It was warm and bright when Chrysalis awoke. Her emerald colored eyes blinked numbly at the pink fur and fluff that surrounded her as she lay on her side in some large, plush bed. She remained still, letting her breathing continue in the steady rhythm from her sleep. The inner edges of the holes in her chitin, along her legs, were sore and felt raw and chaffed. Otherwise, Chrysalis felt surprisingly refreshed and rested in a way she hadn’t since the last time Monarca had slept over in her Princess’ bed.
Her thoughts were clear and strong. Her thoughts were her own. The voices silent again. The last thing she could clearly remember was making lunch for Celestia. Protein rich bundles of grains and artfully sliced vegetables. I hope she liked them. Then things started to become jumbled, flashes of incomplete memories bounced around inside her mind like a foal on too much sugar. Things got like that when the voices started getting loud, drowning out her own thoughts, her own will.
Those were the times when she lost herself. Chrysalis closed her eyes, hoping she hadn’t hurt anyone. Celestia always welcomed her back after these periods. Held her in those strong hooves and wrapped soft feather around her like the world’s greatest safety blanket.
”Monarca, you look tired! Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll have the maids bring us something?”
”Silk? I’ve been worried sick! Where have you been, it’s been days! Come to me, my little pony, let me kiss away whatever is troubling you.”
”Am I working you too hard, Sunchaser? You look exhausted! No, I insist, take a break. You can rest on my lounge while I do some of this paperwork. Don’t worry about it at all.”
Flashes of white, gold, and rainbows sparked behind her eyes. Her Princess danced through her memories like lighting in a storm, making her world brighter, making everything make sense. Celestia was her rock. Her lighthouse upon the shore. Chrysalis focused on that smile, those eyes, and slowed her heart to something approaching normal. She opened her eyes again to the chaos of pink around her and opened her mouth enough to lick her lips.
Chrysalis could taste ancient magic in the air. Everything around her was thickly coated with the ethereal residue of it. Under the magic, she could taste the emotions of those who cast it: desperation, anger, fear, pride, and loss. There was something else too, something she couldn’t easily place. It had a hauntingly familiar quality to it, like something she hadn’t tasted in ages. It was nothing more than the vague feeling, but it sparked in her oldest memories.
As she searched her mind, ancient, unbidden memories and feelings she had thought long since lost, arose. Light filled hours spent in a room that was decorated in pink fluffy things. Years spent as a filly in a huge palace surrounded by snow where she would gaze at paintings of places that were located to the far south, where everything was lush and green all year. Months spent in dim rooms, drilling spells in her head, into her horn until she could cast them without thinking about them. Days locked in the darkness whenever she failed one of her father’s tests.
“I know you are awake, my little Crystal. You can stop pretending.”
The voice was deep and thick, rumbling against her back like distant thunder. It was just as she remembered it: rich and warm with a caring tone that promised support and unconditional love. She’d learned the basics of deception from that voice. She learned how the honey concealed the iron underneath. Her father had always been a fine teacher.
Chrysalis curled her legs against herself, focusing on the sore feeling in the openings in her chitin. The discomfort was the truth. It was real. “I liked it better when you were just another one of the voices in my head.”
“I was never just a voice in your head. You know that, Crystal.”
“I prefer ‘Chrysalis’ now. It suits me. She gave it to me.” She wound herself into a tighter fetal position, her throat plates constricting and her breath growing a little ragged. “I had things under control. I didn’t need you to interfer.”
“I beg to differ, Crystal.” The voice chuckled softly, the tiny barbs in his tone slowly revealing themselves. “You were dilly dallying. Playing overly long with those lesser ponies. I taught you better than to disobey me.”
Chrysalis shuddered, tensing when she felt the blanket draw up higher onto her shoulder. “You taught me to take what I want from this world and buck the rest.” She swallowed with some difficulty and took a calming breath. “I-I don’t want you. I don’t want th-this. What I want, you can’t give me. So, you tell me what category that puts you in.”
“I am in control.” Chrysalis muttered, more to herself than anything else. “I am my own…”
A broad, heavy hoof touched her mane, smoothing it. The smell of smoke flooded her nostrils. “I believe you may want to re-think that. I can give my little Crystal whatever she wants. Join with me, as is your duty and birthright. Let us be a family again, Crystal, and I will give you everything you have fought for for so long. I’ll even return to you all that which you’ve lost these long centuries.”
As the voice continued, the hoof drifted back, brushing aside her web-like mane from her ear. It rubbed her there, like a father sooths the bad dreams from a filly. “I can give you the world and your priestess. I can make you not just my own little Princess again, but I can make you Princess to the entire world, Crystal. All you need to do is just what I bid you to and it will all be yours.”
Despite herself, Chrysalis started to relax under the gentle massage and the waves of deep baritone as it washed over her. My father is dead. Killed by his greed and hubris when he challenged a goddess. I can remember feeling him become no more. I can remember it! She forced her body tighter into the safe coil of limbs and torso, all but her eyes and ears below the blanket that covered her.
