?"
"There's no excuse," She mumbled angrily, yet still subdued. "I have never told anyone the reasoning behind how I've become what I am today, and I'll carry that to my grave."
"So there's no reasoning behind the invasion either?"
"There's none!"
"No regrets?"
"Absolutely none. And you know what? I'd do it again." She stood up slowly, simply saying what was on her mind. "I'd do it a thousand times, over and over because I didn't— and don't— regret it. I don't regret imprisoning Celestia's little niece in a cave for over a week, I don't regret replacing her, I don’t regret draining her husband's love so I could strike a full on invasion..." A smug smile formed on her lips, and she giggled. "And I definitely don't regret watching Princess Celestia get absolutely smeared, how fake or not it seemed! And I don't even regret lying to my little children to get them to help me invade you a third time. It was necessary, and I, Queen Chrysalis, sovereign of my changeling kingdom, can do no wrong!" She stuck out her tongue, rudely displaying a childish gesture. "So there. Is that enough of an answer?"
Applejack's answer was simple, and to the point. "Congrats, Queen Chrysalis… Yer an idiot."
It took her some time, but once she figured out just what she said, she practically collapsed. Chrysalis tongue hung limply from her mouth, flopping pathetically on the floor. Applejack heartily applauded, severely contrasting the horrified faces surrounding her. How could she have not noticed her own children crying? Slowly retracting her tongue, she turned her head to the children, wincing as they backed away from her. She raised a hoof pleadingly. "I'm…Sorry?"
Her precious children sniffled. Then they choked back sobs.
"No, please don't cry—"
The room was filled with screaming wails.
"Funny how things come back ta bite ya, don't they?" Applejack casually droned, walking back to and picking up a particularly miserable looking changeling in a hug.
Chrysalis silently cursed herself, fed up with her own idiocy.