Embers in the Snow

by GreyTheGriffon

Embers

Cadance flew with all her might, her eyes locked on the Changeling Queen. She didn’t say anything more as she flew; all that left her mouth were grunts, yells, and no small amount of foamed-up saliva.

Chrysalis looked behind her and saw Cadance start to gain on her. She swore under her breath and leapt off the ground, her wings buzzing rapidly.

The two flew with such speed that the guards they passed couldn’t even register what was happening, and Cadance issued no commands to them due to her hyper-focus on her enemy.

They continued like this for a few minutes, neither seeming to be winning the altercation, when Chrysalis suddenly veered off to the left, careening into a room with its door open. Cadance reacted quickly, flying toward the wall directly across from the door, then kicked off it to get a better landing angle than Chrysalis.

She skidded to a stop on the smooth crystal floor, only barely clipping her wing against a fancy double bed. She threw her head around the room, searching for Chrysalis but finding no one. She found that the window was closed, though, so she slowed her breathing and used her magic to close the door behind her. She was going to find Chrysalis, and she was going to stop her here.

She stopped in her tracks as she finally noticed a noise in the room; her senses too unfocused from the earlier adrenaline to catch it, but now, she could clearly hear it: the sound of somepony crying.

She turned her head toward the source to find Queen Chrysalis laying limp on the floor, her face pressed into the cold crystal, cooling it further with her tears.

Cadance stopped, just staring at her, then took a tentative step forward, her horn starting to glow. The Changeling before her hit the floor and snarled at Cadance, but she just took another step forward. She got close enough to touch Chrysalis, at which point she hesitantly offered a hoof to help Chrysalis up.

Chrysalis snapped her jaw at the air and smacked Cadance’s hoof away, then put her face back down on the floor and resumed her sniffling.

Cadance leaned back when Chrysalis snapped at her, then slowly started to lie down on the floor next to Chrysalis and stay quiet, not removing her gaze from Chrysalis’ form.

After a while of the two monarchs sitting quietly together, Chrysalis finally lifted her head off the floor, begrudgingly making eye contact with the Princess of Love. She gasped softly when the two’s eyes locked; she was surprised to find that Princess Cadance’s eyes had no pity in them, they had no hatred anymore, they simply carried an air of concern. She looked away in thought for a moment, then grunted softly and started to change her position to a more natural laying-down pose.

Cadance smiled. “Feeling better?”

Chrysalis stared daggers into Cadance’s eyes. “No.”

Cadance’s smile quickly turned into a disappointed frown. “Hm. Do you want to tell me why you’re here?”

Chrysalis sniffed. “It’s… a long story.”

Cadance put her hoof to her chin. “Hm…” Her horn lit up, and cushions from the bed the two were lying beside floated down to the floor and under the two of them. “Then we better get comfy.” She waved her hoof, signaling her ‘go-ahead’ to Chrysalis.

Chrysalis sighed. “Do you remember the first time we met?” She scoffed at herself. “Of course you do, it was your wedding day. You and Shining Armor’s love blasted me and my Changeling army all the way to the Badlands. Did you know that? When we landed, we were closer to Klugetown than we were to Canterlot.”

Cadance’s ears leveled. “I… didn’t know that.”

“Mmm. I have to give you and him credit, though. That was, hooves-down, the most powerful spell I’ve ever been hit with. Half of my Changelings were knocked unconscious.” Chrysalis let out a sigh of relief. “Ha… I’ve wanted to complain about that to your face for a long time now.” She laughed again. It was a weak laugh, and it put Cadance on edge, but it was a laugh of genuine amusement.

Cadance put on a playfully over-exaggerated pout. “Oh come on! You were invading not just my wedding, but the most politically and tactically important city in Equestria! Of course we’d retaliate strongly!”

Chrysalis just smiled. “Ha, of course… well, on to my story. Where to start…” She put a hoof to her chin and looked up at the ceiling, then her gaze shot to the door when she noticed a cacophony of metal Royal Guard’s hoof guards clanking against the crystal floor outside.

Cadance perked her ear to listen closer. “Sounds pretty hectic out there… I probably wouldn’t be able to tell them what’s going on before they attack you,” she whispered, “I say we just stay here, stay quiet, and figure out the guard situation later.” She made direct eye contact with Chrysalis, her gaze firm. “I want to hear your story.”

Chrysalis faltered for a second, just staring into Cadance’s eyes until the latter gestured for her to continue. “R-Right, so,” she straightened her posture, “the Changeling Hive only functioned the way that it did because of complete obedience. If even one Changeling stepped out of line or deserted, others would follow their example, and the Hive would collapse.”

“You wouldn’t have needed ‘complete obedience’ if you were a better leader…” Cadance said under her breath.

