Formless: Part 2
The path Chrysalis had taken leading out of the central hive cut straight through manticore territory. Roseluck was terrified, her mind just barely capable of holding the weight of the disbelief that her latest thoughts so kindly provided knowing that she actually agreed to follow them on the road less traveled, and with very good reason. If the smell of rot and the absence of the sweet flowers she used to know and love weren’t enough to drive her away, then what sorcery was this that kept her pace steady and her shaking body turned toward their unknown destination?
*Squelch*
Oh, right…babysitting.
Rain had fallen upon the whole of the forest last night, softening the dirt and grass on the forest floor and dotting it with mud puddles everywhere she looked. Ditto, on the other hand, took no caution with the potential danger that surrounded them. Rather, he took the one chance he had and turned it into pure fun! The little one had seen the opportunities for excitement and decided to make use of them, leaping from puddle to brown puddle along the path they went and splashing through the murky waters like a young puppy with a thirst for discovery.
“Keep an eye on him, Roseluck,” Chrysalis directed over her shoulder ahead of the mare. “We’re almost there.”
“Keep an eye on him? What about me? Heck, what about all of us?” Roseluck raised her voice. “We’re the ones in danger here!”
“And you think I don’t know that? I know this way better than you ever will,” Chrysalis returned her gaze ahead.
“And where does this way lead exactly?” Roseluck huffed, growing tired of the queen’s apathy to her surroundings. “Somewhere safe, I hope.”
“Of course! Why else would I have taken this path?”
“Maybe because you fancied a game of chicken with a forest full of hungry manticores…” Roseluck grumbled.
“I heard that.”
From somewhere behind them, the travelling pair came to a stop upon hearing a soft, distressed squeak. Upon realizing that they could no longer hear the sound of tiny hooves trotting upon soft mud, they turned and glared at each other in shock. They then looked behind them, catching sight of Ditto, on the verge of tears, stuck in a mud puddle. Try as he might, he was unable to free himself, with most of his lower body and stomach caked with the mushy substance and weighing him down.
“Oh dear…” Roseluck murmured, looking on helplessly, her heart suddenly struck with empathy for the infant’s suffering. “Should I—“
“Out of the way!”
Chrysalis shoved Roseluck aside and rushed to her son’s aid. A green aura surrounded her horn and eventually Ditto himself, slowly pulling him out of the muck and into her awaiting embrace after rubbing away most of the grime that covered him from head to hoof.
“It’s ok, it’s ok…” Chrysalis whispered into his ear, her smile slowly calming him down. “Mommy’s here.”
With the way Chrysalis was attached to her son, it would take no less than an entire army to separate them. A three-headed hydra from a thousand-year old myth might have sufficed but a mother with a threatened or endangered child is anything but docile. Her transformation from intimidating creature to loving caretaker was progressing rather quickly, but Roseluck was far from siding with it. The queen of the changelings still lived on somewhere within her heart, a fearsome lioness just waiting to pounce.
“Are you two done back there?” asked Roseluck. “Surely I mustn’t remind you of where we stand right now?”
“I stand wherever I please,” Chrysalis sternly retorted, looking back at her while she gently rubbed Ditto’s forehead.
“Where we stand is in the middle of one of the most dangerous places in Equestria!”
“Again, don’t you think I know that? The Everfree is a much stranger place than you ponies think, Roseluck. After all, I’ve lived here for most of my life. It holds a…special place in my memory.”
Chrysalis planted a kiss upon Ditto’s cool, innocent forehead before levitating him onto her back, gently placing him just behind the back of her neck. His mother’s mane in his sights, he reached outward and grabbed hold of it, his raspy, childish giggling fueling his playtime as he tugged and pulled on it, occasionally burying his face within its opaque threads just for added fun. Roseluck marveled at such strategic placement despite how painful it appeared to her. The queen of the changelings was becoming more of a mother each day.
“Come, let’s go,” said Chrysalis, reclaiming her position at the head of the line.
The pair continued onward, the fears of a certain cream-coated mare steadily rising like flood waters. She knew…well, she hoped that Chrysalis was smarter than this, but was the queen really so blind? Maybe her age has finally caught up with her, relying on what Roseluck predicted was her gut feeling to lead her decision making. Were those the giggles of a young one at play or the jingle of dinner bells that erratically escaped the infant’s toothless mouth?
“Where exactly are we headed?” asked Roseluck, trying her best to keep her voice soft.
“To a place lost from history. A mystical edifice whose location is known only by few. It is a place where we will be safe, though it has been long since I last visited it.”
“And that would be?”
“You’ll recognize it when we get there.”
“You better be sure about this,” Roseluck spoke sternly. “I don’t plan my evenings around how close you bring us to certain death.”
