Resolution of a Queen

by Logarithmicon

Isolation

The dungeon, Chrysalis concluded, was something of a compromise. Not an end to her existence, and so in that something of a mercy - and proof Starlight, Twilight, and whatever other whinging sycophants she had surrounded herself with were far, far too soft to properly rule. But also no company except the cold air, enclosing presence of stone in a cell which was somehow still far too thunderous and a pair of guards on the far side of a profoundly thick door and some unreasonably powerful wards.

The dungeon was a sentence to isolation. To a kind of sublime torment which involved nothing except leaving Chrysalis in the dimnes with her chains and her memories.

Nothing but the memories of twitching bodies and mindless laughter.

It would have been an almost admirable degree of cunning in attempting to break her will, if it wasn’t so blindly obvious that the resultant misery was an accident.

Sleep had deftly slipped from the jaws of Chrysalis’ elusive hunt, and so when the cell door opened her eyes were already even as stark, glaring light spilled in from the hallway beyond. Spilled in, at least, until the door way was filled with a far wider form. Claws scratched on stone and a head ducked beneath a doorway never meant to take it, for his kind had their own cells better-suited for their holding.

“...you’ve grown,” Chrysalis murmured.

“Yeah,” Spike grunted, “I have. Hey, guys, shut the door, please?”

The guards did, leaving them alone in the cell again. Chrysalis’ eyes dilated, drinking in the meager illumination to study his form. Spike had grown, yes - grown until he filled nearly half of the generously-sized cell. But he had also changed: His head was no longer so rounded, the frills sharpening into spines and limbs elongating as his body expanded. His wings had broadened and grown deeper, their weight already forcing his shoulders forward; another few decades, Chrysalis estimated, and he’d be transitioning to all-fours as a near-adult dragon.

“The last time I saw you, I believe I was trying to pull your wings off.”

“Yeah,” Spike muttered, flexing the now-widened spans. “Think I’d give you a bit of a better fight now.”

“No doubt. Especially when I am chained down and my magic silenced.”

He winced. “Yeah… look, I’m not coming down here to brag. Not that deep in my own pride yet.”

“Why are you here, then? To annoy me? Contribute to their attempts to break my will?” Chrysalis asked, settling back down onto her belly.

“No. I, uh. I talked to Starlight.” Scratching his cheek awkwardly, Spike shifted from clawed foot to foot in place. “She told me what you said to her. She’s… in pretty rough shape. Really torn up about it. About - her part in it.”

“Good. She deserves it.”

Spike winced, but any retort was bitten off still behind his scaled lips - leaving only a sour look on his face. Chrysalis’ head tilted questioningly.

“Not here to argue, Chrysalis. Just, talk.” Spike finally managed.

“What could we possibly have to talk about that Starlight has not already vomited at me?”

“That I understand,” he flatly said.

Chrysalis huffed, her thin tail swatting against the floor with a light ‘thunk’. “Understand what?”

“Hunger.”

Her tail stopped swatting.

“It’s probably not like you feel it,” Spike continued, “but I don’t actually know. Thorax never talked about anything - before a whole lot.”

“He was weak,” Chrysalis was unable to prevent herself from sneering.

“He is strong,” Spike retorted with suddenly narrowed eyes.

Chrysalis dismissively inspected a shackled hoof. “Was. Starlight told me he was infected. He is already dead.”

Opening his mouth to retort, Spike instead huffed - twin trickles of smoke drifting up to cloud the already dim light in the cell. He settled on all fours, rolling his shoulders. “...you’re not deceiving anyone, Chrysalis. Starlight told me a whole lot. Including what you told her. About feeling a constant hunger.”

“So the toadie has a loose tongue. So what? I can’t say I’m surprised.”

A moment's hesitation longer, and Spike gave another long, low, sulfur-scented sigh.

“I Want, Chrysalis. Not want, Want. Want. It’s every living second I’m awake. Want. Some days are good days. I want little things - an extra ruby with breakfast, to take an hour off and laze in the sun while colts and fillies playing hero climb all over me, little things that I can say ‘no’ to.”

He growled - not grumbled, not grunted, growled. The low thrumming of rocks grinding together in a volcano. It was the first truly dragon-like noise Chrysalis had heard from him, and her chitin prickled from long-honed instinct.

Dragon growls meant death.

