Chrysalis and her two new lackeys flew north as the sun started to set. She carried countless changelings in her magic, while the guys carried a few changelings on their backs.
It was mildly aggravating that she even had to tell Andres that no, he couldn’t just tie their tails and wings through the holes in his hooves, because being dragged by your tail or wing was painful. It was like he didn’t understand that anybug other than him felt pain.
But Chrysalis soon realized she was spending too much time sulking and not enough time daydreaming.
She calmed herself and let her mind drift back to ancient memories. Maybe she went there because her newly awakened hive members reminded her of her other friends from so long ago. Or maybe it was because Andres’ confrontation reminded her of her old changeling ways. To be honest though, she didn’t really care why her mind drifted; it was a luxury to be able to lose herself in daydreams like these, and she wasn’t going to waste her time questioning them.
Chrysalis let her mind drift back, far, far into the past.
Countless years ago, back when she was just a nymph, she could walk around her parents’ hive and talk to as many as two awakened changelings, namely her parents. Her nymphhood wasn’t the greatest; her original hive’s dreary lighting and organic, rolling walls and floors made everything look foreboding and unclean, and her parents weren’t always pleasant to be around.
In fact, when she compared how she lived to how ponies lived, ponies who could just walk out their door and have somepony nice to talk to, the stark contrast and the unfairness of it would’ve brought her to tears when she was younger.
However, compared to her time as queen of an entirely unawakened hive, it was… nice, heavenly even. After so many years with no changelings to talk to, she regretted taking her parents for granted.
Ah, she remembered now: when she was young, she hardly cared at all for the other changelings. She cared deeply about all changelings now, but as a child, she always tried to escape her hive. She tried living with ponies, griffins, minotaurs, and even dragons. Really, any group of beings that happened to be within flying distance of her parents’ hive was one she would try living with.
She remembered when she tried living with a dragon. If she hadn’t been able to feel emotions, she would've feared that any dragon she came close enough to would eat her. However, with her emotion sense, she could easily find and choose the tamest dragon and transform into a younger version of their species, taking advantage of their maternal or paternal instincts.
So with her newly made golden dragon scales and the ‘pitiable state’ of her transformation, as well as her surrogate dragon parent’s calmer mind, it was no surprise how quickly he took her in.
Bah. Bind me in chains again would they? Good luck. My parents could steal me away from other creatures, but I doubted they could take on a dragon.
No, they would not have me a moment longer. The time was perfect for my escape: the northern and southern dragons were warring in the skies as they often do, and a young dragoness could easily get caught in the crossfire.
So after wandering through the dragon lands in my classic rock disguise, I found a cave that smelled not only of gold and pride in oneself, but of other belongings like wood and paper, and of nostalgia for old kinship.
With magic I had been building up to painful levels, I blasted a crater in front of the dragon’s cave before quickly shapeshifting into a beautiful, young, golden dragoness, marred only by the crimson blood from the injuries to my wings I had to fake.
Almost immediately, a massive green dragon shouted and stomped out of his cave. He looked ready to maul one of the poor fools that supposedly made a crater near his home, but he stopped when he noticed what was in that crater.
He sighed and shook his head.
“Oh,” he breathed as he bent down. “Oh, you poor, poor fool,” his voice bellowed.
He scooped me up in one of his massive claws. Never before had I felt so small.
I started to tremble as he stood up to his full height and stomped back into his cave with me in his palm. I may have been the size of a young dragoness at the time, but this dragon had to be the size of a small mountain.
“Shh...” he cooed once inside the cave, setting my ‘damaged’ form away from his mountain of gold. “I bet you’re regretting taking the shortcut now, eh, lass?”
I pouted, remembering my cover story. “I was supposed to meet a drake,” I lied, giving information but keeping it to a minimum as taught.
The dragon chuckled sadly. “Not anymore you aren’t. That wing of yours is going to take months to heal, and if you try flappin’ that thing now, I can’t guarantee you’ll ever fly again.”
I unfurled my ‘severely damaged’ wing, only to wince in pain. “Tch.” I kept up the antagonistic personality, testing the dragon.
“Told you,” he grumbled, turning around and rummaging through something behind his hoard.
It was hard for me to keep the practiced dissatisfied frown on my face, because right then I wanted to pump my claws in the air and shout. Not only did I manage to get a dragon to act as my guardian so quickly, but it looked like he chose to do so in order to heal me. If I tried something like this with my parents, they would just give me a box of bandages that would somehow have been enchanted so it could only be opened once I had finished healing. Heck, if my head had been cut off, I was sure my parents would just tell my lifeless body to walk it off.
“Great, so I’m stuck here.” I huffed.
Then I noticed where that ‘wood and paper’ smell was coming from, and I could no longer keep up the fake personality. I gasped. “Wait, Mr. Dragon, are those what I think they are?”
The dragon turned back around and raised an eyebrow. “That’s Scale to you. And ‘Mr.’ makes me sound old.”
He turned to look at what I was staring at, his eyes widening. He looked back to me, just to make sure I wasn’t looking at something else. He was acting like no other dragon took interest in those things. “You mean the bookshelves?” he asked.
