All I really need's a smile, smile, smile!

by Lightening_Zing

Party of the two (rev. I)

Pinkie entered Chrysalis’ "royal chamber". It was an old prison cell, with a sturdy wooden bed on one side, so decayed that it was a miracle that it didn't just crumble under the weight of Chrysalis. On the other side was a simple hole in floor for "needs". The wall opposite the entry was full of scribbles and notes. Because of age it was hard to read, except for two short notes. They said "I don't want to leave, LEAVE ME ALONE! I am DANGERous!!!" the other said "I hate the victorious SUN. evenifitbringsmePAINTandCOlors!" The scribbles gave the room a weird atmosphere.

"I suppose he was mad, unstable." said Chrysalis, noticing Pinkie looking at the wall. "And it had to be centuries ago."

"Do you know who he was? Or if he really was a he?" asked Pinkie in a tired voice. She was mentally exhausted.

"Look at the ceiling."

It was a work of art. The ceiling was made from same stone bricks and cobblestone like rest of dungeons, but the resident of this cell had at some point decided to flatten said celling, making it an even plane, and then to use it as canvas. These weren't scribbles, these were detailed sketches in small frames creating some kind of border, and in middle were six big paintings, colors dulled with age, but the still visible. The outer border showed the history of Equestria beginning at The Exodus Of The Three Tribes, through the funding of Canterlot and other cities, the Dragon Wars, great achievements of ponykind, the Chaos War, Luna and Celestia raise to power... and so on... In the last frame of the outer border was a painting showing a crying, lone, Luna. The middle frames illustrated Luna, transformed into Nightmare Moon, fighting with Celestia, the Banishment of Nightmare Moon, Celestia, crying over her bitter victory. The last frames showed a stallion from the lunar guards crying to the moon, stripped of his duty, said guard thrusting his spear at Celestia during court and the last image showed the creation of this art, by the imprisoned guard.

"He..." Pinkie wasn't sure what to say.

"Notice that the first pictures are worse than his last. He wasn't skilled at the beginning, I’ve noticed that some of the scribbles on the walls are exercises, or concepts of what he put on this celling, but he wanted to leave something behind to be remembered. It's a shame that the only ones who’ve seen it are changelings, not the quite viewers he had in mind..." Chrysalis paused "Well, I better start writing the history of the Changelings on this wall, and about their foolish queen who led them to their annihilation."

"Okay, but let me write the happy ending and epilogue."

Chrysalis smiled sadly. "I hope you will."

"Chrys, you need to lighten up."

"How? All of it, all these wounded, dead, hunted... It's all my fault. And I see it in their eyes, I see in their wounds, I hear it in their calls for help..."

Pinkie sighed. Chrysalis had, well... failed. Bad. But descending into grief and shame wouldn’t help anyling. Her sister needed a hard buck into reality. Chit-chatting about how she was feeling, and trying to improve her mood wouldn’t work. So... time for a different approach!

"You know what? You messed up! And you are messing it up even more! Your subjects are waiting for your lead, and you are abandoning them! They feel it, you know?! Get out from this bed and look at them! Look good and hard! They are waiting! They are falling into stagnation because of you!" Pinkie raged.

Chrysalis turned her back to the pink Queen.
"I failed... I promised them, and I failed. Lying here, I won't hurt them more"

"Chrysalis, do you remember mother? What she said about leadership? The Queen always shall be with their kind, no matter what way fate will lead them. Guide her people, even when the sky falls to the ground, even through everlasting night, to her last breath, even as she's dying. It's our responsibility..."

"...many of our subjects terminated their loyalty to me." Chrysalis hid her face with her hooves. "They told me I'm no real Queen... I lost them... A Queen shouldn't be abandoned by her subjects..."

"So? They are not your responsibility anymore. But you still have many behind your back, awaiting your leadership. Do you want to lose them too?"

"No... but there is nothing I can do..."

"Yes, there is! Stand up!"
Chrysalis obeyed.

"Listen sister. You did something. You brought me back. I'll do my best to help you. But I need you to help me. We must go through it together." Pinkie nuzzled Chrysalis. "So, you and me, standing as one versus everything this world will throw at us?"

Chrysalis nodded unsure at first, but then she broke down and hugged Pinkie. Pinkie used this
opportunity to transfer some love into her sister.

"I don't know what to do now... I just don't know... I'm afraid... I'm afraid of what else can go wrong...I'm so scared that I just want to lie and watch this celling, to do nothing... This way anything that happens won't be my fault... But now you’re telling it will be my responsibility anyway..."

