The Actress from Canterlot – Chrysalis' Secrets
Level six of Impel Down, the "Eternal Hell" remained silent even though visitors were usually a rare sight. The only sound was the whimpering of the poisoned ponies from a few hours ago, when the Warlord Boa Hancock came to see Fire-fist Ace. As Celestia had been informed the Warden was not very patient with pirates and had nearly killed them with his devil fruit powers for causing a tumult. No one wanted to be the Warden’s next victim, so they kept quiet while the Warden led Celestia along the cells.
It didn’t take them long to reach the end of the cell block. At the very end of the hallway two ponies shared a cell, both chained to the wall with just enough chain that they could still lie down if they wanted to. One of the ponies looked up when it noticed the group approaching the cell. He was an earth pony with bright orange fur and a fiery red mane which split the giant tattoo on his back – a grinning skull with a symmetrical white sickle in place of a mustache – in two halves. His cutie mark showed an orange hat, the brim of which was on fire.
Celestia ignored him, instead looking at the pony beside him. It was a sea pony, which was a rare sight in itself. This one, however, was simply massive. Bigger and stronger than any earth pony stallion Celestia had ever seen, the Princess didn’t doubt that this pirate could earn his fame with his strength alone. What little information she had on his other abilities was more than just unsettling, as well. His black mane and light blue fur was rather plain in contrast to the gills on both sides of his neck and his shark teeth showed that he probably didn’t object to eating other animals. What really surprised Celestia was the large, sun-shaped brand on his chest that looked a lot like the Princess’ cutie mark. The sea pony’s cutie mark was a smaller version of said brand, distorted by two circular waves.
“You have a visitor, Jinbe,” the Warden spoke up. “This is Princess Celestia. She takes your place as a Warlord during the execution, since you refuse to carry out your duties.”
The sea pony slowly raised his head to look at Celestia. “I see. I’m afraid I’ve never heard of you Princess. I’m actually surprised that the government found someone to fill the role on such short notice. Did you take the position for political reasons? In hope that it would gain your country some favor in the eyes of the world government, maybe?”
Celestia scowled at that. “Don’t you even dare imply something like that! My country doesn’t need your precious government to thrive. I did not want to make that decision and if anything goes wrong it will likely shatter the foundations of my country and corrupt its people. And all because of your selfish actions!” She was falling into the booming volume of the Royal Canterlot Voice now. “I know of the consequences your decisions will have on your own home, Fishman Island. Be aware that you have driven not one, but two countries to ruins!” Her voice died down, almost into a whisper. “That is all I have to say to you. If you can live with what you’ve done, you’re even more despicable than I thought.”
She stared down at the sea pony for a few more seconds, the guards closely watching the two. He met her gaze with his own emotionless stare, but the Princess could tell that her words had struck deep. The silence was suddenly interrupted by a roar coming from behind her.
“CELESTIA!”
Celestia didn’t turn around to the female changeling that was clinging to the bars of her cell, the cell just across the hallway from the one the sea pony was sitting in. The changeling’s eyes were wide open and showed only senseless rage and her voice cracked a little as she continued to yell. “How dare you ignore me like that? Do you really think you could just lock me away in here? Mark my words, Celestia, someday I will return to Equestria and it will not go the way it did last time!”
The guards had already turned around to watch the furious changeling. Now the warden slowly turned to face her as well. A purple hydra head made out of liquid poison emerged from his back and swayed from side to side.
The rage in the changeling’s eyes became fear in an instant and her voice evolved to a high-pitched shriek. “NO!” she scampered backwards into a far corner of the cell and cowered, hiding her head under her hooves. “No poison! I’ll be good! No poison!”
The warden stared down at her shivering form and the poisonous hydra disappeared the same way it had appeared. Celestia made a few steps back towards the exit, still not giving the other cell just a single look. “I am done here, warden, and I don’t want to stay in this place any longer than necessary.”
The Warden nodded and gestured for the guards to follow them. Moments later the Level was just as silent as it was a few minutes earlier.
The changeling hesitantly trotted back to the cell door. She fearfully poked her head outside to confirm that the guards had all left.
“Pathetic,” Her cell mate mumbled. He was a pegasus with a sandy fur coat, a black mane and the picture of a small sand tornado on each flank. A visible scar ran across his face right above his nose and his left front leg ended in a golden hook instead of a hoof.
The changeling took one more look across the hallway and relaxed visibly. She let out the breath she had been holding and began to chuckle.
“Hehehe. Ahahahahah! That was wonderful! I thought my talents might have withered away in this cell, but I’m just as good as I ever was, and it’s just as exciting, too!” Her laughing died down to a chuckle again. “Ahh, I’m sorry everypony,” she said to no one in particular, still grinning from ear to ear. “I didn’t want to hog the spotlight, but nopony else seemed willing to make a move and somepony had to, after all. I’m glad I did, too, it was rejuvenating!”
She ignored the few odd looks from some of the other cells and focused on the cell right across from her. “But now I’m curious, fishman,” she shouted. “What did Celestia say to you?”
