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Day Zero: The Failings [OLD]2,775 words
Day One: (Morning) The Captive [OLD]6,113 words
Day Pi: The Nonsense [JOKE]507 words
Day Zero: The Failings2,819 words
Day One: (Morning) The Captive6,085 words
Day One: (Afternoon) The Offer8,335 words

Day One: (Morning) The Captive [OLD]

An arc transcribes itself in neon green against the darkness, the beginnings of a spiral.

The heart is empty, the fire little more than a spark.

One end is another beginning. One beginning marks an end.

Tuesday Afternoon

‘Ehrney, Aslith, and Ormaq! Take your Aggregate platoons and head toward the East Plaza. The element-bearers are making a break for the vault.’

Canterlot was chaos. Magical explosions rocked the city, gleeful drones zipping back and forth as ponies cowered. The Praetorian Guard known as Aslith growled even as she accepted Chrysalis’s telepathic orders, horn flickering out as she cut the connection. Perched on a fairly high balcony, the Changeling could see over most of the city, and bear witness as the ‘invasion’ devolved into complete anarchy. The Drones, lacking any sort of self-control, had quickly abandoned all pretense of professionalism once the barrier broke down, and even now a few Praetorians were seen trying to round them up and actually take over the city.

Aslith had no love lost for the pathetically overwhelmed ponies, but she was less than pleased with how the invasion was proceeding. It seemed like such things as honor and civility had gone straight out the window. Still, there was little she could do alone, except follow orders. Sighing, the Changeling turned around to take stock of what remained of her own forces, a baker’s dozen of drones that were only standing so still and attentive due to a mass Thrall spell. “Follow,” she barked, and took wing.

It didn’t take long to meet up with Ehrney and Ormaq, the former of whom had evidently gotten the same idea as Aslith, bringing an even larger squad of drones in tow. Ormaq, to his embarrassment, had only himself to present.

“The element-bearers are smart; we shouldn’t allow them to pick us out as the leaders,” Ehrney shouted over the wind, “We should lose ourselves in the crowd.” As one, the Praetorians teleported their helmets away for later retrieval, the pointless enchantments falling away to reveal a trio of True Changelings. A burst of green fire, however, and they melted seamlessly into the flock of Enthralled Drones.

The East Plaza wasn’t hard to find; Chrysalis, who had spent the last week or so living in Canterlot, had transmitted a rough map into the Guard’s minds. It was a fairly wide open space overlooking one of the city’s many parks; not quite as fancy as most of Canterlot, but passable. And it was about to become a battlefield.

Aslith touched down near the back of the crowd; not wanting to risk losing control of the Drones before she could direct their focus towards the attack.

The last of Ehrney’s group touched down just as the element-bearers arrived; a rather motley and underwhelming group of mares who collided with each other humorously as they found their way blocked. Still, Aslith prided herself on her practicality, and she wasn’t about to let herself underestimate these foes.

A tense moment of standoff ended when the most colorful of the group stepped up, and Aslith sent one of her drones forward to counter before releasing all her thralls. Battle was quickly underway.

Dust was kicked up in great clouds, colorful pastel forms barely distinguishable as they thrashed wildly back and forth. Aslith had not been wrong to be wary of the element-bearers; despite being mere ponies and their almost comical dispositions, they seemed to be holding up well enough against the far greater numbers. It was honestly hard to tell amidst all the chaos, though.

Aslith herself kept to the Drone disguise, watchful eyes scanning the crowd for an opening. The drones were nasty enough, but the element-bearers, she imagined, would have a considerably harder time fighting off a trained professional, especially if such skill was not expected.

However, that plan was ruined as the pink one popped up before her. Trying to throw it off balance, Aslith quickly cycled through several forms, but to her surprise, the pink one just giggled. “Ooh, do me! Do me!”

Rolling her eyes, Aslith complied without thinking. Happy? She thought, giving a sarcastically overblown smile.

“Eh, I’ve seen better.” The pink one grabbed the purple unicorn out of the crowd, twisting her friend’s tail in a strange fashion. Before Aslith could react, her vision went pink, then green, then black.

Present

Chrysalis awoke with a gasp, the strange dream she had had fading from memory as reality rudely crashed in.

Reality was unexpectedly quiet.

