A Change for the Princess

by Apple Bottoms

Chapter 3 - Return to Tartarus

The stark difference between her memory and reality made Twilight Sparkle sick to her stomach, and she took a few jerking steps back, yelping out loud when she ran into a headstone. She skittered forward again, and her illusion spell dropped as she spun in tight, panicked circles.

Her magic had brought her to the center of a very old graveyard, centered on where Applejack’s home had originally stood. Everywhere she turned were more headstones, and many yards away she could see a low fence. Nothing remained of Applejack’s barn, or the henhouse, or even Rainbow Dash’s trellis; only headstones, and a disused path running between them. The boundary of the graveyard was ringed by a thick gathering of apple trees, with a few dead trunks still standing; victims of the apple plague, perhaps.

Twilight Sparkle took a few heaving breaths, trying to calm herself, and slowly took stock of her surroundings. Where the barn had stood held some old gravestones, yes; but she could see even older markers, moving back and further out, closer to the furthest edge of the yard. The yard that, if she remembered correctly, would have been far behind the house, when it still stood.

Slowly, Twilight Sparkle began to move. She willed her hooves to take one step, and then another, and she began making her slow way through the Apple graveyard. She moved towards the stones that had been worn away by time and weather, until they were little more than unmarked boulders standing in a row. As she reached the furthest boundary of the graveyard, she found two stones that had been recently tended to; or at least, more recently than the others. Their etching had been redone, over and over through the years, but even that could not save their legibility.

Princess Twilight Sparkle lowered her regal head, and pointed her horn at the stones. “What once was new, make again; reveal yourself as you have been.”

Magic spilled out of her horn, flooding the graveyard; behind and around her, broken gravestones rebuilt themselves, and ancient epitaphs engraved themselves anew. Twilight Sparkle took no notice of them.

In front of her, the two headstones revealed themselves as she had first seen them, hundreds of years ago.

HERE LIES APPLEJACK,
BELOVED SISTER, MOTHER, WIFE.
THE ELEMENT OF HONESTY
SO LONG AS APPLES GROW
SO TOO SHALL HER MEMORY BLOSSOM

HERE LIES RAINBOW DASH,
THE ELEMENT OF LOYALTY
INVENTOR OF THE RAINBOOM
AND DOUBLE RAINBOOM
LIVE HARD, FLY HARD, LOVE HARD
I AM ALWAYS BY YOUR SIDE, AJ

Twilight Sparkle snuffled, and as her magic leaked out, her tears watered the new blooms that began to grow over their graves. “Applejack, Rainbow Dash; I miss you both so much. How am I supposed to do this without you? I don’t - I don’t think I can.”

A sharp, broken sob escaped the princess, and she lifted a hoof to rub at her eyes, struggling to control herself. She looked for a handkerchief in her dimensional pocket (a nifty little invention she’d found a century or so ago, so much easier than carrying a satchel), and instead came back with the half-eaten cupcake.

“Not even Pinkie’s cupcakes taste the same anymore.” Twilight Sparkle chuckled wetly, eyeing it for a moment before she reached back to lob it into the orchard - then paused.

Things had changed; that was true. Plants went extinct, and friends died, and nothing could ever be the same again. But one thing stayed the same … and that was the past. The past couldn’t be changed! The past was where all of her friends were, alive and unhurt! It suddenly seemed so simple! If she wanted to be happy again, she just had to go back to her friends! And she knew just the spell to do it!

By the time the mud pie filly had found someone to accompany her, they found the old Apple family graveyard empty, covered in unseasonal spring blossoms and half a cupcake, and a storm brewing on the horizon.

***

“What do you mean, no venom?!”

The changeling leader winced, and gestured with her front hooves in a calming manner. “That’s just what I mean, Your Majesty. I’m terribly sorry to inform you of this, but … well, we just can’t do it. Changelings only created venom back when we were a predatory species, and, well …”

Twilight Sparkle ground her teeth together as she looked over the courtyard where they stood; behind them, a group of changling youth were practicing yoga. Further beyond, a group practiced hoofball, and in the distance, a group were flying kites.

“Can’t you just - become angry for like, fifteen minutes? I don’t need a lot!”

The changeling leader rubbed her temples as she tried to calm the increasingly upset Princess of Friendship. “Your Majesty, I’m sure that you understand it’s not that simple. Isn’t there any other way we could help you with your important mission? Perhaps if you gave us some more clarity on what the mission was about -”

“The mission is of the utmost secrecy. If anyone asks, I was never here.” Twilight Sparkle turned abruptly, leaving the sputtering changeling in her wake.

