//------------------------------// // Answers Only Lead To More Questions // Story: "Somepony! Help! Princess Celestia Has Lost Her Memory!" // by Kevin Lee //------------------------------// Chrysalis thought she was going to have an accident right there on the stairs. At first, she had thought one of her children had seriously disobeyed her directives about who they could and could NOT impersonate. But it wasn't until she was halfway up the stairs that she finally realized; this is NO changeling! But the Day Princess hadn't seemed to notice Chrysalis was there. Her eyes were on the two earth ponies she had knocked silly. Of course, that would change at any moment. And when it did, it wouldn't be pretty. Back during her invasion, she had absorbed enough love from Shining Armor to actually be a match for Celestia. That was, until the smack-down she received when Mi Amore Candenza rescued her betrothed, and she and all of her children were blasted out of the Equestrian capitol. Here, in Dry Gulp, she and the surviving members of the Hive had recovered their health, and the changelings' hunger was finally sated by the sustenance they got from the town's residence. But it was nowhere near the level of power she had possessed during the invasion. The years spent here had mellowed her ambitions. In this place of second chances, she had no desire to resume her conflict with Equestria's leadership. However, Chrysalis realized, Celestia would have no idea of her change of heart. As Celestia slowly descended the stairs, Chrysalis backed down in equal measure until the changeling queen had reached the unconscious ponies. Celestia continued to approach, step by step. With nowhere else to go, Chrysalis knew if she used her wings to back away further it was going to trigger Celestia's attention! But that damned Celestia took no notice of her! Not YET, she hasn't! The alicorn continued to step closer, and Chrysalis' instincts finally overruled her commands! Her wings buzzed as she hopped back out of range again! However, Celestia still took no notice! That made Chrysalis blink. Something's wrong, Chrysalis suddenly realized. "Are they hurt?" Celestia asked, still only looking at the fallen earth ponies. "J-just bumps on the noggin," Filly Rustler replied. Chrysalis blinked again and glared at her partner. She's not surprised! What betrayal is this!? "Now justa gosh darn minute, there!" the village idiot deputy growled as he stood up and confronted the Day Princess. "Ya can't just go slappin' ponies about! Dinja see yer ma 'bout ta scold ya fer that?" "Who?" Celestia asked, puzzled. The Day Princess now focused her attention on the deputy. Wh--? Chrysalis was also about to wonder when she realized too late what he was about to say. "Yer ma!" the moron exclaimed, pointing directly at Chrysalis. Celestia looked to where he was indicating. Oh … SPIT! Chrysalis thought, her eyes widening in fear. Celestia stared at Chrysalis. Chrysalis stared back. Celestia tilted her head. Chrysalis nervously swallowed. Here it comes…. "Are you my mommie?" Chrysalis was falling. The impact on her rump knocked her out of her shock. Whuuuu….? She blinked and realized she had sat down hard on the saloon floor. Celestia still continued to stare at her with her tilted head. That's when Chrysalis realized something was seriously not right with this picture. There was absolutely NO emotion coming from the alicorn that she faced. Not fear, nor hatred toward Chrysalis. Not even the ever-present love she normally felt for her ponies. It was as if the alicorn was an animated ponyquin in the form of the Day Princess. "Uh, Cletus," Filly Rustler said, scolding her fellow pony, "this isn't one of the changelings working here! This is Princess Celestia!" There were audible gasps throughout the entire saloon as well as the flare of shock and horror from everypony there. "Are you my mommie?" Celestia asked again. "Wha--? Uh—No!" Chrysalis snapped, suddenly getting to her feet. "Filly Rustler! What is the meaning of this joke?" Chrysalis angrily demanded. "WHO IS THIS!?" "This is Princess Celestia," her partner repeated. "IMPOSSIBLE!" Chrysalis angrily shouted. "I FOUGHT CELESTIA! THIS ISN'T HER!" "We fought?" Celestia asked, tilting her head the other way. "Nothing I kicked ever got up again. But I don't remember fighting you." "Wai—! Wha—?" Chrysalis exclaimed. "We found her the other night," her partner cut in. "Tumbleweed and I brought her into the saloon. She'd been wandering