• Published 19th Sep 2015
  • 5,707 Views, 781 Comments

I, Chrysalis - Scarheart



Imprisoned, Queen Chrysalis writes the story of her life, her legacy. But not for those pathetic ponies! Gifted with a daughter, she cherishes what could be the last changeling she will ever interact with...

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Chapter XXV

Author's Note:

My apologies for the long delay! I have no excuses, save for two words: Video Games.

Edited by Chapter 13 and TuxOKC.

Chrysalis felt a queasiness she had never experienced before. Her stomach churned and she had the sensation of lurching through emptiness, her legs unable to find any purchase beneath her. The moment was brief, yet felt like a lifetime. The sensation made her head swim and her ears rang with dull, rolling relentlessness. If she could have staggered on her legs, she would have. She reached out with her magic on instinct to lash out at this unfamiliar and unwanted sensation. Chrysalis found her magic betrayed her and would not respond to her command. She tried to breath, but could not. She tried to cry out, but her throat was caught. She tried to see, but the magic blinded her.

She was helpless.

Queen Chrysalis was on the verge of panic when the teleportation spell was completed. She could feel a weight push up against her side. The changeling’s legs were wobbly and she stumbled, finding purchase with her own shoulder against that weight. Her nostrils filled with the mustiness of a dank cellar, as well as those ponies she despised.

“Wha—?” Chrysalis blinked, pawed at the stone floor and opened her eyes. Her stomach raged and she vomited. The sounds of her retching angered her, for ponies were now witnessing her in a moment of weakness.

“Do it, Luna.”

The changeling queen did not have time to react, but one simple thought raced through her mind: Do what?

“I am sorry, Chrysalis,” whispered the other sister. “This must be done, for your sake and the sake of many.”

More magic filled the air. Out of the corner of her eye, Chrysalis saw Luna pointing her horn at her, tip glowing. One word hissed from her throat in a spiteful tone.

“Why?”

Luna let loose with her spell and it struck the changeling queen in her head. Chrysalis reeled with a pained cry. Her body froze as all sensations fled.


So tell me, oh enlightened queen of the unwanted changelings, the hunted changelings, the changelings unfit to be. Tell me, oh queen of those damned by their greaters, tell me oh wizened lady of the shadows, mother of many and of none, tell me. Tell me what it feels like to have everything you have ever cared for, worked for, bled for, and wept for taken from you in one fell swoop.

Tell me of your betrayal to the one who made you. Tell me of the sins you have heaped upon the one who made your world. Tell me, you soulless, ungrateful bitch. Tell me!

Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings felt something familiar about the voice. Dreadful words from a dreadful tongue. One she knew oh-so-well.

“Taalia?”

You stupid mare. You foolish, stupid, bumbling fool of a female. I was molding a world for you. You were to be the greatest of my creations, and yet you turned on me. I had never before sensed such power in a changeling. I took in prey to make her a predator. I chose you because you had potential. Your mother —your stupid, foolish mother— denied me when I approached her. She had a chance to live and watch you grow. She had a chance to be a part of something greater than her pathetic little hive.

I was going to make you queen of the world, Chrysalis. I was going to give you all the things I could not have for myself. My power was not great enough. I understand I am living destruction. My legacy is death. My legacy is misery. My legacy is the sorrow found in the blood of the fallen, mourned with the tears of their offspring.

I was not stupid, Chrysalis. I knew I could not rule a world of dried blood and bleached bones. I needed an heir. I searched for centuries for one I would give my hard work to.

I chose you, child.

But, you spurned me. You ran from me. From me!

Living rage broiled around the queen. Chrysalis felt as though she was being crushed. Where was she? What was happening? Why was Taalia here? Why was she…

“My mind…?”

I have always been here, Chrysalis. Poor, poor Chrysalis. I have always been here. Did you think I would let you run about without me having a means to keep an eye on you? I am a changeling queen. I always mark my little drones, my little changelings. I am a responsible mother, you see. There are many things I never showed you, never taught you and for good reason. You ran, yet I could always see you. I could always feel your fears, your thoughts. So far away, yet always close to my heart, you traitorous little shit of a whore.

