Soul Marked

by PingZing

Conflict Resolution

Sunset Shimmer had fled years ago, driven away by Celestia's uncanny knack for hurting those she loved the most. Just like with Luna, she had been blind to Sunset's pain until it had overflowed, and then instead of treating it with the delicacy and respect it deserved, she had donned the mask. Had told Sunset that she was only doing what was best. For her, for Equestria, for everypony. But Sunset had tried to come back. Had tried to make amends. Had swallowed her pride first, instead of waiting for the immortal, perfect princess to do so. Sunset had, in the end, been the better pony.

And... she had died for it. Been murdered for it.

By Celestia's own soul mate.

Celestia blinked away tears and took a deep, shuddering breath. She wiped her eyes clear, and fixed her gaze on the monster looming over her.

Then, she lit her horn and slammed the changeling queen into the opposite wall so hard that she bounced off and left a Chrysalis-shaped impression.

The door to the room was slammed open as the guards charged inside. "Your majesty, what—oof!"

Or attempted to—the first guard made it no more than two steps into the room before he was scooped up in a golden aura and flung back out the door. He tumbled into his counterpart, and the two of them went sprawling into the hall beyond.

"STAY OUT OF THIS. SHE'S MINE." The force of Celestia's Royal Voice slammed the door closed after the guards, and she was left alone with Chrysalis once more.

Celestia's vision narrowed to the monster in front of her, and she drew in her power. The monster was saying something. Unimportant.

She seized the heaviest thing within sight that could easily be used as a projectile, and sent it rocketing toward the changeling. She narrowly missed, the monster flinching aside at the last moment. Instead of having her face rearranged, Chrysalis was merely showered with bits of stone.

Try again. Celestia siphoned a tiny fragment of the sun's power and channeled it through her horn as a ray of solid heat. A second miss as the monster ducked and shouted.

The monster took to the air and her horn glowed a slime-green. Likely an attack. Defend. The table would do. Lift up the near end, duck behind it, ignore the fiery splinters from the ensuing explosion. Irrelevant.

Useful as a weapon, though. She flung the burning table fragments at the monster and bared her teeth in a feral grin. It had been centuries since she'd been able let loose without feeling guilty. It felt good.

Instead of being flattened by the table, the monster tucked in her legs and dove through the hole in the table's center.

Fine. She snorted and lowered her horn, content to allow the monster to impale herself.

The monster vanished in a flash of green flame. Her eyes widened. Danger!

The monster reappeared in a second green flash and caught her with a right cross directly across the face. She stumbled back, ears ringing.

No! She threw up a shield out of reflex, and laughed as she felt it catch the follow-up beam of magic. "Too predictable, Chrysalis!"

Chrysalis' only reply was a wordless snarl. Celestia waited for Chrysalis to charge up another blast, then dropped her shield. Built a charge in her horn. Waited. Wait for the green flare...

...there! She lunged forward, snapped her head to the side, and caught the blast on the very tip of her horn. Magic struggled against magic briefly, then the beam was redirected to the side, leaving her untouched. She followed through on the lunge, turned it into a charge.

For a split second, their eyes met, two-toned green-and-teal locking onto rich pink. In that split second, Celestia glimpsed shock, and something like... respect?

Then she connected and hammered Chrysalis with a powerful hook from her right forehoof, just above the jaw.

She couldn't relent now. She was winning. She seized the changeling in the tightest telekinetic grip she could muster and slammed her into the left wall. Ignored the splintering bookshelves and shattering glass. Repeated the motion with the opposite wall, ignored the breaking of ceramic bowls and plates. Repeated again, into the floor this time, further pulverizing the coffee table's remnants and the pillows on the floor. Then into the left wall. Then the right wall. Then the floor again.

And again.

And again.

Until the only noises the monster made with each impact were pained exhales.

Panting, Celestia let the magic streaming through her horn fade, and dropped Chrysalis to the ground in a battered heap. Triumphant, she placed one forehoof on the changeling's chest and leaned on it. "Yield."

