Death of a Queen

by Arkane12

1: None Will Mourn Her

Celestia’s gaze swept over the stone-speckled wasteland far below as she glided through the air. The wind shifted, forcing the alicorn to adjust her wings to keep her altitude. It had been nearly an hour since the slightest hint of greenery had passed. She found herself wondering if anything would ever be able to live here.

In the short time that Celestia had known King Thorax, he’d proven himself trustworthy, even after the rather rocky start of their relationship. Doubting him would be foolish. Still, the two conflicting doubts clashed in the back of her mind as the dust rippled and writhed like an earthen ocean. Settling the storm stewing in her thoughts, she forced herself to focus on the task before her. With the sun poised perfectly center amidst the cloudless blue sky, Celestia surmised her search had lasted the better part of a day. She decided to trust Thorax, but it would have been nice if he could have given her just a little more direction for this journey.

Her budding annoyance only mounted as a harsh gale caused her to falter. Even as high off the ground as she floated, Celestia still managed to find herself caught amidst a swirling cloud of irritating sand. With a defeated sigh, her wings tilted gently. Grains of sand nipped at them, ruffling the feathers as she descended. It seemed that flight would be out of the question for the moment.

Folding her wings, the alicorn dropped gracefully from the air with a practiced dive, landing hard on her horseshoes with enough force to deepen the cracks already spread through the dry earth. The howl of the wind roared through the empty landscape, but she pushed forward with unwavering resolve. As she continued, the sigh of the midday sun faded from view, along with the horizon. The wind whipped through her pastel mane and tail, causing them to billow madly. The sand clung to her porcelain white fur like small needles. With a wave of her horn and a telltale golden glow, she summoned her magic, creating a small golden aura around her. Though nature itself pressed at her magic, the spell never faltered.

As visibility grew worse, Celestia found herself with her head low, a trained eye focused for the slightest anomaly in the rapidly dwindling space visible around her. The alicorn didn’t feel tired, but as she pulled her hoof free from the sand to take another trudging step, Celestia found her thoughts drifting to her bed back in Canterlot. She would have given anything to be nestling between the silky pink bed sheets, nuzzling her mane into the soft feather pillows.

Overwhelmed by her intoxicating fantasies, Celestia’s confidence dwindled. But when the sandstorm lessened briefly, her goal faded into view. Tall stone spires, rising from the sand like talons, clawing desperately at the world above them. Even though the storm hid most of the finer details from view, she could see strange holes bored into the mountain, in patterns far to clean and orderly to be natural. A changeling hive.

The mare allowed her spell to fade as the loose sand beneath her hooves turned to solid rock. Starting with her muzzle, Celestia shook herself free of her desert coat. She would still need a shower once she returned home, but it felt sufficient for the task at hand. For the moment, her appearance hardly registered as a priority. She had scampered straight into foreign territory now. Enemy territory, to be specific. Though initial inspection suggested the hive had long since been abandoned, Celestia knew that danger could lurk around any corner. Dressed in a careful stoicism practiced over centuries of royal court, she held her head high as she stepped into the yawning maw of the deserted hive.

Though her sister may have been master of the night, Celestia had no love for the dark. Tales from her youth told of horrible monsters lurking in the dark, waiting for young fillies to drift off to sleep. The thought sent shudders down her spine. These weren’t stories anymore. Celestia had met what lurked in the dark, been taken by one of them. She may have been the one monster the princess feared most.

The world had changed, though. A string of humiliating defeats had stripped away the legend behind the boogeyman. The changelings abandoned their old ways. Pulled themselves out of the shadows to become true citizens of Equestria. In her heart, Celestia cared for them as she would any of her little ponies. Now, only the biggest monster remained. The changeling queen had fallen from grace, and the fear that Celestia once had of her had diminished, burned away by the love and support of all of those that stood behind her. Determination burned brightly in Celestia, and through the golden light that erupted from her horn as she stepped into the darkness.