“If I had wanted to dispose of you I would have done so in a heartbeat, but I don’t, now do I? I made that perfectly clear long ago.”
“Oh please…”
“You’re vital to our survival, Roseluck. Remember that, for without you Ditto…well, let’s just stray away from the worst.” An uninviting picture had formed in the queen’s mind, but a playful, instinctive nuzzle to her son’s cheek brought forth a smile and cast out her most sensitive fears.
Ever since they stepped outside the central hive, Roseluck had felt no onset of a calm demeanor. She had been going on for days with a secret, perpetual dread of everything around her. Surely it was natural, but nopony she knew had ever willingly stayed more than a day in the middle of the Everfree. The hills have eyes and the trees have ears, so they say. Out here they also happen to have mouths…and teeth…and stomachs that growled ferociously.
“Besides, you’ve seen my magic, and I won’t hesitate to strike down any dimwitted beast that would dare do us harm,” Chrysalis continued.
“As if you haven’t changed enough…” Roseluck rolled her eyes. “Makes me wonder why you haven’t already glassed the entire forest.”
“Hmm…not a bad idea actually.”
Roseluck had the strangest feeling that she just heard the black queen snicker. Her thoughts weren’t worth questioning and Roseluck chose to remain silent.
The path seemed to go on forever, as did the experience. She kept a fair distance, hoping that Ditto would eventually tire himself out from playing with his mother’s mane instead of suddenly being reinvigorated by even the tiniest glance of her own brightly-colored forest of long hair, reaching out with his tiny hooves and giggling even louder towards her with the desire to play with it instead. His laughter was squeaky and shrill but unavoidable, which, curiously enough, raised another question.
“How are we not dead yet?” Roseluck asked plainly having finally gotten it off her chest. “What’s so special about this stretch of dirt and mud that’s keeping us out of a manticore’s mouth?”
“The road itself,” Chrysalis replied, cracking a short smile. “It has remained unchanged for over a thousand years.”
“That’s impossible.” Roseluck stared ahead blankly at Chrysalis.
“Well…it’s half true, anyway.” Chrysalis corrected. “Centuries ago, this part of the forest used to rest at the top of small hill. When we fled our homeland, we crossed over it and encountered a brick road, worn, grey, and riddled with fractures. To this day, the ways of nature seemed to have taken their toll, slowly eroding the hill away and burying the path in several lengths of dirt and plant life. My mother was smarter than to follow it at the time, for she feared it lead to a royal guard outpost.”
“And…you suddenly think otherwise?”
“Yes, like how dimwitted the royal guard would have been to build any sort of encampment way out here in the Everfree. I’m not insulting my own mother’s tactics, but they would have been ambushed and torn apart within minutes of stepping into the forest.” Chrysalis sighed. “Though I was a curious young one, and while our new home was being constructed I snuck away and came back here. I followed it for quite a ways, unaware of what manner of creatures surrounded me, yet oblivious to what was keeping them at bay.”
“And that was…?” Roseluck spoke up, desperately eager to know while she looked off into the forest dark.
“Magic.”
Up ahead, something caught the attention of Chrysalis. She came to a halt, catching Roseluck off guard and causing her to collide with her right flank. The mare stumbled, but recovered quickly to rub her forehead. The mother and son pair looked over their shoulders at the scene, giggling in tandem as the mare’s eyes spun around in circles.
“Oooh…why did we stop?” asked Roseluck, finding it strangely difficult to refocus her vision.
“Why else would we stop in such a ‘dangerous, hostile place’?” Chrysalis joked before looking ahead. “We’re here.”
When she regained her proper eyesight, Roseluck found herself within a state of admirable awe after gazing upward towards the treetops where a break in the path was revealed. A decrepit stone structure stood tall within a muddy clearing, its grey bricks and featureless add-ons slowly crumbling away with the passing of time. Strangely, there were no trees on the other side. Just a clear, uninterrupted view of a level of the forest that dipped downward and spread out endlessly. Large chunks of rubble, coarse marble, and brick were strewn about the area, bathed in mud and dotted with damp moss. Holes as large as mountain boulders were knocked into the various, visible façades of the building, apertures that displayed little more than depressing emptiness. Only a single doorway was present at the front, a tall archway that beamed light outward through a thin sliver between an olden set of wooden doors, revealing centuries-worth of dust that cavorted like lazy moths through the humid air.
“The Austere Fortress,” Chrysalis smiled. “Soon to be gone, but never to be forgotten.”
“Uhh…the what?” Roseluck questioned the queen.
“That is the name my mother gave to it. You don’t need to call it that, but you ponies should know it’s true name quite well; The Ancient Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, once a home to those you ponies deem…’fair in rule.’”
