New Family

by awesomesauce4

Chapter 17

Someone shook his shoulder gently, and he felt a vague glimmer of concern emanating from them.

“M’up…” he muttered, blinking and turning away from the lamp. Sitting up, he discerned that Chrysalis had been the one shaking him, a worried look on her face.

“You were having that nightmare again,” she fretted.

Jeremy sighed. “Beginning to think they’re a little more than nightmares. I think… I think I saw things from Diligita’s eyes. Seconds before everything blew up.” He paused for a moment. “Did Hespera have darker hair than you?” he added curiously.

Chrysalis cocked her ear for a moment, as if listening. “Dark green. Like the leaves. She liked the forest, it made her feel at home.”

Jeremy nodded. “I got a glimpse of her, right before the explosion.”

Chrysalis apparently didn’t know what to say to that, as she remained silent. “…Do you wanna go get some pancakes?” she quietly asked after a moment more of silence.

Jeremy smiled faintly. “Yeah…” he agreed, getting up and stretching, and Chrysalis looked immensely relieved as she accompanied him out of their hotel room.

“Dude. You look like… You look awful,” Sam noted as soon as Jeremy walked into the room, Chrysalis trotting off to grab the pair of them some food.

“I feel awful. Prophetic dreams are… not fun,” Jeremy grumbled, putting his head down on the table.

“Prophetic dreams? What about?” Avery asked, interested.

“Basically… I saw things from the perspective of Queen Diligita. Right before everything exploded, she pushed her daughter through a portal to safety. It was… really sad,” Jeremy sighed.

“So… hive mind?” Avery posited.

Jeremy shrugged. “It didn’t feel like the normal hive mind communications. It was just… weird. Can we… not talk about this, actually?” he asked. Avery nodded immediately, backing off, and Chrysalis set down a steaming plate of pancakes in front of Jeremy’s head.

“Up and at’ em, apey, you need your strength if we’re going to poke around in caves,” Chrysalis gently encouraged.

“Apey?” Jeremy complained, to the others’ stifled laughter.

“It’s a nickname I thought of!” Chrysalis brightly announced. “…You don’t like it,” she shrewdly observed a moment later.

“Keep trying… Buggy,” Jeremy shot back, smiling despite himself as he took a fork and began cutting his pancakes.

A while later, they were standing outside the hotel entrance. “So, you lot want to go out and see the sights, then?” Jeremy was saying.

“Yeah… honestly, we just want to explore Manehattan,” Sam agreed, grinning sheepishly.

Jeremy shrugged. “Suit yourself. Let me know if you find any cool robotics… or… um… magical constructs? Dunno what the equivalent is here.”

Sam laughed. “I’ll let you know if I find anything. Have fun looking at old rocks!” he teased before heading off, the other humans in tow.

Jeremy looked back to find A.K. Yearling and the rest of his changelings waiting, uncertain looks on the changelings’ faces.
“What’s with the look?” Jeremy asked, raising an eyebrow at them.

“…Sam was lying to you somehow,” one spoke up.

Jeremy looked at him incredulously. “Sam? Nah. He’s probably just got some surprise for me later, or something,” he dismissed airily, turning around. “C’mon, let’s go!”

As they took off, ponies looked nervously at the small group of changelings flying in formation. Jeremy was on Chrysalis’ back, wondering why he hadn’t brought the armor Chrysalis had helped make for him. Probably because he still didn’t know how to fly with it. Thorax flew next to Chrysalis, sometimes overtaking her but uncertainly falling behind again. Jeremy, watching him, wanted to say something, but was just as unsure where exactly Thorax should fly. Next to Chrysalis? In front of her? Behind her? There wasn’t exactly a precedent for this. A. K. Yearling, meanwhile, was flying at the very back of the small formation, looking lost in thought.

We’re looking for a set of caves somewhere in these mountains, Jeremy reminded the rest of the group.

What’s inside? a changeling near the back wondered.

Might be nothing. Might be some Windigo artifacts. If we’re really lucky, there might even be some changeling artifacts, Jeremy answered.

It’s so weird to think that we once worked together with windigos and umbra… I feel like if Windigos were still alive today, they’d hate us, another changeling noted. Jeremy shrugged.

A while later, they’d circled around most of the mountain range, landing in a valley between two peaks. A small lake had formed here, birds chirping and the sun shining as a gentle wind blew through the grass.