“Book… shelves!?” My jaw went slack.
Chrysalis smiled when she remembered her longest lasting surrogate parent.
That old dragon certainly had a temper. If she ever so much as touched his gold, he´d start ranting on and on about how young dragons these days never respected their elders and how he liked flying upwind both ways for gold when he was young. She was half tempted to actually steal one of his precious coins just to see what he would do, but she didn’t want to risk him throwing her out.
But while he wouldn’t give her any of his gold, he was quite liberal with his advice, stories, and any other possessions he deemed less important.
“Hey, Crystal!” He would call, ducking under the cavern entrance. “You here?”
“Of course!” I would call up from my fort of books. “I still haven’t finished this Sudoku book!” I held it up in my claws.
Scale wrinkled his nose. “You know you can go outside now: your wing is fully healed. Staying in all the time reading books isn’t healthy. Trust me; I know.”
I only smiled. “Yeah, well, last time I went out...” I trailed off, lifting my ‘scarred’ wing.
He snorted, a puff of smoke billowing out. “A flesh wound like that shouldn’t be enough to keep someone like you inside all the time. I’m taking you outside tomorrow, whether you like it or not.”
He cast a stern glare down on me, but he couldn’t keep his face straight. His mood quickly brightened, and soon a small smile grazed his massive maw. “But first...”
He pulled out something from behind his wing. It was… It was a whole row of bookshelves! With all the books still in them! He must’ve taken it from some rich ponies, and it had to be hard to keep them all in there for an entire flight!
My eyes teared up. Not only could I taste his genuine love, but I also knew how much effort he must’ve put into bringing back those books.
Once Scale placed the shelf in front of me, I pulled out the closest book without hesitating.
“Mad Libs,” I read eagerly.
Scale dropped his massive body onto his pile of gold, sending coins flying everywhere. “What’s this one about? I went to some trouble for those books, so they’d better be good.”
“Well, lets see.” I flipped to a random page. “Huh,” I said, trailing a claw down the page, “this page has some holes in it, but it says to fill them in with nouns and adjectives...”
I looked around the cave for some inspiration, but then I realized the best inspiration should come from one’s self.
”…Noun: Claw” I wrote, filling the book with my boundless creativity. ”… Adjective: Clawy… Noun: Claw… Plural Noun: Claws… Noun: Claw...”
Scale rolled his eyes.
Once I was done, I flipped the page.
“Oh!” I called out, getting Scale’s attention again. “It’s a story!”
I started reading.
“The year is Clawteen Clawty Claw, and the great Claw has clawed its way into the hearts of many claws. The ten year clawing has finally ended, and peace is at claw.”
So that’s what this was about. I had to stifle a laugh at the sheer absurdity before continuing. Or, should I say, claw-surdity.
“In his great efforts to outdo the last Claw, Mr. Claw Claw of Claw Country, King Dr. Claw the third invited all his claw cleaners to clean a claw truly fit for the most clawy of claw accountants: himself”
Okay, that was just nonsense. And I had high hopes for those boring jobs I wrote in too.
“But it was not to be. The great Claw itself extended its claw into his claw, and he was left clawless. Thousands of claws died of claw sickness, and it was known on that day that the great claw had turned on its own claws. Many a claw wept that day.”
...Okaaay, now this was getting pretty dark.
I continued, hesitantly.
“But the claws could not be put down so easily. There would always be one claw in the middle of everything, standing defiantly against crimes against claws.”
Pffft. Those claws were great at giving the middle claw.
“The claws put their claws together, eventually finding ways to fight back against the great Claw. But not all were in agreement. One Claw knew what he had clawed unto the world, and thus famously said, ‘Now I am become Claw, the clawer of worlds’.”
She allowed herself a quick giggle at the sheer stupidity of that story. She might turn back to that book when she was feeling down. Right now though, Sudoku suited her just fine.
Then again, while it didn’t make Scale laugh, he did crack a smile at some points. Maybe she would make another story for him sometime.
Beyond those fun little books he got her, he would tell her tactics and tales of the great dragon wars. She always listened attentively, because she somehow knew the tales were important, even though they gave her a sick feeling in her gut. She just felt like she’d rather get away from all that conflict. Books and puzzles were more than enough for her.
But despite her distaste for the genre, she loved his stories, and she particularly loved that the winner wasn’t decided just by which side could be considered good. Perhaps even back then she knew deep down what it meant when most of her hive wouldn’t be able to think the word ‘hello’, let alone speak to her. If the sort of winners Scale talked about could thrive, perhaps she could as well.
...Unfortunately, years later, Chrysalis’ parents finally managed to sneak her away from the great Scale while she was sleeping under his wing. Once they managed to bring her back and bind her in chains for a week, she had to accept that she wasn’t going to escape.
Sometimes she used to wonder: if she came back and told Scale what happened, even giving up her disguise, would he forgive her and let her read some books again for old time's sake?