Roseluck didn’t read many storybooks in her youth, let alone as an adult, but legends fit into a different category for her. She knew of a few rather interesting ones, a similar trait found within just about everypony who imagined that the world they lived in possessed an even more interesting past, but none of them ever expected one of these supposed fantasies to have actually been hailed into existence, even through the workings of magic.
“B-But…this place actually exists?” Roseluck spoke in a bewildered tone.
“What? They didn’t teach you about Equestrian history? About your own homeland?” said Chrysalis, unamused. “Typical.”
“Uggh! Would you knock it off?” Roseluck snapped at Chrysalis. “Do I look like somepony who knows everything there is to know?”
“No,” Chrysalis so plainly replied. Her mood then encountered another shift. From wise and happy to upstart and snooty the queen jerked her head off to the side and lifted her nose up high. “I just expected ponies to know a bit more about their own origins.”
“At least I know more about Equestria’s past than you do!”
“From studying flowers?”
“It’s botany…” Roseluck growled. “Everypony says that. I just didn’t believe it. I mean, come on! The forest has been here forever! Who in the right mind would be dumb enough to build something as big as a castle way out here?”
“My thoughts exactly. I could attempt to answer that, but we’ve wasted too much time just standing here. I’ve already counted out the number of predators that have been stalking us ever since we left the hive.”
“S-Stalking us?!” Roseluck gasped, spinning around to scan the area behind them. She peered cautiously into the thicket of trees on both sides, but could see nothing apart from the norm. Chrysalis could only roll her eyes and start forward, slowly walking towards the front of the aging structure. Ditto gazed up at the towering remnants with a twinkle of wonder in his eyes.
“I-I don’t see anything, Chrysalis,” Roseluck shivered, slowly backing up. “But that doesn’t mean they’re not there. Perhaps we should go back. Right, Chrysalis…Chrysalis?”
When she received no response the second time, the frightened mare glanced over her shoulder. With the black queen no longer behind her for protection, she threw herself into a panic. Chrysalis evidently sensed that Roseluck was no longer behind her, and turned to find her staring pathetically into the forest like a startled kitten.
“What are you doing…” Chrysalis sighed, her pointy ears going limp in disappointment.
“”Y-You just said we’re surrounded by—“
“Nothing!” Chrysalis yelled, stamping her hoof. “Well, nothing that can actually reach us, anyway. Firstly, I never said we were surrounded and secondly we’re completely safe!”
Roseluck looked back into the forest, unsure of whether or not she should believe the queen’s word for once.
“The path we were just on and this clearing are both protected by magic, like I said,” Chrysalis explained. “It’s some form of barrier that can be easily lifted by any being who can manipulate magic, sometimes without them even knowing it. It’s been there for over a thousand years and hasn’t changed since. I have no idea who put it there, and frankly, I don’t care who did. Now, are you coming or not?”
Her companion’s words were almost always words of chance. Roseluck couldn’t even trust her with even the most basic of information, but what other choice did she have? Besides running and screaming for “Help!” like a headless chicken, very little. Same as always. She turned and rejoined the queen at her side, lifting her pent-up tension and doubts in favor of the mother’s instinct. On their journey towards the ghostly doorway, her eyes wandered off towards what little figments of natural beauty the Everfree forest possessed.
Off to the far left of the clearing, she caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a wide gulley, with two parallel wooden posts on each side. Two of the posts were practically nothing but splintered husks, and their parallel siblings were black with decay. She assumed they use to be part of some sort of supporting structure, like a bridge, but eventual wayside boredom redirected her attention elsewhere, which happened to be the great twin monoliths that gave way to the castle entrance.
They ascended a short flight of stairs onto a stone promenade where the sun’s light shined warmly onto their faces. Chrysalis took hold of the doors with her magic and forced them open. Their aging hulks rubbed and rumbled along the stone floor in a rather unpleasant way, like the much-hated sound of a chair being dragged across an unpolished wooden floor. Roseluck took one final look outside before following the queen through the grey archway.
The interior of the runic monastery managed no better in any way. It felt just as empty. It was much smaller on the inside than Roseluck had expected, with the entrance giving way to an extensive grand hall. Whatever roof there used to be there had long since collapsed and merely patches of debris and dry vines furnished the place, with only fluttering moths acting as the evening’s royal guests. Holes for windows were carved out, but there was nothing worth seeing out of them, just like there was nothing worth seeing from the back of castle, which was shrouded by thick vegetation. Ditto marveled and Chrysalis wondered, but Roseluck was left to float her eyes about with a fleeting sense of terror, fearing that some giant, razor-winged bird or some other equally-shocking abomination would unexpectedly swoop down and snatch her clear off her hooves.
“This should be perfect,” said Chrysalis, taking a few steps forward after letting Ditto slide off her back. “It’s quiet, roomy, and above all, safe. We can practice whatever we like here.”