“Nice place,” Jeremy commented, looking around.

“I wonder if anyone lives here?” Thorax agreed, dipping a hoof into the water.

“Just one,” a voice greeted behind them. Jeremy, Chrysalis and Thorax whirled around to find a pony trotting up.

Both his mane and coat were snow-white, giving him an oddly gleaming look in the bright sunlight as he gazed at them with icy blue eyes. His Cutie Mark was three hexagonal snowflakes, water-blue in coloration.

Double Diamond. A former member of Starlight’s village cult, generally friendly, Jeremy relayed to the other changelings. “Hey. We’re here on a historical expedition. My name’s Jeremy, this is Chrysalis, and this is Thorax, and some of our helpers,” Jeremy explained, pointing at each of them in turn.

“Name’s Double Diamond. Here, exactly? Not much in the valley to look at,” Double Diamond confirmed.

“Not here. We’re looking for some caves in these mountains… not sure of any more details than that,” Jeremy admitted.

Double Diamond grimaced. “The only caves I know of around these parts are… well, we don’t go near them. We’ve heard rumors that those who enter are never heard from again.”

A. K. Yearling scoffed. “As if I haven’t heard that one before,” she muttered under her breath. She then stiffened and looked around, before relaxing as she realized nobody seemed to have noticed.

“Well, I think we’ll be alright,” Jeremy dismissed. “Can you show us there?”

Double Diamond tugged at his blue scarf uncomfortably. “Well… okay. But only as far as the entrance,” he allowed.

“Thanks!” Jeremy agreed, and they set off.

A few hours of walking later, Jeremy and Double Diamond were chatting. Double Diamond had just finished explaining the events of his town’s recent history, which Jeremy already knew but politely nodded along to anyway.

“So what were you doing in the valley, anyway?” Jeremy asked after a pause.

Diamond snorted. “I used to live there, a long while back. Good mountains for skiing, a beautiful view of the lake at night… nothing but me and the countryside. ‘Course, all that changed when I decided to go exploring in just the wrong place.”

Jeremy grimaced. “The town?” he guessed, and Double Diamond nodded.

“Let’s just say Starlight was very… persuasive about getting me to stay there,” he grumbled, but shook it off a moment later. “But… it’s okay. She’s good now, she’s learned what she did wrong, and that’s about as much as I can ask of her.”

Chrysalis gazed at him sadly. “You should talk to her sometime. I can tell you still have much to say,” she quietly urged him. Double Diamond glanced at her in surprise.

“…Changelings, right? Starlight said something about you guys once. Said you were ‘empaths,’ and that you… ate emotions?”

Chrysalis smiled. “We only eat one emotion, and that’s love. Still, we can sense the others.”

Double Diamond stared at her awkwardly. “Right. That’s… weird,” he mumbled under his breath.

“You get used to it,” Jeremy remarked with a lopsided grin.

Double Diamond rolled his eyes. “I sure hope not. Anyway, the caves are just up ahead. I’m gonna head back now… I’d rather not get any closer.” With that, he did an immaculate half-turn and trotted away, his step a little quicker than it had been approaching.

“What’s in these caves, that has him so spooked?” Jeremy wondered.

“A giant monster, maybe?” Thorax answered.

“Not everything is like an Ogres and Oubliettes campaign, Thorax,” Chrysalis spat. Seeing Thorax wince, she gave him an apologetic glance. “I mean… we’ll probably be fine.” There was a moment of awkward silence, before she silently headed towards the cave, head slightly drooped.

She’s acting a little strange today, Jeremy mentally observed, concerned.

I would be too, all things considered. We’re going to have to rewrite a lot of history after this… Thorax replied, following after her.

The cave mouth was just as Jeremy remembered it from the show – a simple hole in the side of the mountain, surrounded by drifts of snow upon a bare purple-gray rock landscape. “Why is it every time I go in a cave, I feel like I’m about to fight something?” Jeremy grumbled as he carefully stepped inside.

The inside of the cave was… unassuming. It was warmer than the cold outside, as was to be expected, and the snow had melted into small puddles of grimy cave water that Jeremy carefully hopped around. Thorax and the other changelings merely stepped through them, looking oddly at Jeremy’s carefully planned jumps.

“Are you… afraid of water?” one questioned, staring at him.

