“Fillydelphia… no. Trottingham… abysmal. Canterlot… been there, done that. The couple’s suites were not to my liking.” Chrysalis listened as her drone chittered off a long list of cities. Another nymph filed the queen’s horn with her teeth, while a third massaged her neck. “I don’t suppose you have any locations in mind?” She tried to smile at Spike, though it came off as more of a predatory grin.
“Huh? What?” Spike swiveled his head to face her. He had been lost in thought—partly about Chrysalis, but mostly about how many gems Twilight had destroyed. “Locations for what?”
The queen rolled her eyes. “Our honeymoon, of course. It is traditional in pony society to honeymoon, and since I am making the extra effort to abide by your quaint practices, I want one. Now, perhaps Mareami?” Spike heard a sound like a flute as Chrysalis’s snort forced air through tiny holes in her snout. “Why are all their cities named after stupid horse puns? Would it kill them to add a little racial diversity?”
She waved a foreleg at a drone, almost knocking away the nymph giving her a hooficure. “Daca, remind me to rename the first city I conquer Cicadago. Or maybe San Antonio.”
To tell the truth, Spike didn’t love Chrysalis. He thought. Sure, she had a way of livening up any conversation, but the whole child-abduction thing and the wife-stealing and the… whatever else changelings did kinda put a damper on the relationship.
But he’d said he’d marry her, and he was nothing if not a dragon of his word. He was a bit drunk on love slime at the time, and surrounded by an army of drones, but wedding vows were wedding vows, after all, and she did give him a pretty great gift for Twilight.
If he could just keep this up, he might even be able to get Celestia a present, too—a peace treaty with the swarm.
Spike rubbed the back of his neck nervously, almost squishing a few drones. “Oh, whoops. Sorry, guys, didn’t notice you back there.” He refocused on the queen. “Listen, have you considered… not conquering Equestria?”
Chrysalis dismissed the other drones around her. “What, and merely mesmerize the civic leaders into obeying my every whim? Mind control magic on that scale would be a challenge, but it would mean I wouldn’t need to send any of my children into battle.”
“Um, no. I was thinking more along the lines of… leaving them alone.”
She scratched her chin with her jagged hoof. “Hmm. Yes, we bide our time, train in secret, then once your bodily fluids have enriched my drones, my—I mean, our—army will be unstoppable, and all Equestria will know the power of the changelings!” Her foreleg came crashing down onto the cavern floor, twisting as if she were crushing a small animal.
Okay, so maybe peace treaties were a bit premature. “Chrysalis, er, Chryssy, do you really need to invade at all? You said it yourself, ponies are full of love, and pretty forgiving, too. Maybe we can try not fighting each other?”
Her eyeslits narrowed, before her expression suddenly softened. As if she was explaining a basic concept to a foal, she responded. “Spike, we tried that once. Walked straight in, no disguises, into one of those pony towns.” She gazed at something a thousand yards away, eyes unfocused. “Do you know what happened to Hive 453?”
Spike shook his head.
“No, of course not. Not like it matters to your kind.” She took a deep breath, chitin snapping a little as her belly expanded. “One of the more foolish hives, too stupid and too starving to pull off successful raids.”
Chrysalis took a few steps forward, still looking far past Spike. “They needed to try something else. The idiots revealed their hive, dropped their disguises. They did everything they could to make amends—offered their magic, their strength, their mastery of massage techniques.” Another snort. “They would have let the foals suckle at their own teats. And what did the ponies do?”
Spike twiddled his claws. “Uh, welcomed them with open forelegs?”
Her jaw clenched. “The ponies said we were plotting something, said it was not in our nature to be anything but villains. For a few days, they tolerated the nymphs, but they did not feed us. Nopony would consent to having their love ripped from them.”
A chitinous hoof scratched out vague patterns in the dusty floor. “One drone went mad from hunger. He fed on a single couple, just a little, just to fill up the gnawing hole where a changeling’s heart should be. What did the ponies do next, Spike?”
She answered for him. “Torched them, all of them. Forced them back into their tunnels, threw down fire and scorching sorceries, and sealed the exits with boulders.” The drones around her shuddered. “You know love burns, Spike? I hear we make very good kindling.”
