12: Spike Makes a Crude Gesture
The queen’s throat heaved. Rivulets of black oil seeped from her unfocused eyes, dribbling disgracefully down and pooling in her crevices. It felt like she’d been crying for days… nine months and thirteen days, to be exact.
“Really did it this time, Chryssy. Found a dragon with a heart that might just be big enough to… what? Make up for the one I lost?”
Around her, Cadance’s armies of organizers surged and swelled like waves, mopping up last night’s lewdness, erecting pavilions, and replanting the rose bushes, deflowered in the debauchery.
“Like he would be any better than the last prince!”
Her disguise had flickered and faded away long ago. In this bustle, there was no need. Everypony was too busy trying to stop the yak guests from obliterating the castle to care about a lonesome changeling.
“I’ve tried forbidden magic! I’ve tried wifenapping! And Mr. Right… or, at least, Mr. Good-enough flaps right up to my door, and what does he do?”
Her body shuddered with sobs. Then shuddered some more as Spike’s feet made minor earthquakes around her.
She felt his landing before her tear-blurred eyes could see him, and blindly she tried to slip away into the crowd. Before she could go far, a leathery wing that smelled vaguely of mayonnaise fell like a curtain in front of her.
“Queen Chr… I mean, Chryssy, wait!” Spike’s voice drowned out the distant sounds of rehearsing musicians. “You know I didn’t mean it that way…!”
The queen muttered something miserable, voice muffled by her hooves as they worked to clear the grime from her eyes.
“‘Scuse me?”
She slumped back onto her haunches. “Well, what did you mean, you… you… dumb lindworm!”
“I…” A deep breath, a sigh. The wedding’s photo booth collapsed from the gust. “I meant we’ve failed you, Chrysalis. We haven’t reached out to you as much as we should have. We should have helped you!”
“Helped me how? Try to wean me off lovestealing? Gussy me up in pretty rainbow colors and parade me all around as your reformed changeling?”
Her voice rose and cracked, tidal shocks of emotions surging through her throat. “Oh, it worked fine for Thorax, didn’t it, till…” Her legs flailed as she choked out sentences. “We can’t live on leftover love forever! He couldn’t!”
Chrysalis stood. “We’re predators, Spike. You’d understand that, if you ate meat like a real dragon. We take, and we drain, and we exhaust, and if we try to 'share the love' or whatever insipid slogan your reformation squad has adopted, we fail. Even we can’t hide who we are.” Her eyelids closed, dark veins visible in the morning light. “Sooner or later, we always fall.”
“You do not know what it is like to rule them. I hear my nymphs scream for food, until they grow up stunted and learn they will never get enough. We have learned to be hungry.” Spike tried to slip a word in, but a sudden snort and a stomp from Chrysalis silenced him. “And now you come along, you, the dragon who’s thwarted my plans and starved my hive a hundred times with your heroic ways and your good deeds and your unconscionably irritating habit of stopping me from abducting orphans!”
Spike raised a claw. “Well, okay, that last one is…”
“Do you know how much love you can squeeze from an orphan? Disguise yourself as their dead mother and you’ll have enough to feed a hive!” Chrysalis rose onto her hind legs and aimed a kick at Spike’s haunches. “And you have to drop in with your fire breath and set them all free!”
Her wings whirred at a dragonfly’s pitch. “And now, and now that I’m actually trying to make this love thing work, what do you do? You ruin it all!” Slowly, slowly, she drifted down to earth. “Is it too much to ask for someone to love me for me?”
“Well, not being yourself is kinda your special magical power,” Spike interjected.
“You know, when I was a filly, my father told me all stallions wanted was a hole to stick it in! Well, look at these!” Her perforated limbs flung open wide, sunlight streaming through the grimy gaps. “Take your pick!”
Spike’s jaw worked wordlessly.
“Granted, I never learned what the stallion would do with the holes. Mother started blushing and made him stop before that part.”
