'Tis the season for joy and sharing in the company of loved ones. With Chrysalis glumly serving out her house arrest, Princess Celestia is sure that this is the perfect time to cheer up her favorite Changeling.
Chrysalis hates the idea.
Hearth's Warming Eve? The Changeling Queen would sooner curl up under some heavy covers, than indulge in a celebration for a bunch of ponies that nopony even properly remembers. Wasn't she already putting up with enough ponies on a day-to-day basis? It was an all together terrible idea, dragging her out of the castle to...mingle with Celestia's overly sweet and soft subjects.
Of course, there was no proper way to refuse Celestia...
...the prices, one pays when you're in a relationship with the Princess of the Sun.
--Just a short story for the holidays, featuring our favorite couple: Celestia and Chrysalis. Takes place some time after my story Advanced Lessons. -Enjoy-
D'aww. This was lovely. A few grammar and spelling typos here and there, but overall very good. I can totally picture Chrysalis not getting holidays. Feel kinda bad for her being so far from her subjects. What's a queen without them, after all?
Huh. I've never read a story about these two together before, but I really like it!
5405014 Yep, I still need to do a bit of tidying up on this chapter, which I'll probably do this evening, before I start writing for another story. And, yeah, I really wanted to explore a more normal romance between these two, rather than creating something extremely dramatic. So, I'm gonna be leaning towards smaller scale sweet moments, based on them having a deep understanding of one another than anything.
EDIT: And, yes, Chrysalis is dealing with some depression over things with her subjects and her past choices.
5405036 I hope she pulls through.
5405064 That kind of thing takes time and openness. Chrysalis has some troubles with the latter.
And I can't spoil my long term story plans, by trying to reassure anyone on that, but if it helps...those two, in my stories, do genuinely care for one another.
5405028 Then I'm glad that I was able to write-up a worthwhile introduction to the pairing for you.
Daww, these two are just too cute together.
The shop scene was funny and I like all the conflict you have going on with Chrysalis, although I was really expecting Celestia to use a wing to try to warm Chrysalis up after she complained about the cold.
5405169 It's funny you should mention that. In my head, that is something Celestia often does for Chrysalis, in private, and that Chrysalis enjoys. It's actually a point that's going to be brought up in the final chapter. In any event, Celestia knows that Chrysalis has a mixed approach to open affection; while Chrysalis doesn't care to conceal their relationship from others, she has serious issues when it comes to publicly showing 'signs of weakness'. Complaining about the cold is just her erring a grievance. Accepting the wing-blanket gesture means she can't deal with the cold herself. Knowing that, Celestia goes a different route that isn't as likely to make Chrysalis uncomfortable in front of others.
...Wow, I've put a lot of thought into this fictional relationship.
Also, it doesn't help that Chrysalis at this point had been showing a fairly sour mood up to this point, and had been wearing down even Celestia's patience.
5405427 Hey, that kind of thing is exactly why planning is helpful. You know exactly how it is all playing out so you can avoid issues and give definite answers on weird stuff when needed.
Also, I am very much looking forwards to seeing Chrysalis curled up under Celestia's wing at the end of this story now.
Well, that was a surprise. A pleasant one at that. I was wondering if you'd release something by Christmas and you delivered a nice slice of pie with this one. Hope you get the time to finish this piece before too long. <3
5405453 Worry not, as you will indeed have a scene with the two of them curled up together, among other things, in the third chapter.
And, while I might spend a quite of bit of time thinking on this sort of thing, you're right about it being nice to have concrete answers to give out. That, and I just enjoy the mental exercise.
5405501 That is the plan.
Fortunately, what I have planned out shouldn't amount to anymore than two chapters of around the same length as the first. Though I do have to work in some time to write-up my first commission.
I think I can get it all done before the New Year.
Cranky Cryssi is best Cryssi
Man, I really want to know all about this particular take on Platinum. She sounds fairly awesome.
Hell, these six founders in general, actually. Smart Cookie the changeling, with Puddinghead knowing the truth about him or her, very interesting ideas.
5430963 Yeah, see that's my problem. I start writing and as I'm going along I start coming up with all these ideas to go along with what I'm writing now. I expand and fill those ideas out, to keep things consistent then I realize I could turn them into a story.
I can't help but imagine these epic events taking place with the founders, with what we've seen in the Hearth's Warming Play being akin to what we see in your typical Christmas play. You're getting only a snapshot of a caricature, with all the interesting parts being left out or forgotten.
It might help that when I'm writing for characters that we don't know much about, I aim to make them as interesting and awesome as the main characters. The protagonists in their own stories.