Jeremy snorted in amusement. “No… but clothes are hard to dry. Also, pneumonia isn’t a fun illness to get.” The changeling looked at Thorax, who simply shrugged and continued to follow after Jeremy.

They found Chrysalis waiting for them at the end of the cave, an apparent dead end with nothing more than a few stalactites framing the back wall.

“Looks like we’ll have to find another cave,” A. K. Yearling noted, sighing with frustration.

“…No, this is the one,” Chrysalis responded, still uneasily staring at the wall of the cave.

“How do you know?” A. K. Yearling asked, raising an eyebrow.

Chrysalis reached out a hoof, and everyone gasped as it went through the rock wall at the back of the cave. The same trick our hive uses, Jeremy realized.

A. K. Yearling fell silent, inspecting the wall with a critical eye. “An illusion spell. Guessing you lot recognize it, which means that it’s probably changeling magic. Seems we’re right on target, then,” she decided. With that, she slipped her rucksack off, rummaging through it before pulling out a journal. Grabbing a pencil with her mouth, Yearling began to write something on it.

“What are you writing?” Jeremy asked, looking over.

“Ob’er’ations,” A. K. Yearling grunted through the pencil in her teeth. Jeremy grunted in vague interest, and returned to Chrysalis’ side.

I… I can’t do this, Chrysalis admitted as soon as he took his place next to her.

Scared? Jeremy asked sympathetically.

Terrified. I… what if we find a bunch of Windigo corpses? Or Diligita’s top-secret plans to kill off the other two races? What if we find out that we were always meant to be monsters? Chrysalis worried, beginning to hyperventilate.

Jeremy got down on one knee, leaning over to kiss Chrysalis on the lips. She shivered slightly, whether from the cold or from surprise he couldn’t tell. We won’t ever know unless we venture onward. And if we don’t… I can tell it’ll haunt you. Don’t worry, honey. I will be with you all the way, he answered, wrapping her in a tight hug.

Chrysalis looked away. …Carry me? she asked quietly.

Smiling, Jeremy picked her up, cradling her like a newborn. ”Are we ready to go through?” he asked the other changelings. He raised an eyebrow, noting the blush on their faces and A. K. Yearling’s facehoof.

“Sadly, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with lovey-dovey assistants. Save it for the honeymoon, you two,” she snarked, her rucksack once again securely attached to her side as she sauntered past them.

“We’re not even married yet,” Jeremy muttered back, snorting with amusement as he followed her.

They entered a vast atrium cavern, rather like the one underneath Canterlot but distinctly colder. Fires could be seen dotting the ledges of the cave, looking pitiful and small compared to the freezing rock and ice everywhere else. And attending those fires… Jeremy stared.

So that was what a Windigo looked like.

Their coats were a beautiful snow white, and they each stood nearly as tall as Thorax, with even brawnier torsos that almost made them look like proper horses from back on Earth. Their noses were long and slender, and their eyes glowed an icy blue. Finally, their pale gray manes glittered behind them like a thousand miniature diamonds every time they moved, and Jeremy suspected that tiny crystals of ice in their hair were responsible for this. They were beautiful, in a strange, alien way.

That was, until one of them noticed the pack of changelings and promptly screamed.

“THEY’VE FOUND US!” she yelled, nearly tripping over herself in her panic. “THE WAR’S RESTARTED! RUN!” With that, she galloped away, heading for a nearby side cave that she practically threw herself into. The others quickly made for cover, diving into nearby caves themselves.

“Wait! We’re not-“ Jeremy attempted, but she had already disappeared.

He shared a glance with Thorax, who huffed a tired sigh. “Don’t worry, they’ll figure it out after the third or fourth time… hopefully,” the larger changeling muttered, sounding all too familiar with this occurrence.

“…Well, I suppose we’d better go find her,” Jeremy replied, beginning the long walk to the other side of the cavern.

They found the Windigo that had screamed earlier curled up in her cave, shivering and sobbing even though a fire was right next to her. “Please don’t kill us,” she whispered over and over, scrunching up her eyes as they got close.