The dragon sucked in a moment’s breath. “Wait, you mean you’ve never…” An uneasy cough rattled the ground. “You know, Twilight gave me the, uh, 'birds and the breezies' talk—erm, handed me a book about it, I mean—when I was twelve.” Spike still had fond memories of that book. That lavishly illustrated book. “I don’t suppose you’ve… Have you… Y’know?”
Two dragon fingers curled into an O, and slowly, Spike’s claw thrust back and forth into it as his blush grew ever more explosive.
The queen gazed on with uncomprehending eyes. “I have no idea what you are talking about. My mother ensured I received only the best tutors in my fillyhood, but breezies were considered an inferior race back then, and rarely studied.”
“That’s not the point… I mean, there are things that a momma and a papa pony… or, I guess, a momma and a momma, don’t want to be exclusionary, or a papa and a papa… look, they take their…” The claw-thrusting grew in speed and magnitude. “And they really get it in there… And they… Hold on.” The thrusting came to a sudden climax and stopped. “When you were a filly? Don’t you mean nymph?”
Caked in grunge and oily tears, Chrysalis’s eyes rolled. “No, Spike. I mean filly. Little baby ponies, truly abominable things. I shudder to recall I ever was one.” In a huff, she slumped against his flank, forcing Spike to contort his neck to face her.
“Chrysalis, we always thought you hatched out of an egg, or maybe spawned in the dark pits of Tartarus or something. What are you talking about?”
A hoof wiped grease from her noise. “I can only remember bits and pieces—these holes run straight through my brain, you know—but I used to be a pony.” The breeze whistled through her perforated side, a second harmony to Cadance’s distant orchestra. “Some thousands of years ago, they loved me.”
Green fire swallowed her, and for a moment, she was young. Vibrant fur, iridescent in every color, spread where once cracked chitin formed; wings stretched out in feathered glory, prismatic pinions catching the sun and scattering rainbows across her face.
A face that rotted away as Spike watched. Soon, her disguise eroded to nothing.
“There were statues of me, you know, commissioned by my mother. Maybe if I’d kept one I could remember what I looked like.” She breathed out, the last of her camouflage faded.
“But how did you… change?”
Chrysalis didn’t seem to notice. “The tutors said I was a prodigy at alchemy. I still know the recipe—a tuft of cloud, a bright rainbow’s glow…”
Cogs spun in Spike’s mind. The only recipes he could remember were for gem-related baked goods.
Chrysalis’s voice quavered like an angry child’s. “I gave everything for him, became anything, broke my body and warped my soul to every whim of his tiny, little, shriveled heart! Like I was a doll!” She tried to swallow the rising emotion in her throat. “And now, you come to me, want to make me one of your projects! A trophy, a toy for your collection?
She lifted her eyes to his, green gazing into green. “I’ve been a toy before. Toys break, they go out with the trash, they’re forgotten!”
“Chryssy, what are you talking about? What…”
She launched a knee with enough force to make the dragon wince. “I was born from poison!” Her hoof cracked a scale. “I was tortured by love!” Spittle flew from her jagged lips as she drove blow after blow after blow into Spike’s side. “I… I can’t even remember my mother’s name! But I still see his face, that sickening, worthless, dead face, that face I loved, that face I lost…”
Her strikes fell slower and slower, the tempo of her rage flagging.
“You know nothing about me. You know… nothing.” She slid down, wings dead in the air, hooves splintered and worn.
“No, I don’t.” Spike curled a wing around her, dappled light shining through the thinnest pieces of skin. “But I’m a good learner, if you’ll willing to take on a new student.” A deep breath warmed the ersatz tent.
Whisper-quiet came the reply. “I would be a thorn in your side for the rest of your life.”
“Good thing these scales are tough.” He pondered. “Actually, you did kinda leave a bruise back there, but as long as you’re a metaphorical thorn it’ll be okay.”
She nestled deeper into his immense bulk, scales scratching against chitin. “You’d be an idiot if you thought my story could have a happy ending.”
“But maybe you can have a new beginning.”