In my head, the changelings rely upon an oral tradition, which serves them fairly well considering their long-lived queens. Which in turn, means that even if Chrysalis doesn't care for ponies overly much, she's still disappointed that all the awesome things the actually impressive ponies have done in history have been forgotten or pushed to the side.
...Maybe, I'll write-up something for the founders, or find a way to expand upon it in another story.
5431224
Sound like an excellent plan!
The changelings and kids headcanon ME LIKE. Also like changelings involved in HWE.
Celestalis? That's a new one on me, but not unwelcome! This was adorable in its own way.
5434156 Adorable in it's own way was what I was going for.
5431224
Wouldn't Celestia and Luna know the "real story" behind common pony fables too? Then again, they might have allowed the nastier details to fall away and not expend any effort in restoring them "for the greater good".
I do hope Chryssy finds something good, or at least decent, during the festivities. Er, besides the love candy (chocolate)...
That makes me wonder, would a changeling find a love potion tasty? That is, they'd drink it up like a RedBull (but- but they already have wings!) and get a little pep in their energy reserves until it wears off.
5441934 As far as I can deduce from the canon material, neither Luna or Celestia were directly involved in the events that lead to founding Equestria. Admittedly I can only go by the episode itself and a visit to the tropes pages concerning the expanded canon materials, but I feel like it wouldn't be odd for them to have been mentioned in the play if they had been directly involved.
Because of this ambiguity, I decided to take the route that seemed the most interesting. In this case, it was regular ponies that proved themselves and ultimately stopped the Windigos, while Celestia and Luna were preoccupied with events elsewhere (events which I plan on touching on later in my writings). This along with interpreting the Hearth's Warming Eve as being a very distorted snapshot of the events, let's me concoct some much more interesting stories for the founder ponies.
In any event, Celestia and Luna would have a clearer view of the events than most, having met those that were directly involved, but wouldn't be aware of everything that had happened during those days.
As it stands, I think I am going to expand upon the ideas I have in my head for Princess Platinum's journey, at least.
And, while Chrysalis is loathe to admit it, she is starting to come around just a bit...she's just a bit of a stubborn grump. She's going to have a bit of fun in the last chapter, which will be on the morning of Hearth's Warming Day.
As for the Love potion thing...that's a good question...In my headcanon, for my interpretation of the changelings, either a Love potion wouldn't react with their physiology or it would act in the same way that it would with ponies, causing intense but false feelings of love. On a metaphysical level, changelings are empty, and must sustain themselves by feeding upon others. And it's technically a misnomer, even among changelings, that they feed upon 'love' itself, with it rather being more that they feed upon the life/magic/energy of a being rather than pure emotions. The ease with which they feed on others is based on how much energy that being possesses and how 'open' they are to the feeding changeling. A being that is depressed, closed-off, and untrusting takes more effort than it's worth to feed from. But a being that is open, joyful, and most especially in love with the changeling is very easy to feed from. The fact that the feeding process tends to leave a victim weakened, tired and depressed, potentially for quite a while, ends up encouraging this mistaken belief, as it seems like the joy and love has been sucked away.
A love potion wouldn't empower a changeling, as it (usually) wouldn't be providing them the energy that sustains them. Assuming the potion reacts with a subject's internal magic in some way to bring about it's effects, it might affect a changeling as it does a pony. It would depend on whether or not the changeling decided for their body to process the potion. Most of a changeling's bodily functions stay in a kind of standby state and need an expenditure of their own energy to be 'turned on'. They need to use energy for just about everything, including proper sleep. If a changeling's digestive tract isn't 'turned on' whatever they ingest would simply pass through barely being touched (The fact that it takes a significant amount of energy to process food, is the main reason they can't sustain themselves on normal food. It take almost as much energy to breakdown the food as they gain from it). However if the Love potion did become catalyzed by a changeling's stored energy it's normal effects would take place in the changeling.
If changelings were to take advantage of love potions it would be by using them on ponies to open them up to feeding, utilizing the, hopefully, temporary effects to easily feed. In essence, they would use them in the same way that they use their affinity for mind-affecting magics.
Hmm, that ended a bit longer than I thought it would be, but I hope it made some sense. And I'm always happy to answer questions.
EDIT: Oh, and the emotional state of a fed upon pony does influence the...taste of the energy in question, to a degree. It would only be a shadow of the true feelings the victim felt, but that can still be quite potent. In essence, love and other positive feelings 'taste' good to them. This along with very low-level empathic abilities contributes to why they prefer subversive feeding to forceful attempts. This also means that the natural effects of chocolate, inducing the generation of chemicals that are released when one feels love, is quite attractive to changelings when they process it.
5442050
Oh! I do hope Chryssy has some fun (without too much collateral damage). Tho I keep drawing parallels between her and the Grinch-- waiting to see if her heart grew three times that day.
