//------------------------------//
// We Are One 
// Story: How To Reform Your Changeling 
// by Forces of Darkness 
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	The next few days were as uneventful as days could possibly be. Chrysalis woke at sunrise each morning and helped Applejack buck apples until Applejack decided it was time for breakfast. She fed Winona, who had finally stopped growling at her. She helped out around the farm for the entire day, stopping only for lunch and dinner, during which she would feed Winona again. And then she would collapse on the kitchen floor, almost too exhausted for evil plotting. Or plotting of any sort.
Almost.
The silence still scraped around her brain until she wanted to scream. The faces of her children, desperate and starving, flashed before her eyes in the moments between being awake and asleep. She had to get back to them, and faking friendship just wasn't working. Perhaps it was a sign of the maddening effects of the silence that she decided to do something insane. She decided to try talking to Applejack.
"AJ," she asked, using the affectionate nickname that the others often used for her, "might it be possible for me to leave the farm for a few days and go home?"
"A few days meaning what, a month? A year? Two years? No. Where would you go home to anyway?"
She couldn't answer that. How long had it been since she and her children had been blasted out of Canterlot? Perhaps a little more than a year. Every day, searching for more changelings. So many lives claimed that day. Out of five hundred, perhaps a hundred and fifty remaining? Forced to live in hiding, starving... And then her idea for revenge on the purple mare that orchestrated it all, crushing dreams, stealing food, claiming lives... All wasted because she was fool enough to reveal herself again. Her fault. She had failed them again.
Applejack gave her an odd look, came up to her, and awkwardly put her forelegs around her neck. She stroked one hoof through Chrysalis' mane. "We killed a lot of your children, didn't we?"
Chrysalis didn't answer that, staring woodenly into space. Then she shook herself all over. "What are you doing to me?"
"It's called hugging."
"But it won't provide me with love, will it?" Me, or the rest of them, she thought to herself. Applejack obediently stopped hugging her, but continued to give her odd glances throughout the day.
The next day, Applejack called her over a few hours after lunch. "Chryssie, come here. There's someone who's come to visit you."
Chrysalis absently wandered over, glanced up, and stopped in shock. A tall ivory alicorn was looking at her. 
"Hello, Chrysalis," Princess Celestia said, smiling.
She debated whether or not to bow, to show her "submission" to the ponies and their friendship. She almost did, the hungry faces of Chia and Butterfly watching her in her mind's eye. But what would they think of her if they know she was bowing to a pony queen? It would be considered a sign that she was weakening, and it would never be said that Queen Chrysalis, She of Many Faces, was weak.
She dipped her head to Celestia, in the way that two equals would greet each other. Celestia didn't even blink, but returned the gesture with the utmost politeness. 
Celestia lit her horn and summoned a small table and two chairs. "Please, won't you sit? A friend of mine will bring refreshments in just a minute."
"Of course." Chrysalis sat. As soon as she was settled, a pink mare with a poofy pink mane appeared - Chrysalis recognized her but couldn't remember her name. The mare busied herself placing teacups, a teapot, and a cake on the table.
"Pardon me," Chrysalis interrupted her, "but what is your name?"
"Pinkamena Diane Pie," the mare recited, "but you can just call me Pinkie. Everypony does!" With a giggle and a shower of confetti, she disappeared. 
Celestia began to cut the cake calmly, giving each of them a slice. She picked a fork and began to take dainty bites. Chrysalis ate like an animal, since she had no way of levitating the fork. Celestia made a noise that might have been a stifled giggle.
"Would it make you feel better if I ate like that as well?" she asked. Chrysalis considered a moment and nodded.
They sat in silence for a while, each mare consuming her cake in the style of a grazing animal. When they had both finished, Celestia magically summoned two napkins. She wiped her mouth clean with one, then ordered Chrysalis to hold still and wiped her mouth with the other. As she did so, Chrysalis realized that she tasted something almost like... almost like love.