The sea pony looked up at her, his face without any emotion. “I thought that was clear enough for everyone to hear.”
“Don’t try to play me for a fool, dear,” the changeling replied in a condescending tone. “On any other day that little speech would have been exactly what I expected from Celestia, but today something was different. I can sense emotions, you know, even with this cursed metal around my horn." She raised a hoof to rub her horn right below the seastone ring that was stuck on it. "I can’t quite put my hoof on it, but this visit had more reason than just to make a few petty insults. I was so considerate to provide a distraction for you two and now I’d like to hear what she really came to tell you.”
The sea pony remained silent for a while before he finally decided to speak up. “´You did what you felt was right, and I can’t fault you for that. Help is on the way.´ That is all that she told me. Boa Hancock told Ace that his brother was coming for him. I don’t know if those messages are connected to each other, but it seems that there are two parties on their way to rescue him… and us, if we’re lucky.” He fell silent again, and the changeling went back to her corner as well, satisfied with his answer.
Nopony knows why the changeling race exists and where we came from. Even we don’t know why we are what we are, or why we look the way we do until we decide to look different. Most of us believe that it is a curse, some think of it as a blessing. As far as the “normal” ponies know, changelings are shape shifters that feed on love, or more simply put: “Monsters”.
It is true that we can alter our appearance at will, and that we can “feed on love”. It is part of our digestive system, and while we could survive without it, it would not be a good life. Feeding on love is in no way an evil act, either. Ponies radiate emotions and we can gather the love they radiate simply by being in their near vicinity. Walking past a flustered filly can be enough to last a changeling the whole day. If we could feed on the love of other changelings we wouldn’t have to seek out other ponies at all, but sadly that’s not possible.
Alas, our appearance makes us monsters and taking a different appearance makes us deceivers. The other ponies wouldn’t believe a word we say, so we travel through their towns under the mask of other ponies to gather love for the rest of the hive, trying not to be spotted. But not once have we intentionally harmed another pony.
As a young mare, I travelled to Canterlot. Nopony except my brother knows about it, but I studied three years at the Canterlot academy and became a certified actress. To this day the pony Crystal Love is a welcomed guest actress at the Canterlot Theater.
Now I am the leader of the hive. I am not a “Queen”, though, and I don’t rule over anypony. If anything, the role that I take is more that of a big sister; I do my best to take care of everypony and try to organize things. My mother passed this duty on to me and it is the reason I am in this place.
Everything was prepared for the big day; the day the changelings would invade Canterlot. The six bearers of the Elements of Harmony had come to Canterlot to oversee the preparations to the grand wedding. Changelings stood ready to strike everywhere in the town. The real Princess Mi Amore Cadenza was locked away in the caves beneath Canterlot and nopony suspected a thing; not her husband, not the bearers, not even Princess Celestia herself. Well… One pony – the sister of the groom and bearer of the Element of Magic – saw right through Chrysalis’ disguise, but none of her friends believed her.
In the end the unicorn even came to her room to apologize. It was the perfect opportunity to send her away with a spell, down to the caves where she could join the young Princess. And sure enough, the two of them had escaped right in time to interrupt the wedding ceremony. As soon as Chrysalis had dropped her disguise and announced her plans Celestia fired a beam of magic at her. She countered with her own magic, but she never expected it to actually be strong enough to hold her ground, much less defeat the Princess. Shining Armor’s love for Cadence was still directed at her due to the spell he was under, and was stronger than anything she had ever encountered – without doubt Cadenza’s special talent contributed to that.
The six bearers ran away to get the Elements of Harmony, but were quickly retrieved by the other changelings after a small struggle. In the end the pony to take action was Princess Cadence. Her special magic was able to break the spell Shining Armor had been under and she lent him as much of her magic as she could so he could drive the changelings out of the city with his own spell. That was the end of the invasion. Princess Celestia followed right after Chrysalis and to make sure that she didn’t escape and not even two days later the Changeling Queen found herself in the very same cell she was still in today.
Everything was prepared for the big day; the day the changelings would finally be freed from their past. For more than two years they had moved to Canterlot, one by one, disguised as ponies, and lived in the city until finally the perfect opportunity came along.
Locking Princess Cadence away in the Crystal Caves and taking her place at the royal wedding was almost too easy. As an experienced actress Chrysalis knew how to act as much out of character as possible without making it too obvious, and yet nopony seemed to notice. Or maybe they just didn’t want to notice. Once they had made a decision, ponies could be incredibly stubborn about it.
Only one pony – Twilight Sparkle, the sister of the groom – saw through her disguise. Even then her best friends and her mentor, Princess Celestia, did not believe the unicorn. That made Twilight so insecure that she came to apologize. Chrysalis had to do something about that, so she decided to push her a little further. She magically sent the unicorn to the Crystal Caves and even set up a bit of a show to make sure that her message got across.
