The first night was a remedy to his fears of discovery, windy dark and cold. They wouldn’t stare out at his shadow that crept slowly, relived the pair’s steps. The shadow crawled from the cut-out injury of earth to the hollow tent, finally reached the cabin. Trails blackness like ink, Silence like unwanted secrets. The guard bowed his head and stared at the abomination, an unnatural concept of hate and promised violence. Her hair is limp strands that fade into black, colours suffocate on the dying fires soul. There’s a plain unicorn sleeping on a mattress on the floor.
She is too beautiful. It’s a sin not a compliment. There will be soft winds and soft whispers in his mind telling him not to kill her. Can you see how pony-like she is? Does she speak with a pony’s voice think with a pony’s mind? There is an answer in the small frown and sigh that comes from the sleeping changeling, tells the guard of innocence, how all things have goodness that can’t die and be replaced. But he refuses to understand.
There used to be hope and foolish dreams. There used to be a comfortable ignorance, love can grow strong. Love would grow and hate diminished every day, you could see it in the proud citizens. Then it happened. Chrysalis. The cancer. The parasite queen which annihilated the hope for safety, ripped up the illusion of security, twisted love into something else. Did you see her? She was the eye in a tempest of green fire, hellish and made of cold heat, she cast down our god. She cast down Celestia. There are Changelings in our nightmares now, they would gorge on fear and walk into the waking world. Everyone’s a changeling and everywhere that fear grows in equestria. It’s a fear with no flesh, a fear based on a threat that doesn’t exist. A fear of the death of god. Trust is shaken up and replaced. Where did Equestria’s love go?
This was ironic. This was delicious. There was a kind of love, a fiery misguided spectre that leads the lynch mobs and vigilantes. They thought that they could protect their family by rounding up the enemy; their love urged them to destroy the changelings, to make their children safe. It was there when the guard saw the scared changeling turned into a bloodied wreck. A circle of hooves snatching life and blood, a dull stamping and thudding while the changeling’s gaze followed the sky. There is a god of the sun and a changeling queen, but they both forgot about that pathetic creature having the shit kicked out of it. The colour of green blood, the brutality of bent flesh. It was an hour after the failed invasion, a handful of changelings were left behind. The guards were told to stop the ponies from killing the changeling. They all watched the changeling limp away into the wilderness. Some cried, some didn’t watch, most were silent. Most wanted to finish the beating they started. Kill the changeling.
Shining Armour tried to talk to the crowds but they didn’t trust his soft well-meaning nature. Shining armour was noble and honourable but didn’t have murder stamped in his soul, couldn’t reach out and stab a changeling, watch the life fade from its disgusting body. Do what was needed to save family from the changeling threat as substantial as wind in your hand. The guard knew there was no changeling threat, but he knew that most thought there was. That equestria will start committing atrocities in the name of love, that soon ponies’ will hold a little bit of hell in their hearts. Unless he brought back the corpse of the queen. One monstrous act to give security back to them.
So they sent the guard out to track her and kill her. The guard had murder stamped on it’s soul.
A detached mind wondered why justice and harmony has to strike down on evil when its weakest. Will it hurt, will I care? Follow orders soldier. Cut off your mind and let morality be a higher-up’s problem. You will give the queen blinding light and darkness. Kill her, let Tartarus sort out her shrivelled up soul. I am the evil that good people want to punish evil with.
The guard vanishes from the cabin to a congregation of trees. The guard perches there amongst the unlit dimness. The enemy has a strong exoskeleton, has witchcraft that would tear holes out of the guard, has a potentially dangerous unicorn under her thrall. The guard will wait and watch. There is a desire for peace and life in that guard’s identity, but it’s lost in an eternity of wants, lost in the moral annoyance of taking a life.
**********************
There was a rhythm that evolved from them. For the next two weeks there is the long stretches of the day and the intimate, intricate hours after waking, the hours after sleep. Short time well spent, a time thought of endlessly. In the long day he would reap his crop and she would follow. Her injuries have sapped most of her strength, but her will is iron. The giant changeling queen is a colossal, unfit, unmade shadow for the unicorn. Large beams of hard harsh white light flow from his horn, give life and movement to the vegetables and fruits that tumble and scramble out of earth, out of trees.
“Why do you farm? How can you harvest every day?”
“Because of goodness. Because of magic. Now hold this.”
She knows that he would steal glances at her. His entire body would twist, shy eyes would meet her curious glints of green light. But he would quickly shudder, a tremble of nerves, a useless excuse to look away from her eyes. He never saw that delirious spilling smile on her. It was almost unhealthy the joy seeping from her, the joy he gives her. She’s flying everyday even if her wings are crippled and torn. Just turn around and see her smiling. Turn around and place a kiss, kiss her right here in the strawberry field. Put a hoof through her hair and taste her tongue. Instead he’d only harvest, his face a scarlet fire she can’t see.
Two weeks is such a short time for her to recover. But she’s getting there. She can make firm stubborn steps that defy her wounds. She can use some of her changeling magic to change her voice, he’d laugh at the heavy polished voices, laugh at the artificial bird song rising from her lungs. She can bandage and dress herself, but the pair prefers it when he’d touch her. They know what they want. They just refuse to say it.
“Where are you going? Help me farm you lazy changeling!” His voice is said from a smile, words struggle hard not to turn themselves into laughter. He chuckles afterwards, throws a well-aimed carrot at her.
“I’ve made a decision” She half scowls, it’s a playful look, blends exasperation and mirth. He locks her face in his mind.
“You’re going to laze around?”
“I’m going to make dinner from now on. If you’re lucky I might decide to poison you.” Another well-aimed carrot.