Her eyelids felt heavy, so she didn’t open them yet. There was something uncomfortably warm and heavy pressing down on her exoskeleton, and aside from the periodic chirp of a bird and a strange ticking noise, all was silent. She was reminded abruptly of her cocoon back at the hive, and how much more comfortable it was than here. Also discomfiting was that she had evidently fallen asleep sideways instead of properly vertical; her back ached like nobody’s business.

Actually, all of her ached. As the changeling’s nervous system started up, she found that she felt like one big bruise. The pins-and-needles of numbness only made things worse, and for a few moments the sheer pain drove every other thought away. She curled up pathetically, every movement sending a spike of lighting into her brain, until finally the numbness subsided.

Opening her eyes, she was momentarily blinded by what was actually a fairly dim light, and gradually her surroundings came into focus. Blurs of tan and black resolved themselves into walls, shelves, a desk. An office of some sort? Memories were hidden behind a curtain of stinging fuzziness, like a cotton ball filled with slivers of wood had planted itself firmly in her neural path.

She didn’t give it much thought beyond that, though, still preoccupied with more urgent matters. Even without the numbness inflaming everything, she still hurt all over, like she’d been slammed into a brick wall. Or the wall had been slammed into her, she thought, and a piece clicked into place.

Changelings as a race were typically more quick-witted than this; they had to be in order to survive a life of lies. But Chrysalis’s head felt fuzzy, memories a blur as the aches in her body overwhelmed everything else. Lashing out blindly with a hoof, she managed to dislodge whatever had been atop her, and the feeling subsided enough for her to think properly.

The denial, her rage, a hasty plan, kidnapping the princess, the wedding… and Luna. Captured by the mysterious Alicorn, the long silence, the long speech. Her plan torn down with logic, all the inherent fatal flaws that Chrysalis had blinded herself to now exposed, and the potential consequences laid out uncompromisingly. Now it all came rushing back, introducing a new kind of pain to her system, and she collapsed under the weight of all her failure. When would this torment end?

She’d failed. Failed miserably. Canterlot had been won back, her forces repelled, and now she was at the mercy of one of the three most powerful beings in the city. Shining Armor’s misplaced love had deserted her, and after a good week of raw power flowing through her veins, the return to normalcy felt worse than it actually was. What could she possibly hope to do now?

No.

The Changeling opened her eyes again (when had she closed them? Memory was like a leaf in the hurricane winds of despair, at the moment) and pushed back her nilhistic musings. You cannot hope to master your surroundings if you cannot master yourself. There was always an escape route, an alternative. Right?

She didn’t have time to break down now. So silently, unmoving, she suppressed the emotions, the crushing sense of defeat, and locked them all away in a little Pandora’s box to be opened later. Everything that had gone wrong was irrelevant; she’d keep trying until something changed.

And with that, the would-be Changeling Queen sat up straight and began to look around. She would not be defeated so easily.

The sun had risen a few hours ago, and was now at the midpoint between the eastern horizon and its eventual zenith come noon. Ponyville looked simplistically beautiful at this time of day, everything lent a watery but warm mid-morning glow. Ponies were finally starting to shake off their grogginess, and the town seemed almost normal to an outsider.

But in reality, its current bustle wasn’t quite up to the usual standard, and ponies seemed a bit more focused as they went about their business. The atmosphere was hardly poisonous, but it was certainly less relaxed than usual.

Nearly everypony had witnessed the fall of the shield and the distant explosions and chaos that had rocked Canterlot yesterday afternoon, and those that hadn’t soon heard about it. Things seemed to have returned to normal for now, but wary gazes were still often cast in the direction of the Cliffside City. Until they received official word on what had happened, though, the generally practical towns-ponies had decided to try to keep going as normal.

Finally however, a train arrived, spewing out six exhausted mares, a young dragon, and a contingent of royal guards.

“I still wish they’d let us help. I have no problem bein’ element of Honesty and all that, but this special treatment doesn’t seem quite fair to me.” Applejack had a troubled frown, and was clearly reluctant to leave the train, dragging behind the group.

“Even I must admit it doesn’t strike me well,” Rarity responded, “But we still have our families to check upon, do we not? And of course, to explain the situation properly to Ponyville.”