Chrysalis could feel her own fear threatening to rise and overwhelm. How could this happen? Why did she not see this coming? Why had she not foreseen? Taalia had taught her much about the mind, how to defend it, ward it from enemies.

A pity. You shall have to be discarded. You shall have to be replaced. I wonder. There is nothing from these ponies I want, but one thing, other than the one thing you have to offer me. Yes, I think I shall take what I want and leave this wretched land. The alicorns are formidable. The living embodiment of love, now there is something you do not see every day.

“You can’t have Atalanta!” Chrysalis cried out into the darkness in her mind. She whirled, spinning about in a near feverish state. Panic came, crashed over her like a rogue wave, leaving behind a gibbering mother fraught with anxiety for her child. “I can’t leave her to a monster like you! I won’t let it happen!”

You speak as though you have a choice.

The changeling could feel the sadistic grin of the Tiger Queen upon her.

“And you shall be denied, creature!” A flash of blue, starry shadow enveloped Chrysalis. “You have at last revealed yourself to me and you will know my wrath!” Luna’s wings wrapped around the changeling, becoming larger and larger until they were impossible, impregnable, and comforting. “Begone! Begone and know your doom comes! You dare bring war to Equestria? You. Dare? Begone, changeling! Begone, bane of peace!”

There was a pained cry. Taalia raged and roared. She fought against Luna’s magic. Chrysalis still could not see the alicorn beyond the feathers of her primaries. She could feel a battle of sorts raging beyond the feathers.

You cannot! She is mine! They are all mine! I will take what is mine! I will not be denied! The ground will be sullied by your entrails, alicorn! I will feast upon your heart and suck the blood from your torn throat!

“Greater things than you have tried! I say again: BEGONE!"

The battle raged on. Chrysalis’ mind roared. She felt helpless. She hated Luna, but she hated Taalia far more than any other being, living or dead. “I do not like being helpless! I do not like sitting idly by while others fight my battles! I will not have it, Luna! I will not stand for it!”

She pushed against the wings, snapping at the feathers as she tore at them. Her anger welled up and enveloped her fears. She gathered up her mind and focused. Her horn lit up. Chrysalis snarled, flaring her wings and slashed with a massive toss of her neck. The wings tore and gave away before her, recoiling. Luna flinched, not expecting Chrysalis to retaliate against her.

“This is my fight, Luna! This is my war!”

“Let me sever the link! It is how she has known! My friend, let me do this for you!”

Friend? Chrysalis sneered—or nearly did. She stopped herself. Luna had done nothing but offer herself as a friend to the changeling. The queen was undecided still as to what to make of it. Hissing, Chrysalis swished her tail back and forth in violent agitation.

A blue form materialized before her, one she felt she should have always known.

It was the blue changeling. The very one that had sometimes appeared in her dreams.

“Do you understand?” she asked the queen. Her voice was soft and seemed to drown out the raging battle all around them. Chrysalis felt her heart lurch. She inhaled sharply as the blue changeling repeated, “Do you understand?

“I… I think I do. Why?” The words tumbled from her like crumbling flakes of snow. “Why could you not tell me?”

Taalia howled and Luna roared. A sharp pain like an blunt dagger thrust into her brain made Chrysalis lurch to one side. She raised a hoof to her head as it swam in a sea of agony. Then the battling pair reversed as the alicorn made a sudden cry of pain.

“I could not. Not with a monster in your mind.” The smile offered was sad and regretful. “I missed so much of your life. I tried to keep what was left of me hidden within your heart and your mind. She took so much from the both of us and you suffered all the more for it. The alicorn has given me a chance. It will be the only one I have.”

Chrysalis felt her eyes becoming moist.