Jeremy gently put Chrysalis down, but before he could reach out to hug the Windigo female, Chrysalis had beaten him to it. The Windigo yelped in surprise, opening her neon blue eyes to stare at Chrysalis in open amazement. “I’m sorry,” Chrysalis murmured to her, rubbing a hoof along her back as tears streamed down the changeling queen’s face. “I’m so sorry. It won’t happen again, I promise. We’ll be better this time…”

Jeremy, Thorax, A. K. Yearling, and the others watched awkwardly as the two of them continued to cry and hold each other, and he felt a mix of fear, guilt, shame, and sorrow wash over him from Chrysalis’ mental link.

A while later, the Windigo broke away from Chrysalis, staring at her with a mix of suspicion, fear, hope, and guilt. “You’re… not here to wipe us out?” she asked timidly.

Chrysalis vigorously shook her head. “We, um… we didn’t think there were any of you left. N-not that we wanted that!” she hurriedly backtracked.

“We’re actually here to find out what happened during the war. All we collectively remember is one of our queens waking up in a… in a cave, somewhere. Nothing before that,” Jeremy added, offering a hand in greeting.

“I’m… Gwyneira. Who are you? You’re not a changeling,” Gwyneira pointed out suspiciously.

“I’m a human! My name is Jeremy, and I’m Queen Chrysalis’ significant other,” Jeremy introduced.

“You’re also the human embodiment of the Element of Love, honey, don’t forget that one,” Chrysalis added from off to the side, and Jeremy grinned indulgently.

“That too. So… what do you lot remember about the war?” he asked.

Gwyneira looked away. “Um… maybe I’m not the best one to tell you about it. I’ll show you to the Elder… the Elder can explain more than I can.” They slowly made their way out of the tunnel and back into the atrium cave, Jeremy briefly shivering from the chill as a droplet of icy water landed on his nose.

The Elder, as it turned out, lived on the highest ledge in the cave. Jeremy took one look at the arduous trek up there, and glanced helplessly at Chrysalis. She rolled her eyes, and crouched low as he gratefully hopped on her back.

The things I do for love, she pretended to whine, and Jeremy chuckled.

As they flew up, the chill of the wind seemed to freeze the hairs on his arms, and even Chrysalis twitched slightly. It’s… unnaturally cold in here. I think the Windigo are amplifying it somehow, Jeremy noted.

They landed on the ledge to find yet another fire being stoked by a Windigo, older than the others. She sighed as she raked at the burning embers of the twigs and sticks she was using.

“Duchess Eira,” Gwyneira greeted, bowing low.

“How many times do I need to tell you, girl?! Our titles are meaningless, and we will die clutching the rags of our once great-“ she paused, looking up and seeing the group for the first time. “Oh. Changelings,” she noticed.

“We’re not here to hurt you!” Chrysalis quickly interjected.

“I know that, child. You’re not even wearing the royal armor, much less carrying any weaponry,” Duchess Eira scoffed.

Royal armor? Jeremy asked Chrysalis.

Hespera used to have a set of armor she sometimes wore when rescuing discovered changelings… maybe that has more significance than we realized? Or maybe it’s something else entirely, Chrysalis responded. “So… are you the Elder?” she asked curiously, and Gwyneira facehoofed off to the side.

Eira, however, merely laughed. “I might be. What’s it to you?” she challenged.

Chrysalis and Jeremy looked at each other. “…Gwyneira told us you could explain more about the ancient war between our peoples. Because, uh… we don’t remember any of it. Our first queen that we remember was Hespera, and she woke up in a cave somewhere with no memory of her previous life.”

Eira raised an eyebrow at that, seemingly intrigued. “So Diligita’s little gambit paid off. Clever… dangerous, but clever. She never was one for playing a subtle game.”

Jeremy leaned forward, his interest clearly roused. “Gambit?” he asked.

Eira laughed, a cold, chilling sound. “Colt, you have no idea who she was, do you?” she taunted.

“…No,” Jeremy admitted. “What’d she do?”

He appeared to be causing Eira no end of amusement, as she shook and snorted with more laughter. “Oh, this is perfect! She devised such a perfect trap, even eleven hundred years later her descendants haven’t broken free!” Eira cackled gleefully, not even bothering to stoke the fire in front of her anymore.

“…And are you going to tell us?” Jeremy prompted after a moment, feeling slightly irritated.