Chrysalis glared. “Ahem. So, even before the Canterlot invasion, I had known about seeds of rebellion being sown in the Hive. I couldn’t make an example out of them, because I knew that any rebels I didn’t know about would see whatever punishment I gave to their leaders as martyrdom. So instead, I opted to inspire loyalty to the Hive by having every last one of our able-bodied and able-minded Changelings participate in the invasion.”

Cadance stopped Chrysalis with a hoof and shook her head. “Wait, so you attacked Canterlot just as a punishment for rebelling Changelings?”

“Well, yes, actually. It was meant to be a simple stealth excursion into Canterlot to get a feel for its defenses, while also serving as a punishment for the rebellious Changelings. They were scared shitless, you know.” Chrysalis chuckled as she jabbed Cadance in the barrel with an elbow. “The only reason that it got any further than a simple stealth mission is that, well, things just kept working out for us.”

Cadance scoffed. “I hardly believe that. Canterlot’s Royal Guards would have noticed you and put a stop to you right away.”

Chrysalis grinned. “Oh, but the Canterlot guards did find us. Pretty quickly, actually.” Her smile got more toothy. “It’s just that the Canterlot guards were so easily fooled by quickly thrown-together disguises and a horrible explanation that we were, and I quote, ‘just chilling’, that all they took back to their general was suspicion of a Changeling invasion.” She chuckled, earning a frown from Cadance.

“Anyway,” Chrysalis continued, letting out the last vestiges of her quiet laugh, “you already know what happened during the Invasion itself, I replaced you, the Changelings broke through the shield, blah blah blah.” She twirled her hoof in the air as she said this. “Now, back to the interesting part: your giant love bomb.

“Like I said, it blasted all of us all the way to the Badlands; some Changelings were… more seriously hurt than others.” She discreetly wiped a tear from her eye and looked wistfully up at the ceiling. “I remember getting up off the ground and getting my bearings— which was just sand in every direction, by the way— and looking at all my Changelings strewn about. I couldn’t see them all, of course, but we shared a hivemind back then, and I… I could tell that we had lost a few dozen of our own.”

Cadance put a hoof up to her mouth.

Chrysalis shook her head and pressed on. “All things considered, it should have been a more devastating loss. Only losing as many as we did was a blessing, but…” She sighed long, staring at the floor for a moment before continuing. “But all the Changelings are— were my children.” She closed her eyes and inhaled sharply, the shards cutting her mercilessly.

She coughed, then blinked to disperse the drop of water forming in her eye, that side of her face turned away from Cadance.

Cadance hesitated, the obvious question balanced on the tip of her tongue. “...may I ask why they aren’t your children anymore?”

Chrysalis idly flicked her forked tongue, avoiding eye contact with Cadance. She sighed. “It was because of one stupid little rebel.” Each of those words left Chrysalis’ mouth laced with more poison than Cadance had ever heard before. “Thorax, I’ll never forget that little traitor’s name.,” she growled.

Cadance started to move a hoof to place it on Chrysalis’, but stopped partway through, returning it to its place under her barrel.

“Thorax, I learned, was the main leader for all this rebellion. He had been the one going around, telling as many Changelings as he could that our ways were ‘outdated’. How I never found him out until that day, I will never know.” She shook her head regretfully and sighed, “I never should have attacked Canterlot. That was one of his points. ‘Our Queen subjects us to the most unreasonable of punishments!’ he said. ‘Look at how many of our own have died today!’ he cried.

“I expected his message to be ignored, so I stepped over to reprimand him, but so many other Changelings… my children… started agreeing with him. All of them, every single one of my children abandoned their mother, and all because of one little Changeling who thought he knew better than his queen!” Chrysalis threw her hooves up exasperatedly, venom still lining her words. Then, her hooves shaking and blood vessels looking ready to burst, Chrysalis started to scream.

She only got a fraction of a second of noise out before Cadance dove onto her, shoving her hooves over Chrysalis’ mouth to silence her.

The queen, still shaking with rage, tried to wrestle the Princess of Love off of her.

Cadance held on tight, though, trying to keep Chrysalis on the ground.

Chrysalis responded with more muffled angry noises, but then was shocked to silence by Cadance gently stroking the back of her neck. “Shh… no more of that.”

Chrysalis started to relax the longer Cadance kept stroking her neck, and Cadance’s grip relaxed in turn. They sat there for a while, Cadance gently stroking Chrysalis’ nape, Chrysalis only making soft whimpering sounds.

Eventually, Chrysalis lifted her head off of Cadance’s shoulder and spoke. “Oh, my poor children; I shouldn’t be angry at Thorax, I should feel pity for him.” Chrysalis’ volume increased, and she stood. “I should rescue my poor, misguided Hive from Thorax’s stupid—” Chrysalis was cut off by a pink hoof shoved into her mouth.