The dragon started to reach out a wing to her.
“Even from my own hive, I could hear their voices. My drones could barely burrow there in time to save what was left. We still haven’t gathered enough love to heal all their wounds.”
Spike’s claws clenched into a fist. “Princess Celestia would never allow that! Villages out here in the Badlands aren’t technically under Equestrian law, but I’m sure if anypony tried that again she’d—”
“What? Let us feed on her citizens? She may be able to protect us from angry mobs, but we are ravenous wolves surrounded by raw meat.” Magic boiled in her belly, pops and hisses of steam escaping from fissures. “You expect us to restrain ourselves? For what, so we can starve a little longer?” She sat down on her haunches, crossing her forelegs and curled her lips into a grimace. “No, Spike. We will not make peace. It is not in our nature.”
The dragon drew closer. “Some ponies are like that, but not Twilight! Not Celestia! We don’t do the whole burning nymphs alive thing!”
“No, that’s right. You would turn me to stone, banish me to the moon for a millennium, or confine me to whatever the trendy method of arcane imprisonment is? Do you know how long my children would last without me?”
Spike folded his wings over her. “Chryssy, we forgave Discord, and he’s been causing trouble for much longer than you have!”
The queen coughed as a bit of black oil dribbled from cracks near her eyes. Her wings folded around her, their thin membranes a poor substitute for soft feathers. “Not all monsters are lucky enough to have a stupid buttery pegasus befriend them.”
Spike exhaled a gusty sigh. “No, but sometimes a stupid scaly dragon will do.” He laid his head on the floor, curling his neck around her and letting the dragonfire in his throat warm the cold-blooded queen. She hesitated, then leaned against him, her drones following suit and nesting along his spines.
Half-muffled by his leathery wings, he heard a few chirps, then the sickly voice of Chrysalis. “I’m still going to conquer the world. It’s my only hobby.”
“We’ll talk about it later, Chryssy.”
“Couples are supposed to try out each other’s hobbies, yes? So you should…”
“Don’t push it.”
Maybe Spike will teach her how is be good thing to be good. Maybe she has a redemption. But I want to see what Rarity will does about it.
Are you perhaps talking about the book, Fahrenheit 451?
In one of my Language Arts classes in high school, I want to say in 11th grade, we had to read the book as a whole class. I enjoyed it enough.
7273234 Nope. Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, though now that I think of it, a Fahrenheit 451 reference would make way more sense. Because, you know, fire and stuff.
San ANTonio, you ought to feel ashamed good sir.
7273245 I was looking down a Wikipedia list of cities, then I saw "San Antonio," and realized I didn't even need to add a bug pun to that one. I have no shame.
7273240 hmm you learn something new every day. The only reason In even remember it so well is that one of the ceiling tiles in the room was an art piece done by one of the students from several years back. It was cool the student used old Fahrenheit 451 book pages and burned the edges and pasted them to a cardboard backing. It looked awesome.
1,234 words?It's a joke, right?
Also, Spike's "bodily fluids"? Well then...
Keep going! ;)
7273304 Oh, believe me, there'll be a whole lot of discussion about Spike's fluids coming up.
Why's roasted changling on the menu? Cup cakes?
Hobbies!
Maybe Spike could give Chrysy a Dragon Spa. Easy to keep filled.
7273317 Unfortunately, Celestia's hobby is bug collecting, so...
Well, this marriage is beginning to look up. Spike gave Chryssy a hug (or the closest thing he could give) of his own free will.
7273349
7273367 i imagine some changelings would gladly pose as her collection for a few hours a day for a healthy dose of love.
Poor hive 453,at least they rescued some of them.
Hah, Spike thinks he doesn't love her, but it's a matter of time. And I love that conquering is her hobby.
Well that went to a surprisingly dark place
I liked it. It showed that, changelings, at least tried to be nice.
The feels and talks were good here. Keep it up!
7273471 Thanks! In my version of the changelings, Chrysalis is mean all the time because all her love is going to feeding her children--she's not so much evil by choice as she is naturally forced into evil. By now, she's grown into her role as a villain and couldn't do much else.