“Carrot soup it is!”
There. It’s decided. She’d make dinner every day for two weeks. A brush with death can’t rid a lifetime of being a bossy misanthropist.
Boiling, frying and baking. The snapping of oil. The dry crack of a warming oven. She’d clean her hooves and water would churn and mutter through those abnormal holes in her hooves. Swathes of sunlight and fire crash together on beads of sweat, on the landscape of black chitin, she’s there every day in that cabin. Every day she’d focus hard to make something perfect, something real. Then he’d barrel in with an apple and a small plain smile, a curve of the mouth lost in daydreams. She’d let him wrap his legs around her, a tight hug that pulls them together. Then she’d bat him away with her scrawny legs, a grin and a shout as he gets a couple of trays.
Where did it go? The anger and the rage. The sleepless nights and the broken hooves. The sorrow and the cold. The weakness and the spite. It’s a distant shade of memories. Maybe we can find the grave where she dumped all that hate and abuse, find out where she buried those corrosive memories. Those corrosive memories always seem to come back though. About two weeks has passed. It was then that the she decided she’d try and fly. For a few glorious seconds she could feel the cold and wind that tried to pull birds back to the ground. Then she fell ten feet. Did the sky abandon her? Did the sky reject her? Let it be. Let hopelessness crawl back in through the scars. Let her stare at the clouds.
There is a quiet gasp. A private sound only she can hear. Suddenly her left side is occupied by something warm and worried. It’s him isn’t it? It was always him.
“Hi.”
She doesn’t know why but she wants to bash in his face.
“What are we doing here?”
Chrysalis doesn’t feel like answering. She feels like letting frustration control her body again. That’s the sad truth I’m afraid. You can’t bury hate and anger like this. It’ll haunt her. Its sewn into her soul. She’s become the unwanted sorrow and fury. It’s why she’ll scream and cry for no real reason. It’s why the simple act of falling ten feet can make her unstable. It’s why she hit him when they lay together where she fell, overpowered him and drew her hooves back; hit him in jittery clawing actions. She thought that together, they could fix her burnt out heart. Why does she love him so much?
She leant down and bites him. Right there outside the cabin. Right there on the shoulder. Right there a tight ring of teeth marks. The taste of blood. He lets out a hurt sigh, gasps because her teeth are meant to cut through flesh. She stops above him, an insignificant strand of his skin and hair stuck in her teeth. You’re delicious and I don’t really want to bite you. I don’t want to hurt you. But it’s funny the things I do because I’ve been abused, because my wings can’t work.
As sure as rain, her anger passes. There is a serenity that wants to swallow them. He knows she wants to apologise.
“I’m bleeding”
She leans down again and rubs her broad head against his neck. Wants to drown in him. She licks the blood from the bite. She didn’t really hit him hard; it was only the bite that hurt.
“What’s wrong with you Chrysalis?”
He’s a freak isn’t he? He probably dreams of the hurt, wants perverse pain that she inflicts.
No.
He lets her hurt him because she is terrifying and real. It’s a familiar landscape that only he’s seen. No matter how much she hurts him, this is a world only she can share with him. Even if it’s unhealthy they have something no one else has. It’s ferocious and never ending, unstoppable. A waterless flood and an endless fire. Why does he love her so much?
“Nothing’s wrong with you is there?”
Her hushed scared words slip out. He’s watched her fall apart again. He stares upwards. The clouds would chase each other forever in that endless sky. He kisses her. He’s never felt so brave and afraid in his life. He trails through her hair and she shakes so slightly.
Let it last a little longer.
They pull away. He has half closed eyes and a blush. It was always him wasn’t it? He’d like to bask but she pulls them together. He kisses her eyes, the corner of her mouth, kisses her neck. Hold and tear at one another. Their heads collide and crash with each kiss, shaky laughter from both of them. There is a world out there that made them. There are families and nations and a royal guard that wants to kill them. It doesn’t matter. Right now it doesn’t matter at all.
“Stay with me. Just a while.”
“Okay”
They held each other in their hooves. A Normal smooth hoof and a hoof full of holes. A crash of darkness and light. The sky and the clouds would fall into blue, then dark blue, then darker blue. The pair only held each other as the sun ran across the horizon, left behind small specks of gold that could be seen in that sunset. There is an inky moonlight now. It’s the dusty light which makes things darker. Now he steps up and she follows. It’s like their silhouette is one.
The tangle of a changeling and a unicorn. Their hair a shambles of green and dense knots. Hide in an embrace. The bed could have them both if they squeezed, they stayed pressed against each other all night. Few words are said. Silence is golden, is wanted. Needed. Come in and smell the smoke, smell their scent. If you close your eyes and listen closely they breathe at the same time, a crescendo of sighs. The light is another dying fire; the colour of candlelight on your skin.
The whole world is breathing and sleeping.
Their whole world is breathing and sleeping.
**************************
This is the dawn. It is the miasma of pollen and stacks of pink light. It’s the sky and the horizon exploding into pink, blood red, arms of yellow. The fragrance of it wants to break into the cabin. The cabin glows in dawn light. It’s a haze, dust in sunlight fidgets with the sound of his snoring. He lies amongst his dreams, a wakeful day is far away. She lies awake; we won’t know what ideas or wants go through her. The guard didn’t sleep, eyes are restless orbs of darkness, can see light swallowed in them.
Their love doesn’t matter. It’s unnatural and a waste of time. It won’t work, can’t work. But this guard’s plan can work. It will be two days of this desperate pseudo love clinging to them. Then the guard will come down and kill her. Two days.