Chrysalis coughed. "For—" she rasped, then spat a glob of discolored phlegm to the side. "For a sparkly marshmallow, you can throw a punch." She grinned. "Also, you should know," she continued, "I lied."

"What?" Celestia demanded through narrowed eyes.

"I didn't kill Sunset Shimmer. I have no idea where she is. None of my changelings are in Ponyville. Twilight Sparkle is probably fine."

The weight on the hoof increased. Chrysalis groaned. "I don't believe you."

"Contact Twilight Sparkle," she wheezed.

Celestia could. In fact, she could do better—after learning of yesterday's attack, Luna had insisted that all the Bearers be taught individual duress codes. If Twilight responded correctly, she was safe and sound. If not...

Celestia bound Chrysalis in bands of golden magic and quickly penned a letter to Twilight and sent it to Spike with a puff of magic. While she waited... "How did you know about Sunset Shimmer? She's been missing for years, and I kept it out of the press."

Chrysalis' response was a wet chuckle. "Ponies talk, princess." She panted for a moment before continuing. "I've had agents in Canterlot for quite some time."

Before Celestia could continue questioning Chrysalis, a puff of smoke heralded the arrival of a response from Spike. Thank goodness, she thought. She was rattled enough—sitting around waiting for a reply would have been torturous, not to mention logistically challenging. She couldn't keep a changeling queen bound up in her private chambers indefinitely.

A quick review of the response— unusually, written in Twilight's own hornwriting—confirmed that she was unharmed. That, or so hopelessly compromised that her captors had learned her duress codes and forced her to write the response. Celestia took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She could send members of the Guard to check, or even visit personally, later. For now, this was the information she had to work with.

She turned back to Chrysalis, and dismissed the magical bindings. Chrysalis slumped to the ground with a groan. "Fine. I'm satisfied for now, but I intend to verify this later. I will begin with the obvious question: what in sun's name were you thinking? What possible benefit could there be to goading me like that?"

"Ever heard that the best way to get to truly know a creature is to dangle them over a volcano's edge?" Chrysalis asked, grinning.

"Yes," Celestia replied flatly. "I find to be untrue, and a rather tiresome endeavor." She rolled her eyes. "So, you somehow thought that claiming to have murdered one of my students, and were holding another hostage, would get the truth out of me?" She paused in consideration for a moment. "That seems astonishingly reckless."

A strange buzzing noise emerged from Chrysalis' throat. Celestia tensed for a moment, thinking it was some bizarre new attack, but soon realized that the changeling was giggling. Chrysalis' laughter continued uncontrollably for a moment, acquiring a tinge of madness before she convulsed, and descended into a coughing fit.

After recovering she looked up at Celestia, tears in her eyes—whether from laughter or the coughing, Celestia was uncertain. "We're a race of infiltrators, princess. Our most effective tactic only works if the victims don't know we exist. What do you think could have driven us to try an invasion?" She laughed again, but this time it was a lifeless, bitter thing. "Desperation breeds recklessness. I made a plan to feed my people." She shrugged helplessly. "It wasn't a very good plan. It almost worked, though."

Celestia stared at the changeling queen for several long, silent seconds. Her expression flickered between pity, admiration and exasperation before finally settling on a confused mélange of all three. "You stupid, stubborn, foolhardy creature," she said slowly. "I was serious when I said that I wanted to help. The offer to you and your changelings still stands."

Chrysalis surveyed the room. Splintered bookshelves, broken crockery, dents and holes in the walls, a shattered and still-smoldering coffee table. Finally, her gaze landed on the towering amazon of a pony standing victorious over her. She shivered. "Really."

"Well," Celestia said, looking around, "it's hardly any worse than my first encounter with the dragon lord."

"Despite kidnapping your niece and brainwashing your guard captain?"

"You heard them on the balcony. They're both willing to look past it." She paused, then added, "To an extent."

"Fine then," Chrysalis growled, glowering up at Celestia from where she lay on the floor, "prove it. Give me your love."

A blush was Celestia's immediate response, and the widening of her eyes was entirely involuntary. She coughed and looked away. Chrysalis rolled her eyes. "Not like that." Her voice softened almost imperceptibly from an angry buzz as she continued, "Think of someone or something that you love. Focus on that feeling."