Ouch, poor Changelings and Chrysalis.
7273245
nice Fahrenheit 451 reference
7273488 Good. Bad Chrysalis with a good reason is better than, Evil Chrysalis with a bad reason!
And now she has, Spike, to make her - in time - a Good Chrysalis! Good luck, Spike. You have my up vote!
*Alondro looks at the huge array of cherngelerng heads on his wall* I happened.
7273471 Yeah, and did so by demonizing ponies... that was something HUMANS would do.
Not me, of course. I'd want to kill each one personally. It's MUCH more satisfying! I WANT TO SEE THE GREEN LIGHT LEAVE THEIR EYES!!!
"How I met your mother"
The other title is far more intellectual anyway.
So does that mean that if Spike tried to take over the world, Chrysalis would be shelving books at the library?
Okay, key world build point: Changelings are active feeders not passive. Love feeding is an active draining process. a la fiendship is magic. This made the peaceful approach doomed from the start.
Spike, your work is so cut out for you that it looks like confetti.
7273240
I honestly don't see any relation between that story(tcol49) and this. Is it just a pun name? I'm confused.
7274265 Yeah, the stories are totally unrelated and it's just a stupid pun. A few people in the comments thought I was referencing Fahrenheit 451, which would have made sense and actually been witty. However, I'm not witty at all. If you haven't noticed, most of the comedy in this story has been either jokes about Twilight's butt or gags about Chryssy's nipples--not exactly highbrow comedic genius.
I thought the first puns Chrysalis would make would be of changelings. Colingbus (Columbus),
Los Changeles (Los Angeles),Chitinpolis (Indianapolis)…7274470 Los Changeles is actually a super good pun...
7274473 It already exists as Los/Las Pegasus unfortunately, which is why I crossed it out.
7274475
But she means to conquer it, why not conquer and repun name :D
7274475
I always though Las Pegasus was a riff on Las Vegas, then again, City of Angels / City of Pegasi.
7274597 According to the wiki page linked, it’s indeed based off Las Vegas as you said (according to Larson), but the official maps have Applewood (Hollywood) next to it. I take it as being a mixture of both Las Vegas and Los Angeles, since they’re roughly around the same region (west-ish).
Also, TIL what Los Angeles means.
7274534 Re-pun all the puns.
Canterlot → Change-a-lot
Neighagra Falls → Minotara Falls
Hoofington → Changelington
Baltimare → Batmare (sorry, I couldn’t resist)
7274273
Hey, some of my favourite jokes involve butts and nipples! Besides, highbrow is overrated.
Think about it: Take the best of a dragon and mix it with the best of a Changeling Queen.
'Unstoppable' wouldn't be an exaggeration.
Hoy could anypony reject that?!
So there are at least 453 Hives...
By the way, Chrysalis hive has which number?
Well buck me. I don't know if im going to laugh or cry from chapter to chapter. and i love it. Keep up the good work.
Good marriages are all about compromising. Maybe he could start small, conquer someone's front lawn a little to see how he likes it.
hmm didn't one of the desert changelings have a "Hive 453 Reunion" Shirt
7276577 Very practical, but he should start with the back yard. Annex his neighbor's pool and barbecue.
7298213
Good point, good point. You should always try to take the important strategic resources first.
7276577
For a 500ft dragon, wouldn't that be him just stepping on their yard?
I mean those feet have got to be massive...
Changeling+Dragon = breathe fire on something else to change it?
…try to take over the world! YES!
They're Chryssy and the Spike♪
I believe this chapter adds good "fluff" to your world, it's one of the things most miss. Why is she always trying to to take over equestria? Most just put her down to be evil, but what if their are perfectly good reasons?
Anyway I like the story so far
You keep referencing Chryssy's ... unattractiveness?
And it made me think of this-
This reminds me of the following clip
7273844
If you can read me... You would make for a good Dalek.
[screams of "Exterminate!" intensify]
Chryssy: "Hi! I'm Chryssy. I like bugs, dragons and... KINGDOM DOMINATION!"😇