Rainbow Dash, even in spite of the mood, had taken wing almost instantly, the feel of even a slight breeze through her feathers feeling like a goddess-send after the stuffy dead air of the train car. “I thought that was their job, Rarity!” She nodded at the group of guards that had accompanied them.

“Well, I’m just glad to be back home,” The group’s other Pegasus chimed in silently, hiding behind her mane. “Yesterday was… scary.”

Twilight nodded in silent agreement before addressing Rainbow. “The guards are here to protect the town. Celestia put it to us to inform the mayor of what happened, and what the plan for the next few weeks will be.”

Pinkie Pie was seemingly immune to the mood, her bouncing only a little subdued compared to normal. “Well, if the plan is a ‘It Could Have Been Worse and The Wedding Is Happening Anyway’ party, then count me in!”

Twilight chuckled, and suddenly a sense of relief washed through her for the first time since the invasion; Pinkie’s proposed party seemed to confirm, oddly enough, what nothing else had; it was over. Canterlot would take a week or so to fix up the damages, but then her brother and her old foalsitter would get married for real this time, and everyone could relax. This in mind, she trotted forward with a bit more gusto, and her friends were quick to follow.

The group continued on towards town hall, not noticing as they passed a surly brown unicorn, who only had eyes for the bouncing pink one.

The sunlight that warmed a wary Ponyville had a harder time with Canterlot; it’s pleasant rays almost served to make the Mountainside City look even bleaker. The outer edges of the city, not having borne the brunt of the attack, was almost completely undamaged, but the center of the city hadn’t fared so well.

Even then, many fore-ponies noted, the damage was mostly at the surface, with some holes in walls, some toppled streetlights, scorch marks and small craters where the invaders had landed, and other problems it wouldn’t take too long to fix. Only in a few places was the damage much more substantial; a shop for glassware and windowing had had it’s entire stock smashed, a balcony somewhere had collapsed onto the street below and left a substantial pile of wreckage, and a couple homes had been all but completely gutted by the rampaging changelings. All told, a fair amount of work would still have to be put in, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as many ponies had feared.

Similarly, while the Canterlot General Hospital was almost completely filled up, and even a few medical tents had popped up elsewhere to take on the less severe cases, there was nothing truly life-threatening reported. The Changelings had certainly been rough, and at least a quarter of the city’s population would be wearing casts and slings for a while, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.

Along with the large medical tents, a number of smaller ones had sprung up like mushrooms as professional psychologists and unlicensed hacks alike prepared to deal with the more subtle scars from the event. The wide grounds separating the city from the Palace, meanwhile, found itself playing host to a quickly but sturdily built temporary shelter for those whose few whose homes had been too badly wrecked to live in until repairs had been made.

All told, the general theme seemed to be one of relief and a cautious optimism; the event had been quick and brutal, but quickly over, most of the damages not deep enough that they couldn’t be fixed up soon enough.

Of course, the invasion wouldn’t be without any more lasting impact. Aside from the building where the marriage had almost taken place, the Palace itself had gotten off surprisingly well, likely due to the disorganized nature of the attack. Now the halls were themselves a barely-organized chaos as the staff, the Day and Night Court members, and other officials of all shape and size rushed back and forth. Documents and notices and papers were numerous and heavily exchanged; an observer could almost mistake them for some strange form of currency at a frantic market.

Royal Guards marched back and forth throughout the city, checking up on things, keeping order, and apprehending the few changelings that had ended up stuck between the shield blast and a hard place. Most were too badly injured to fight back, crushed as they had been into a wall, railing, or whatever else that had blocked their path out of the city, and as Luna had predicted the evening before, soon the disused royal dungeons were cracked open, cleaned out, and filled up.

Most of the action was focused in Canterlot, but already a few trains and airships had departed to other destinations through Equestria to spread the word and some reinforcements. It was unlikely that any changelings would appear in Los Pegasus, but caution never hurt.

Indeed, already many were looking to the future, attempting to figure out how exactly to react to what had happened. But for now, in the present, Canterlot was safe.