Sure enough, Twilight found the real Princess Cadence and the two escaped from the caves just in time to crash the wedding ceremony. Chrysalis immediately dropped her disguise and started boasting about her “plans” to invade Canterlot. She had written her little speech in advance, and it was completely ridiculous and more than just a small hint for ponies that things were not as they appeared. Not only did the changelings have no need or desire for power, invading a city would be quite literally a love-killer. The only thing that might be even bigger strategic nonsense was sealing away Princess Cadence, the one pony who could amplify love with a small spark of magic.
Chrysalis was more than a little surprised when Shining Armor’s love for his bride provided his magic with enough of a boost to match that of Celestia and even defeat her. Luckily the other changelings managed to prevent the bearers from reaching the Elements of Harmony, but that left her without any contingency plans. Luckily, Chrysalis knew how to improvise and there was still one more pony left to save the day.
Princess Cadence was actually brave enough to make a move on her own. She ran over to Shining Armor to try and break the spell he was under with her own magic. Chrysalis wasted no time to help her and quickly released the stallion from the spell, all the while keeping up her act as the great villain. The young alicorn might even have broken the spell on her own, but as much as it pained her to use a spell like that on a pony, Chrysalis couldn’t completely give up her control over the stallion yet. She needed his help for a few more seconds.
After breaking the spell Cadence gave Shining Armor as much of her magic as she could. With her help he was able to cast a spell that drove the changelings out of Canterlot. Chrysalis used the last bit of control she had over the stallion to make sure that the spell was concentrated on her so that none of the other changelings got injured.
Now she was somewhere in a prison that supposedly nopony had ever escaped from, surrounded by criminals and sharing a cell with some kind of pirate of all things, from what she was told. But she was happy. Their plan had worked. The invasion had failed just as planned. Now her hive could finally live their lives in peace, all the lives that they had so carefully constructed over the last two years, in Canterlot, between all the other ponies. Some of them had been really creative, even building whole businesses with the help of each other and Chrysalis old savings. And even if it would take years, Chrysalis knew that she would return to Canterlot and get to see all those new lives led by new ponies.
She had a hunch, and she knew that in Equestria hunches were not to be taken easily.
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Rather interestng chapter but not much to say about it...
2971738
I just subverted the Big Bad from A Canterlot Wedding, staying completely in-canon, and people have "not much to say about it"...
I don't know what I'm doing wrong, or right, but it seems like I'll never get a lot of comments on this story, no matter what I do.
(I don't blame you or anypony, but this is making the transition from "strange" to WTB (What The Buck) now.)
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Well I should remind you that I'm also recovering from my vacation.
2972905
Ah, you're back already? Did you have a good time?
2972917
It was SO AWESOME! I went to so many places and to J-World... less than a month after it opened!
The down side is that I'm still a little exhasuted and I'm still suffering from some jet lag.
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Hmmhmm. I'm glad you had fun.
2972942
Sure did.
I approve of this head-cannon. It pleases meh. (sent here by "A crystal heart")
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Thank you so much for that comment!
It's interesting. I didn't really pay much thought to Queen Chrysalis until I started writing this story. I wanted her to have a minor role, and somehow my brain came up with that backstory. Now, one month later Crystal Love has become my favorite pony and snuck into every major story I'm writing.
Hmm. I like this "deliberately out-of-character" headcanon. I'm not sure what I think of the rest of it, but I'll putter it around in the back of my head.
That said, practically all of the interesting stuff on changelings in this chapter takes on the form of a massive infodump. Like fifteen paragraphs of it. That's usually
badnot a good sign. Dunno how it works out here.3222061
When I wrote the story, I basically just wanted an excuse to have Chrysalis as a good guy (girl, mare, whatever). I came up with the "the Changeling Invasion was staged!" idea somewhere around Chapter Three, then with the actual reason and a bit later I got the idea for "Crystal Love".
When I was writing Chapter Eight I had a lot of backstory and information for something that was basically supposed to be a plot device for a plot device (you'd be surprised how often that happens to me). I didn't want it to distract to much from the plot, but I didn't want to leave out information, either; thus the infodump.
I wrote "A Crystal Heart" to provide some more backstory, while deliberately leaving some things open. I have two sequels to this story planned; one will (among other things) show more of Crystal Love, the real pony behind "Queen Chrysalis". The other one will follow her brother, the one who takes care of all the changelings who live in Canterlot now. It will take me a while to get to that, but I want to at least start both stories before the year ends.
I might also write more chapters for "A Crystal Heart" eventually. Maybe one about her brother's cutie mark, and one showing the invasion from her point of view.
The longer I think about Crystal Love, the more she grows on me. I gave her more scenes in the story than I had initially planned to, and now she's my favorite character in most of my stories, showing up in almost every one.
I just wanted to tell you that I am glad you wrote this chapter this way. How Chrysalis has an actual, good reason to have tried to take over, instead of just "I wanted power and food, so I'm going to take over your country" (which could have gone much better if done in a diplomatic way.) This chapter helps her not only seem like a better ruler/leader/sister, whatever you want to call her, but also makes her a much more sympathetic character. Those are my thoughts on this chapter.
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Thank you very much for the comment!
If you like the headcanon, I'm planning a whole series of stories based on the concept. So far I've got two more of them written.