//------------------------------//
// 9 Regret 
// Story: Know your enemy 
// by Znegil 
//------------------------------//

Chrysalis was beaming at me, even without her ability I could feel the incredible happiness coming from her.

"You love me the way I really am.", she said with tears in her eyes and the biggest grin on her face. "It feels so good to be loved." She hummed happily.

But after a few moments her face clouded. "But I although feel regret coming from you..."

"I love you, you know that.", I started. "But I love Luna the same way, and I betrayed her. We shouldn't have done that."

We laid next to each other and both searched for the right words.

"You know we have the herd concept here and can share your love.", she whispered to me. "It isn't a finite resource, there is more than enough for both of us."

"Without her knowing? I think that is cheating no matter how we would try to paint the picture. Also I am taking advantage of both of you."

We went silent again.

"You are right.", she said. "This is considered cheating... you have to be introduced to the first mare and she has to approve to form a herd with another pony... and I'm not even a pony."

"Instead we did the stupidest thing possible...", I said bitterly.

"I don't want to lose you.", she said with pleading eyes.

"I neither want to lose you... or Luna.", I replied and brushed along her cheek.

"There are only two options Alex, to tell the truth, or we keep this a secret and ask her in the formal way to form a herd."

"Last time I lied to her didn't go well at all. I should not hide this from her."

Chryssi kissed me.
"But if she breaks up with you in anger, she would be the one hurting and without any love... I know how that feels, I don't want her to be like that... I like her."

"I will do anything to prevent that from happening, but I have to tell her the truth... and I hope she will understand at least a bit."

"Should I come with you?", she asked worried.

"I think I should talk to her alone."

I stood up and searched for some clothes.

...

I stood in front of Luna's room. I had brought the same flowers like on our first date. I was scared and my stomach felt like someone made a knot out of it. I tried to control my breathing and forced my hand to knock. She opened the door and smiled as she saw me and the flowers.
"I am sorry Luna..."

She took the flowers with her magic and invited me into the room.
"It's ok, I shouldn't have exploded like that because of this lie, or maybe I should have asked more specific like my sister did."

I sat down on one of the pillows on the ground while she put away the flowers.

"No, I shouldn't have done it this way, and there is another much bigger mistake I have to confess, would you please sit down."

"In my past I made huge mistakes myself.", she said while sitting down. "I nearly destroyed the kingdom, twice... no wait three times. How bad can it be compared to that?"

"Pretty bad.", I said in a voice that got her attention and a worried look on her face.
"You know I love you and I want to be together with you for the rest of my life... I want to tell you the absolute truth and never lie to you again, so here is what has happened since our argument yesterday. I went with Chrysalis to my favorite restaurant "Blue Wings"..."

I told her every detail about what had happened. Chrysalis 'mission' with Lavender, her regrets about what she had done, her breakdown, the things we saw at the flower shop and how it broke her.

Luna interrupted me: "I can see that Chrysalis is a much nicer and more interesting character than I imagined, but I don't see the problem here."

I sighed.
"It will be very obvious in the next part of this story... I took her back to my room and she was still in a horrible mood and even hurting herself, I decided this would be a good time to give her a friendship hug, like I mentioned before... but this time she felt it wasn't only friendship, there was more."

I saw how Luna tensed up.

"I noticed it only as she mentioned it, that I was in love with her. She was drunk by the emotions of love targeted towards her and... got very close... I saw the need in her eyes... and... we... kissed. One thing led to the next... and we spend the night together..."

If I had the choice right now, I would have battled Nightmare Moon again instead of sitting before Luna under the stare she had right now.

I was sweating like crazy as the minutes passed by.

After five minutes I decided to carefully raise my voice.
"Well..."

Luna interrupted me: "What is the problem? Was that UNPLEASANT for you? Really, what is your problem? Are princesses who are having a bad day a weak spot for you? If my sister feels down because she ate too much cake, will she be the next you comfort?!"

"I wouldn't..."

"SHUT UP! I'M TALKING RIGHT NOW!"

I winced.

She was breathing hard and started to use a calming technique I knew she got from Cadence.

She continued more calm: "Look, I know your are from another dimension and don't always understand how things are around here. My problem is not that you love another mare, if you still love me like before. The concept of a herd may be strange to you, but it is natural for us. Maybe I would have brought someone else to form a herd in the future... and Chrysalis seems nice and has a similar lifespan to me. The POINT is that you have broken my trust, AGAIN!"

She came close to me, her head only inches away from me, she looked me right into my eyes.
"I do love you.", she said. "And I want to be happy with you and start a family... but if you EVER lie to me again or break my trust, I..."
She gritted her teeth.
"You better never find out what would happen."

"Does that mean we are still...", I started.

"You will do EXACTLY what I tell you now. NOPONY will hear about what happened, that includes my sister. You will propose Chrysalis to me in the official way. That means we will meet in a restaurant where she will approach me wearing a white dress and a golden ribbon around her right hoof, and then she presents me red roses. I will invite her to our table and we will have multiple dates together. I will give her a fair chance to join our herd, but if I decide against it, you will have to make your choice."

"I will do anything you say, anything to make good on what I have done."

"You can start to prove that to me within the next hours, you will not be able to think about anything other than me, and you will worship me for it. I will be your number one forever.", she passionately started kissing me.

She stopped after a few seconds.
"Two more things. You will not touch Chrysalis AT ALL until we maybe become a herd, I don't care if it takes longer to feed her if you don't touch, you won't. And the second thing is you will propose her in her true form to me, so we may have some announcements to make before our date... and now I make you lose your mind."

And so she did.