Chrysalis’s nose scrunched in disgust. “Stars, that’s cheesy. And I know cheese.”
“Well, that’s the high quality clichés you can expect with me as your husband.”
Poisoned princess and friendly dragon together, they stayed silent for a moment, until the queen spoke again.
“So you know how sometimes big events have children’s choirs? There’s an orphanage down the mountain from here and I’m thinking…”
“No.”
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8020037 Well wait no longer
I can't believe I never thought of love poison as a possible origin for the changelings.
How touching... Love poison bug.
8075185 Yeah, it really seems obvious, doesn't it?
So... are we saying Thorax died?
I am so conflicted right now. I like your writing, and this story has been good, but...
Has anyone else ever read a story and enjoyed it, only to have the author's headcanons struggle against your own, leaving you unable to either thumbs up or thumbs down? Or is that just me?
I guess what I'm saying is that I want to like the story, but there are elements, like Thorax's death (from what exactly? Spike was his friend), to Rarity and them being kept sorta-alive, that just rub me the wrong way.
I don't know what you should take from this, if anything. This isn't exactly constructive criticism. I'm not even sure it really is criticism. It's more just me waxing poetic.
8075238 Actually, I didn't say Thorax died, just that changelings can't live on shared love forever. My idea was that, eventually, the pressure to consume grew too great and he reverted to what he was before his reformation--still a good changeling, but one that needs to feed. After some public incident involving that, he was probably marginalized from pony society.
I agree that it isn't a perfect solution, but I started this story before Thorax's episode even aired, so I had to do some mental gymnastics to figure out how to integrate this with canon.
also i wrote this on zero sleep so its quality may be questionable
What started as a pretty silly tale- wow this latest chapter is some heavy shit.
I'm actually hooked and need to know more now- also TOTALLY share that headcanon about Chrysalis being the princess from the love-poison spell!
8075261
What I don't get is why they can't just raise pets, or barring that, run orphanages. Changelings might not be able to survive on 'leftovers', but that doesn't mean they're stuck choosing between murdering other sapient beings just to get enough to eat, or a long, slow starvation. Other solutions... oh, what about prisons? Need to put away a dangerous criminal but don't have the bits to do it? Feed a Changeling instead. I know we all like to pretend that Equestria is a shiny-sparkly utopia, but yeah, some people are just born a special kinda crazy and all hugging them will do is give them a clean shot at your back. Heck, those Diamond Dogs back in the first season of the show enslaved Rarity, yeah, it was played for laughs, but that's a pretty big freakin' deal.
So orphanages, prisons, homeless shelters, etc, etc. Anywhere for the outcast, the needy, the disenfranchised, or those that simply cannot exist in society proper. Heck, they would probably make for some pretty good mental health hospitals come to think of it. But all those things require trust, well, trust and careful population controls, but that's just good sense with such a... novel food source. In any case Changelings are predators and parasites, not farmers, their prey of choice is always going to outnumber them tremendously (and if they don't you can promptly expect massive food shortages). Therefor, it's only smart that they cultivate good relations with the beings they rely upon for food. Just, you know, so long as they learn to stop shanghaiing orphans and other ponies to pad out their larder.
Unfortunately a big problem I foresee is the need for a 'transitional period', I.E. they build up enough trust with the Ponies proper that they're willing to trust the Changelings with a new potential food-source. But for that to happen they won't be able to harvest traditionally, as kidnapping Ponies is why they won't trust them in the first place. It's a bit of a dilemma... they need food to hold out long enough to get the Ponies to trust them enough to give them food, but trying to obtain more food within that time-frame could very well break that same trust. It's more than a bit of a problem.
Oh, and don't think I didn't notice the reference to the 'Love Poison' incident in there.
8075361 When will we see state sponsored euthanasia via Changeling in the real world? Fuck the chair or lethal injections! Feed people to Changelings!
8075261
So, was this before or after he turned into a day-glo elk-bug?