Celestia hesitated. The creature at her hooves had already demonstrated a base level of ruthlessness that she had rarely encountered. She had a penchant for violence, and was distressingly comfortable with it. She had implied that she had no qualms with trickery, deceit, or murder for the sake of her people.

But it would be foolish to allow her little ponies to go to war with a previously-undiscovered race when the problem might be neatly solved with a little diplomacy. Even if she found it personally unpleasant, such was her lot in life. Perhaps that was why the changeling queen was her soul mate—it put her in a unique position to form a powerful bond with a new ally, and serve Equestria. And... perhaps it wouldn't be so bad. In some ways, Celestia found herself respecting Chrysalis' dedication to her people, if not her methods.

The longer she'd stood deliberating, the more Chrysalis' smirk had grown. Just as Chrysalis opened her mouth to speak, Celestia sat with a huff, folding all four legs beneath her, bringing her eye to eye with a now visibly-surprised Chrysalis.

"Okay." Celestia closed her eyes before she could have second thoughts, and did her best to clear her mind.

After a moment of breathing, she allowed herself to refocus. Something or someone she loved... she had an embarrassment of riches there, recent though they were. Her first thought was, of course, her sister. Gone for a thousand years, exiled by her own hoof, a result of her own negligence. Celestia had by turns plotted, schemed, and blundered her way into a plan to bring her sister back, whole and herself once more.

And it had worked. Luna was back, and free to grump at her in the evenings, tease her about her own morning bed-head and even ignore her exquisitely-prepared breakfasts. Her sister tested her sorely at times, but there was nothing in the world she would trade for her. She still occasionally had moments where she simply remembered that her sister was back, and was struck by a bolt of joy.

She had been in similar spirits after discovering Cadance. It had been slightly marred by her inability to avoid comparing her to Luna, but just to have found another alicorn was a blessing. One of Celestia's quiet joys was passing along what she could of her vast repertoire of knowledge. Teaching Cadance how to use her newly-acquired horn and connection to the earth had been a unique gift, one she would always treasure.

And she could hardly think of her love of teaching without thinking about a particular purple filly—mare now—who had shattered records, consistently done the impossible, and made her so proud she felt fit to burst. And when challenged, Twilight Sparkle had stepped out of her comfort zone, and made real connections with a set of exceptional ponies. In the process, she had given Celestia something so precious, that even with all the wealth and power at her command, she could never repay the debt.

And now, Twilight Sparkle was part of... was part of her family...

Celestia's head swam, and she swayed. She suddenly felt ten times heavier. She opened her eyes to find herself face-to-maw with an open-mouthed Chrysalis. The changeling had opened her mouth as wide as it would go, and her fearsome fangs were on full display. A thick pink miasma was wafting from Celestia and vanishing down Chrysalis' gullet.

Now that Celestia had stopped focusing, the stream of pink died down to a trickle, and Chrysalis consumed the last of it with a satisfied slurp. As it vanished, some invisible support disappeared and Celestia toppled to the side, too weak to remain upright, even laying on all fours.

Chrysalis towered over her, wounds healed, wearing a victorious smile, fangs prominently on display. "Oh, princess. You really are as weak and soft-hearted as I thought." She cackled and swept toward the balcony doors. "But it seems like you were telling the truth after all—you really didn't have any sort of reprisal planned! I suppose my work here is done, then. Now," she kicked the doors open, "I'd love to stay and finish the job, but I think all this silence is going to make your guards suspicious soon." She turned, and spread her wings.

Summoning up the dregs of her strength, Celestia managed to reach out with a single foreleg. "Wait!" she cried weakly.

Chrysalis turned and peered over her shoulder. "Why?"

"We're soul mates!" Celestia cried desperately. "I've been searching for you for—" Celestia's voice broke. "For hundreds of years," she whispered.

That made Chrysalis turn around. She stomped toward Celestia and stared down at her, eyes blazing. "This?" She demanded, jabbing a hoof at the soul mark on her neck. "I told you: this is nothing. You ponies are content to let your little tramp stamps direct your lives, but I refuse," she hissed, "to let a blemish direct my fate."