“Did it always look like this?” asked Roseluck, looking around. “It seems a bit…structurally unsound.”
In the time the two stood there, Ditto spent his first time ever on rock-solid ground exploring the somehow still-standing piece of history around him, scurrying from corner to corner on his tiny hooves poking and prodding at whatever sort of item of interest that came across his wide field of vision. On his tiny adventure he discovered quite a few things he had yet to interact with back home, like a patch of moss on a rock that made his face tickle ever so delightfully or watching inquisitively as an earthworm buried its face into a pile of dirt.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a something red and wavy. He turned and nearly burst with excitement at the sight of a long curtain of tattered red fabric wedged into a space between the floor and a broken column. To him and his spirited self it represented his mother’s mane perfectly, except for the color, but it didn’t matter either way. The world was his playground, and everything was a new toy just waiting to be played with! His little tail swished from left to right as he bounded over to his next plaything.
“Well, it was more…intact a long time ago. The forces of nature have taken their toll, but are far from utterly brutalizing it.”
Roseluck sighed.
“I hope you’re right about this…”
Over by the leaning column, Ditto was already hard at working attempting to pull the red fabric out of its wedge, with one end of the fabric clasped between the jaws of his toothless mouth. He was locked in a battle of strength and determination, jerking the fabric with all his might in a tight-edged game of tug of war. Who was to reign victorious? The crackling of stone and the shifting of heavy rock soon gave way to the silent cry of victory. After much work, the fabric came loose, and Ditto yanked it out completely only to tumble backward onto the ground. He quickly rose up and eyed his new treasure, hugging it like he would do with his mother’s mane.
“Alright, let’s get started. The sun may go down before we know it and wandering around aimlessly through the dead of night while predators are about is a risk I am far from willing to take.”
“Yeah. Just one question…” Roseluck started, looking around her. “Where’s Ditto?”
Suddenly, the pair was startled by a loud, wrenching cracking noise originating from somewhere nearby. They turned, looked, and nearly leapt out of their skin when they found Ditto giggling and snuggling with a ragged curtain next to a menacing stele of stone. A long, wide crack ran down its middle which widened and fractured with each passing second. It began to list dangerously in the infant’s direction, loosening stones the size of apples from crevices in the high walls above him. Chrysalis reacted immediately, pumping magic into her horn as fast as her veins could carry it and whisking Ditto straight off the ground and rendezvousing with his mother’s pillow-soft bosom just in time for the unforeseen mortars to land and shatter like glass.
What little was left of the supporting base was promptly crushed underneath the weight of the enormous pillar. Much like the spiritual vessel of a lumberjack’s sweat and blood, gravity finally forced it down to its demise. It slammed into the floor in the center of the room, throwing up a cloud of blinding dust and debris. A nasty coughing fit ensued, but Ditto was spared. The thick murk gently fell to the ground like dirty snowflakes, revealing the aftermath where the column lay flat on its side in the middle of the mid-sized crater, broken in two but not wholly destroyed.
“Is…is it over?” Roseluck murmured, covering her mouth and coughing between words.
Such famous last words these were, but the voyagers three were long from their end of troubles. To answer the mare’s question however was probably the most unlucky piece of earth in existence, the last stone to fall after its brethren, one that slipped off from its resting place, bounced up once off the ground and met its demise in the very same crater, where, by the most otherworldly means imaginable, shook the basin to its core. The floor around it began to split, widening the fissure. When the sharp cracks came within inches of them Roseluck screamed and took flight with Chrysalis as the ground behind them crumbled away. They ran as far back as the door before turning to assess the situation, where they discovered that most of the floor had been swallowed by a giant sinkhole, leaving only a stygian pit square in the center. No weight hung greater than their jaws in that moment, and Roseluck was left with only inquiry to go by.
“You call that safe?!” Roseluck yelled to Chrysalis’s face. “Are you out of your bug-brained mind?! We could have been killed, again!”
“That wasn’t my fault! Do you really think I could have ever expected that?!”
“Hellooo! We’re standing in the middle of some thousand-year old castle that probably shouldn’t have even existed in the first place for obvious reasons! What couldn’t you expect?!”
Ditto longed to see his new plaything again amidst the confusion and chaos that separated them. He feared that it was lost in the accident, and came close to tears when the realization nearly hit him, but just before the waterworks started he caught a glimpse of something colorful hanging on the edge of the colliery. He immediately recognized it as the red curtain. He wanted to run to it in a grateful reunion and envelop his tiny form within its silky folds, but the climb down his mother’s high back is what brought his hopes to a standstill. He looked to his tiny wings, but found them weighed down with a layer of dust. He whimpered mournfully, defeated.