Across from the bed, in the bright light that was streaming in from above, she could see a simple end table. It was made from the stained wood of sub-arctic pines—she was sure of it—and on top was a filly’s toy, a dolly with golden hair and a blue dress. I used to have one just like it. I called her… Chrysalis closed her eyes again, fighting for the memory. It was so close, but kept eluding her. Her eyes snapped back open and she looked around the room as best she could without moving her head for fear of seeing the pony that stood behind her.
Toys, replica keepsakes from her first dozen or so birthdays littered the dresser and large vanity. Earthen jars, that she knew would hold make up, stood at attention like soldiers in front of the glittering mirror there. Just like I left them…
Chrysalis shuddered again. That phantom feeling, so much like home, so much like the place she had left and vowed—out of her father’s hearing—she would never return to, arose again like bile at the back of her throat. It’s all a lie...right? It can’t be him...it can’t be here! I-I...I checked. There was nothing left, not even a coin or a brick, just holes in the ground and fresh snow! The Empire is gone. Right?
“I know what you’re thinking, Crystal. You’re wondering if I’m telling the truth. You remember my training—and I will be the first to admit it was harsh and I was hard on you—and you are wondering if it will be like that again.” The voice got closer and the hoof at her ear dropped to her shoulder and tugged gently at her. “Well, I promise you, it won’t be. I want you at my side, Crystal. I want us to be a family again, just like old times. I know things...didn’t...go according to plan, but I know we can overcome it. This time...this time, my little sweetling, those abominations won’t stop us. They can try, but no matter what, I know that this time, we will prevail.”
It will be different...right? Chrysalis shook her head, biting her lip to hold back the whimpers that were trying to escape her. The room, the voice, the smell all screamed at her ‘This is real! This is home!’ He...he isn’t just a dream. This isn’t just in my mind, right?
The hoof tugged at her incessantly, growing firmer with each pull. “This time they won’t catch me by surprise. I’ve learned from my mistakes. I’ve become stronger whilst in my exile. Stronger than they can even fathom. No longer will you need to slink in the shadows to get close to the priestess. I will just give her to you on a silver platter.” The hoof grabbed her and yanked Chrysalis around onto her back. Above her, her father in all his dark presence, Sombra the Black smiled, his teeth gleaming white amid his inky coat. “I’ll even let her keep most of her limbs. I promise.”
Chrysalis jerked away, backing as far as the pillow would allow her from the apparition. His eyes were the same carnelian she remembered, but now they were surrounded by a sickly green glow. His mane was wild as ever, and it waved in a wind only it felt, the dark hair becoming like smoke as it flowed away from Sombra.
Sombra leaned closer, his smile widening to reveal almost saber tooth-like fangs. His voice lowered to a silky smooth whisper. “Welcome home, my little gemstone.”
Several hours previous:
Celestia blinked the residual aura of the Corona’s experimental transport gate out of her eyes, the arcane energies it channeled to perform the long distance teleport leaving a rainbow of afterimages in her vision. The ship seemed to be holding together and she made a mental note to congratulate the engineers later for the achievement. Out through the portside windows, Celestia could make out the grey and white mountains of the Northern Splithoof range. Tiny blots of bright color color peeked out from some of the distant ledges and crannies, Minotauran tribal kits flying in the air.
“At least it looks as if we are on course.” She murmured to herself. They were far, far off the course of established airship lines where ley lines and placed towers powered and guided flights around Equestria and beyond. The Corona’s engines were one of a kind, powered internally with some very strong spellcraft based on her own teleport spells. Previous versions of the engine tended to explode, but added shielding from matrices based on Luna’s famous barriers helped keep this one stable-ish.
Celestia looked down at the nearest minotaur village. No doubt there would be more than a few of them looking back at the ship and wondering where it had come from. Hopefully, they wouldn’t notice the cannon ports. “What do you think, Luna?”
The night Princess took a deep breath and held it for a moment, straightening up to stand as tall as her harness permitted. Luna’s eyes sparkled a little, looking not at the outside scenery, but at the ebb and flow of natural magic around the airship. When the Gibbous Shield failed and her magic returned to her, it left a trail, subtly disrupting the arcane landscape in its wake. “Yes...I can feel that we are much closer now.”
Luna sighed tiredly, unlocking her harness to wheel next to Celestia a moment later. “We are still a far ways off though, and in the middle of foreign airspace, I might add.”
“I personally sent word to the Collective’s elder council before we left, alerting them to our movement through their skies. It should reach them before news of our passing through does.”
“And what if we should run into the Collective’s airforce out here?” Luna raised an eyebrow. “I realize the need for haste, believe me, but we run the risk of an international incident, Tia. An experimental airship suddenly appearing where conventional wisdom says it cannot, and it’s loaded with cannons? They may not like what they hear, regardless of who tells them.”