"What about your people, then?"

Chrysalis' face twisted in confusion. "What does that have to do your ridiculous obsession with tattoos?"

Celestia screwed her face up in frustration, and tried to focus through the fog in her mind. "Nothing! Nothing..." She was silent for a moment. "Just... what happens to them next? It took you years to prepare this. You spent days gorging on Shining Armor. And a day later, you're already hungry again. Weak enough that I beat you with no trouble. Equestria knows about changelings now. You can't hide anymore. You admitted you were desperate.

"Please," Celestia continued. "You fed from me. You're satiated for now. But what about tomorrow? Don't you just want to stop sometimes? Aren't you tired?" Celestia's voice broke again, but she continued nevertheless, "Always grinding away at the impossible problems, every single day, all for your subjects. Always for them. But there's no one else. You're alone..."

Celestia's foreleg faltered, and she allowed it to fall to the ground with a sigh. Chrysalis continued to stare down at her, her expression wooden. The room fell quiet for the first time since Chrysalis' entry, with only the sounds of breathing to punctuate the silence. The sun had slipped further beneath the horizon, darkening the beams of sunlight illuminating the room to a ruddy orange. The light dappled Celestia's pristine coat, painting it with bloody splashes of light.

"Is it me you're talking to, Celestia?"

Celestia stared up at Chrysalis, and blinked wearily. Fuzzy blackness was crowding in at the edge of her vision, and she was having trouble focusing. "Five minutes," she mumbled. "Five minutes of willing feeding from me. N'look at you now. Imagine... the rest of your people too." Celestia's head was so heavy. She allowed it to slowly sink to the ground. She just needed a little break. And her eyes, too. She would just rest them for a moment. "Be a hero. Never hungry... again..."

Chrysalis stared down at the princess as she finally succumbed to weariness. The solar diarch, Princess Celestia Sol Invicta, She of Light and Hope herself, was at her mercy.

Even though Chrysalis had been beaten by her.

But... the key to Equestrian power was in this room, and she—Queen Chrysalis of the changelings—held it. This was an opportunity she would certainly never get again. Chrysalis took a deep breath, and made her decision.

She raised her hoof.

Comments

[Razzy]

Royalty brawl!

[Darkstarling]

That was a heck of a throw down, and then the exchange afterwards. You can already see how they’ll complement each other once, you know, they settle into the rhythm of all this.

But whether friends, lovers, or gadara, you’re definitely selling how they’ll matter to each other.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

This chapter got a chuckle out of me right away. 'Conflict Resolution' opens with Celestia utterly crushing Chrysalis in a fight.

[Dragon Turtle]

10280065
What do you mean by "gadara?" Google just tells me its fhe name of an ancient Helenistic city.

[PonyDragon]

Sunset Shimmer had fled years ago, driven away by Celestia's uncanny knack for hurting those she loved the most.

You mean Celestia was overprotective of Sunset?

"STAY OUT OF THIS. SHE'S MINE." The force of Celestia's Royal Voice slammed the door closed after the guards, and she was left alone with Chrysalis once more.

Guard #1: "Um, should we do something?"
Guard #2: "Do you want to die?"

"Ever heard that the best way to get to truly know a creature is to dangle them over a volcano's edge?" Chrysalis asked, grinning.

: "Why do you think I banished you into an vulcano once?"
Note: She actually did that. It's in the official comics.

It wasn't a very good plan. It almost worked, though.

True in both accounts.

But... the key to Equestrian power was in this room, and she—Queen Chrysalis of the changelings—held it. This was an opportunity she would certainly never get again. Chrysalis took a deep breath, and made her decision.
She raised her hoof.

As the chapter title say, she is about to resolve the conflict between those two; one way or another.

[PresentPerfect]

"Desperation breeds recklessness. I made a plan to feed my people." She shrugged helplessly. "It wasn't a very good plan. It almost worked, though."

Too few fic writers understand how true this is.

[Ice Star]

A lovely, if brief action scene.