Of course she could hear the pain in Ditto’s voice. Chrysalis’s ears were fine-tuned to pick up even his softest breaths. She was on the edge of escalating her current argument, but turned her attention to Ditto at the last minute. She slipped down to her haunches and swayed him gently in the cradle of her arms, turning away from Roseluck just so she could replace her sour disposition with a warm smile. Ditto however did not smile back much less look at her directly. Her gaze returned to the sinkhole, where she caught sight of the curtain he had been playing with only minutes before hanging on the edge. Getting the message, she set him down and walked over to the pit’s edge where she retrieved it and gladly returned it to him.
“Hmph! We went through all that trouble too. Now look where we are! “
Chrysalis paid no mind to the perturbed mare as her senses were focused on the unfiltered fun Ditto was having. His laughter was softened by the thick curtain he tossed about in, though she did do her part to make sure he wouldn’t roll right off the edge. Just for kicks, she nudged a small rock into the pit, wondering how far down it went. Despite the shrouding darkness, it landed rather quickly and resounded with a resonant echo. The queen was left puzzled.
“Did you even hear a word I said?!” Roseluck yelled as she stomped over to the queen. She received no response, unless you count the bitter silence she received in its place. “Hey!”
“Hush!” Chrysalis responded, staring down into the abyss. “Listen…”
She levitated another rock over the pit and dropped it. It fell and landed shortly after, peaking her curiosity.
“Great. You showed me how gravity works. Now, how does that help us get any closer to leaving before another bad thing happens?”
“There’s solid ground down there…” Chrysalis murmured. “Not dirt…but stone.”
“Is this really the time for a geology lesson?”
“If my instincts are right…hmm. I wonder…”
Chrysalis looked towards the lip of one of the pit’s edges, an area of fixated debris that made it possible to climb down, barring the foolish leap of faith. She made her way over to it, nuzzling Ditto’s snuggled neck along the way and him her attention.
“Uhh…what are you doing?”
“Watch him for me.”
With that, Chrysalis jumped. She leapt from the edge and touched down softly onto a segment of earth that jutted outward. When she felt that it was safe, she leapt again, and again, continually descending.
“Wait! Where are you going?!” Roseluck yelled from the surface.
“Watch him!”
“But--!”
Roseluck nervously bit her lip as she watched the queen descend. Her anxiety dripped down to the tips of her hooves, which she skipped upon in tune to her growing fears of being taken by surprise by one of the Everfree’s many horrors. She still didn’t believe all that nonsense about complete protection from danger by something as silly and unreliable as a thousand-year old spell from a kingdom as old as the soil beneath it. Faced with only one decision, she followed the sound of laughter to Ditto’s location, which happened to be right beside here, where Ditto now seemed to be wrestling with his own legs. She bent down low and quickly gained his attention with a nervous smile.
“C’mon, D-Ditto. Let’s go follow her. Come on, hehe…”
Ditto turned over onto his stomach and poked his head out fully from underneath the curtain, still brimming with foalish excitement. His gaze was no less absorbing, which made her next move slightly easier. She reached forward and carefully lifted the young one onto her back, taking the curtain with him and twitching when she felt a tinge of pain from her scalp.
“Wait for me!” Roseluck shouted, giving chase to the queen down the same path.
After traversing down a hard path similar to the fashion of a common mountain goat, Roseluck’s hooves made contact with solid ground. Her trek wasn’t the easiest, no thanks to the carelessness of a certain mother and her strange inability to care on and off about everything. She caught sight of a glowing green light at the end of a long passageway, as well as recognized the tall outline of Chrysalis’s body. She was careful to approach it as well as keep her nerves in check by resisting the urge to look behind her. Ditto had buried his head into her mane to hide from the shadow that surrounded them, but revealed himself with another toothless grin when he recaptured the sense of his mother’s presence nearby.
“You’ve finally arrived,” Chrysalis spoke, looking back over her shoulder and smiling.
“Finally arrived? You told me to watch Ditto!” Roseluck responded angrily, moving closer to the queen’s light.
Chrysalis levitated Ditto from the mare’s back and placed him on her own.
“And you did. I would thank you for doing so, but you don’t seem to be in the mood to be gratified.”
Roseluck sighed, rolling her eyes.
“Give me a break…”
Chrysalis brightened the light coming from her horn, revealing the walls to be set at a strange curve, like looking inside of a glass bottle, suggesting that the tunnel was bored rather than naturally formed.
“Strange…” Chrysalis whispered.
“What? This place just looks like some old wine cellar.”
“These walls were crafted by way of olden magic,” Chrysalis pressed a hoof against the even surface. “I can almost feel the vestige energy…it’s like an ancient crypt.”
“So…we’re in an old wine cellar.”
“It’s not a cellar!” Chrysalis retorted.
“Then what could be down here?”
