Chrysalis Wins
Ch.39 “Extroverted Introspection”
When Chrysalis came out of the portal, she was in her bedroom in the Canterlot castle, formerly Celestia’s Bedroom. Her eyes darted about to look for the one she had rather forcefully shoved through first. By the time she found the form of the swollen changeling on the floor, her eyebrows tensed, and she lifted a hoof to her mouth.
“Oh… oh my.”
It was a rather unpleasant sight indeed. Crone was reduced to a heavy wheeze for her breaths, and all her limbs had become puffy and swollen to dysfunctional levels. When Chrysalis saw Crone’s face, she looked away. For one, that was basically her own reflection, she couldn’t stand to see her own countenance contorted like that.
Quickly her horn ignited, and she walked over to Crone’s splayed out body, and she was about to use some magic to accelerate healing… but that was magic… her horn fizzled out. Hmm what else could she do? It would not be acceptable to have some royal lay on her floor all night in a wretched state. There was a second best option she supposed. So she lowered her head close to puffy clone, and opened her mouth to exhale.
Clear emotional energies wafted from Chrysalis down to the distorted body below her, and the results came quickly. After a few ragged breaths, Crone was able to steadily inhale more. This continued for minutes, and the swellings began to recede to manageable levels.
Eventually Crone made a few throaty coughs, then her breaths normalized, and she was also able to open her eyes. A few conflicted emotions raced through her face rapidly, and she turned away from Chrysalis so that her face wasn’t visible. The high queen leaned back and ceased the transference of emotional energies.
After Chrysalis cleared her throat and tapped on the floor once, Crone flipped around to face her again. The swish of her head was a little fast, and her mane got all over her face. She chuckled nervously, and pushed it to the side with a hoof, then struggled to get up on her hooves. She spoke, but her words were as shaky as her legs.
“M-made i-it didn’t I!”
Chrysalis placed a hoof on Crone’s shoulder, and made her sit back down.
“You’ll stay there for a while longer. You’ve put on a face well enough… But you don’t have to pretend that wasn’t miserable.”
“W-what?”
“Sit down, and stay down.”
Crone reluctantly obeyed, and she rested her belly on the floor. Her limbs still shook with nervous fidgets, and she couldn’t stop the rattled twitch her wings insistently made. Wide fearful eyes followed Chrysalis as she walked over to the bed, and ignited her horn. The small flash of light made Crone flinch, but no harm came to her.
A few pillows were lifted off the bed in magical grip, and casually tossed at the queen’s duplicate. The feather stuffed, silky bodies bounced off the target royal’s chitinous form for the most part, but one got impaled on her horn. Crone didn’t make any sudden motions, and she awkwardly let the pillow rest ontop of her head.
Several pillows floated alongside Chrysalis as she moved closer towards Crone’s spot on the floor. The extra set of feathery cushions were dropped a step away from the clone, and the high queen planted herself ontop of them. When she had made herself sufficiently comfortable, she fixed Crone with a hard stare.
“Stop shaking like a leaf… It’s unbecoming.”
“Y-yes h-high queen.”
“Stop stuttering… that is also unbecoming.”
“As you wish.”
Crone’s shaking didn’t stop, but it became reduced. Chrysalis continued to stare down her copy, and the changeling who was taller than her, dropped her gaze, and looked down at the sunny themed carpet. She was unable to keep her eye’s level with the true queen. Chrysalis breathed out another criticism.
“looking at the floor is also… unbecoming.”
That got Crone’s eyes to flicker up for a moment, and she didn’t look directly back at Chrysalis, but she didn’t stair dejectedly the floor anymore. There was a definite clench in the clone’s jaws, and the high queen smirked when she saw it. Silenced reigned for several minutes after that. The space of quiet time caused Crone to start to fidget again, and her tail swished back and forth every few seconds. Chrysalis opened her mouth again, but Crone beat her to the punch.
“And what else, pray tell, is unbecoming.”