the desert. Our guess is, she's been wandering since Nightmare Moon's return." "NOT possi—" Chrysalis began to protest. "She's got amnesia," Filly Rustler said, interrupting once more. Only this time, what she said made some sense. Except for— "—ible!" Chrysalis slowly finished her declaration. "Amnesia?" she asked, looking at Celestia—this time really looking at her. Yes, she considered, using her senses. The signs are there. The completely blank personality… "Do we know each other?" Celestia asked, tilting her head back the other way again. "Yes," Chrysalis replied. "Yes, we do," she said, nervously swallowing. The day that she had dreaded for years had finally arrived. However— Here was the opportunity! she suddenly triumphantly realized. An opportunity to finally win that coming confrontation! At that moment, the town's marshal, accompanied by the physician and led by the town drunk that her partner had mentioned came through the door. "Who am I?" Celestia inquired to Chrysalis. "Wo—would you mind if we could move this discussion to the marshal's office?" Chrysalis asked. There were collective groans of protest from the saloon's patrons. "ALL OF YOU PONIES HAVE BUSINESS TO ATTEND TO!" Chrysalis angrily shouted at them. "Ponies, you have drinks and salt to imbibe! Changelings, you have customers to satisfy! Marshal, you need to bring her! GET TO IT!" she finished before marching pass the stunned stallion and out into the night. Chrysalis led the procession through the street, not bothering to look behind her. She expected them to obey. Her senses told her they were. After a short walk, she stopped, seeing as she had reached her destination at the marshal's office. There, she stood as the others filed in. Mustang Mack led the Day Diarch inside. Followed by Filly Rustler. Wait … Filly Rustler? "What are you doing here?" Chrysalis demanded. "Why aren't you at the saloon?" "I found her," Filly replied. "I asked Doc to run the shop while we were here." At that moment, the town's physician stepped up to the door. "Wait! What's he doing here, then?" Chrysalis exclaimed. "Doc?" Filly also inquired, as stunned as she was. "She's my patient!" the physician replied. "Don't worry. The bar's in good hooves," he said with a smirk as he walked passed to go inside. Her partner shrugged and entered. Her senses told her there were nopony else coming, but Chrysalis couldn't help taking a glance back just to be sure, before entering the marshal's office, too. Cletus smiled as he stood behind the bar, looking at all the customers. Of course, Doc assumed that he was too dumb to handle the business. At first, Doc had asked him to stand in as he had to go help with his patient. But an instant later, he had insulted Cletus by retracting the request, lamenting on about how Cletus couldn't read. Naturally, Cletus had to defend his honor. After all, he had watched how Filly kept everything running smoothly for years. How hard could it be? he wondered. "So," he shouted. "Who's next?" He was pleasantly pleased as the bar patrons began making their requests…. "First thing I have to say," Chrysalis began, "is I ask for your forgiveness, Princess Celestia." The princess blinked blankly at her. "For what?" she asked. "We did indeed fight, years ago, in the past," Chrysalis explained. "And she defeated you?" her partner inquired. "Is that how you ended up here?" "Yes. It was the day I ended up here," Chrysalis sighed. She really didn't want to have to tell these ponies. They had no need to know. But when it came time for her to finally speak her peace to Celestia, she knew that word would get out. "However, it was I who defeated her," she said to correct their misunderstanding. They all blinked in surprise. All but Celestia, who merely tilted her head in puzzlement. "The fact was, at the time, there were three alicorns," Chrysalis explained. "I had already imprisoned one—the pink one that you often see one of my children posing as. Celestia, here. And Celestia's sister, Luna. There was a wedding planned for the pink alicorn and her betrothed. I had imprisoned the pink one and taken her place, in an effort to siphon off the love her betrothed felt for her." The town's marshal, the physician, and her partner all looked at her in shock and horror. "It was an attempt to provide nourishment to my children," Chrysalis told them. "At the time, I had a great many more children—" She had to stop to reign back in the horror she felt for her loss. "All—all those—you