The princess had seen fleeting glimpses of a changeling hive during her imprisonment, but the memories were faded and fuzzy. The long empty halls felt much darker and isolating than she remembered, though. She cast her light onto the faded green crystals that protruded from the walls, drawing forth a flicker of their long dormant magic. Once, these gems had bathed the caves around them with their eerie green light. Now, dark and abandoned, they waited for their masters to return.

Changeling never intended their hives to be navigated. The sheer volume of endless caves stretched on far longer than Celestia would’ve believed necessary. Each step brought a slight incline or turn. Sometimes they shifted deeper into the mountain, other times, the princess found herself standing before a near vertical incline. Constant twists and turns had long since warped any sentiment exploration. Celestia found herself almost in awe of the changelings, their trickery and deceit so ingrained into them that even their architecture could not escape its grasp.

Sore hooves and a slight magical strain in her horn told Celestia that she’d been down here for a few hours at least. Dead ends and collapsed tunnels weren’t making her journey any easier. Celestia wondered if even the changelings themselves would be able to navigate their old home in this sorry state. Determination won out eventually. Celestia found herself standing at the threshold of a massive wooden gate. The claustrophobic ceiling vanished, stretching up high enough that even her light couldn’t find it. The same green gems that littered the hive were present here, too. They’d been broken and carved into an intricate mosaic of a changeling queen, proud and confident. It would have been a sight to behold back when magic still flowed freely through it.

With a surge of composure and a deep, steadying breath, Celestia wrapped her golden aura around the doors and pushed them open. The hinges turned with the cry of a dying beast, revealing the shattered remnants of the throne room beyond. All but one of the obsidian pillars still stood on either side of the hall. A section of the roof had collapsed inward, forming a pile of rubble at the base of the broken column, buried by the patter of sand from the storm outside. Torn and faded banners hung from broken hooks; their grand crests unrecognizable now. Sconces filled with green gem shards dotted the walls. Much like their whole counterparts, however, they had lost their light. Without them, the back half of the throne room had been plunged completely into darkness, revealing only the few steps at the base of the queen’s throne. Celestia’s expression hardened as an unseen observer studied her. Chrysalis was here.

The solar princess held her head high as she advanced into the great hall. Standing at her full height, mane and tail billowing in the nonexistent breeze, Celestia stepped into the beast’s lair, stopping at the line where the light and dark swirled in a thick miasma. She could still feel the comforting glimmer of sunlight on her back.

“Princess.” The changeling’s voice reverberated from all directions, dripping with equal parts grace and venom.

“Reveal yourself.” Celestia demanded, her eyes watching for any hint of movement in the darkness. The soft buzz of insect wings fluttered in the quiet. The darkness swirled in thick, roiling waves. Each shape her mind conjured vanished under a careful gaze. “I’ve come to speak with you.”

“You should have sent a message first, Tia.” Celestia’s stomach turned at the malice infecting her nickname. “I would have tidied up. I never would have guessed that I would be worthy of a personal visit from Princess Celestia.” Chrysalis’s voice grew louder as she spoke, breaking into a cackling laugh as she finished.

Celestia stood still and silent as the stone beneath her hooves. She gathered her magic within her, readying her shield while she waited for the changeling’s laugh to die down. Instead, it shifted into a fit of coughing. She’d hardly noticed the change until it stopped abruptly with a pained gasp.

“I told you to show yourself.” Celestia stomped a hoof, her royal voice loud enough to shake a bit of dust from the room. Chrysalis only answered with a weak laugh. The princess felt anger boil in her chest, but something else brewed in the back of her mind. Gritting her teeth, the alicorn flared her wings and focused her magic. The sunlight on her back grew warm as her horn erupted with a flash of light, bathing the room in solar glow.

Celestia stood at the base of Chrysalis’s throne. Short steps led their way up to the throne, the entire ensemble carved from the same black material as the pillars, covered with royal red and gold carpet. Small holes riddled the sides of the altar, just the right size for a changeling to comfortably nestle within. At the peak, stretched across her throne lay the queen herself, her green eyes reflecting the dawn’s light. For a split second, the spell fumbled, dimming slightly as the princess cast her gaze over the creature.