"Yes, Chrys. But there is one important difference between doing and not doing. In not doing; failure is granted, in doing; there’s a chance of success."

"Only a chance..." sighed the defeated black Queen.

"At least it’s a chance. It's like comparing nothing to something."

Chrysalis broke the hug and backtrotted a few steps.

"Sis... I want to restore you into the ranks. Return the mind-link to you, clear your name..."

"I'm not ready for mind-link. It was too many years ago. It would be unnatural to me now." Said Pinkie, tried to imagine how it was. Having the ability to talk with tens of changeling at the same time, no matter where they where, not only talk with words, but images, memories, emotions, sounds heard, transfer her ideas without them being altered by the imperfectness of normal means of communication... It would be no exaggeration to say that half of the changeling world was part of this shared inter-mind dimension. It made changelings perfectly synchronized in battles, where the unit commanders created order channels, making sure the chain of command was never broken and where the recons created mental maps of the battlefield, insuring that the battle never fell into chaos. It made changelings in peace organized too, because there were no misunderstandings. The Ponyville fiasco of Winter Wrap Up wouldn't happen in the Swarm... Well, unless for some reason all lings decided to terminate their mind-link. Pinkie rethought all of this.

"Chrys, I need the mind-link on my terms. I will take it on my own pace."

"It'll be done. For now most of the swarm is… unreachable. Most of the changelings are too weak to serve as strong relays. You will be lucky if you could contact the camp near Canterlot, and it's closest one."

"That’s something I wanted to ask you. Where are the other camps and what's their situation? I was told by Shade that this is one of the better."

In front of Pinkie appeared a map of Equestria, floating in the air by Chrysalis’ magic. But it was more of a model of Equestria than than a map. On a map you don't have rivers, mountains, hills represented by... well, rivers, mountains and hills. Every building was there, as objects on the ground, not marked on the sheet. Pinkie looked at Chrysalis questioningly.

"Yes, I'm using mind-link magic for this. So, our main camps are..." On the map appeared a few orbs. One was near Ponyville, another near Manehattan, another one near Fillydelphia, next one near Appleloosa and a last one far north of Canterlot. "The worst situation is in Camp Canterlot. Many patrols a sweeping the area, the background love levels a low, and the camp is overcrowded... They had heavy casualties, and almost a third of the camp turned against me. The best situation was in Appleloosa, it’s safe, but still lacking food. Well, now our camp is in the best situation. Even if we are hiding, thanks to you we have restored some strength. Beside these camps, there are at least dozens of smaller ones, but most of them are... on the run. And of course there are hundreds struggling alone."

"How many of us survived?"

"Last report I’ve received, states... eight hundred forty eight. No, make that forty four. I buried four yesterday." said Chrysalis gravely. She continued after a while. "In our camp there are one hundred seven changelings. In Canterlot Camp, three hundred twenty nine, or rather was. One hundred three terminated their mind-link and loyalty to me, and left the camp. I'm afraid that they’re going to do something stupid. In Manehattan there’s one hundred eighty two. In Fillydelphia, one hundred seventy. In Appleloosa, fifty six."

Pinkie wanted to ask how many Chrysalis had brought for the invasion... But it would only hurt her more. It was something to wonder about later.

"We need to send love to the others. But first, our captured need to tell the truth about the state of our race. Before we even reach Celestia, ponies need to be conscious about how bad our situation really is..."

"What?! If the ponies know of our weakness they won't have any second thoughts about crushing us!"

"You are thinking about griffins. Ponies are different. If we show them how much we are alike, but that we have our backs against the wall... some of them might sympathize with us, they’ll think what they would do in the same situation. Ponies are not really our enemies. They were hurt by our attack, but I don't think they really hate us. It's not like the Griffins hate, bred from centuries of anger and conflict. It's hate born of fear, and when we get rid of the fear, we get rid of the hate."

"We killed a few of them!" Chrysalis was clearly scared of Pinkies idea.

Pinkie nodded sadly "And they killed probably tens or hundreds of us.” she sighed “We need to use this."

"I... don't understand."

"Weakness will be our weapon to win their hearts. We need to show them that we are not really a threat to them, that we are just... dying. And that this attack was from desperation not from hate."
Chrysalis shuddered at these words.

"I want to see things the way that you do. But I can't." After a moment of silence, Chrysalis looked thoughtfully at the pink Queen. "Sis, I'll do as you suggest. I'm putting my hope into your plans."

