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Ludus

"Okay, let's go over the ground rules."

Twilight Sparkle stood outside of her castle, in front of two mares, both looking equally bored in the face of her stern stare. The tantrum today over more quinoa had been minor, and Chrysalis and Trixie had even been... polite. To each other, and to her. Even Chrysalis's snarling at Starlight had been tuned down, which was the biggest red flag of all, short of Trixie requesting to join the two of them on their walk.

Twilight had warned the townsponies as best she could. Any of them who bothered to read the notices would know that Chrysalis would be outside of the castle, which would cut down the screaming by, generously, about thirty percent. Now it was just trying to mitigate the damage of whatever they were up to.

"Repeat them back to me," Twilight ordered, to a pair of eye rolls. "Chrysalis, you first."

"I will keep to my natural form at all times outside the castle," Chrysalis intoned with raw, unrefined boredom. "I will not comment on the love I feel emanating from any ponies or other creatures, including and especially how delicious it is. I will not attempt to eat any love that isn't freely offered to me without manipulation or coercion. I will not kill or otherwise harm any animals, nor openly talk about eating them. And I will stay within your immediate sight and won't wander off."

Twilight nodded. "Good. Trixie, you next."

"Trixie will not use magic other than basic telekinesis unless she clears it with you first," Trixie droned, making a grand effort to outdo Chrysalis's tonal dullness. "Trixie will not use explosives, magical or mundane, anywhere within Ponyville's limits. Trixie will not make any unsettling jokes about conquering Ponyville a second time. And Trixie will also stay close without wandering off."

"Alright..." Twilight turned away, gesturing with a wing for the two to follow her. "We'll go for a short walk around town, get dinner, and then back to the castle."

"Yes, mother," Trixie commented as she moved to follow. Then she paused, smirked, and added, "Or would you rather I call you mommy?"

Twilight froze. Chrysalis giggled. And with the clarity of a pony perched on the peak of a mountain watching a descending asteroid, suddenly she knew the form her doom today would take.

Meanwhile in Canterlot, a different mare was having her own sense of impending doom.

Moondancer had been trying to get out more, ever since she and Twilight Sparkle had mended their rift. She'd come to accept again that Minuette, Lemon Hearts, Twinkleshine, and Lyra Heartstrings were her friends and genuinely wanted her around, and had been getting away from the books more and more to socialize. It wasn't something she could do every day--she was an introvert by nature and needed the occasional day with just herself and the books to properly recharge--but with careful attention paid to her limits, it had been fun.

She, Lemon, Minnie, and Twinkle had all gone out for doughnuts today, just like they always did once a week, and it had been poised to be like any other meetup. They'd all catch up on what was happening in each others' lives, discussing careers, new hobbies, the occasional bit of family drama, along with a bit of gossip about whatever may be happening in Ponyville. Today, however, the last of those would end up taking centre stage.

The first sign of doom was when Minnie showed up late, racing into the doughnut shop with wide eyes and holding a newspaper in her magic. "Girls! We've got a Code Bugbear!" With everypony sitting up, ears perked at the words that meant something is going down in Ponyville, she tossed the paper onto the table, the big, bold headline drawing every eye.

"'Royal Harem Scandal: Princess of Friendship Now Collecting More Than Friends,'" Lemon read aloud, and then her eyes widened. "Ohhhhh, that's why Princess Celestia and Princess Luna seemed a little jumpy lately. Must be another old law coming back to bite them in the flanks."

Twinkle tilted her head slightly. "Another? This happens a lot?"

Lemon laughed a little. "Every other week. It just usually doesn't make it into the papers. Turns out that Princess Luna coming back set off a whole cascade of things coming out of the woodwork. There's a lot of old laws that were written before she was banished that nopony ever took off the books." More laughter bubbled. "There was this whole thing with owls during the first year. I swear sometimes that I can still hear hooting if I go down this one hallway--"

"Fillies! Focus!" Minnie jabbed at the paper with a hoof. "This isn't about the big mares in charge, this is about our little Twilight. And you haven't read who she's gotten herself entangled with."

"Well don't leave us in suspense, Minnie," Twinkle said as she pulled over a doughnut and took a bite. "Either let one of us read it or tell us yourself."

"It's the changeling queen. The one from the wedding."

Horror fell over Twinkle's face and the half-eaten doughnut fell back onto the table. "The bug who replaced Cadence and mind controlled us?"

"The same."

"I thought she was overthrown and she fled into the wilds?"

"Oh she did." Minnie tapped the paper with her hoof again. "And it sounds like the wilds were pretty bad to her. She apparently showed up at Twilight's castle half-dead and said she was starving."

"Good!"

"A bit harsh, Twinkle?" Lemon asked as she sipped her hot chocolate.

"Minnie, Lyra, and I were brainwashed by her. I'm allowed to be 'a little harsh.'"

"I'm only saying, the rest of the changelings turned things around and are allies of Equestria now. Maybe Twilight's trying to see if she can be reformed too."

Twinkle huffed and grumbled to herself, then eyed Minnie. "Why aren't you freaking out too? Like I said, she used her powers on both of us."

Minnie grinned. "Mostly because the idea of Twilight with a harem is the most hilarious thing ever. Like, can you imagine?" She waved her front hooves around as she spoke. "I'm pretty sure just thinking spicy thoughts too hard at her would make her hide in a broom closet all day. If her former majesty is trying to seduce her way into power with this, she's going to hit a brick wall of awkward nerd."