Of course, now she knew he wouldn’t do that. Once he knew she wasn’t even the same species as him, he would freak out. It was just the way things were. No species would willingly love another. If she could so easily convince other species to love changelings, she wouldn’t have to worry about those other species screaming in horror and grabbing the nearest blunt object when they found out their lover was a changeling.
Ugh… This daydream wasn’t making her feel good anymore.
Coming back to the present, Chrysalis noticed Andres breaking away from the flock.
“Hey!” she yelled. “Where do you think you’re going!”
He turned back. She could feel his annoyance strongly even from several yards away. “I found another group of... changelings. I was going to pick it up.”
“Ah.” She looked down and noticed the bodies. “Thank you, but make sure to tell me before wandering off.”
He narrowed his eyes before turning back around and picking up the bodies. Chrysalis and Isaac waited.
Now that she wasn’t distracted, Chrysalis could feel Andres’ negative feelings coming off in waves, and they just made her want to do... horrible things. If reality was going to be like this, maybe she should go back to daydreaming.
Maybe she could think of something exciting to take her mind away from all this dull flying.
Chrysalis’ escapades into the cares of other species didn’t last. She was finally released from her chains after being stolen back from a dragon of all creatures, and her parents told her in their dull, monotone voices, that it was finally time for her to be queen.
It was a great privilege, the highest in the hive in fact, but to her, it felt more like a loss. After all, she didn’t do anything for it. In fact, she put a lot more effort into not becoming the queen of some mindless drones.
So when her parents started dragging her to wherever the queening ceremony was done, she tried to dash away at almost every corner. But escape was impossible. The only possible escape would be when she was more powerful than her parents, so when her parents finally threatened to shove her into that strange closed off room, which they told her was tradition, she stepped in of her own accord.
Once she was in, the door shut behind her. She panicked, whipping around. She tried to force the door open, but it wouldn’t budge no matter how hard she pushed. She was trapped.
With no way back, she decided to get acquainted with her new cage.
As she walked, she found herself interested in the displays of changeling history, starting from the distant past to the most recent. First, there were maps and pictures of great changeling cities that filled her mind with awe. The castles she saw looked far more inspiring than that of Canterlot’s, and the changelings she could see flying around all looked… alive.
This museum room took great effort detailing every changeling achievement. There were skyscrapers, massive blimps, and some long distance magic that really caught her attention. Unfortunately, the documents surrounding these achievements were only accounts of their greatness, not blueprints.
The next section, however, was filled with pictures of abandoned cities and maps of evacuation plans. Apparently, the minotaurs had invaded, and their magic was powerful enough that changelings had to flee their great cities and take up residence all over the world. Looking more closely at things, she could see her parents’ hive in one of those evacuation plans.
But none of that really moved her. What started to get to her was the newspaper articles containing testimonials of some of the fleeing changelings, some of which contained quite graphic scenes. Her parents were right when they said the things in that room were not for a nymph’s eyes.
One article had a crowd of changelings all missing their back left leg after a strangely specific attack. Another detailed a city that had been turned into a stronghold, but as resources dwindled, the city turned into a desert, changelings started to eat each other, and society devolved into sadomasochistic anarchy. Many changelings started wearing spikes for some reason. There was also one about a minotaur-made disease that turned changelings into mindless drones that would brutally try to infect their own kind. It was truly the stuff of nightmares.
Finally, at the end of the hall was the clincher. She liked other creatures, unlike her parents, but once she saw what was on those letters on the pedestal, she remembered why she disliked other races. Those letters were replies to the changelings’ pleas for help, and they were filled to the brim with incredible hate and racism, by all kinds of different species no less.
Those xenophobes only cared for themselves. They would live like kings and queens while other races died in squalor! They would laugh and spit on the starving remains of lesser races! It was no wonder changelings stopped asking for help!
But now that she was remembering things with a doubly awakened mind, she noticed things she hadn’t in the past. One thing that stood out was that all of those letters looked too… similar. Maybe it was because she had to deal with her recently awakened changelings. After all, if the members of a single species could be so different, why would different species word things so similarly? Why would the same insults for changelings come from vastly different cultures? Further, the letters were a far cry from Celestia’s volley of messages pleading for peace in response to Chrysalis’ declaration of war.
The difference was staggering. What could make Celestia so different from the leaders of practically every other nation in the world? Chrysalis didn’t have an answer.
And why were the testimonials in the newspapers so similar as well? Not only that, but all of the pictures were drawn. The drawings were incredibly detailed, but she could recognize the strokes.
Perhaps they didn’t have cameras back then, and maybe comparing her incredibly strange hive with other species and other changelings wasn’t fair. Still, Celestia’s response bothered her a little.
...Maybe Celestia was a changeling in disguise.
With her doubts lingering, Chrysalis’ memory continued.
Having looked at everything in the museum, young Chrysalis turned back to the door. Green and gold glowing runes jumped out at her. They must have appeared while her back was turned.
She didn’t know why, but the sight of those runes chilled her to the core, making it almost impossible to breathe.
Chrysalis woke up from her daydream gasping for breath. Isaac and Andres looked at her funny, but she continued flying, trying to ignore the minor embarrassment. They eventually lost interest.