Chrysalis was still nagged by a feeling of frustration, despite her emotional purge. Last night, her captor had driven home just how badly the Changeling had screwed up, and had subsequently borne witness to a truly pathetic breakdown. Showing weakness was tantamount to a death sentence all its own when you were at your enemy’s mercy, and if last night’s display hadn’t been of weakness, then she didn’t know what was. It was humiliating and frustrating and only worsened her already miserable position, and the thought just wouldn’t leave her alone. Still, she shoved it back, tried to ignore for now the disaster that was last night.

Last night. She hadn’t paid much attention to her surroundings then, but looking around now, she was surprised by the aesthetic. The couch she herself sat on was a creamy white, sitting diagonally in one corner. The floor was a smooth vanilla marble, with a somewhat upraised section for the dark oak desk in the center. The walls were made of sandstone; the one to Chrysalis’s left mostly obscured by bookshelves, the one to her right containing the door. The wall opposite the door had the window, though it was currently shuttered. Warm morning light spilled through the slats, dust sparkling in the beams and giving the room a dim gentle glow. The last wall, finally, was empty save for a small abstract portrait. All in all, the office didn’t feel like the workplace of a Princess of the Night.

Pillars of obsidian in each corner reached up to the high, vaulted ceiling. Set in the walls between these arches were a number of small doors, likely leading to storage. It would seem impractical to some ponies, but considering who’s office this was, it was less an inconvenience than an out-of-the way storage system with some ridiculously simple and efficient security.

Out of curiosity, Chrysalis reached up with her telekinesis and opened one of the doors, wondering what sort of items the Princess would keep in there. Or, rather, she tried to.

“What?” Nothing was happening. She was channeling the magic out through her horn, she could feel it leaving, but no matching green glow surrounded the door she had chosen. She drew in more ambient magic, but still reality stubbornly defied her demands. What about…?

Of course. The room was permeated with Anti-Magic, somehow tuned to Changeling frequencies; nothing was happening because her own magic was being nullified the moment she released it. This would be a problem.

Chrysalis’ eyes widened suddenly. What about her shape shifting? The idea of being confined to a single form, trapped so long in just one body, even if it was her own, was too horrifying to comprehend. Stumbling off the couch, she barely even cared as she collapsed to the floor. A burst of effort, and lying there in her place was a tan Pegasus with a dark green mane, which immediately gave a great sigh of relief. Only the horn’s frequencies had been affected; Chrysalis was still free in one sense.

Returning to her natural form, the Changeling slowly stood up on shaky legs. The room spun around her and her head felt strangely airy, and she suddenly realized that she had not really moved under her own power since the blast; after her mad tumble through the sky, it was no wonder her sense of balance was a mess.

Still, with uncharacteristic patience, Chrysalis managed to regain her hooves, and the room stopped wobbling after a few minutes. Once she had finally recovered her balance enough to do anything meaningful, she walked over to the door.

It was a solid black oak piece, with a magical lock. It took a few attempts to probe with telekinesis before Chrysalis remembered the Anti-Magic field, and she growled angrily at the mocking circular bit. She briefly considered bucking the door down, but the last thing she wanted was to be caught; it would make too much noise. Instead, she turned to inspect the rest of the office for any other means of escape.

She hadn’t noticed it before, as it was hidden from the couch’s corner by the bookshelves, but there was a smaller door set right next to the window’s wall. Chrysalis didn’t expect much, but flitted over for a closer look regardless, wincing at her aching wings’ protests.

This one, thankfully, had only a doorknob, and the Changeling turned it with deliberate slowness. This is a waste of time, part of her was screaming, but stealth was key if she was to have any hope of escape. Pressing herself against the door, she opened it just a crack. Thankfully the hinge seemed well-oiled, and-

Chrysalis jumped.

And then she hung her head in shame and self-loathing. Opening the door fully, the office’s dim glow spilled into a small bathroom, the loathsome mirror standing unrepentant above a washing basin. This room would be of no help.

Well, at least I know where this is if nature calls…

No! I don’t intend to be here anywhere near that long.

Growling as her general frustration rose, she stalked over to the window. “You damn well better be my escape, or so help me…” She didn’t really care if she was overheard or not at this point; the world seemed to be dead set against Chrysalis, and Chrysalis felt that the world could go screw itself for all she cared. Still, she was self-aware enough to stop and take a few deep breaths before examining the window.

Of course. Of bucking course.