“Avenge me. Avenge your once hive. Avenge yourself. When all is done,” the changeling whispered as she began to fade. “Remember me.” Her own horn, a crooked form familiar to Chrysalis shimmered in a faint residual glow. The body that sported it fell away to the shadows. “All that is left of me, I give to you. It is a poor final gift I can give. I am sorry it cannot be more.”

Chrysalis raised a hoof and reached out to the fading changeling.

The voice was now barely an echo. “Break your chains, Chrysalis. Break them and be free!”

The blue changeling was no more.

“No… Come back… Why..?” Chrysalis felt the tears roll down her cheeks. She could feel the last gift course from the tip of her horn, down its gnarled spiral and to the base. From there, it channeled through her body like flowing water. The queen inhaled deeply as though the crisp cold air of an alpine slope filled her lungs. The shock became an unfamiliar warmth, one she had forgotten.

Luna appeared before her, wings spread wide and an angry scowl upon her muzzle. “Why must you resist my aid?” she fumed, tossing her head and snorting. “I only wish to help you!” She appeared battered and bruised, but otherwise spoiling for battle. “I have her on the brink. You are not making it easier by resisting me!” The stars in her mane were flaring like miniature supernovas.

“My mind is not your battlefield,” Chrysalis retorted. “It is my bastion. It is my refuge. Neither you nor that tiger bitch are welcome. Get out. I am sick of those who think of themselves as my betters deciding for me what is and is not for me.”

“I only wish…”

Chrysalis let out an explosive roar. “Get out! I don’t need you!

Startled, Luna recoiled as a surge of energy rolled with such violence as to hurl her away from the raging queen. The alicorn’s emotions conveyed hurt and confusion. Guilt tugged at Chrysalis. She tried to ignore it and focus on the threat still clawing for control of her mind.

“Taalia,” she spat. “This means you, too!”

I am the wellspring from which you flow! What would you be without me?

The changeling queen sneered and tossed her head. “Do you need to ask?” Her horn flared once again. “You took everything from me.” Taalia howled as she spoke. Chrysalis advanced towards the unseen specter of her mental torment. “You took away my life.”

Another surge and another cry of pain. Taalia refused to let go. You are mine!

“I don’t think so,” Chrysalis drawled as her steps become stronger and stronger. She was resurgent, her focus clear. “You see, despite Luna’s meddlings, her attempts at friendship with me, I’ve come to realize one thing. It’s one of those lessons you beat into me that I took and modified a bit. Without going into too much of a monologue, I’ll just sum it all up in four words: No, you are mine!

Using the gift, she pushed with all of her might, her own mind upon Taalia’s mental attempt at domination. The two clashed like two lines of storms upon each other. She needed to reveal the tigress if she was going to cast her from her mind. Her mane danced around her head and neck with a seeming life of its own. It undulated wildly, matching her emotional state of rage and hatred.

Feed me your feelings! Taalia taunted. Give in to your hate!

Luna’s voice cut into the changeling’s thoughts, You must let go of your hate, Chrysalis. If you will not let me help you, at the least heed mine words!

“Get out of my mind, Luna!” Chrysalis shook her head, trying to focus. “You’re keeping me from finding her!”

So long as you grasp hatred, you will never purge your enemy. Luna spoke with hints of desperation. The battle rages in the world around you! You must make haste if you wish to protect your daughter!

Chrysalis snarled in frustration. Why couldn’t that meddlesome mare leave her alone? “This is none of your affair, princess!”

I know how to remove her from your mind completely. I have been aware of a presence in your mind since I first delved into your dreams. I was not sure what it was until I was able to understand you and your kind more from your actions and your writings. She feeds off of hate, does she not? She wants you to keep hating her. It gives her a firm purchase in your mind. You must let go of your hatred for her! Luna tried to make her way back into the changeling’s mind.