Crone had lifted her gaze up, and she looked directly into the high queen’s pupils. The action just caused Chrysalis to close her mouth, and her smirk to turned into a smile. Silence continued on for another stretch of time. A stretch the clone found difficult to bear. The momentary confidence that Crone had gained from anger deflated. Along with the sunken confidence came sunken posture. In one movement Crone’s long neck dropped to the floor, and both of her front hooves hid her face. She shouted in exasperation.
“Just go ahead and do it then!”
Chrysalis tilted her head, and lowered one eyebrow. Her smile pursed back into a reserved flat line.
“Do what?”
“Blast me! Blast me for being useless. Just end it.”
“Blast you?”
“Well what are you waiting for? It didn’t take you long to blow away my… my, my um… the first one!”
“I was just making sure what the tablet said worked…”
“You killed her! You didn’t banish her. Why is that any more ok than blasting me away right now? Is it because you already gave me a name? Or I just happened to do the right little jig to entertain you? Or I just haven’t upset you enough yet? Well, what is it?”
Behind the shield of her forelegs, Crone’s voice started to crack, and her poor composure fell apart even more. Chrysalis just held her mouth slightly open, and she couldn’t think of a reply at the moment. As another painfully quiet moment passed between them, and the longer Chrysalis didn’t give an answer, the worse Crone’s emotional condition became.
She buried her face behind a pillow that the queen had given her earlier, and moaned into. Her voice became quiet and forlorn.
“Just do it… please.”
“No.”
Chrysalis narrowed her eyes; she had bounced back from her momentary loss for words. The short single word answer made Crone slow her wallowed cringe. A sniffle came from behind the shield of legs.
“What?”
“I said no.”
“Why?”
Anger had crept back into the clone’s voice. Only her eyes came above her hooves, but they glared furiously at the queen. The discontent directed towards Chrysalis did nothing to dissuade her, and she continued onward.
“I’d like us to share some more honest words. I'd like to talk about me, and by me, I mean we.”
After she heard the words Crone just snorted.
“Then will you blast me?”
“I would prefer not to.”
“Oh joy…”
“That is more like it.”
Chrysalis put on her comfortable smirk again, much to Crone’s antagonized displeasure. The duplicate spoke through clenched teeth.
“You know it’s a rather stupid idea to have me around in the first place. I know you too well.”
“I thought about that a little before I brought you here. It was more than a little forced when you put on a whole display about being my friend. I wouldn’t be a friend with me so quickly… So tell me Crone, how much do you know exactly?”
“Where do I even start?”
“The tablet said your memories could be patchy.”
“Well?”
“How about our last chat with Luna?”
“Hmm, Sombra was there too right?”
“Yes.”
“And you decided to just eaves drop for a while before you even joined in.”
“Uh, huh, but the primary purpose?”
“-snort- Ha! You were blushing quite hard when Luna mentioned some of the swarm’s dreams. Hmm, this is so strange.”
Crone lifted a hoof to her lips, and brushed it around lightly.
“I can even remember the sensations quite clearly, but I know I wasn’t the one to do them... He did have nice fangs…”
Chrysalis rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“Alright, alright, you’ve proved you remember details very well. That hardly seems patchy. Inaccurate tablet, psh.”
“So tell me why you want me running around again. When I have so much sensitive information up here. Such as where you so cleverly stashed the elements of harmony… Especially after you gave me this pathetic body to work with. You’re not afraid that I would have a grudge?”
Crone straightened her posture, and jabbed Chrysalis in the chest with a hoof. Then tapped her own skull for emphasis. The shorter royal grunted at having her chest poked, and gave Crone a critical eye for it. Then her tone turned softer and slightly indignant.
“It’s a nice looking body.”
That caused Crone to gawk, before she briefly scanned over herself, and appreciated the well toned features. She shook her head to get rid of the distraction.
“That may be, but you basically insured my insignificance, my lack of potential, my-”
“Crone…”
“What?”
“You are me, but you are not.”
“Cryptic words don’t help.”
“Well, I… hmm, I don’t know why I find this hard to say.”
“… I’m not 100% you, so spit it out.”
“Wait what?”