Her legs trembled, her wings buzzing like crazy in spite of the pain, and a deep scowl etched itself across her face, her eyes almost able to vaporize somepony with their sheer hate. And in the face of another magical lock and window shutters made of cold, hard, unyielding steel, who could blame her?

Now, changelings could shape-shift into any living creature, and as an added bonus could change their colors to mimic their surroundings, but they couldn’t actually become any inanimate object. The same applied to natural forces such as clouds, fire, or really anything that wasn’t a living organism.

In that moment, Chrysalis became a hurricane.

The sun shone down on a Canterlot that was slowly but surely beginning to put itself back together. By tomorrow, hordes of construction ponies would start fixing up the physical components, but the core, the heart, the people – they were scarred, but safe. All wounds would heal with time.

Celestia’s office, a surprisingly small workspace bathed in hues of indigo and violet, looked out over all this. It was at the wrong angle to receive sunlight at this hour, but a subdued fire crackling quietly in the hearth made up for that. As the night prior and the news rolling in changed toward a hopeful tone, the mood in the room had begun to relax from a frigid grimness to a careful optimism. Luna and Celestia still spoke directly with one another rarely, but now it was a more comfortable silence than when Luna had first entered.

The two Alicorns stood at the window, watching the city get back on its hooves even as, in a storm of telekinesis and quills, forms and flashes of teleportation, they helped direct that very action. Occasionally one would bring a paper forward to discuss in hushed tones, but for the most part they hardly even needed to glance at the papers before a decision was reached. Cadence would have an unenviable load of paperwork herself when she awoke, as after Luna's return, she was often the tie-breaker when the sisters reached an impasse, but for now, they let her rest.

“Look at this one,” Luna said gruffly as a thin stack separated itself from the swarming flock of papers. “I wish to know whose suggestion this was so I may fire them personally.” Glancing at it, Celestia frowned in agreement.

“I was afraid this would happen. Now that the most immediate problems are solved, paranoia is only natural in the face of the, ah, Changelings.” The unfamiliar word still felt wrong on her tongue, but almost more alarming was how quickly it had become common in conversation.

“But this! This is going too far!” Luna growled, scrawling an overlarge veto across the page, which was joined a moment later by a calmer seconding from Celestia. “Fear is understandable, but the moment we start accepting things like this…” She teleported the suggestion for periodic and mandatory Changeling searches away just so she wouldn’t have to look at it any longer, “We may as well call ourselves a dictatorship.”

Celestia nodded sagely. “And this will only be the first of many such suggestions; it will be hard work preventing our little ponies from letting their fear get the better of them.”

Gradually, the incoming flow of forms slowed to a trickle, and Celestia finally let her exhaustion show, leaning heavily to one side before she realized it; Luna moved closer to help prop her up. “The worst has passed, sister, and you need rest.” Indeed; after the disaster yesterday and then a whole night and morning dealing with the fallout, the Princess of the Day was rather understandably exhausted. But at Luna’s words, she suddenly forced herself back upright, a strange expression crossing her normally serene features.

“I’ll be fine,” she muttered, more to herself than anypony else. “Our people need us, both of us, and I cannot fail them.”

Luna sighed and face-hoofed, knowing what this was about, but concern outweighed her frustration with this sudden immaturity. “You will be of no use to anypony at all if you push yourself too hard. If something happens, I promise I will wake you, but right now you need to put your pride aside and get some sleep.”

Celestia glared at her for a moment, but finally hung her head in defeat. “You’re right, my sister. Please wake me up for dinner.” Luna nodded, and with a white flash, Celestia was gone.

It was a simple matter to finish up the remainder of the work, and after sending out a notice that any further paperwork was to be sent to her own office, Luna put out the fireplace and made her leave as well.

The hallways were still packed, though the bustle had definitely wound down from earlier. It would still be busy at the Palace for the next few weeks, though, and Luna could already feel the migraines coming on. Merging with the flow of traffic, Luna cast a quick charm to block out most of the jumbled echoing noise.

Thankfully, the north-eastern wing of the palace was much quieter, as its focus wasn’t nearly as relevant to the current clean-up efforts as the main sections at the south end. The shock, in fact, of going from the din and clatter of the main hallways to the relative serenity up here, left the Princess numb for a few moments. It was also the location of Luna’s office, and provided her… guest… was not yet up and about, she was hopeful for some real peace and quiet.