No venom?! How was she going to make Silverswirl the Bearded’s spell work now? The first time travel spell she had tried had been a passable success, at best; but if she wanted to succeed in travelling back centuries, she’d need the power promised in Silverswirl’s private diaries, which she’d discovered by chance during her exploration into the Old Ponish tomes. It was only by luck that she’d become fluent before she found it; otherwise she might have never been able to transcribe the instructions behind his Spell Enhancement Spell. Any spell could be made more powerful, more potent; but only by using the rarest ingredients.

Her friends had helped her, in their own way; she recalled that Fluttershy had explained once that ‘Manticore’s Heart’ wasn’t actually the literal heart of a manticore (“That’s a terrible spell ingredient!” she had gasped), but the core of a spiny shrub that grew on the edges of Appaloosa. ‘The tears of a cloud’ - that was just rain, but it had to be the rain gathered on the foggiest, earliest morning of the season. Luckily, Rainbow Dash had gathered her several gallons over their years together. And various gemstones - well, those were easy to find in Rarity’s mine. Rare plants, rocks, herbs - all ingredients that once might have been alien to her, but after a lifetime of friendship and centuries in a library, they were as easy to gather as dandelions in spring. (That was very easy, as Twilight had discovered during her youth in Ponyville.)

The only difficult item on the list was the venom; it should have been simple, but now Twilight sat in the library, staring at a wall of books blankly. How could she make the time travel spell more powerful without the venom? She couldn’t risk trying the spell without it; she might get stuck halfway back to her friends, and have to try and gather all of the ingredients again while dodging her past self. No: in order for this spell to land perfectly, she needed a changeling, one that hadn’t become good yet. And that, apparently, no longer existed; even the last rebel changelings, it seemed, had been converted. Or they’d died off. All, perhaps, except for one.

She’d seen a stone immortal brought back to life once before; now she just had to hope it would work again.

The path to Tartarus had been forgotten in the centuries since the enemies of Ponyville had been trapped here. Who could blame them? It was a mark of shame, that a society so focused on love and friendship could house such unforgivable villains. A forest had sprung up around the path over the years, and Twilight Sparkle had to force her way back to the path again and again, bending brush and branches aside until she simply began slicing through them with her magic. This reminded her of a Daring Do story, which would have amused her more if she wasn’t so focused.

Finally, she made it to the gates, which opened obediently at her command. She was a ruler; they bent to her will. The statues inside would not.

Two of them had been destroyed, or removed. There were piles of rubble in the cave of course, but it was a cave. That’s how caves were.

The sight of her prize made her heart leap into her throat, and she stared up at the stone visage of Chrysalis with a desperate hunger. She imagined this might be how a changeling would feel when it caught sight of some love to devour.

“Right, the spell to unstone…” Twilight muttered to herself, and placed her satchel on the ground. There might be no time to reach into her magical pocket if Chrysalis came out ready to fight; today she was working old school. She unfolded a piece of parchment and read back her own writing to herself, her voice every inch the royal, commanding timbre. “Beast of stone, hear my cry; freed from your stony prison, come nigh!”

Her voice echoed through the chamber, ringing back upon itself until nothing was left. Chrysalis remained unmoved.

Twilight Sparkle held her breath for a moment, and after a long beat, released a harsh swear. “Beast of stone, hear my cry; hear my cry! Come - ‘Freed from your stony prison, come nigh!’ That’s what it says! Come - nigh!! Rrrghh!!”

Twilight Sparkle kicked a stray stone as hard as she could, and as it rocketed away into the darkness, she stamped her now-sore hoof. “I said come nigh! You - it has to work! You have to come nigh! Or else - or else I’ll never - I’ll never -” She wasn’t aware she had begun crying, until she felt the hot, angry tears rolling down her cheeks. Princess Twilight Sparkle let her head drop, and she sobbed out an angry, choked-off cry, trying to hold it back.

The sound of her weeping was interrupted by the sudden unnatural crack! of a slab of stone being split.

Twilight Sparkle snapped her head up as quickly as she could, but she only caught the barest glimpse of a skeleton with skin pulled tightly over it before the form of Chrysalis rapidly filled itself out, returning to the glossy, malevolent, unnatural form of the changeling queen.

“Mmm, keep crying, Princess; your grief is delicious.”

Comments

[Kiper]

HERE LIES APPLEJACK, BELOVED SISTER, MOTHER, WIFE. THE ELEMENT OF HONESTY SO LONG AS APPLES GROW SO TOO SHALL HER MEMORY BLOSSOM.

HERE LIES RAINBOW DASH, THE ELEMENT OF LOYALTY INVENTOR OF THE RAINBOOM AND DOUBLE RAINBOOM LIVE HARD, FLY HARD, LOVE HARD I AM ALWAYS BY YOUR SIDE, AJ

I was not prepared.

[Razzy]

Wow, the crayonlings are even bigger pussies in the future. I didn't think it was possible.

Huh, I wonder what happened to the other two.

Best bughorse!

Well, this is going to be Awkward.

'changling' - changeling