Chrysalis turned and positioned her horn forward, shining her emerald lamp upon the face of a dead end. It wasn’t rounded like the rest of tunnel, though it did display a large number of brittle cracks and flaws that looked as if they’ve been there for ages, left undisturbed.
“Can we just go back before it gets dark? This place has creeped me out long enough!”
A thought came to the queen’s mind just then, and as a result Chrysalis moved her curious ears in close to one of the cracks. She listened in carefully, closing her eyes and blocking out as much background noise as possible. Then, like the tiniest, most gentle of events, she felt a light breeze snake through the gap and tickle her cheek ever so smoothly. It gained speed shortly after, blowing across her muzzle and leaving a faint scent of old musk in the air.
“What was that?!” Roseluck squeaked when she heard the spectral winds whistle overhead.
Chrysalis attempted to place her hoof on the shattered façade, but nearly tripped and fell when her delicate touch caused entire chunks of the timeworn shingles to break off and shatter onto the floor. What was revealed to them shocked both she and Roseluck, who walked up to her side and stared on with her in the presence of a mammoth stone disk. Most of its surface was featureless, but despite the centuries of dust that shrouded it traces of some sort of paint-like material ruled the outlying curves.
“What could this be?” she asked while looking over the unearthed relic.
“Beats me,” replied Roseluck, shrugging her shoulders.
Chrysalis stepped forward to get a better look. With nothing better to do, Roseluck joined her in searching for clues. Meanwhile, the queen was on the verge of an important discovery. While she brushed away ages of dust and flaky debris, Chrysalis uncovered a patch of long-faded tempera that appeared to be of symbolic importance. It most closely resembled a very short-winged bird with seemingly no feet or even a beak, but she could make no further sense of the image and was left to only stare and wonder.
“Hey, wait!” Roseluck spoke up, making Chrysalis look over to her. “This thing is a door!”
“A door?” Chrysalis turned and scanned her vision across the surface of the disk. “I had a suspicion…”
“Yeah! It’s like a giant treasury door, like in a bank or something. Look up there!”
Chrysalis complied, and she indeed discovered the proper signs. She directed her light onto a small directional channel carved into the ceiling in which the disk was inserted, like the wheels of a wall ladder in a fancy library.
“Why would there be a door all the way down here?” Chrysalis asked. “Could there be a second entrance? Even then, why is there a tunnel here to begin with?”
“I’m still holding my bet on this place just being a really big wine cellar…”
Chrysalis rolled her eyes, returning her attention to the theoretical door.
“Should we open it?”
“Haven’t we already been in one too many life-threatening situations?”
“Nothing could possibly live down here. I know nearly every inch of this forest and not once have I heard news of a hidden chamber beneath these lands. I must know.”
“Well, you have fun putting your precious life at risk.” Roseluck spun around and harrumphed with an uptight composure. She started walking away, but stopped and glanced over her shoulder to deliver another remark. “May I remind you that you’re endangering the future of your own—“
Roseluck was quickly cut off by the crackle and whirls of strong magic. Shocked by what she was hearing, she quickly spun around again and discovered the queen charging her horn for a spell. The mare ran to her side as quickly as her hooves could get her there.
“Are you crazy?! You have no idea what could be behind there!” Roseluck shouted in a panic next to the queen’s face.
Ditto was lifted from his mother’s back by the grip of levitation and suddenly tossed towards Roseluck, where he was caught out of the confusion. Roseluck was stunned, yet Ditto celebrated his revisiting with a big smile.
“Then watch him!” Chrysalis responded a stern look in the eyes before forcing a maelstrom of energy through the sharp tip of her horn. Her mystical power enveloped the stone blockage and began rolling it aside ever-so slowly. The unnerving grinding noise it produced sent shivers down Roseluck’s spine, and she backed away with the infant on her posterior.
A sliver of faint yellowish light shot out of an ever-widening crevice as the door continued to roll. When the length of the gap was sufficient enough, which revealed it to be the mouth of a smaller tunnel, Chrysalis powered down her magic and left it up to whatever light was coming in from beyond to illuminate the way. Fearless, she stepped closer to the new entrance and listened in carefully. Roseluck fell dead silent, anticipating the worst.
“The way is clear, or so it would seem.” Chrysalis spoke up.
Roseluck fell at ease while trotting to the queen’s side.
“That’s a…relief, I guess.”
“Right.” Chrysalis nodded. “Let’s head in.”
“Err…you first.”
Chrysalis rolled her eyes in distaste when she observed the mare faking her attentiveness to the maw of the tunnel by staring elsewhere. She started forward, stepping into the breach where Roseluck then followed suit. After a rather brief stroll through the double-bended conduit, they stepped out of the tunnel at the other side and into a place unlike anything they had ever seen before.