She didn’t feel nearly as confident in her ability to handle things without either her sister or Cadence there to help as she’d led Celestia to believe, and upon reaching the black oak slab leading to her no-longer-private sanctuary, she let herself lean against the wall for a few moments. She, too, was tired, and having to stay up all day was not an inviting prospect. Plus, there was part of her questioning why she’d taken on that nuisance of a changeling on top of everything else. Was she just setting herself up for failure at this point?

It was really tempting to just ignore her little ponies for a while. Go take a nap even though her sibling and Niece were similarly incapacitated, or perhaps take a plunge into the royal wine cellar in search of a good bottle of moonshine. Perhaps she should just leap out of the nearest window, and take wing somewhere else, somewhere she didn’t have to put up with all this sudden stress.

But no, she decided, forcing herself to stand up straight. No, that would simply be selfish, wrong. She was disappointed that she’d even considered abandoning her ponies in their time of need. And as frustrating as it was bound to be, dealing with the Changeling had too much potential to be ignored. So with a fresh sense of resolve, she walked forward the last few steps and opened the door.

She really wasn’t sure whether or not she should be surprised.

A strangely mobile patch of wall stilled itself as the indigo Alicorn walked in, breath slowing to almost nothing as it watched carefully. If Luna was shocked at the piles of books that looked to have been blown around by a strong wind, or the splintered mess of one of the shelves that had once held them, she did not show it. Stepping past the overturned couch to inspect the crumpled mockeries of origami that had become of some recently-arrived paperwork, her understated grin was at stark odds with what one would expect.

“How mature.” Her tone carried no hint of sarcasm, even; just a conversational sort of placidity that would have fit just as well with an observation regarding the weather. A pencil picked itself up off the floor in a blue aura, spinning lazily in midair before suddenly flying over to clatter against a wall.

Except it didn’t clatter so much as tink. Nearly a full minute ticked out on the clock before the piece of wall admitted the jig was up, and Chrysalis faded into view with a resigned scowl. “How did you know?”

Luna’s gaze remained level, and the Changeling shifted uncomfortably beneath that unnaturally calm look. “Intuition.”

BAM! A sharp stomp of the hoof, features twisted with momentary rage, “DAMN INTUITION!” The Changeling roared. Luna didn’t react, and slowly her captive regained control, though still breathing heavily. If ever there was an image to define frustration, the Alicorn noted to herself, this was probably it.

“It does seem to have a history of inconvenience for you, does it not?” Her horn glowing, the books all began to pick themselves back up off the floor, ripped pages reuniting with their bindings as the splintered shards of the bookshelves built themselves back up. Luna didn’t even turn to watch the spectacle, eyes kept firmly on Chrysalis. And her damn expression wouldn’t change!

Chrysalis looked back with equal intentness, eyes mistrusting and a growl building in the back of her throat. “What are you trying to pull?”

At last, Luna did something, even if it was merely to raise her eyebrow in a vaguely patronizing manner. “Beg Pardon?”

“Why am I still alive?” Caution was thrown to the wind as the Changeling unconsciously advanced, the way she bitterly spat out the words bringing to mind some sort of reptile spitting out a stream of poison. “After what I tried to do, I’d think that you’d want my head on a pike or some such! You could have easily killed me yesterday evening, yet instead you just rambled on about costs! So I ask, What. Are. You. Trying. To. Pull?”

She ended up inches away from Luna’s face, almost foaming at the mouth from the sheer rage that seemed to pervade her every cell. Her patience was miserable at best, and it had long ago worn out.

Luna slowly reached up a hoof to wipe away some spittle, telekinetically pushing Chrysalis back a few feet. Behind her, the bookshelf completed repairing itself, and the books themselves began to march back to their former spots, but she still ignored this. Her smile looked somehow more dangerous, though, and her tone was far too honeyed for the message it conveyed. “You are currently my captive. You have no position to bargain, make demands, or compel me to answer any of your questions. You have no power, and after the night I’ve had, I could list many, many reasons why I am rather less than inclined to deal with you right now. You would do well to remember that, Changeling.”