found—when we arrived," she continued. "Yes, it was a gamble. Yes, to you ponies, it was a terrible crime. In fact, it was an act of war. It was one nation versus another. But we were desperate. I was desperate. My children were so hungry—" She paused as she hung her head in shame. But—her senses told her—something amazing. Instead of hatred or fear from the ponies for what she had done—there was—compassion. And from Celestia, there was only more curiosity. Chrysalis looked up in stunned amazement. It gave her the strength and courage to continue. "With the pink alicorn imprisoned and me taking her place, I fed on her betrothed's love. I had everypony fooled, including Celestia and her sister," Chrysalis said, resuming her tale. "What I did not know at the time, the pink alicorn had a friend who immediately knew I wasn't her. That purple unicorn you've all also become familiar with? She was the sister to the stallion I was going to marry. For a time, I was able to convince Celestia that she was simply jealous and didn't want her brother and me to be happy together. "Despite those mistakes, my deception almost worked," Chrysalis continued. "Almost. "But I made the mistake of revealing myself to the unicorn. And, worse, I took my joy at imprisoning her in the same caverns as the plink alicorn. Together, they managed to escape and interrupt the wedding, forcing me to be revealed as I am as well as trashing my original plans for the invasion. That's when Celestia stepped in and tried to fight me. But the love from the stallion from who I had been feeding had actually made me stronger than Celestia! Stronger than the pink alicorn, the unicorn and all the guards and their friends! I was able to vanquish everypony there. Still, all of my original, carefully laid plans were now trashed, and I had to wing it from that point on. That's when I had my children come down and begin conquering the city to feed off the populace. "However, the unicorn and her friends were able to wake up and make a break for weapons they hoped to use to defeat me. As they fought a pitched battle against my children, the pink alicorn managed to reach her betrothed and break the spell I had cast upon him. Together, their love for each other reignited—and—and together—they blasted not only me, but all my children out of Canterlot—past the Badlands—to land—back here." "The rest, you already know," she finished, hanging her head. "The bodies … you found—the survivors … are all I have left. "I—I never yet thanked you for giving the dead—the respect you did," she tearfully told them, reminded of those lost. "They never deserved to end up here in that manner. I should have found a better way." Chrysalis looked directly at Celestia. "I should have asked you for help," Chrysalis said to the alicorn. "But centuries of rejection from every nation we ever approached had made us bitter. We had to live by stealing love for so long it became the only way for us to live. We knew no other way." "I'm sorry—" Celestia gently said, reaching a wing out to her. "I'm sorry you had to suffer." "Yes," Chrysalis said, looking up and smiling. "That's the Celestia I know! Always compassionate. I know I don't deserve it. I certainly expected this meeting between us to go quite differently." "I—I don't know what the pony you knew would say," Celestia hesitantly said. "I—I only wish I could help." "You know, the ironic thing is, in making our preparations to invade Canterlot, I had established a hive in the mountains to the west of here," Chrysalis began again. "In fact, to ensure our security, we had torn up the train tracks leading back to the rest of your nation." "Whoa! That's new!" the physician exclaimed. "Yes," Chrysalis acknowledged. "And I'm very sorry for what we did, too. We tried to wipe out this community. And yet, at the moment of our defeat—it was Dry Gulp that took compassion upon us! After all we did! To Equestria! To you! It was you, who saved us, even though we didn't deserve that, either. Yours is a place and a populace truly blessed. All this time, you had everything my children needed—only—only—just not enough of it. Not until—not until—our numbers were knocked down to what we are now." "Well, we're certainly going to have to reconsider the situation," the town marshal grumbled. "But you have helped the town since you got here." "Yes," Chrysalis agreed. "As Filly reminded me the other day, this is a town of second chances. It's good you came here, Celestia. In many