Their navigational light source had led them to culmination of their recent series of unfortunate events. What started off as a simple goal in search of a new training ground had brought them into a roomy sanctum hidden deep underground, built entirely out of coarse stone and left barren to all but a single point in the ceiling; a square-shaped skylight that brought in light from the surface world above, bright enough to enliven the whole room. Slow winds made their entrance through this porthole, whistling as they descended. Dust and fettered cobwebs covered every surface save the floor, giving it a truly haunted feel. A stone basin occupied the far side, but all else was so much runic paraphernalia in the emerald eyes of the eldest. But, of course, Roseluck’s guess was as good as any.
“Hah! Wine cellar! I told you!” Roseluck berated the queen with a spirit of victory, seasoning it with a smug attitude like she deserved it for all that she had been through. “We just stumbled upon some super ancient wine cellar that the princesses must have used over a thousand years ago that nopony but them could have accessed. It aaall makes sense,” she giggled. “And you thought otherwise.”
Chrysalis rubbed her forehead to display her compelling sense of disapproval.
“Why do I even bother?” Chrysalis looked up and began stepping forward. “Use a better sense of insight for once. This can’t possibly be a wine cellar. There is only one entrance and no easy way to find it. Not only that, but the door was covered in strange insignias and markings, though I am left unsure as to why they are there. This must have been a simple vault, built so that no one could ever know about it let alone gain access to it.”
“Why build this place and put nothing in it?” Roseluck asked, looking around the room.
“I don’t know, but perhaps…perhaps something could be over there?” Chrysalis turned her head and gestured towards the still basin. Oddly, Roseluck was not reluctant in following her over to it. When they peered inside they discovered two ancient curios within: a marble tablet and the business end of a broken key, which Roseluck herself retrieved while the queen took up the tablet in her hold.
“Wow…some trinket,” Roseluck sighed, unamused. She tossed the fragment aside and fell to her haunches, yawning.
“Pick that up right now!” Chrysalis snapped. “It could be important!”
“Oh, and that slab of rock you’re holding suddenly is?”
“W-Well, not that I know of but…what a minute,” Chrysalis brought the tablet closer to her face, interest and fascination deriving from her eyes. “Something’s odd about the formation of these…by the stars! I-I can’t believe this!”
“Believe what?”
Chrysalis turned around, levitating the cairn by her head and exposing a lengthy filing of chiseled symbols.
“This tablet is written in an ancient Equestrian language, one commonly used by even our own species even long before we were driven from our homeland.”
“Well…ok? What’s it say?”
“No no, Roseluck,” Chrysalis shook her head before pointing a hoof towards the center of the relic. “Words as ancient as this aren’t really meant to…say anything, but show it. It’s a map.”
“A map. Really?”
Chrysalis nodded slowly, looking it over nervously.
“Well…any ideas on where it leads?”
Chrysalis took to translating again, shaking her head slowly with each new bit of information she uncovered.
“Th-This shouldn’t exist. This couldn’t exist!” Chrysalis murmured to herself rather loudly. “They were nothing but stories, legends! No land could have ever just disappeared like that, vanish into the ether like dust in the wind!”
Chrysalis turned once more.
“No…the evidence is right in front of you, you fool…you never look hard enough,” Chrysalis stared up at Roseluck.
“So?”
“Yes, it…really is a map, but it leads to someplace I never thought could have possibly existed. It was from an old story my mother told me when I was young. It was more of a horror story really, since she referred to its outcome often to get me to behave. It seemed like fantasy at its absolute best, but…it was my mother herself who signed this tablet, right here at the bottom. I’ve trusted her on everything before her passing. It can’t be a coincidence…it just…can’t.”
An unexpected sensation of pity crawling onto her shoulders, Roseluck frowned and took her next, most important question slowly.
“Where does it lead?”
The truth was then revealed after a long moment of silence.
“…Mariposa. The Butterfly Kingdom.”
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First. Yeah! New chapter!
Second. I think you overdid roselucks cowardice in this, it would've of been good to have a moment of bravery to balance this off.
Putting this in my read later list
That ending...I'm guessing the flutterponies have something to do with it.
Oh Ditto, your cuteness is like a drug that I can't quit (not like I have any desire to do so anyway)
Riiiight Chrysalis. Curiosity aside, is the best thing to do really to leave Ditto with Roseluck while you explore a tunnel that may or may not be dangerous? And now we have a new destination. Love the name, by the way; can't exactly say why. It just kind of sticks.
Hmm... could this have any relation to Chrysalis' vision? Will Ditto ever get to train his skills? When can Roseluck make it back home? Find out next time (but not all of those things at once) on the next episode of Monster or Mother!