The queen stood regal and proud in Celestia’s mind. The same demanding presence that had faced her down at Cadence’s wedding. A clever and cunning wickedness in her eyes that portrayed a clinical sadistic streak. The form that looked back at her could hardly be called a shadow of the changeling queen.

The changeling queen rested on her side, head low. Her body moved only enough to betray unsteady breathing. Her eyes no longer glowed with the queen’s trademark fire. Her chitin, once as imposing as the void, had faded to a lusterless gray. Patches of her mane were missing, and the remains hidden beneath a coating of filth.

A sense of dread mounting in her gut, Celestia moved her light across the changeling, reading each wound. Small cracks in the queen’s shell trickled with a rust colored sludge, the same that ran from the corner of her jaded smile. Chrysalis dredged herself from her seat, raising to her full height on shaky limbs. One of her insect wings shuddered at the movement, sending a ripple of agony through the torn appendage.

Between agonized breaths, Chrysalis stood defiant of the goddess before her. She lifted a limp hoof forward onto the stairs. The queen descended from her throne, her gait unsteady and strange. A magenta eye focused on the queen’s left hindleg. The shell had been torn away, leaving a pinkish stump where her hoof should have been. She never put any weight on the mangled limb.

“Don’t you know it’s rude to stare,” Chrysalis sneered.

The hostility snapped Celestia back to the present. She widened her stance and lowered her head. Chrysalis’s laugh turned to wheezing then into coughing. The queen collapsed, head in her hooves. More of that red-brown sludge dribbled out with each croak.

“I’ve come to take you back with me.” Celestia relaxed minutely.

“No.”

“It wasn’t a suggestion.” Celestia advanced, sending the queen shrinking back with each step. “You need help.”

Chrysalis began to shiver. She could feel the princess’s emotions flavor the air. Entombed beneath anger, Chrysalis tasted sorrow. The bitter flavor made her skin crawl. “Haven’t you princesses helped enough?” The queen twitched as a dose of adrenaline rushed through her.

“You’ll die without it,” The words sounded calm and soothing. Her instincts screamed. Even with one foot in the grave, Chrysalis shouldn’t be taken lightly. Fear pushed through the alicorn’s mind. Her defeat at Cadence’s wedding, her entrapment within the hive. At that moment, Celestia felt the pain of each pony affected by Chrysalis’s machinations. Yet, she could not bring herself to hate the broken thing before her.

That thought tortured Chrysalis more than all the pain she’d suffered thus far. To drive a benevolent goddess to hate would have been a rousing success. But pity . . . Hurt. Her senses blistered at the taste of it. She grit her teeth, ignoring the pain of her fang as it shattered.

“I know.”

Celestia flinched but did not recoil. She stepped forward, reaching a guiding hoof toward the dying changeling.

One last surge of energy poured into Chrysalis. As that golden horseshoe inched ever closer to her face, she reached her breaking point. Her limbs bucked. Her plate cracked. Her muscles tore. She lashed forward with demonic intent.

The movement had been sudden and swift, like the shot of a cannon. With a cold green glow, Chrysalis’s horn tore into the princess’s shoulder. While her heart wished to deny the inevitable betrayal, her body had been ready for it. The searing pain in her flank told her she hadn’t been quick enough. The changeling’s horn tore a deep gash behind the princess’s shoulder. With a sickening crack, the twisted black horn snapped, remaining impaled at the far end of the wound. And with a final cry, the changeling’s limp form dropped to the ground. Her eyes dimmed, the wicked smile on her face fading to the sound of a long sigh.

The room swirled around Celestia as she plucked the broken horn from her side, tossing it to the ground with a clatter. Warmth seeped into her white fur, leaving her oddly cold. Attending to her wound quickly would be the best option, but she knew better than to take her eyes off the changeling for long. Despite the pain, she thoroughly inspected her extended wings, finding them undamaged and flight worthy. With a pained exertion, she stepped back into her sunlight, turning her back to the unmoving changeling.