8075361 Thanks for your thoughts. In my understanding, changeling love drain is deeply unpleasant and deleterious to a pony's health; while it may be technically possible for a pony society to sustain them, it would be painful, and no one's going to volunteer for the excruciating process.
In this story, feeding is inherently horrible. It's not lethal, and victims can make a full recovery, but it's as psychologically traumatizing as you'd expect reaching into your brain and ripping away your most precious emotions to be.
As for letting changelings run prisons, I'm pretty sure mandatory inmate lovesucking would qualify as cruel and unusual punishment.
And your plan to let changelings run orphanages... I'm sure Chrysalis would 100% agree!
8075261 You should really feel fine to work whatever canon into the story you want. Heck, a story that was written before Thorax should have the right to ignore everything he changed.
8075439 After. Thorax turned day-glo and lived for a while on the ambient love emissions around him, but that's not the kind of love changelings need. Eventually, he reverted to the traditional black bug type.
It's not just a question of quantity. Carnivores need to eat meat, even if there's plenty of bread. Humans need certain vitamins and amino acids we can't synthesize on our own, even we have enough calories to survive. Similarly, changelings need the kind of love they can only get by ripping it out. They can subsist on ambient love and freely-given friendship for a little while, but it would be like a human trying to live on nothing but sugar water.
Sorry, I realize most of that is irrelevant to your question; I just wrote it out so I wouldn't forget it.
8075441
*winces* That bad huh? Well... shit, can't really think of a way around that. I figured it wouldn't be that bad after seeing Shining Armor bounce back literally hours after being savaged by Chrysalis for... well, however long she was able to get away with it. It was pretty obvious that she was not gentle, in the least.
And now I'm wondering if it even is worth it to bother helping them anyway. *sigh* I'm usually not one to press the genocide button, but unless Chrysalis can figure out a better way for her children to feed it sounds like Changelings are an evolutionary dead-end. As the only method by which they might obtain a significant amounts of foodstuffs would essentially amount to wholesale chattel slavery of at least one other sapient species.
Gah, just... gah. Whatever happened to Chryssie was fucked up in all the worst ways. It's almost like someone tried to dick the whole species over.
8075445 I try to stay canonical wherever I can--nothing against people who write AUs, of course, just a personal choice.
I this case, I thought of a decent way to solve the Thorax problem, which I expand more on in another comment. I honestly like Thorax as a character, and I enjoyed that episode, so I do what I can to keep things canon.
My idea of changeling names being acronyms, of course, was decanonized, but I can't change that, so I left it in.
Hope you liked the chapter; sorry it took so long!
8075455 It's certainly something you can "brush off" if you're a veteran soldier who's presumably accustomed to dealing with trauma, but it's too bad to standardize it. Shiny definitely had some level of PTSD after that, even if he made it through okay (PTSD isn't exactly the right word)
Admittedly, I have established that changelings can absirb a tiny bit of love from beasts (they had a sort of farm in an earlier chapter), but they'd always need at least a little pony love to stay alive.
If there is a solution, it would probably involve the Crystal Heart's emotion powers. There might even be a better way; I'm not going to say ponies and changelings couldn't work something out, but there is something deeply broken with changeling brains and hearts. Under the influence of love poison, not all their decisions are rational.
(I may end up backpedaling a little on some of these comments; nothing's been finalized yet)
I have this same head canon though, I think my implementation of it was darker and slightly less depressing
If love poison infuses changelings to make them what they are, then even attempting to try a cure would be like injecting cobra venom, and for pretty much the same reason?
8075261 I think you should add a Thorax flashback chapter, he is Spikes friend, is he back with chrysalis? Did Spike try and help him?
Did he try and eat the christal heart or flurry heart?( nom nom,hmm love ) and that got him kicked out.
( If he started to date flurry heart and things didnt go well and he succumb to his needs, that could be an idea. Spike would have to save Flurry heart and damage his friendship with Thorax.)
I like the love poison idea.
D: It was Sombra, wasn't he?