Chrysalis stepped back, then stepped back again. And again. Her flank bumped into something, and she realized it was the wall. Luna’s expression was serene once more, but Chrysalis had seen, just for a moment, something else in that gaze.

“I-I-I take th-that as a ‘no’, then?” She hated the way her voice shook, the way her weaknesses were on display once more, but she couldn’t help it.

Luna’s expression fell briefly, before reforming into a smug grin. “I am simply awed by your powers of deduction.” Ignored by both of them, the couch was levitated back upright, and the papers on Luna’s desk uncrumpled, the creases smoothing out as if they had never been there in the first place.

Chrysalis’s own scowl reformed into a grin of its own, though hate still shone through in her expression. “Oh, yes. Lesser intellects would have a difficult time deciphering your subtlety, but I have a talent for finding that which is in no way painfully obvious.” She began to circle around Luna, keeping a careful distance but not backing down. She really wanted to flit forward and smash the Alicorn’s face in, but when presented a challenge of wits like this, backing down didn’t even occur to her.

Luna lazily followed the Changeling’s path with her gaze, but didn’t move otherwise. “To your credit, you match my skill for subtlety perfectly.”

“Touché,” Chrysalis admitted grudgingly. This wasn’t just an exchange of sarcastic insults, it was a fencing match. The opponents were sizing each other up, making a few feints to analyze the other’s response.

“If only we had met sooner, under different circumstances.” Luna heaved an exaggerated sigh. “It is a shame I did not attend the wedding.”

The barb struck; Chrysalis stopped suddenly with an intake of breath. Wincing, she forced herself to keep moving. Luna didn’t let go of her advantage. “Then again, with the end result, it seems my presence would not have been needed anyway, hmm?”

Chrysalis’s forced grin fell away again, her glare almost palpable. “I don’t care what you think of me.” Every word was forced through clenched teeth, though the effect was ruined somewhat by the clacking of her fangs.

Luna raised an eyebrow again, even as she began to look over some of the forms she’d received. “No? You’d care not, even if the mere sight of you sent me into an unstoppable rage? One that can only be satisfied by th-“

“You’re amazing, really.” Chrysalis interrupted. She envied how effortlessly calm Luna was. “Everything you say is such an enigma, and you just don’t wait around for me. However will I possibly hope to keep up with your wit?”

Luna simply gave a patronizing little sigh, scribbling something on one of the papers before teleporting it away. Almost instantly, another stack flashed in to take its place. “Indeed, you seem to have really ‘bitten off more than you can chew,’ as I believe the saying goes.” She was only half-joking.

“Why yes, I…”

Chrysalis’s face fell, eyes closing. The anger, the sardonic defiance, it all fell away. She was numb. Drained. Luna had won this round, but it hardly mattered. “…I did.”

Luna sent off another form, hiding her frown from the Changeling. “I see.” The mood had changed; all was still. The room was holding its breath.

Chrysalis’s hooves trembled. Her jaw clenched, wings buzzing, and she slowly looked up to face Luna, eyes shining bright through her shadowed face. The sarcastic tone was gone. The rage was gone. Her tone was crystal clear, deceptively calm. “But I won’t let that stop me. You may be a difficult challenge, but not impossible. I’ll find a better strategy, and I will try again, and I will win.”

Finishing off the last stack of papers, Luna sent them off, a genuine smile finally gracing her features. “Excellent; I look forward to seeing what you have in store.” They had taken the measure of the other, and Chrysalis had proved to be a worthwhile investment after all. Yes, maybe the next few weeks wouldn’t be as bad as she’d thought.

Another paper flashed into existence above her desk; it was a summons from Prince Blueblood. Dealing with him wouldn’t be fun, but she had the feeling she’d have a diplomatic disaster on her hooves if she didn’t go. Still, she certainly couldn’t resist a final parting shot on the way out. Holding Chrysalis back with Telekinesis, she opened the door to the hallway. “Now I must depart; my presence is needed elsewhere. Please do try to refrain from making any more messes,” she held up another newly-arrived document and waved it back and forth, “it takes too much time to clean up after foals.”

The door shut, once again locking the Changeling in the room. Chrysalis stared at the door unmoving, thoughts rushing round and round in her head. And then, after a few moments, she proceeded to collapse. Winning…

“But can I, even?”

Author's Note:

Author's Notes

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