“Sometimes I want to grab the next self-serving noble that struts into her throne room and just… breathe on them. Fire. A warning. Don’t take her time, because she’s mine. I want to just pick her up and carry her away to somewhere safe and alone where nopony else can bother her, because she’s mine. Mine. My Twilight, and…”

Was it her imagination, or had Spike always… loomed like that? Had his brows always been so sharp, his crest always so jagged?

“...and I can’t. I know I can’t. But it’s there. So yeah. You’re not the only one.”

“Congratulations. The ponies haven’t wrung every bit of dragon-ness from your spirit yet.”

“That’s not the point, Chrysalis,” and Spike’s claws dug deep grooves into the stone floor as he growled. “I’m saying - saying -”

“You’re saying that you think you understand what I am like,” Chrysalis said, smoothly slipping herself in between his words. “What I feel. Trying to imagine you can understand what I am going through. But you don’t. You never could. Your greed cannot kill you if unfulfilled for too long. Our hunger can.”

“You really think that?” Spike whispered, and Chrysalis paused.

“...why?”

He dragged a claw along the cell floor, diamond-like tips cutting random shapes into the stone. “I won’t starve without a hoard, you’re right. But it can still take everything from me… I give in, I - eh. You probably know dragons.”

“I do,” Chrysalis nodded.

The claw had paused, and was now twisting in place - boring a tiny hole into the cell floor. “The ponies… don’t like that. I’ve been around nearly half a lifetime for them; Ember, Smolder, and the others have been trying to bring us closer for two decades. But so often, ponies look at me and I think they just see a monster ready to blow at any second. Blow up, or… want.”

Spike looked up to her, pupils dropped down the thinnest of slits. “They’re just waiting for me - for any of us - to lose it. And if we do, it’s the end for all of us. They’ll never trust us. Half of them don’t already. And it’s not going to be polite either; ponies… can get panicky. It’s going to be torches, pitchforks, and magic time. And if that happens, a lot of other dragons are going to start looking at Ember as vulnerable, and I’d bet you know what it’s like when dragons really fight too. So yeah, I think I kind of do get what you’re on about.”

For a long few moments the two stared at each other - changeling and dragon, eyes meeting and neither making a move except for the slow rise and fall of breaths taken.

Somewhere in the cell, a droplet fell to the floor with a recognizable plop.

“...they would be right to,” Chrysalis decided at last. “Think of her as weak. Because she is. She’s trying to fight this problem like a pony. So are you too. You want to control it. Subsume it entirely. Change who you are into something more… more pony-like.” With a more sneering tone, she added, “Ember is a gaudy plaything for ponies to feel good about themselves, when they look at how weak and unthreatening she is to them.”

“Ember is doing everything she can-”

“-to turn you into ponies with scales. Just like they took away my kind and turned them into garish things which couldn’t be dangerous to them. But you can’t be a pony. Your essence rejects it. Pulls you back to what you really are. Who knows-” She laughed, throwing her head back again. Spike winced, as it was a harsh and stabbing sound. “-maybe you’ll find your own Kuru too.”

“You sound like you’re looking forward to it.”

“I look forward to anything that sours Twilight Sparkle's perfect little nation, and Starlight Glimmer's life in particular."

“And what would you suggest we do, Chrysalis? Throw a tantrum instead? Let our greed run wild? Steal off gold and jewels, lair in towns and choke them out, kidnap our friends?” Spike’s voice had risen along with his body, all four legs seeming to strain against the ground as he leaned in towards the changeling.

“Prepare,” Chrysalis barked, “for when it does happen. Because it will. Ponies love their control - magic, weather, other species, everything has to be controlled. They’re trying to make you like that too. But the world isn’t like that. You have to be ready to persevere when it does fall apart, because fate is a cruel queen who we all pay tribute to.”

“Just like you.”

“I try to be ahead of the curve.”

“So you think you’ve got everything worked out, huh? Figured out every angle, can’t be surprised, huh?”

“Of course not,” Chrysalis snorted, “I am the one sitting in a dungeon after all. And…”

“And?”

“...I have not seen a Kuru outbreak like this,” Chrysalis said softly. “I have - grown used to needing to cut off certain parts of the hive. Infected parts, so that the rest can live. But I have never lost my entire hive.”