2492490
The way I see it, she's not really cowardly, but overly-cautious. Chrysalis herself admitted that there are loads of dangers in the Everfree, so Roseluck has every right to be worried for her life! All she has is Chrysalis' word to protect her. Is a botanist really the type of pony who'd have experience in fighting monsters?
Huh...well alright then...
You really made up for the lack of Ditto in the previous chapter. There was a great amount of d'aww to be had here.
Chrysalis seems like she's going bi-polar. Doting on her son like he's the most precious thing in the world, to literally throwing him over her shoulder at Roseluck.
screaming or “Help!”
Ditto turned over onto this stomach
Mariposa, as in from the barbie movies?
Read through all of this. Really great display of Chrysalis. Continue.
I like how Roseluck seems to be gradually warming up to Chrysalis and vice versa. She's still pretty bitchy and mistrustful though, which is rather entertaining.
Maybe we'll live to see the day when she'll come to think that maybe, perhaps, that the bug queen who beat Celestia in a DBZ beamfight can handle herself out in the wild.
2492926 Mariposa, Spanish for Butterfly, maybe also in its close parent Latin.
2493151probably seeing as spanish is pretty much based off latin
Dun dun dun
Arg I'm at the start of start of Formless part 1, and I keep putting off continuing. Dream sequences bug the hell out of me and I don't know why.
Don't think I'm saying its bad though, any out of body experience in a story just frustrates me and I have to force myself to get through them, no matter the quality.
Is there any knowing when the next chapter is going to come out so I can work up the nerve to read through it?
images.cryhavok.org/d/13825-2/Wat.jpg
Mariposa as in Barbie with Wings? Please correct me D:
2494519 Burn it with nuclear hellfire~! D:
epic chapter is epic!
2494519
Mariposa as in the Spanish word for butterfly. Any relation to Barbie is simple coincidence.
jajaja, si al reino de las mariposas
http://bigccv.deviantart.com/art/Dia-3-Algo-caracteristico-de-mi-estado-La-Monarca-365713740
2491162
How am I being racist? That absolutley made no sense. Am I sooooo racist because I said Changlings weren't people?!
And you could have just said that Changlings have feelings too and that ponies always assume the worst. Calling them bastards were unnecessary. 
Also, not all ponies assumed the worst, Applebloom didn't, Twilight didn't, Twilight only assumed that Zecora was evil after she was effected by the Poison Joke. 
Does this mean all the changelings are going to turn into flutter ponies now?
So... Flutterponies?
maybe their race used to be flutter ponies n something happened that changed them?
Any clue where the whole 'changelings were flutterponies' idea even originated? Seriously, there's just so much fanon that its impossible to keep track of where it all starts
I gots ta troll...
>>>“Yes, it…really is a map, but it leads to someplace I never thought could have possibly existed. It was from an old story my mother told me when I was young. It was more of a horror story really..."
An unexpected sensation of pity crawling onto her shoulders, Roseluck frowned and took her next, most important question slowly.
“Where does it lead?”
The truth was then revealed after a long moment of silence.>>>
"Detroit, Michigan."
Roseluck screamed in terror for the next 36 hours.
Flutterpones?
So, uh, is this even a Slice of Life anymore? It seems to me that at some point the plot got sidetracked and now they're going on a perilous adventure.
2510734
I've been wanting to add the adventure tag for quite some time now, even long before the chapters were released, but since the big site update, Slice of Life (where Chrysalis acts as a mother, goes through the routines, etc.) and the Adventure tags have been made conflicting categories and thus can't be added onto the same story, though I do have thoughts to change the theme to wholly Adventure from this point on, though that would leave readers of the first chapters wondering where the adventure really is.
2492527 What is a flutterpony?
I... can't stand Roseluck. For the last few chapters, it seems like most of her dialogue has been complaining and insults, even though it doesn't produce anything that helps them out of their situation, which is quite dire.
Yay! Butterfly lady. She changed dimensions.
2519685
They're characters from previous MLP generations - essentially pegasi with butterfly wings (much akin to Rarity's in Sonic Rainboom).
Some fanon theories connect them to changelings because of the similar wing structure.
2526486 OOoooohhh.....Thanks for explaining that
TO ADVENTURE!
ADVENTURE HO!
And other catchphrases, etc, et al.
At least you didn't go for a horse-pun Atlantis rename.
2533922
This..just this: th08.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2012/134/e/b/mommy____by_silvercyh-d4zor28.png
The Keeper: Mariposa? Sounds like an exotic seasoning to me
Me: But it does raise some questions doesn't it?
This may be random but I want to see more interaction between Roseluck and the changeling commander.
Butterfly kingdom really really
Mariposa facility: place in fallout 1 and 2 , the masters army was made here, blown to smithereens by "the vault dweller", rexplored by his son "the chosen one".
Also Mariposa means butterfly in Spanish so you said "butterfly, the butterfly kingdom."