Chrysalis would have none of it. Surging forward, her head was on a swivel as she sought out her enemy. Her ears rotated, searching, seeking. It was odd this was her mind, yet she felt she needed all of her senses. It felt right, though the world around her was dark and strange. The familiarity of who and what she was sent her into a tizzy now that she knew another had been lurking in her thoughts, like a spider with her leg touching the string, feeling for the movements of her victim. Always knowing. Always watching. Always listening.

Chrysalis was trying to come to grips with the ramifications. If Taalia had always been able to see what she herself had seen, it made the lack of movement from the tigress all the more logical. Queen Taalia had been watching and waiting for the moment to move. She had been using Chrysalis to gauge how the ponies would react.

And like a light, the dawning of realization crowns itself upon the self-proclaimed Queen of the Changelings, and all is revealed, Taalia mocked from the darkness. You have been so entertaining, never even thinking to look within your own mind to see me there. Such a precious daughter you have. Such time invested in sharing your views of your own kind with prey. At least you have sense to see them as the only way they can be seen: food for an empire. A pity you turned your back on me. Your daughter will bear the burden of your failure.

“You will never have her! I will kill you myself!”

Bold words from one that spent so much time running from me.

Chrysalis hissed. Where was she? Where was Taalia hiding? How hard could it be to find a foreign presence within her own mind? It was becoming a frustrating operation for a changeling with little patience and a hot temper.

“Face me!”

And stop watching you flounder about? This amuses me. And while you are stumbling around in your own head, I suppose I should tell you the whole world beyond your skull is falling apart. You should see what my children are doing to the ponies! My Ravagers are feasting, Chrysalis. They find the flesh of foals especially sweet. It is so invigorating to hear the sounds of a pony dying beneath my claws, begging for its life. I love to hear them beg. You once loved to hear your victims beg. Do you not remember, my dear, sweet daughter?

“I am not your daughter!”

The world was yours for the taking. All you had to do was be a dutiful daughter to me. The Twin Queens had left their mark upon you and you even turned on them. All you had to do was be a good girl. I think they planned to ascend you. Such an honor! You would have truly become an immortal! Like me! Then we could have hunted from one end of the world to the other, bathed in the blood of our prey and feasting to our hearts content! A sigh of melancholy sloughed through Chrysalis like a wind of miasma. Alas.

“I never wanted those things!”

Oh? I seem to recall a different young princess in the past who shared my enthusiasm.

“It’s what you wanted me to be!”

Is it?

Luna’s mind was trying to push its way into Chrysalis’ again. The queen pushed back, wincing as she snarled. Her wings fanned at a maddened pace and she bared her fangs. A spitting snarl erupted from her throat. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” Her horn flared and she unleashed a pulsating magic. It rippled like waves away from her, hitting everything with the full force of her frustrated fury.

"Get out of my mind!”

Poor, poor Chrysalis. Poor little queen. Poor little mother. Can’t even clean out the evil lurking in her thoughts. I should break your mind and take control. I should simply take you over and force you to kill your precious little Atalanta with your own hooves. No magic. Just a good bit of stomping. You’ve had blood on your hooves before, haven't’ you?

Chrysalis backpedaled. “You can’t do that! I won’t let you!”

Oh? You keep saying you won’t let me do things. How rude. Perhaps I have lingered in the shadows long enough. It is time, I think, to put you in your place.

Then a force struck Chrysalis, seemingly from all sides. She was spun, her hooves clacking upon the ground beneath her as she fought to stay upright. Dazed, she could only concentrate on keeping her balance and only barely saw the massive paw taking a vicious swipe at her. She flinched away, but not soon enough.

The blow sent her flying. She landed on her side and rolled before sliding to a painful stop. She coughed and gasped for air. Strange, she thought, that I would feel the need to breathe even in my own head.

Let me in, Chrysalis! I beg of thee!

“And now I see you, little one,” growled a voice from a throat. “I see pitiful little you. Such a shame to see a mind become destroyed in such a way. I feel as though I am destroying a stained glass window.” Something huge grabbed her neck and yanked Chrysalis upright. Bleary eyes, still rolling in their sockets, struggled to focus on a massive grin filled with very sharp fangs.