Eira slowly calmed down, wiping a tear away from her face. “Oh, come now. Let an old mare have the last laugh, will you?” she chided, still grinning. The stony expressions of the changelings around her didn’t falter, and finally she sighed. “I was a very young Windigo when all this happened. Around your age, in fact!” she remarked, pointing at Chrysalis. “It all started, way back when…”

“I first saw Diligita at the annual Tres Pacificae Locus, the time of year when every tres pacificae in the nation would gather to discuss what they had learned. Ponies were welcomed too, but it was mainly an event for reflection and planning, a once-a-year chance to look back and figure out what went wrong and what went right. Grievances between the three Elemental Tribes were aired too, mainly to prevent… well, I suppose you’ve seen what they were meant to avoid. I was a young member of the Spirit Guard, and I was escorting our Lady Neva to the opening ceremonies. Chief Tenebris was there too, a young upstart who’d just taken over his late father’s position. He was escorted by a few umbra – strapping ones they were, too. I asked one of them out, but he said he was busy,” Eira reminisced, a wistful expression in her eyes. “But then Diligita arrived, stepping out of her cocooned chariot.”

“To say she was beautiful would be the understatement of the millennium. She was a Storm among changelings, a wild, passionate thing who kept an iron mask of calm over a roiling torrent of emotions. Fierce, untamed, with a grace that was as awe-inspiring to watch as it was deadly to be in the way of, no stallion or mare could lay claim to her… until that day,” Eira sighed.

Jeremy raised an eyebrow. “It was you, wasn’t it? You somehow claimed her,” he realized.

Eira cackled again. “Observant little child, aren’t you? I suppose you’d relate. It wasn’t so much that I claimed her as the other way around. What Diligita wanted, she got, and the moment we laid eyes on each other, she wanted nothing but me,” Eira corrected, blushing slightly.

“Did you… rule as Queen alongside her?” Chrysalis asked.

Eira looked at her incredulously. “Me? Equal to her? Hah! As if, youngling. She made sure I knew exactly where my place was.”

“Anyway, that day, she had business to attend to, and by Harmony did she attend to it. While Tenebris and Neva spent the morning arguing over petty things like land and populations, she had already plowed through half the grievances of her queendom with an intensity and speed none could hope to match. Her every judgment was final, her every word passed down with such iron-laden decree that any who objected even slightly found themselves cut to pieces by her wit. Some said she didn’t suffer fools gladly. I say they were fools themselves, because Diligita suffered no fools at all,” Eira proudly declared.

She’s hopelessly smitten, Jeremy observed.

“I am not!” Eira snapped, shocking them all. She paused a moment, thinking. “Alright, maybe a little. She was my first and best lover, after all, and she just had that special something that I’ve never seen anypony else come close to. But that’s no excuse to guttersnipe, you little urchin!” she castigated.

Jeremy flinched back. “You can… hear us?” he wondered.

Eira raised her eyebrow coldly. “And where do you think the tradition of letting a queen’s lover into the hivemind began? Certainly not with one of your intellect.”

Absolutely destroyed, Pharynx jeered from off to his left, and Jeremy smirked.

To be fair, I deserved that one, he replied.

Well, at the very least you’re self-aware, Eira grumbled. Her mental ‘voice’ was strange – where a changeling sounded like they were right in between one’s ears, she sounded more tinny, and hollow – as though speaking through an old phone.

That’s what you sound like, Chrysalis informed him, and Jeremy digested this information with surprise.

“So… what? Did she decide one day she didn’t like the other tribes?” he asked, raising an eyebrow skeptically.

“Oh, heavens no. If she did, there wouldn’t be anything left. No, Diligita concocted an elaborate plan to save them,” Eira revealed. She poked a log idly, apparently figuring out what to say next. “I was one of the few who were told the plan, and even then, even though I was her closest confidante, Diligita swore undying vengeance should I reveal it to anyone before she could enact it. Suffice it to say that she brought about the end of our civilization to more or less avoid the end of our world.”

Jeremy gazed at her, utterly perplexed, and Eira sighed. “She never told me what was so dangerous, only that it wouldn’t cease until it had ended every life on the planet. She did tell me that whatever it was, this monster fed on love, just like her. But where feeding on love was simply nourishment to a changeling, this thing grew stronger every time it fed. And again unlike a changeling, it didn’t leave the food source alive after it finished. Her words, not mine,” Eira remembered.

“…So, to prevent a chain reaction of it feeding, getting stronger and killing, she got rid of all the love on the continent by starting a massive civil war,” Jeremy guessed. The changelings around him murmured, shocked, and even Gwyneira was staring at her elder with her jaw dropped and an angry expression.