“Unloaded cannons.” Celestia clarified quickly before shrugging. “Not that they will know. If things proceed according to plan, we will be long gone before they can make a formal inquiry.” She scanned the horizon again. “I’m hoping that the secret airbase that they are rumored to have out here is just a rumor.”
Celestia clicked her tongue and looked back over her shoulder at the rest of the bridge crew that were busy checking the Corona’s systems and telemetry. “Helm! Where’s my report?”
“Y-you’re real?” Chrysalis gurgled, her throat plates refusing to loosen up, her heart pounding in her ears. “You’re a-alive?”
“I am very much alive, daughter mine.” Lord Sombra sneered. “Always have been, Crystal.”
“My name...” Chrysalis felt her limbs shifting, fight and flight waring in the back of her mind. She willed muscle and sinew to move and reshape, her chitin morphing from a pony leg to an immense crab claw. Her body moved faster than eyes could follow, striking out from under the blanket, her pincer closing on her father’s extended neck. “...is Chrysalis!”
Sombra’s next offered only token resistance, the flesh giving way with little effort. His eyes widened for a split second in surprise before Chrysalis’ claw tore his head off. Sombra’s body exploded into a smokey cloud, his head doing the same an instant later.
Chrysalis rolled away from the cloud, her body already reshaping itself into a slick, aerodynamic form. Hooves and wings worked together to turn her roll into a dive, changing her trajectory towards where her memories told her the bedroom door was. To her immediate relief, the door was both there and open. She shot through it, sparing her father and her cage one final glance.
She was at the end of the short hall half a breath later. Chrysalis powered through the corner, kicking off the wall hard enough to send shallow cracks through its crystalline surface. The halls were empty, stone and crystal walls oddly featureless. In the shaky memories of her youth, the castle had been filled with artwork, paints and statues that commemorated some conquest of her father’s. The endless staff members were likewise absent. The servants nowhere to be seen.
Her pulse refused to slow or stabilize as she took turn after turn at speed, putting space between herself and whatever called itself her father. There were few lights, room after room she passed dark and murky. Everything felt unreal, dreamlike, but the more she railed against it, the more sure she was that her father and her home where returned. Ahead of her, a large set of double doors sat open, revealing a large, lit space beyond.
Chrysalis shot through it and screeched to a halt. She was in some giant room that reminding her of a ballroom. It was mostly empty, except for a couple of low tables set with beakers, flasks, and other alchemical equipment. A good third of the room, was filled with row upon row of crystal statues of random ponies.
Are...are they all looking at me? Chrysalis took an unsteady breath, turning her ears about to hear any pursuit. Vaporized or not, she had the bad feeling that her father was still very much alive and active. She needed to find other ponies and blend in, hide.
“I need to lay low, find a way out.” Chrysalis nodded to herself, swallowing and choking back a sniffle. “I can do this...Celestia is waiting for me. She has to let me know if lunch was good...do I have books to organize? Or was I...was I folding her sheets?”
It doesn’t matter. Just live. Escape. Get back to Canterlot. Back into routine. Celestia will make the things make sense.
Chrysalis looked across the room at the next set of doors. If this truly was the Crystal Palace, then she felt that passing the ballroom would lead her toward the courtyard and the gate. The layout seemed like her vague recollection of her foalhood home, but she wasn’t completely sure.
She flared her wings to take off again when a noise caught her ears. She looked back over her shoulder but nothing was there except the statues.
“My father has picked up some odd habits in the centuries he’s been away.” She frowned, the phantom noise bothering her. “Why he’d want to carve a bunch of statues with eyes that follow you everywhere, I’ll never know and I don’t intend to find out.”
“I find that they give me a sense of peace. A people I can always rely on.”
Chrysalis spun around, staring wide eyed at her father who now stood next to the alchemy tables. He was wearing his crown and royal cloak now, and looked none the worse for having had his head removed minutes ago. The tip of his curved horn pulsed a dull, angry red and he levitated a large heart-shaped gem off the table towards himself.
“Unlike everypony else—family included—they never stop to question me or go off on their own chasing a lie.”
“It wasn’t a lie.” Chrysalis hunkered down, bunching her muscles to move the moment her father tried anything. “It was a promise. She promised me a place by her side.”
“By her side?” Sombra smirked, pulling the gem closer to examine it. “All you ever managed was under her. The priestess broke you, Crystal.”
Chrysalis growled low in her throat, her cheeks warming.
“She will never hold you up as her equal.” Sombra continued, turning the crystal he was holding around to catch the light. It glimmered in his grip. “She used you.”
“She loves me!”
“Don’t worry, I’ll help you see the truth yet.” Sombra narrowed his brows, the shine coming off the floating gem getting brighter. “I can cure of these lies. Take her to my lab.”
Chrysalis leaped, her wings buzzing hard to push her even faster. Whatever Sombra had planned, she had no intention of making it easy on him. She barely had her eyes off him, turning toward the far doorway when it felt like a mountain was dropped on her. Hooves, hard as stone and just as cold piled down on her, driving her to the floor and the wind from her lungs. “Celestia!”