The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Just Returning The Favor

"You were terrified, down there," Chrysalis drawled, pacing along a crumbling rampart at the top of the aqueduct, the last battle still reliving itself down below. "And now you're calm as can be."

"So?" Starlight figured it was useless to deny it, pacing along behind her with no destination to work towards. "It already happened. We're not fighting now."

Chrysalis scoffed. "Funny how useless the past can be. Have you ever stopped to think how all the time you've ever spent with your friends is in the past?"

Starlight blinked. "What's that supposed to mean? I'm not going to be stuck here forever!"

"Maybe you will, and maybe you won't." Chrysalis lazily shrugged. "Maybe you'll escape, and they'll all have moved on without you. Or maybe time passes differently here, and you'll come out years in the future. Either way, you're not back together right now. All the time you've ever spent together is in the past."

Starlight's face scrunched.

"Where are they now?" Chrysalis leaned over the edge, teeth pulling back in a growl. "Where is anyone who said forever and meant just for now? How much good is all the time you spent with them in the past doing you now?"

"Oh." Starlight's ears fell, but then rose again as she set with her jaw. "It gives me a good reason to find a way out of here. That's what good it does."

Chrysalis stuck her tongue out. "Bleh. Sounds like a bitter sustenance. That's a painkiller, not food."

"Is that really what ponies who care about you are to you?" Starlight trotted closer, her frown twitching slightly. "Food? Something to make you feel better?"

Chrysalis waved a hoof. "A barbaric way of putting it, but have you ever seen a pony who tried to survive without it?" She stared for a moment, then cleared her throat. "I mean myself. The results are pretty, aren't they?"

"You're supposed to be nice to your friends for their sakes," Starlight mumbled, growing frustrated. "Not think about what they can do for you."

Chrysalis turned around, stepping close enough that she was in Starlight's personal space. "Is this the patented, tried and true golden rule of your life?" She smiled graciously, then gave a condescending pat to Starlight's head. "Because your life is in so much better shape for it."

"It is!" Starlight growled. "If I didn't have my friends I'd probably still be a runaway, starving or living on my own in the badlands north of Ironridge!"

"Problems," Chrysalis sang, turning her back on Starlight. "Get off your pedestal and don't lecture me for wanting what I want. For a moment, I thought we were reaching an understanding, here."

Starlight swallowed and snorted. "Like you're having any better luck with your way of doing things. We're going in circles."

"Agreed," Chrysalis sighed. "It's almost like chastising each other for our bad decisions is completely and utterly useless. What was my point about the past, again...?"

"Having my friends wasn't useless!" Starlight barked. "And it wasn't a bad decision, either!"

"Ah ah ah. Spare me the sermon." Chrysalis waggled a hoof. "We just covered this. You're a mess. Say it with me..."

Starlight's ears pressed back. "Yes I am, but what do you care!? Are you trying to make me feel bad about it to get revenge, or make yourself feel superior? Because it's not working!"

"Oh?" Chrysalis seductively curled her lip.

Starlight stared for a moment and shook her head. "Don't make that face. It reminds me of Jamjars."

That left Chrysalis blinking in confusion. "You know what I think?" Starlight continued, pointing a hoof. "You're so lonely and feeling so bad about your life you want me to feel bad with you just so you have someone to complain about it with."

Chrysalis scoffed. "Congratulations, captain obvious, you finally caught on. What else is there to do in this accursed place?"

Starlight hadn't been ready for such an easy acceptance, and stumbled slightly. "Um..."

"Ugh." Chrysalis stopped and sat down, rubbing her head with a wing. "You're so stupid."

"What?" Starlight frowned, stepping closer.

Chrysalis immediately pounced, knocking her onto her back and landing atop her, pinning her with a growl. "Why are you being so nice and cheerful!? Your life is a dump! It isn't helping!"

Starlight growled back, fighting and rolling Chrysalis over until they were at the edge of the railing and she was on top. "Because you're moping and someone has to pick up the slack! Why don't you try being nice and making it a nicer time for both of us, huh!?"

Chrysalis hissed in her face. "Because you're being optimistic! Acting like everything's fine and happy and full of love and rainbows and sunshine is just lying to yourself! You're a trash can in a dress!"

"I am not acting like everything's fine and happy because it isn't!" Starlight struggled, managing to stay on top. "I'm acting like it could be in the future and is worth trying for!"

"And how long do you think I tried that before getting too jaded to see my own lover's treachery!?" Chrysalis managed to writhe away, scrambling back along the balcony until her back ran up against a tower that the wall fed into. "You're a stupid kid! I've been hanging on and waiting for a miracle for decades longer than you've been crawling around! How many years have you been preaching this, one? Less?"

"That's a good thing!" Starlight cried, her hackles all the way up. "Because sometimes my friends get too tired and quit, or can't see a way forward and I'm the one who has to keep going! I've never given up on them before!"

Chrysalis smiled darkly. "But we've covered again and again where that's gotten you."