The face of a black tiger greeted her, with slitted pupils within blazing irises seemingly engulfed in perpetual flames. They were surrounded by a wide face covered in short black fur. The muzzle was short and scrunched as the monster peeled back her lips in her sadistic grin. Her maw was filled with teeth meant to shred and tear flesh. Fangs half as long as Chrysalis’ horn were yellowed with age save for their pearly white tips.

“I expected more of a fight from you, Chrysalis,” Taalia purred. She then ran her tongue over her teeth and gums. “Of course, I never did teach you the real strength I have. I may not have magic as you know it, but I can dominate a mind as if it were my personal plaything. Considering you have always been my plaything,” she said with a smirk, “I think it fitting to properly dispose of a toy when it no longer serves a purpose.”

Chrysalis knew she was going to lose. But something kept pounding at her mind, begging still.

Luna.

She gurgled something.

“Hmm?” Taalia asked, shaking the dangling changeling. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying, dear. You’ll have to try harder if you want my attention. Trying to make you into a vegetable. It’s not as easy as it looks. Takes finesse and a creative mind.”

Chrysalis tried harder.

The massive tiger changeling snorted and shook her head. “You are so disappointing, Chrysalis. Good—”

A blast of energy struck the changeling square in her back. She roared in pain, throwing Chrysalis aside and spinning on her rear legs. Her victim fell and watched from a painful point of view as the form of a great cat pitted with holes faced off against a pony half her size. Burning red orbs locked with white hot eyes. Taalia’s form was armored and three inch claws raked the ground. Her tail swished in her hatred.

“You must be Luna.”

"You must be Taalia.”

Both stared each other down. Taalia dropped into a crouch and hissed. Luna snorted, splayed her ears and reared, flaring her front hooves dangerously at her much larger opponent. The alicorn’s wings were flared and she carefully sidestepped towards the fallen queen.

Chrysalis, despite herself, managed a grin. “I tried to tell you there was an alicorn behind you,” she told Taalia in a raspy voice. It was followed by a racking cough. Ignoring the agony tearing through her body, she forced herself to a sitting position.

“We can face her together,” Luna assured her with a sidelong glance. “Are you fit to fight?”

“It’s all in the mind,” muttered Chrysalis with a snort. “Yet it’s still so damned painful.” Her rubbery legs decided to cooperate and she found herself upright.

“‘Tis no time for jesting, Queen Chrysalis.” Luna tossed her head and swung her body around to ensure she was between the changeling and the other, much larger changeling. “The battle must come to an end and I intend to clear your mind of this filth.”

“You are persistent,” Taalia noted. Her shoulders seemed to roll with a smoothness as she stalked towards her prey. “I will have you, too!”

Luna drew herself up to her full height, peering down over her muzzle at the approaching tiger changeling. “I think not. You made a severe error in judgement, monster.”

Taalia stopped, a notched ear flicking. “Oh? And what error in judgement is that?”

“You picked a fight with a goddess!” Luna’s eyes flared like resurgent holy fire. “BEGONE!” Her horn flared and a massive beam erupted from it, striking Taalia full in the chest and head.

The tigress screamed, clutching her head, her form wavering in and out of existence. Luna poured her magic into her attack, her wings flaring out as she rose off the ground, her legs dancing with elegance upon the air beneath her. The screaming went on as if eternity awaited. Chrysalis could not bear to hear the sound. She could not bear to hear such suffering.

And Taalia suffered, then winked to nothingness.

Luna’s magic abated, then ceased altogether as she slowly dropped to the ground. The alicorn heaved a great sigh, her eyes of steeled resolved flecked with twinges of sadness.

“The battle is not yet over,” she told Chrysalis. She settled her wings against her body. “She is clear of your mind, now. The physical battle awaits. I think we might have an advantage now. She will be disoriented.”

Princess Luna never saw the hoof strike her in the face.

“I TOLD YOU TO GET OUT!!”