She glanced down to make sure that she wasn't wearing a disguise, but she didn't seem to be. Was Celestia giving her love for... being herself? Surely not. And yet the sweet sensation lingered on her tongue, and it was a different sweetness from the cake. Come to think of it, the cake had been baked with a lot of love, making her feel more full than she'd been in a while. Idly, Chrysalis wondered if the pink mare - Pinkie - was the one who had baked the cake. 
A sipping sound brought her back to reality. Celestia was sipping her tea. Noticing Chrysalis watching her, she set down the teacup gently and smiled. "Did it make you feel better when we were equals, eating the cake in the same manner?"
Chrysalis nodded. 
"What if I told you that we are more than equals? We are the same."
"I'm a black bug. You're a white pony. I'm a Queen, you're a Princess. We are most definitely not the same."
Celestia smiled. "You have four legs. You have a horn and wings. You have fur. So do I." Chrysalis rubbed her hoof against her foreleg and realized that she did have fur. "Technically, we are both ponies. Even alicorns, if you wanted to push it that far." 
"And that makes us the same?"
"No. There's more to it than that. You're smart, Chrysalis. Why don't you tell me why we are the same?"
"I'm telling you, we're not. You are the prettiest, perfectest princess that ever was, and I'm a no-good bug."
Again, that mysterious smile and the taste that was not love. "I am not perfect. Neither are you."
"I suppose not, if you can be defeated with a simple magic blast," Chrysalis returned. It worked: Celestia's eyes flashed with something resembling anger, but it quickly faded. 
"Of course. I should have known. How could I possibly explain to you...?"
Chrysalis transformed into Celestia and mocked, "I will protect my subjects!"
"Yes!" Celestia cried in triumph, startling Chrysalis so much that she reverted to her normal form. "That is why we are the same!"
A vague memory floated through Chrysalis' head: an echoey, raspy voice singing, "No, I do not love the groom, in my heart there is no room!"
Hive. Children. Subjects. Daughters. Queen. Princesses. Home.
Love.
"I would do anything to protect my subjects, as you would to protect your children. I know that there is no magic that can replace the lives that were lost that day."
"But you don't understand what it's like!" Chrysalis shouted at her. "Vi endesh'an zan'ji-" She paused and repeated herself in Equestrian. "You don't have the... mind-link! You couldn't hear their dying screams!" She panted for breath, pointing her horn at the alicorn as though attacking her. As though she could attack her.
Celestia remained calm. "I heard Twilight took away your magic. Did she take away your... zan'ji as well?"
"Yes."
"And now you see what it's like to be a pony."
"I pity you, living in you permanent silence. There are tales of the enzan'ji - those without the mind-link - and it always ends with them going mad. You would annihilate an entire hive by leaving them defenseless and without a queen?"
"Not if I have a choice. And there is always a choice, Chrysalis. Remember that." Celestia smiled, serene perfection once more, and once again Chrysalis tasted that sweetness. 
"Celestia, what is that taste? It's almost like love..."
"Friendship." And without another word, the white alicorn spread her wings and soared upward, eventually seeming to find a current and gliding away on it.

...
  
"Chryssie, you awake?" Applejack inquired late at night. 
"Hmm?"
"How was yer talk with Celestia?"
"Good, I suppose."
"Ah'm glad ta hear that."
Friendship could feed her hive. She needed to bring them friendship.
"Applejack, am I a pony?"
There was a sound of smothered laughter. "Ah... guess so. You've got four legs, a mane, and a tail. Why?"
"So changelings are ponies."	
"Sure."
"Do you think changelings could live with ponies?"
There was a pause. "Ah don't know. After Canterlot, most ponies ain't gonna want you living with them. But Ah suppose it wouldn't hurt to try."
Chrysalis paused. It wouldn't hurt to try. "Applejack, what are your friends like?"
She watched as the orange mare practically lit up, the "friendship" taste flowing off her in waves. "Oh, Twilight is really smart and she reads a lot. Rainbow is competitive..." 
Applejack continued to tell her stories until she noticed the black mare's head hit the floor. She fetched a blanket and gently laid it over Chryssie's back, then went upstairs to sleep.