ways, this town is a microcosm of you." "But—you and your children came here—years after the newspaper said Nightmare Moon returned," her partner finally spoke up. "Yes," Chrysalis replied. "Well, I don't know what the newspaper said, but Nightmare Moon was defeated long before my attempted invasion. The same unicorn that helped defeat me was instrumental in defeating Nightmare Moon and restored Princess Luna from her exile to the Moon." "It's right here," the marshal said, opening a drawer to a filing cabinet and carefully removing the fragile newspaper and setting on the desk in front of him. Chrysalis stepped over to look at it, confirming the date and reading the article. "Yes, that's the date of Nightmare Moon's return," she confirmed. "But—this account is incomplete. The purple unicorn defeated Nightmare Moon and cleansed Princess Luna a few days after this paper came out. I know, because we were still at the hive, deep in making preparations for our invasion of Canterlot. We had infiltrated numerous cities throughout Equestria by then. "As I said, except for the mistake of not taking the purple unicorn in to account, my attempt to take over the pink alicorn's position and establish a secure feeding source for my children would've worked. Two things had worked against me: somehow word had gotten out that there was going to be an attempt to interfere with the wedding, and the purple unicorn's arrival. It was only when my original plans were disrupted that I made that final desperate invasion en mass. The original plan had called for a careful and slow invasion by infiltration while I would continue to pose as the pink alicorn." "So, she wasn't out there, wandering the desert for ten years?" the physician asked. "No," Chrysalis replied, shaking her head. "Not possible. Celestia was perfectly healthy when I and my children got blasted out of Canterlot—although she was in a cocoon at the time—it wouldn't have been hard for her friends to get her out. Whatever the reason was she came to be here, it was after I left Canterlot." "Well, we still need to get word to Equestria," the marshal said. "Since you were the one who tore up the tracks, can you get your children to work to repair them?" "I would if I could," Chrysalis sadly replied. "I just don't have the numbers I had before. All those you buried—at least the bodies you were able to identify as such—they were enough to tear up hundreds of miles of track overnight! But we're only a quarter of your town now—a minute fraction of what we were. All the rails we removed were pulled back to the hive. And you've only got the one train stranded on this side of the gap. It will take years to ferry those rails back out here and rebuild the track to Equestria." "There has to be some way to get word out," her partner put forward. "We can't wait for winter!" "I—I can—I can send a team out," Chrysalis suggested. "Travel at night, shelter for the days it will take to get there. And fly under a flag of truce once they get to civilization. It will still be dangerous, however. There's no guarantee they'll make it." "So, we're still left with questions," her partner grumbled. "What caused her to end up here? And who's been raising the sun in her stead all this time?" "Well, Luna would certainly have the means to continue raising the sun," Chrysalis put forward. "After all, Celestia took over raising the moon when her sister was banished. Why is Celestia here? Unfortunately, only you can answer that," she said to the alicorn. Celestia simply shrugged. "Thank you for being so understanding, Celestia," Chrysalis said as they filed out of the marshal's office. "I wish I could be of better help," Celestia replied. "Where will you be staying?" she asked. "I've got a room set up for her at the Long Tree," her partner answered for the Day Diarch. Just at that moment, the sound of a smashing window got their attention. "Doc! You said the saloon was in good hooves!" Chrysalis' partner exclaimed. "I did," the physician replied with a chuckle. "Cletus is in charge." "Cletus!?" Filly Rustler exclaimed, and the marshal instantly began galloping toward the Long Tree. "Are you forgetting what day this is?" the physician asked. "There's no way I'm going to stay behind the bar on a night like this!" Her partner groaned and facehooved while Chrysalis sighed and shook her head. "I'll send a team over to start repairs as soon as you close up," Chrysalis said, leaving her partner and the physician to deal with Celestia.