That was very good, although I am very surprised no one picked up on this line:
That really feels like a setup for Chrysalis to get into the spirit of the season and do some gift-giving to me because there are a lot of people she has wronged one way or another so I am very curious to see what you do with that tidbit.
5431224 I think it would work better to weave those stories into the main timeline instead of doing a story set in the past. That lets you keep all your fun characters running around teasing and possibly contradicting each other, and it is very easy to frame between Hard Note and Twilight.
5442050 Given that they explicitly stated that the unicorns were moving the sun and moon (or at least thought they were, the whole thing has always sounded more like religion than fact to me) in the play, I think it is safe to assume the whole thing predates Celestia and Luna. That does not mean there is no way Celestia and Luna did not meet that group of ponies, but it would have had to be their first meeting and happened a few years later.
Lastly, I caught a little error here:
5457810 Good catch there.
And yes, this cultural twist on the changelings is actually relevant to Chrysalis seeing a bit of a point to the season, and also explains some of her actions in previous stories.
5457810 I agree with you on the idea of explaining those stories from a modern standpoint, either by way of a conversation between two characters (With one most likely being Twilight) or alternatively, I may have figured out just what story was in that book Twilight got in "Intermediate Lessons". I have Princess Platinum's story well detailed in my mind, and have some broadstrokes for the others, so it is mostly about figuring out which framing device works best.
5457810 Mm, I'm going with the idea that while Celestia and Luna were traveling the lands being generally benevolent and facing down the monsters of the world, they were largely uninvolved with the events of Equestria's founding. They would have been relatively well-known, but involved with something elsewhere and unreachable, until after the crisis had been averted and ponies were looking to place them as their leaders. Between the encroaching evil blizzard and less effective means of technology and communication in the era, it doesn't seem like a stretch that they would be hard to keep track of.
And thanks, I'll correct that error in a moment.
5458644 Happy to help.
First, I definitely see what you are talking about with how that reflects back on previous stories because I can definitely see a connection to that book at the very least.
Moving on to the framing, I am mostly thinking it would be fun to have Chrysalis relating everything to Twilight because it is funny to watch Chrysalis screw with Twilight's head. You can also go a step further and have Celestia involved to let Chrysalis see how much she can embellish things to mess with Twilight even more before Celestia steps in to "correct" her.
Finally on the subject of Celestia and Luna, traveling is most definitely a possibility, but the play is very clear on the fact that they were not the ones raising the sun and moon at that point in time so you absolutely have to take that into consideration no matter what you decide to do. That fact makes me think they either did not exist yet or had not yet taken on their current rolls which in turn implies they had little to no contact with the ponies up to that point, although it is entirely possible that both sides knew about the other through other sources if they did exist.
5459063 For the framing device thing, I was thinking something along the lines of Twilight paying a visit to the castle's library, in the hopes of getting more materials to translate the book. She comes across Chrysalis along with Hard Note, with Stalwart's son having pestered him into bringing him to the castle so he could hear more awesome stories. Some minor awkwardness, as Chrysalis assures that she's only entertaining the colt because she has nothing better to do, then comes up the connection between the awesome stories she's been telling Hard Note and the book Chrysalis let Twilight have. The discussion unfolds from there. And I do like the idea of Celestia coming along in the middle of the discussion to start providing her two cents.
And based on what I've read of the expanded materials for the setting, which I'm loosely drawing from, it was in-fact unicorns that rose the sun and moon before, through a collective effort on their parts. Apparently Celestia and Luna existed before this as Alicorns but had not yet discovered that this was their role to take on (Evidently they were blank-flanks). Seeing the great strain and personal cost that unicorns took on to serve this duty, they decided to do so in their stead. Only then did they discover their 'special talents' around the same time talks began to place them on Equestria's throne, as a compromise between the three tribes.
5459190 That first one is definitely sounding like fun and should be far more interesting than just reading about the historical characters on their own.
As for the second, it is sounding better although I am really wondering what part of the expanded materials touches on that because I have read a fair amount of it and never saw anything particularly historical. If the timelines do line up like you say they do then that is a major oddity, although it is at least not an outright contradiction or impossibility like a lot of the stupidity in season 4.
5459290 I think it was the Journal of the Two Sisters, a de-fictionalized version of the diary from the show. I haven't read it myself, but rather just gathered the broadstrokes from it's TV tropes page. And, yeah, I'm gonna be aiming to de-tangle some of the continuity for my stories, creating a reasonably coherent timeline. At best, I'm only really using the expanded materials and some of the more dubious moments in-canon as inspiration for my own work, rather than treating them as set-in-stone.