Spike reached out with one clawed hand - not quite touching her, but drawing closer in offer. “You don’t have to. Many aren’t showing symptoms yet. They could be saved.”

“They know. It’s already far too late for those fools. All that can be done now is… being ready to move on.”

“You don’t sound ready to move on,” Spike pointed out.

“Can you fault me for mourning the death of my kin?”

“No. But I can think you’re stupid for just sitting around moaning about it.”

“Remember who you speak to, whelp,” Chrysalis hissed, glaring at him through the chains draped from her horn ring.

Spike drew his claw back - not too quickly, not a sudden jerk of fear, but back all the same. “I am. I know exactly who I’m speaking to. And you know what? You think you’re ‘persevering’ through this, but all I see is you giving up. That’s all I think you’ve ever done - the second things turn bad, you just start running.”

“It’s how we have survived. A changeling revealed is a changeling vulnerable - do you think ponies are the worst things out there?” Chrysalis spat back, rising to her hooves. “There are older, fiercer things out there even I would balk at confronting - Raggedygaol. The Eldest Dragon. The Beast of Anun-Mas. Shellulack. Any one of those could bring ruin in an instant. And all you can do is build back when you are done.”

“Yeah, but you know what?” Spike asked, jabbing a talon into his own chest. “I’m not a Beast of Anything, or Ragggedywhatever, and definitely not the eldest dragon out there. This isn’t any of them. This can be fought. It should be fought! Or are you just too scared to face it?”

Chrysalis recoiled, her expression souring deeply. After a moment, she turned her head away. “I am terrified, of course. I am terrified of losing my entire hive. I am terrified of seeing them waste and die before my eyes. I am terrified of facing my own end - surely that groveling, pink sycophant of Twilight’s told you, that this might be my end. And most of all, I’m terrified because I don’t understand why I’m even telling you this!.”

The last few words had been spat out as a shout. Spike opened his jaws, paused, and swallowed with a sour look. “Considering everything you did to me - did to Twilight - not enormously sympathetic.”

Chrysalis simply snorted again.

“But fine. So I’m not your friend - yet. So what? Don’t do it for me, then. Do it for yourself. You want to be powerful again? Stop running. Be the changeling queen who beat Kuru. Be the one who stood up and yelled back, ‘not this time!’”

“Be a pony, you mean. Control everything.”

“Not everything. Just… something.” Spike settled back to the cell floor, his eyes distant. “Maybe, maybe you can save some of them. Maybe knowing about isn’t so bad, and the ones who aren’t sick yet can go on. Maybe there’ll be something.”

Chrysalis' eyes fell to the floor. Were his words echoing in the chamber, or in her head? She swallowed a heavy bile and spoke slowly. “You want them to live.”

“Thorax is my friend,” he murmured, “and I want my friend to live. I know you probably don’t, but I do. I… I want that a whole lot, and I’m willing to come down here and ask you to just this once push through how bad this is and try. I’ll ask, I’ll argue, Tartarus-take-it-all I’ll beg. Just… don’t give up. This time, don’t give up.”

Silence reigned for a minute, or ten. “...there is one thing. Something I might be able to do for them,” Chrysalis mumbled at last, “but Starlight Glimmer is going to hate this plan.”

Comments

[spoonlol]

, “for when it does happen. Because it will. Ponies love their control - magic, weather, other species, everything has to be controlled..”

Except pony don’t actually control these things, they may shape the weather , bring the seasons and raise the sun and moon but this isn’t control. They are just as subjected to nature as any creature. Whenever ponies have tried to force their will over thee things it’s turned out horribly

[GamePlayer64]

11032322
What about animals? I mean Fluttershy loves animals a lot but what about those who eat smaller animals?

[Razzy]

Hmm... Okay, I was worried at first that this would swerve into Chryssie being completely right so the time, but it's turning out to be more balanced than I thought, with her being shown as a polar opposite to the ponies' approach in a way.

One funny thing I just realised, though - the only gryphon to become a regular character on the show, Gallus, is the one with the unnatural blue colouring, closest to the technicolor colour range most popular in ponies. Every single gryphon we've seen before and I think since has more natural colours that a cat could have, or a bird that's not a bird of paradise.

'“I look forward to anything that sours' - missing rest of sentence?

[Juicer]

Could this be the origin of Gen5 Why there are only ponies?