“No, go on, finish what you were going to say.”
“That can wait, what do you mean you’re not 100% me? Also I’m still confused, how could you be aware of anything before I pulled you out of that pool? How far back can you remember, when you were part of the pool?”
“Um… now that you mention it. I, I uh… huh.”
“What is it?”
“Much of it is blurry, it’s more feeling than anything concrete. Everything became much more clear and concentrated when you pulled me out. Before that though… It was, a swirl? It’s strange to describe, but it felt like I wasn’t one identity, but part of many?”
“Is there another way you can put it?”
“The pool has had many emotions added, and pulled out over time. I remember feeling them. A few times whole volumes of memory were dumped into the pool as well… Huh, for some reason…”
“What is it this time?”
“I remember a little conversation, some pony named… Whispy?”
“What?”
“All I remember from that is… she shot me!”
“She, what? Hehe huh?”
“Ya there were lot’s of other… ponies that looked the same. She blasted each of them, and… not me, but me?”
“If you’re confused, then I have no idea. Anyway, any other significant things you can remember.”
“Just a little while before you came, many bodies were pulled out of the pool, so many… wait, what happened to them? There were more changelings!”
“Shade said they were somewhere else.”
“… Chrysalis, I know that tone.”
“-sigh- they were handled, cleaned up so to speak. It all happened before I had heard a word of it.”
Crone shuddered back, as if she had been hit with heavy news. Her posture slumped, and she rested her head on the ground. This made a strange observation for Chrysalis.
“Well, that’s the first thing you didn’t remember.”
“What?”
“I talked with Shade before I drew you out, shouldn’t you have remembered that?”
“I… should.”
“But you don’t?”
“No, not with clarity.”
“How selective…”
Crone appeared bothered, by more than one issue, and she bit her lower lip. Chrysalis just shrugged. After another moment or so, the clone turned and asked her.
“What were you going to say before? What was difficult to say?”
“Oh that.”
Chrysalis shifted a little uneasily this time, and she started draw circles in the floor with one of her hooves.
“About why I brought you back here.”
“You’re lonely.”
“I, no-”
“You cried like a lost broodling, not too long before you came to the pool…”
The blunt statement caused Chrysalis to flinch, and she swallowed, to clear her throat of a non-existent block.
“I suppose there isn’t much to hide then.”
Crone gave a flat dead pan expression, before she sighed.
“You sure picked a Tartarus of a way to get some company. Have no faith in your order to multiply?”
“You should know, it’s already been tried so many times.”
“You tried several times, personally, and felt ashamed every time.”
“That’s enough Crone.”
This time, it wasn’t Crone that was uncomfortable with the silence. Despite the warning in Chrysalis’s tone, the duplicate pressed on after several long moments.
“It’s been a long time since there was a royal family around. Shellish wasn’t even our… your mother, though she acted like it.”
“Tell me something I don’t know…”
“You hoped for me to fill that gap… Though more likely as the sister you never had, rather than having a royal brood of your own.”
“Is it really so easy to say… just like that?”
“You wouldn’t have any other changeling talking to you like this, short of you subjecting yourself to a memory scan by one of your vanguards. But they wouldn’t understand the emotions quite the same, now would they…”
Crone wore a weak smile, she had some ability to get under Chrysalis’s skin, and getting under the skin of some changeling much stronger than her caused her to grin. If she could make the high queen’s skin crawl with just a look, then her chitinous hide would be a ceaseless tide of waves at the moment. With a greater measure of confidence than she had started with, Crone spoke once more.
“Also you’re a pretty shoddy queen.”
“What!”
“You don’t even look it. Where did you lose poor Shellish’s crown? I thought you kept that because you cared.”
“I… where is it!”
Chrysalis’s hooves shot to her head, and her eye’s flared wide. The crown was indeed not the there, but her hooves vainly went over her scalp again, and again. It had been such a natural part of her for years, and she had virtually never taken it off. Now that it wasn’t there, and she noticed, it felt like there was a hole in her soul.
“GAAAAAWWWW!”
Crone just chuckled.