I kinda prefer a bit less depressing headcanons about changelings, but at least it's still not hopeless. Maybe they should focus on trying to reverse the effects of the love poison? Or using the crystal heart.
Yaaaaay, it's back! And it's still as good as I remember!
Heh, I knew that spell Chrysalis mentioned was the love poison. But she's terribly heartbroken. I wonder how long will it take for her to open up to Spike, especially after learning about what she thought was an utter betrayal.
Looking forward to more!
Not only is he making a crude gesture, with his size, said gesture is probably about as big as a small house.
Love poisoning!
Good to see this back, though I can't help but feel that it might have been better to just spin off the timeline rather than try to justify the S6 finale. Still, I do like this concept for Chrysalis's origin. Looking forward to seeing where you go from here.
8075179 I don't know if you can tell, but I am excited.
Very excited.
Believe me.
Chrysalis' dad must have been a riot at gatherings.
one of the most interesting non-canon stories of Chrysalis' origin is in a story called "the celestia code", the chapter "metamorphosis". it's too complicated to explain here, but...let's just say it started with her studying transformation magic...
Fun fun, now time to suck up the pieces and work towards solutions.
Keep going! ;)
Discord pops up, "You could always ask me to undo the spell I put on you and turn back into Flutterponies."
Chrysalis growls, "Shut up. That origin isn't even in this story. Even though it's absolutely brilliant and the guy who thought of it should be awarded a Pulitzer ASAP."
Poot Thorax, and do go on my friend, really loving this story.
8079516 Thanks! The next chapter won't take as long as this one did! I'll probably do a chapter of Like a Sledgehammer first, then one of Into the Black, then one of this... basically just cycle between those three until they're finished.
Wow! Poison Love Princess. That's great cannon material right there.
Good to have you and this story back.
This story has so many creative, interesting, funny and sexy moments that I find myself going back for re-re-reads!
Keep the awesomeness going!
8080488 Yes... yes, re-reads, and re-re-reads, and re-re-re-reads... soon you will do nothing but peruse these chapters over and over. At night you will dream of changelings. In the day, thoughts of dragons and Twilight's gem-encrusted booty will fill your mind. So great will your devotion to my story be that you will forget to eat or drink, simply hunching in front of your computer, gazing at the words written thereon. And then, when you are but a husk of who you once were, tired eyes shriveled from overuse, lips parched with thirst even as they noiselessly mouth quotes from my story... then, then will my plan be complete.
8080595
(Backs away slowly, but will read from afar)
8076502 Sounds similar to something by David Silver. Any unicorn can become a changeling, if they overuse certain types of magic...
8075361
They do capture a nest of LovingPuppies (or whatever they're called) in one of the comics…and, because Chrysalis and 'lings are Evil-no-Really-Guys-They're-Evil, kill them off, despite being a sufficient resource to sustain them.
8080595
Gotta admit, I'm curious as to what goal your plan achieves.
Also, your profile pic goes perfectly with that comment.
8005295 Dude, don't you remember? He got returned to his family.
Like this?
PonyDragon's jaw worked wordlessly.
Took some time tu publish, but I love this chapter!
Spike is how many hundreds or even thousands of years old at this point (haven't re-read yet, planning to later) and talking about sex is still embarrassing to him?
8085763 Hey, he's a shy lad!
8085763
8086017
Spike. The thousands of years old virgin!
I can say this is a vary good story it started out vary fun and funny to read and it has turned it to a vary good story as it developed.
This became very dramatic, very suddenly.
I like it.
Also: love poison origin. Wow. Just, yes. (I can't believe a lot more people hadn't made the connection before...)
I just caught up. This is funny stuff.
8440159
Hopefully I will write more of it once the never-ending cavalcade of uni work... ends!
8446069
. So long as you're prioritizing your life, take all the time you need.
That would be nice
Yeah only mommy and a daddy can make a child. Sorry same gender couples Magic bull shut won’t fly with me.
And what did thorax die I’m confused
8086017
I guees embet got snatched up before he came of age lol