"Speaking of awkward nerd..." Lemon turned to look at Moondancer, who abruptly remembered what breathing was. "You okay, Moonie?"

A squeak comparable to a deflating balloon was the only response, as Moondancer tried to take in and let out air at something approaching normal intervals.

Confused blinks were had around the table, until Minnie glanced from the paper to Moondancer and back again before letting out a knowing, "Ohhhh..." She patted her shoulder with a hoof. "Hey, like I just said, this was clearly a political thing. For all intents and purposes, she's still single. You've still got a shot."

"...What...?" Air was still having some difficulty, and so words were in limited supply.

"I mean, it's not really a secret, Moonie," Twinkle added. "The way you went off at Twilight at the party read as a teensy bit more than a disappointed friend would do."

"I..."

"I think you two would make a really cute couple!" Lemon added with a smile. "You should totally go for it and ask her out next time we visit."

Words vanished and squeaking returned. They weren't wrong, and she knew they weren't wrong. While she hadn't consciously realized it at the time, that snub of her party long ago had cut so deep for a reason, and when everything had spilled out during Twilight's visit, it had all clicked together. But just asking her out? That wasn't going to happen. She'd just patched up her friendship with her.

Putting herself out there so soon, to see if that mended friendship could be the foundation for a romantic relationship, was a terrifying idea.

Besides, sure, the changeling queen was just trying to survive, but now that those floodgates were open, how long before a mare with genuine romantic intentions showed up and swooped in? What chance did she possibly have, when ponies started lining up to surround a princess?

Of course, she could always... try to beat those ponies to it. Just... place herself in Twilight's orbit, give her a chance to maybe start to think about Moondancer in that light, if she hadn't already.

She was dimly aware of Lemon trying to change the subject as she ran her hoof along the newspaper. When it came to weighing the scales between confronting her own social anxiety, and being in proximity to a villainous former queen, it was a tough call.

Innuendo was no longer a word. Innuendo was no longer a linguistical concept. No, it had transcended such things, to become a force beyond all magic and science, weaving instead into the fabric of reality until nothing was left untouched. Everything was innuendo. Existence itself was innuendo.

No matter what Twilight had said during the outing, or what she'd done, one or both had found a way to twist it around on her. What had started with wordplay had soon devolved into complete non sequitur, Chrysalis or Trixie simply able to repeat a word or phrase with a tone and eyebrow waggle and suddenly, no matter how innocent the words, Twilight felt like she needed a scalding shower. It was a talent somehow deeper than one of a cutie mark, a horrible skill that she could only imagine both had made dark pacts to acquire.

The worst thing of all is how they'd kept working together. When one didn't seem to have a quip planned, the other stepped in to provide it. She'd briefly left during dinner for a break from the onslaught, under the pretense of using the little fillies room, and come back to hear them talking about keeping score.

It'd been horrible. Parents kept covering their foals' ears and glaring at her. Teenagers kept breaking into riotous laughter. One stallion had fainted.

At least it was finally over.

She'd managed to unwind some of the stress with an after-dinner book--obscure magical texts from centuries past never failed to relax her--and now she finally felt like she could rest without her mind conjuring nightmares filled solely with Trixie and Chrysalis's smirking faces. Her hooves dragged against the crystal as she moved, mind only able to focus on her soft pillow, with even finding the strength to pull a blanket over herself optional.

She only realized that she'd forgotten to check the integrity of the changeling alarm spell when she saw them.

It was a nightmare. A waking nightmare. Two Trixies, with identical expressions of allure exaggerated to the point of caricature. Not just roses this time, but rose petals, all over the bed and floor, the kind of thing that would have Twilight cleaning for days and still finding them.

For a few moments, all she could do was stare in horror. Then a different feeling replaced it.

The two got up and started to run when they saw her mane burst into flame.

"OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT!"

The door slammed behind them, and the pair of blue unicorns waited for any sign that the beast of rage and flame was going to throw it open again, before both of them fell to the floor in a hail of giggles. Chrysalis shed her disguise, but still laid there on the crystal, forelegs laid across her barrel as she laughed so hard that she struggled to breathe.

Trixie had tears in her eyes as she gasped out, "Th-that was beautiful. You'd think that the gates of Tartarus had opened in her room." She rolled over, smiling and holding out a hoof. "You're not half bad, Chrysalis."

Chrysalis's lip curled in a sneer as she got her mirth under control, and she tossed her head with a huff. Not half bad? Well of course not. She was Queen Chrysalis, bad right down to her core. There would be no 'half' about it. Still, she eyed the offered blue hoof with something a little less than contempt.

She did remember the little unicorn. She was one of Starlight Glimmer's associates. Still, they had a common enemy in Twilight Sparkle, and the enemy of her enemy had just proven to be a passable minion. Perhaps that had been what had went wrong. Creating ponies to be her servants had backfired, but maybe all she needed to do was find ponies who already had the proper deviousness. Especially when she could steal them away from Starlight.

Yes, this could definitely work. Besides, the friendly admiration she was starting to feel being sent in her direction was surprisingly filling.

The sneer eventually turned to a smile, and raised her own hoof to bump the offered one. "Neither are you...Trixie."

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