Celestia willed her body to take to the air, but it refused. Every fiber of her being told her that the world would be better off without the changeling queen. Even in her final moments, she could do nothing but hurt and destroy. The scar would remain with Celestia as a testament to her greatest failure. The thought infuriated her. Her mind flooded with all sorts of colorful curses to vent her frustration. The changeling queen was dead. This was for the best. She flapped her wings, hooves lifting off the dust.

In her mind’s eye, Celestia watched the changeling eke out the last of her life, alone on the cold floor of her abandoned hive. She wondered if the changelings would miss their queen. In fact, she couldn’t think of a single living thing that would. That thought made her hesitate, a cold hand gripping at her stomach. She drew her wings back to her side. With her breathing growing more rapid by the second, the pony didn’t think. Her mind still hurled excuse after excuse, telling her to leave. Telling her to give Chrysalis the death she’d wanted.

She had stopped listening.

Instead, her hooves moved on their own. She faced the darkness of the throne, taking a soft step forward. Celestia lowered herself to the icy rock. She could still feel blood seeping from her side, sinking through cracks across the floor. With a graceful turn of her mane, the princess rested her head against the changeling queen, feeling the slick filth of her ravaged mane against pristine fur. A gentle white wing drew over the cold chitin. Celestia shifted herself as close as she could get to the dying changeling and closed her eyes. The sudden exhaustion worried her, but her thoughts were already occupied with a single, repeating line:

There would be at least one who would mourn for the queen.

Comments

[Razzy]

Hopefully that horn can be reattached.

Interesting start.

'That thought tortured Chrysalis than' - tortured Chrysalis more than

[Arkane12]

10439985
We'll see about that horn. Also, thanks for pointing out that error, I'll fix it.

[Brony_Fife]

In her mind’s eye, Celestia watched the changeling eek out the last of her life, alone on the cold floor of her abandoned hive.

The word you're looking for is eke. But I think better, more descriptive and vibrant words, could be bled out the last of her life, or Celestia watched the last of the Changeling Queen's life fade away.

[Arkane12]

10487417
Nice catch.

[Azure Drache]

She could still feel the comforting glimmer of sunlight on her back.

Isn't this trone room deep under the mountain? I think I read Celi wandered around for hours before she arrived there?

[Arkane12]

10544557
Yeah, but there's a massive hole in the roof.
*cue Legion quote*

[Nailah]

Hmm...
You've got my interest now let's see now. The writing itself is actually not bad at all, there are definitive moments where it is telly towards the beginning, but once Celestia gets to the Changeling hive, I wasn't quite sure where it was going. Why was Celestia out here? Why does she care about an abandoned hive? And what is the point of trying to save Chrysalis?

It's always important to make your readers ask questions for it keeps them invested in your story. I know you've worked hard on this, but I still look forward to seeing what lies ahead for both the Queen's, and how this might affect them both.

[Arkane12]

10799819
I look forward to hearing what you think about it.

[Yubella]

“I told you to show yourself.” Celestia stomped a hoof, her royal voice loud enough to shake a bit of dust from the room. Chrysalis only answered with a weak laugh. The princess felt anger boil in her chest, but something else brewed in the back of her mind. Gritting her teeth, the alicorn flared her wings and focused her magic. The sunlight on her back grew warm as her horn erupted with a flash of light, bathing the room in solar glow.

Who are you to give orders on someone else's turf?

[Yubella]

Chrysalis began to shiver. She could feel the princess’s emotions flavor the air. Entombed beneath anger, Chrysalis tasted sorrow. The bitter flavor made her skin crawl. “Haven’t you princesses helped enough?” The queen twitched as a dose of adrenaline rushed through her.

My personal downfall would be my spite, my pride and my allies being in danger

[Yubella]

Time for our revenge arc

[Arkane12]

11251149
“I have a product partnership with the concept of revenge.”

Hope you enjoy the story.
I’m still a little amazed every time a new comment appears on here.