“You never told me any of this!” she accused, pointing a hoof at Eira.

The elder Windigo simply raised an eyebrow at her. “And miss that delightful paranoia of yours? Perish the thought, child. You’re the only entertainment in this blasted cave. That, and trying to figure out this ‘Friendship Fire’ the Elder keeps going on about.” When Chrysalis and Jeremy looked at her in surprise, she snorted. “Your pegasus friend over there figured it out ages ago. I’m not the Elder, I just said that to figure out if you wanted to hurt him. Pony or not, he’s one of the few creatures I find interesting to talk to.”

Jeremy looked back at A.K. Yearling suspiciously, and she coughed guiltily. “I was going to say something! Eventually…” the archaeologist trailed off.

“Okay… so who is the Elder?” Jeremy asked.

“Aye, that’d be me,” a voice introduced from behind them.

Jeremy and Chrysalis whirled around to get their first glance at the Elder of the Windigo. His snow-white beard was trimmed impeccably, and his dusty gray, wrinkled coat spoke of both seniority and a well-traveled life. His hat was familiar, impossibly so…

“Star Swirl the Bearded?” Jeremy asked incredulously.

Star Swirl sighed. “Four hundred and two,” he muttered to himself.

“How are you alive?” Jeremy continued.

Star Swirl chuckled. “Six hundred and eleven,” he snorted.

“Why are you counting?” Chrysalis asked curiously.

“One thousand, two hundred and forty-two. I’m sorry, child, but I’ve already heard these statements many times. Call it a hobby if you will, but I’ve resorted to counting them to pass the days,” Star Swirl chuckled. “To answer your question, I was recently freed from a thousand years’ imprisonment by an intrepid young mare and her friends, and I’ve apparently resumed aging from that moment onward. I’m mortal, yes, but I’ve a few decades to go before I’m ready to kick the bucket,” he explained.

“So… you decided to become the Elder of this WIndigo colony?” Jeremy asked, still confused.

Star Swirl shrugged. “Honestly, I only did it because it allowed me more authority to perform my studies. The mystery of Pacem was one of my favorite research topics, slim pickings though it was back then. Nowadays, however…” he surveyed the changelings around him, particularly paying attention to those who had not transformed into their more colorful forms. “Such an interesting condition. The darkness of color and holes in the legs and wings suggest a form of rot, or decay, but otherwise you seem mostly unchanged,” he noted, peering intently at a very uncomfortable drone.

“But I was born like this!” the drone protested.

Star Swirl rolled his eyes. “Mutations always are,” he remarked. “It’s no fault of yours, child, but something has happened to your race. I thank you for getting Eira to talk, by the way,” he added, glancing at Jeremy. “She loves to keep secrets.”

Eira laughed, still stoking the fire. “From impudent younglings who poke around in business that isn’t theirs? Sure. This is a matter between changelings, umbra and windigos, Star Swirl. Your ‘research’ consisted of little more than nosiness.”

Star Swirl turned his nose up haughtily. “The pursuit of truth is not nosiness!” he denied.

“Hey, I don’t mean to interrupt your banter here, but didn’t you write a journal hinting that the Windigo started this whole thing off?” A. K. Yearling pointed out, pulling out a copy of On the Origines of Ponie-Like Species.

Star Swirl rubbed a hoof to the back of his neck, embarrassed. “Yes… well… I’m ashamed to admit that I may have jumped to conclusions there. We had so little evidence to work with back then that it was the most reasonable thing I could come up with at the time!” he defended, looking away heatedly.

Ah, the ancient scientists. More storywriters than proper researchers, Jeremy quipped in his head. Eira burst out laughing, and Star Swirl glanced at her in surprise.

“What? What did they just say?” he demanded.

“Oh, I’ll never tell… but I will save that one for later,” Eira remarked deviously.

Star Swirl glared at her. “…Anyway, I believe I can piece together the story from here, unless somepony would like to jump in again,” he added with a glare at Eira, who gazed impudently back, flicking an ember of the fire at him.

“I belive that Diligita, upon learning of the danger, sought to eliminate all love in the continent. Her plan was twofold: First, the civil war between umbra, changelings and windigos, to break the many years of peace Pacem had enjoyed. Second, she cast some kind of spell that mutated her own changelings into the form we see today, ridding them of their natural ability to feed off of each other’s love and affection to ensure that nopony would ever feel love again. As Eira claimed earlier… Dangerous, but clever.”

