Chrysalis awkwardly approached Pinkie Pie and the guards, who had been watching this all go on in silence, parted to let our Queen through.
Pinkie Pie peered up with an eager smile, and our Queen stopped a few paces away from her.
Chrysalis looked back to Matron. "I don't see the use in," she started, but Matron's stare made her swallow the rest of her sentence.
A sigh escaped our Queen's lips as she turned back to Pinkie Pie. "Pony," she started, but then fell silent.
Matron scraped her throat, while all eyes were upon Chrysalis.
"Yes?" Pinkie Pie grinned up in eager anticipation.
"Would you... oh, this is just never going to work," Chrysalis huffed, but Matron immediately moved over to her side and nudged her far smaller form in against our Queen's.
"Repeat after me, now," Matron suggested; "Pinkie Pie, would you like to be my friend?"
Our Queen's wings drooped down her side, her tail fell, and she dipped her head a little lower. "Pinkie Pie, would you like to be my friend?" she repeated Matron's words, obviously not thinking it was going to do much.
"Sure!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed merrily, beaming up happily at our Queen!
Chrysalis' face blanked. She took a half-step back, then sank through her hindlegs and just sat there, staring with wide-open eyes at Pinkie Pie before her.
Matron turned around and moved to help me up from the ground.
"If you wondered how you looked during your first feed, Pearl," Blaze started, waving a hoof through the air at our Queen. "That comes very close."
"Well, we won," Moonshine realized.
"Of course," Matron chuckled. "I've known Pinkie Pie for years now. I just never expected to be able to get her this close to our Queen. It could have solved a lot of issues over the years."
"Wait," I started, looking around in confusion. "Wait, that's it?"
Starlight Glimmer moved up beside Pinkie Pie and nudged her. "Your cutiemark's glowing, Pinkie Pie."
Pinkie looked back at it, then jumped into the air in surprise. "Oh, yay! We solved the friendship problem!"
"No, wait, really? That's the... I mean..." I started, then brought my right forehoof up and slapped myself in the right eye with it. "Oh, ow! Ow... ow, I gotta stop doing this!"
Laughter erupted around me, the earlier tension of Chrysalis potentially doing something very bad to all of us finally leaving, and as I peered around through my left eye I noticed even a few Guards were carefully letting themselves laugh along.
"Let me take care of that eye," Matron suggested, and promptly spat resin at my face. I struggled to keep still as she used her hoof to spread it over my closed right eye, but tried to give her a thankful smile back.
"Thank you, Matron," I offered up. "But, really, can we be sure our Queen is going to be open for our suggestions now?"
"Pinkie Pie's love is... special," Matron answered my question. "I haven't fed off a single pony yet who comes near to the effect it has on us."
"Wait, I'm not supposed to feel all warm and glowy, tingly, and everything?" I wondered.
"No, that's just the after effects, and you'll feel those more or less every time you feed on somepony," Matron chuckled. "Pinkie Pie will knock you out however. Our Queen will need a moment to collect her thoughts."
"Your Queen has collected her thoughts," Chrysalis hissed dangerously from behind Matron, and I turned my only working eye back up to look at her.
Matron looked unfazed as she turned around to face our Queen. "Pinkie Pie has kept me fed for years. I make it a point to visit her every time I come to Ponyville," Matron stated. "You can feel why."
Chrysalis sat herself down while facing Matron and me, and looked... hurt, honestly. "Why would you keep this from me, Matron?"
"Because you would have abducted her and kept her as your personal food source," Matron spoke up, still calm as ever. "You deserve better than to have a food source wither away. You must have had some inkling of a realisation of just how good our infiltrators have had it? Surely?"
Chrysalis looked away from Matron. "I haven't paid much attention to my children these past years, no," she sighed out in a long sigh.
"We noticed there have not been any new batches ever since the failed invasion on Canterlot," Breeze commented, walking over. "All of us worry about you, my Queen. All of us. Even the Hatchlings have spoken their concern for you."
"Have I just been so consumed by my anger that I missed all of this?" Chrysalis wondered to herself, shaking her head.
"There is always time to correct your past mistakes and turn your life around for the better," Starlight Glimmer offered, walking up to the right side of our Queen. "As long as you're willing to be friendly to us, I give you my guarantee that we ponies will help you as much as we can."
"I really would suggest taking that offer, my Queen," I spoke up. "You will not find a better group who can deal with us as these ponies. They don't fear us, they genuinely care about us, and they have experience dealing with mistakes from the past."
"You are repeating yourself, my child," Chrysalis muttered with a light smile on her face. "There is no denying that pink pony, pardon, Pinkie Pie, has more love to share with us than I thought possible. And, looking around at the faces of my children, even those of my guards, I can see you are all wanting me to attempt this 'being friendly'."
"There are only benefits to this," Matron stated. "If you listen to the stories from the family, you will see. It's been too long since you let them come to you. You've cordoned off the area around you for years now. Even I was prevented from getting to you."
"I wonder if the other hives feel the same way," Chrysalis mused.
"I am sure you can find out by going there and listening," Matron suggested. "Maybe take our mutual friend Pinkie Pie with you on the trips; she loves to make new friends after all."
Chrysalis winced at the thought. "And reveal all our locations to her in the process? Matron, now I am truly worried if you have lost your mind."
"No more than you have for the past couple of years, Chrysalis," Matron threw back with a smile.
"I don't want to interrupt this, really I don't," I started, "but my Hatchling siblings down in the large chamber haven't been fed for days, or weeks, or however long they've been there for. Is there any way, my Queen, that you could provide them with some food? I mean that in the form of resin lines more than ponies... because they will suck those ponies dry at this point."
There was a gasp from my sisters, who had not been in the chambers, and Matron stomped a forehoof on the ground. "Chrysalis! I had expected better of you! Tell me I can send my sisters out to lay down veins to them, my Queen?"
"Oh, yes, I had forgotten about them," Chrysalis muttered. "I suppose the invasion is on hold, for now. Yes, Matron. I will allow you to set resin veins in that chamber. Call upon any help you need from the guards or drones. But no Hatchling is to leave that room until we find out what to do with them."
Matron sped away, calling upon a few of the guards and taking them with her in the process.
Pinkie appeared next to Chrysalis, holding up a cupcake to her. "Would you like a cupcake, friiieeend?"
Chrysalis raised an eyebrow at Pinkie, then glanced around us. "Is it safe?"
"About as safe as those cakes you had to test before your mock-wedding in Canterlot, my Queen," I suggested with a grin. "Pinkie can pull these things from just about anywhere."
"Except for in my little town," Starlight Glimmer mumbled.
"It is to do with the latent magical energy of the surrounding area," Moonshine revealed. "I don't know how she does it, but I noticed a dip just now when she manifested it."
Pinkie Pie just sat smiling in all innocence, still holding the cupcake up to Chrysalis.
"I see why you need more time to study the ponies, Moonshine," Chrysalis realized, then took a careful bite from the cupcake.