5459351 Thanks, and I definitely know what you mean. At this point I consider everything past season 3 optional because there is just no way to reconcile all of it with the preexisting canon and the writing quality is generally not as good as it used to be so I am not particularly invested in most of it.
Wait... Another story in the same universe as your lessons stories? How did I miss this?
5434156
Check the author's other stories. This is part of a series that starts with Advanced Lessons.
Yes, history classes and most official feel-good holiday versions of it just suck all the life out of history for kids.
Nobody tells you, for example, that Teddy Roosevelt got shot in the middle of a speech by an assassin and refused to get medical attention until he finished (and it was a long speech), that Helen Keller grew up to be politically active, pressed for workers rights, and joined the Communist Party, that one of the popes had his predecessor's corpse dug up, put on trial, and tortured before being thrown in the river.
5501407 History usually is far more interesting than we're told; it's almost as if we're supposed to think that most of our history has been filled with uptight stiffs and dullards. I've never cared for that, so I wanted to embrace the idea that there have been plenty of other awesome events and folks beyond those that are shown to us in the show.
Serves you right for interrupting the sexytimes, Luna.
Gah FINALLY
This story was cute and funny. Love a good romance, especially Chryslestia. Are you ever going to write a sequel?
5540623 I have plans for quite a few more stories connected to what I've already written. I've got everything from slice of life stories to epic adventures planned out. Honestly, I tend to come up with ideas more quickly than I can write them up.
To put it simply, yes...I've got plenty more planned. I'm probably going to try a short story for Valentine's day next, that involves Twilight getting romantic advice from Chrysalis.
Then try to finish Intermediate Lessons, if that's not done by then, and start setting up the groundwork for some larger stories.
IT was damn great read, sad that is already ended :D I demand moreee
5540825 I plan on getting started on some more writing this evening, after unwinding a bit. Indeed, I made something of an informal resolution for this year to get more updates done.
5541035 YES YES YES!!!
Chrssy knows how to be a guest
I was thrown off by the sudden drop in subtlety regarding the shipping, but the hilarity most certainly made up for it.
5542644 Mm, well the subtlety was mostly due to the two of them being in public, and Chrysalis being a big old ball of psychological issues. In Canterlot Castle it's basically an open secret, but the staff and guardsponies have grown fairly used to Chrysalis and place a great deal of faith in whatever Celestia decides.
It's also a sequel to my other works where this pairing is already established. It's actually the latest story in my timeline.
Ah and Luna finally shows up in one of these Advanced Lessons universe stories. I still would have liked to see her first meeting with Chrysalis and/or Celestia explaining their relationship to her ("So while I was gone, you got so lonely that you started dating a Changeling?") but this was quite amusing and cute.
Pajamas and a blanket (aww) for Chrysalis, a word of the day calendar and cuddles for Luna, I love it.
5543482 Mm, technically this story is fairly late in my chronology, being around Hearth's Warming and all, so these two are already fairly used to one another by that point. I plan doubling back and filling in the gaps as it were for when their earlier interactions and Luna's approach to Celestia's relationship.
EDIT: And actually now that I think about it, I do need to tweak a couple of lines of dialogue to reflect that. Nothing huge, but iit will help keep my timeline a bit straighter.
5542749 It does stand on its own quite well, though. PrincessxChrysalis is the one ship I consider to be least annoying, so I might consider checking those others out if I haven't already.
5544114 Yeah, while most of my stories are interconnected, I like to make sure that they can stand reasonably well on their own merits. And if you do check out my other stories, I'd be happy to hear/read any thoughts you might have.
EDIT: Though, fair warning my first story "Advanced Lessons" is rather subtle about the pairing until it gets dropped on you in the third chapter. Not unlike in this story.
That was fantastic as always. The whole thing was very cute, although the relationship between Chrysalis and Hard Note really took center stage and is something I would love to see more of in the future (preferably including the pajamas because I just know they are going to be adorable).
Also, the interplay between Chrysalis, Luna, and Celestia was hilarious. Especially the last bit.
5541035 Sweet! Your writing is amazing and more of it is always a good thing.
5546069 Actually, I was planning on Hard Note, Chrysalis, and her pajamas all making an appearance in a future story where I go into detail on Princess Platinum's own journey.
And I too really enjoy writing the three of them altogether in one scene; they seem to play off of one another really easily for me.
I'm really glad that everyone's enjoyed this little side-story so much. Hopefully, I can keep up my pace, as I'm aiming to get closer to at least one update every week or so. Wish me luck.
5546221 That is very good news, and it sounds like the Celestia/Luna/Chrysalis dynamic is something you can rely on because it is working well for you as the writer and us as the reader which is always a good thing.