Chrysalis sat down on the floor with a thump, not even minding the frigid stone below her as she processed this. “But… then… what are we? Monsters or saviors?” she asked timidly.

Star Swirl raised an eyebrow at her. “Why not both?” he countered. “History is rarely so straightforward as it is written to be. I should know, I wrote a great deal of it.”

Eira snorted. “You made up a great deal of it,” she corrected.

“Write a better account, then,” Star Swirl retorted.

“Okay, so Diligita avoided catastrophe by ruining everything in a temporary manner… I guess that’s it. That’s our answer,” Jeremy murmured, ignoring the bickering and looking away.

“...The truth is rarely what you hope for,” Star Swirl replied gently, and even Eira gazed sadly at him.

“Hold it, we are not done here,” A. K. Yearling snapped, pulling out sheafs of parchment. “Hespera woke up in a cave with these hieroglyphs covering every wall. I want to know what they say.”

Star Swirl took one look at the pictures and shrugged, levitating them carefully around the fire to Eira.

She gazed at the script almost hungrily. “This is Diligita’s writing, all right. And… my, my. How sad,” Eira muttered, eyes skimming through the language with an air of deep familiarity.

“What?” A. K. demanded.

Eira sighed, and began to read aloud.

“To my dearest daughter, Hespera of the Tribe of Fire.

If you can still read this, that means I have failed and our world is doomed. There is an ancient portal far to the north that you may yet use to escape this planet’s fate. Please know that what I did, I did out of love, and that is why I had to destroy everything we held dear.

Please forget about me, and focus on fleeing. There is nothing left for you here – the hive is dead. I, too, will be dead by the time you read this.

Love, your mother,

Ex-Queen Diligita.”

Chrysalis sniffled, and Jeremy could swear her hair was a darker green than it was a few moments ago. “B-but… I couldn’t read it. I couldn’t read it at all… is the world saved, then? Did Mother defeat the beast?” she asked, in a completely different voice. Raspy but caring, the voice of someone who had suffered a thousand injuries rather than let their own suffer a single one.

“…Hard to say,” Star Swirl answered after a moment, evidently caught off-guard. “Our world is not destroyed, and Equestria has enjoyed a stretch of peace and love comparable to Pacem’s own. I think… I believe the monster has left. Either it is long-dead, or it moved on in search of more prosperous worlds to devour.”

Chrysalis stared at him for a moment, eyes flickering and pulsing as her double iris swirled chaotically. Then, she collapsed on the floor, out cold.

Comments

[Salty Milk]

to be continued...

[Oreon]

Oh no. I know what the monster is, especially given the context of this story, as well as it's prequel.. oh no no no no no nope nope nope.

[Hein des Nisseroi]

“Why are you counting?” Chrysalis asked curiously.

“One thousand, two hundred and forty-two. I’m sorry, child, but I’ve already heard these statements many times. Call it a hobby if you will, but I’ve resorted to counting them to pass the days,

50 second mark.

Chrysalis sniffled, and Jeremy couldswearher hair was a darker green than it was a few moments ago. “B-but… I couldn’t read it. I couldn’t read it at all… is the world saved, then? Did Mother defeat the beast?” she asked, in a completely different voice. Raspy but caring, the voice of someone who had suffered a thousand injuries rather than let their own suffer a single one.

Chrysalis, your Hespera is showing.

[awesomesauce4]

8731933
Ha, I was hoping someone would get that one.

[Razzy]

Huh, that's interesting... Can't remember, did Chryssie lose the holes when she gave love to Jeremy and changed? I vaguely recall that. At least it seems that the changelings are reverting to how they were before that spell, then.

Hmm, so the Windigo are alive too, nice. Maybe they'll be able to live outside again.

Hopefully the monster is really dead. Though at least the changelings saved everyone, supposedly. This is going to be weird to write down in history books.

[awesomesauce4]

8735463
Some didn't yet 'metamorphose' into the new, colorful forms (Pharynx and presumably others in the show), so the attending changelings are a mixed gaggle of the old and new types. Chrysalis lost all of her holes when she metamorphosed, but I kept most of her 'new' design pretty close to the old one (it's based on her pre-FIM design in the comics).