Pinkie nuzzled her sister. "I'm grateful for you trust. But there is another part you don't like either..."

"Yes?" asked Chrysalis, sorrow clear in her voice.

"I need you and maybe few other changelings to learn how earn love, my way."

"Oh..." Chrysalis sighed, and smiled a bit. "Pinkie Pie style?"

Pinkie grinned widely. "You bet’cha!"

Comments

[kojivsleo]

Spelling and grammar needs work, but the idea is good.

[Mauser1888]

Pinkie makes a good point in this desperate situation, about turning to the Ponies and showing them the Swarm is too weak to be a threat. She's hoping the Ponies will take pity on the wretched condition on the Changelings. It must be terribly hard for Chrysalis to effectively be reduced to beging from an enemy. I don't know if her pride could ever recover.

Another good chapter. I do hope you'll have Pinkie reveal herself to the rest of the Mane Six. I'd be interested to see how they'd react to such a revalation.

[Lightening_Zing]

900179

Yeah, Pinkie better understands ponies than Chrysalis, and she knows that ponies itself are not enemy. Fear, ignorance, pride, stubborn, lack of understanding - in eyes of Pinkie they are real enemy.

Chrysalis, on other hand, always looked at ponies as a source of food, and she wasn't really on cover missions in Equestria, so she didn't knew better anypony. She was a Queen, not gatherer or recon, it was not in her duty. That explains her behaviour during Canterlot Wedding. She wasn't prepared, and she saw ponies the same way we look at cows or pigs. And even worse for her, this pigs and cows had good, easy, safe life when most of her subjects are living in constant war zone, starving, scared about future. It made her hate for ponies stronger.

And yes, it will be hard hit for her pride. But even being total bitch to ponies, that doesn't make her bitch to her people. She knows that Queen had responsibility to her subjects, and because she had to everything she can. Even beg enemies in her eyes for mercy.

And about reveal - We'll see But Twilight probably would go full nuts and start witch hunting.

900076

Could you spot me when I made mistakes? I'm not native speaker, so part of errors can be beyond my perception. I will be glad for showing and explaining my errors.

[Mauser1888]

902301
If I may ask, what is your first language? I'm something of an amature lingust, so I'm curious...

[Lightening_Zing]

904671

My first laguage is Polish, and to be honest it's not really well. I mean, grammar is sometimes so complicated that even speaking all of my life I'm making mistakes. According to one article about hardest languages of the world and: "Average English speaker is fluent at about the age 12; the average Polish speaker is fluent in their language not until age of 16."
And it's not so far from truth.

[Mauser1888]

905369

Polish, eh? Very cool. I've never seriously studied a Slavic language but I've heard Polish is quite difficult, as it has retained a great deal of linguistic formality.
As to your writing, there really are no big, glaring errors that need to be corrected. Your English vocabulary is quite extensive and your use of it is spot-on. The most obvious issue I see (in terms of grammar) is a rather consistent omission of definite and indefinite articles ('the' and 'a/an'). But, this seems to be a common feature amongst Slavic language speakers. Continue to practice with English and you'll develop more of a feeling of what sounds 'natural.'
Good work so far. Keep it up!

[Lightening_Zing]

905451

Well, In my language there isn't anything like this. I mean, we sometimes use word meaning "this" or "that" for defined and "some" for undefined words. But in most cases we are taking it by default, what we are talking about. There is simply no need for that.

Most of times subject of sentence is defaulted by verb. Verb in polish is modified by times (when?), genders(she? he? it?), numbers(one or more contractors?), sides of such action(are subject was doing such action, or receiving?), state of action(done, or not done yet?). About 70 possibilities. Oh, and there are some situations where verb is modified only by cases, numbers and something what I don't quite understand, but is gender related. In one verb in polish you can say something, what in English you have to use at least three words.

But hey, that's why I was getting C's from Polish grammar. I simply have problems with understanding how it works, or to explain why it works.

[Muhanoid]

Reading this only now. How could I have missed this before?

Also. Pinkie Pie style... Gangam Style reference (or any other style)?

[AliCentaur Br0ny]

2211614 You mean like this?

[MLPonyPals]

There's only one major loop hole. If Pinkie was already a changeling, why was she replaced with another changeling in the season 6 finale? If that is the same changeling, then why was there a need for the complete personality change? Also, why would was Pinkie cacooned with the rest of her friends if she WAS a changeling? I know I'm probably looking too deep into this or whatever, but still. xD

[Doctor_Den]

10801359
this is an alternative universe and here all events follow a different path after the Kantelot wedding.