"I don't care about the past!" Starlight stomped a hoof. "I care about the future! Someday, I'm going to get out of here and get Valey back and make everyone happy again and we're going to build a town at another Tree of Harmony, and we're going to run it our way and let everything be peaceful!"

"Well, isn't that romantic. Yech." Chrysalis made a show of scraping at her tongue. "It sounds suspiciously like a promise a certain good-for-nothing griffon once broke to me..."

Starlight took a step forward. "I'm sorry that happened, but you should just try again!"

Chrysalis made a face. "Oh, just try again, she says, just try again. How many times has your world walked out on you after broken promise after broken promise, and how have you felt then about trying again?"

Starlight fixed her with a glare. "Not as many times as it's broken a promise and I've walked out on it."

Chrysalis gave her an annoying look.

"I'm really stubborn," Starlight warned. "I know you want to drag me down to your level so we can be miserable together, but you could pull yourself up to mine. We could argue in here until the end of time if you really doubt I have commitment. You'll break before I will. I'll bet you anything."

"I'd be a fool to take that bet." Chrysalis suddenly drained, slumping against the wall. "I'm old and bitter and weary, and you're too young and stupid to see what condition you're really in. The harder you fight it, the harder you'll break at the end. Stick to your ideals, go ahead. When it finally fails, if you're strong enough to beat me now? Look at what I did." She pointed listlessly into the arena, which was nearly lost from sight in the falling ash. "The world will have a fun time dealing with your freak-out."

Starlight felt her pupils shrink slightly.

"Oh no, did I let an uncomfortable truth slip free?" Chrysalis opened her eyes, and they were sharp despite her broken posture. "You're going to snap. I can see it in your eyes and smell it on your breath. You're lonely. You're desperate. You know whatever you've been doing isn't working, but don't want to admit it to yourself because it'll mean all your effort was for nothing. It'll mean your precious, good harmonic ideals were empty and useless. You're going to go off the deep end worse than I have, and the harder you deny it, the less there is you can do to stop it. There's no way to prove me wrong..." Her grin reappeared, twisted and sickly. "You can only deny the inevitable."

"Or I'll be right in the end," Starlight whispered. "You're wrong and everyone who agrees with you is wrong too. We do have a happy future if I can just reach it! I can make everything be alright!"

Chrysalis gave her a serious look. "I'm not joking. You're going to hurt yourself."

"And you care?" Starlight lifted an eyebrow.

"You've done it-" Chrysalis froze as another phantom of her stepfather exited from a doorway into the tower, and was momentarily exploded by a lance of green energy, her own memory threatening to start randomly replaying as it had done dozens of times since they started walking. "You've done it before."

"I asked whether you cared," Starlight insisted. "Or more importantly, why."

Chrysalis sighed. "You're terrified of yourself, aren't you? It's why you protest so much. Probably why you refuse to own up to your own memory that keeps following us around like him." She gestured to where the spear still hovered.

"Don't change the subject," Starlight growled. "I told you, I haven't even seen anything following me that I remember other than you yourself!"

"Spooky." Chrysalis rolled her eyes. "I'm tempted to play with you and pretend I only look real because I'm a figment of your imagination, but I think I'd rather try you against the truth and see what happens." She grinned, leaning closer. "All this ash only started falling once you showed up."

Starlight froze.

"Hah!" Chrysalis crowed. "So what did you do? Burn your old house down? I know it's something you refuse to admit to yourself. You've already snapped once before, and that's why you're so-"

"Shut up!" Starlight stuffed a hoof in her mouth. "I didn't! I didn't! I..."

Chrysalis watched smugly, not even bothering to remove Starlight's hoof.

"I had a vision of the future." Starlight slumped. "Two of them. And I've already been told they'll happen if I refuse to give up on my friends, so... I don't need you rubbing it in. I'm not going to cause it myself. I have to find another way."

With a flash, Chrysalis was her adult sarosian self again, still sitting against the entrance to the tower. "Poor, stupid kid. If you get stronger as you grow, and you're this strong already, you know you'll eventually be-"

"Don't say it." Starlight looked at the ground. "Please."

Chrysalis chewed her lip, and finally sighed. "I have to admit, this is less satisfying than I thought it would be."

"You mean now that we both feel like garbage?" Starlight gave her a brief glare. "Well, thanks for the effort."

"And now I win." Chrysalis leaned back, satisfaction written on her face. "I told you you'd give up and see things my way before you won me over to yours."

"Laugh it up."

Suddenly, a hoof was on her shoulder, and it wasn't as condescending as Chrysalis's earlier gestures. "Just returning the favor."

Comments

[Thunder twister]

These Starlight and Chrysalis chats are really good - didn't see the ash thing coming at all!

[Phoenix Kitten]

"I'm old and bitter and weary, and you're too young and stupid to see what condition you're really in. The harder you fight it, the harder you'll break at the end. Stick to your ideals, go ahead. When it finally fails, if you're strong enough to beat me now? Look at what I did." She pointed listlessly into the arena, which was nearly lost from sight in the falling ash. "The world will have a fun time dealing with your freak-out."

Oh Chrysalis.. if only you could have seen how right you are.