Love Is...?

by ambion

Intoxicating

With a poorly thought out sweep of her holey hoof, Chrysalis knocked over the bottle. It spilled a few sticky purple drops onto the floor amidst other empties, but that was alright because she had others as yet undrunk. “Damn,” she slurred. Then she shrugged, the motion making her precariously unbalanced until she toppled back onto the chaise lounge. “Ohh...”

Love Poison had been a bit of a mixed blessing once discovered by the changelings. In the face of absolute defeat it was a passable and necessary substitue for the genuine article of their particular nourishment, albeit one of of the lowest calibre. Queen Chrysalis, whom bore the responsibility of all that had transpired and whom could not beat herself up over this more literally if given a club with which to do so had fallen rather hard into the bottle.

In short, she was drunk.

Again.

A dutiful and somewhat skittish little ‘ling whose name had momentarily eluded her but which she could definetly recall at any time was attending upon her, a duty which entailed three things: to prop up her pillows, to prop up her bruised ego, and to pop open the cork-sealed bottles. The Queen’s hooves grabbed at the changeling’s shoulders and pulled her about.

“This terrible is stuff,” she said solemnly. “It’s so bitter.” Such admonitions aside, the hapless changeling knew enough to promptly uncork the next draught for her Queen.

“Lookit me,” said Chrysalis. “Lookat dis. But ‘m good. ‘M good. ‘Cause ya know what, you know what? I din wanna be that hussy anyway. There! I ‘aid it, she’s a hussy!” This she exclaimed with a tactless flail of legs which scattered yet more empty bottles of Poison.

“Din’t want ‘m anyway,” Chrysalis muttered. “Only innit for the power. Din’t want ‘m.”

After a few wobbly tries, The Queen of the Changelings managed to get the neck of the bottle stuck through one of the holes in her hoof. Secured, if unintionally managed and precariously so, she drank from it thusly in a series of gulps. This present bottle still mostly full, Chrysalis shook it free in a sudden bout of activity and flung it out a nearby window. Something large and expensive sounding in the courtyard below smashed, and a cat screeched.

She wrapped a hoof around her attendant and pulled her tightly against herself. “You see, don’tcha? I’m Queen! I’m Queen... All, wus that thing...thinkingy. Making plans, you know.” The poor substitute doll was held up at hooves length like a puppy. Chrysalis’ spinning eyes struggled to focus on the changeling’s. “I was gonna dump him, I swear,” she said with a solemnenity not in anyway whatsoever spoiled by a rather wretched, gutwracked burp.

The hug was resumed with lung-crushing earnest. “He was sweet. Shing. Shiiing...Shining!” Chrysalis pouted and her eyes became watery. “He was sweet. And not just brain...spell...food...thing...sweet, you know. You know,” here her hooves struggled to encapsulate a bold idea in a mind presently fizzling and mushy, “nice. Nice.” She sighed the word with wistful pleasure.

Then she shook her head firmly. “But I don’t love him,” she slurred severly. “Don’t. I don’t. It’s ridiceelous!” Chrysalis blinked and gathered her mental prowess. “Ri-dic-u-lous,” she said with a smack of her lips. Then she slumped.

“Do you think he could’ve loved me?” she asked, sinking lower into the couch, the mildly terrified changeling struggling to not asyphxiate in her new as squeezy-pillow. “Me-me, not her-me? I wouldn’t have kept him brained wash, you know.”

Chrysalis burst into sobs. Great blubbering, nose honking, coughing sobs. “She stole him from me!” she cried. “I brain washed him first and she stoled him back! And they esploxded! It’s not fair, it’s not fair! I hate him!”

Merficully, the pillow Chrysalis buried her head into and blew her nose against was an actual pillow, and not the captive changeling whom would have been traumatised beyond recovery by the experience. “I hate him,” Chrysalis murmurred once her fitful weeping had exhausted itself. “I don’t love him, I hate him,” she repeated, as if to convince herself to a truth in this that wasn’t there.

The Queen of the changelings scrabbled to stand. “I’ma, I’ma go and, I’ll go and I’ll make him...” she managed two wobbling steps before stumbling and tumbling out the window. There was a whoomph of impact, the sound of something even more expensive breaking, and an angrier cat screech.

“Ow...”