“Shh!” Cadance shout-whispered. “I said no more of that! The guards are going to find us!”

Chrysalis, looking dumbstruck, just nodded and lay back down.

Cadance shot a glare at Chrysalis, broken by a short laugh and a smile. “Alright, you wanna tell me the rest of your story without any more yelling?”

“Right, so, after Thorax finished his speech and all the other Changelings were standing behind him, I found myself banished from the Hive.” She cleared her throat as quietly as she could. “I’m certain I could have fought them and won, but… they’re my children, after all. I would gladly take being banished over having to kill even one of them myself.

“So, without an army to collect love on which to feed, I found myself starving in the Badlands. I knew exactly where I was headed, but the Crystal Empire is incredibly far from there. I know I could have gone to Klugetown, but that was probably my Changelings’ first stop before they went back to the Hive.

“As you can imagine, the hike took a toll on me. The only reason I made it to the Empire alive was because I found a group of Abyssinians headed that way, and I managed to disguise myself and hitch a ride, siphoning only the tiniest bits of love, only during times when they were already exchanging love between themselves, so they wouldn’t notice.”

Cadance nodded. “Clever. And you were of course headed to the Crystal Empire because you thought it would be a never-ending food source.” Chrysalis nodded. “Okay, so, I do want to know one thing: were you planning on just living here in the Empire for the rest of your days, or staying just long enough to recoup your strength, maybe give a cursory try at overthrowing me, then go back to the Hive?”

Chrysalis opened her mouth with a confident expression, but no words came out, and her expression dropped. “I… I don’t know, actually. I’ve only been here for a few days. Maybe I could have lived a nice life…” She looked absently at the wall next to her. She sighed. “But that chance is gone. I just had to get too curious, I just had to learn why I wasn’t living the easy life here.”

Cadance gave a look of concern.

Suddenly, the two’s heads snapped toward the door as they heard a group of guards convening on the door. “She’s in here!” “Get the flanking group ready!” “Hold!” The guards shouted, their overlapping commands getting lost in each other.

Cadance burst into action, using her magic to lock the door from the inside and shove a few close-by pieces of furniture in front of it to slow down the guards. She looked back at Chrysalis to give an encouraging smile, but she was just met with the hyperventilating face of a panicked Changeling Queen.

She cupped Chrysalis’ face with both of her hooves and stroked her cheeks.

Cadance, with a passionate determination in her eyes and a smirk upon her snout, locked eyes with the Changeling Queen. “Get on the bed.”

---

Eventually, the guards burst through the door, scrambling in and shouting in unison their declarations to defend their princess from the evil Changeling Queen. They were instead perplexed to find their princess protectively holding a young mare in a hug with a wing.

Cadance looked at the group of guards with irritation. “Excuse me, what are you all doing?”

Most of the guards silently continued their incredulous stares at the pair, but one pointed accusingly at Cadance and angrily asked, “What are you doing?”

Cadance glowered at the guard. “Well, first of all, it’s none of your business, but since you’ve already so rudely burst in on us, I suppose I’ll spell something out for you” Cadance removed her wing from the mare at her side and stood up, gingerly hopping off the bed. She sauntered over to the single brave guard, stopping only inches from his face, and stared him down. “Do not judge me for satisfying my need for closeness after the passing of my husband. Are we clear?”

The guard gulped and nodded his head quickly.

Cadance smiled. “Good.” She looked over to the other guards.

They all nodded in turn and started awkwardly shuffling out of the room, the unicorns among them putting the furniture back in its rightful place and swiftly repairing the door they had broken through.

“T-Terribly sorry, princess,” the mouthy guard muttered, offering a bow as he left the room and deftly locked the door behind him.

Cadance smiled contentedly and turned back toward the bed, the mare on top of it now transforming in a swirl of green fiery magic back into her true form. “Well,” Cadance started foxily, “I suppose that’s our cover story.”

Chrysalis smiled back and licked her lips. She slipped under the covers and drew a circle in the spot next to her in the bed with her hoof and patted the center.

Cadance’s smile widened as she hopped into the bed, sliding under the covers to join the queen. She hesitated for a moment as Chrysalis’ cool, hard skin came in contact with her own, but nonetheless locked limbs with her. She held eye contact with Chrysalis for a moment before settling her head underneath against the queen’s neck.

She sighed, though her smile was tugged downward a moment by a twinge of uncertainty, then settled herself, eventually falling asleep in the Changeling Queen’s arms.

Comments

[Ralanost]

Interesting premise, but this doesn't make any sense. The emotions and reactions between Cadance and Chrysalis happen with no rhyme or reason. They are bizarrely friendly with each other with no explanation or build up. This could be fleshed out with more dialogue and some inner monologues so their change in attitudes feels somewhat natural. Instead they go from an angry chase scene to cuddling on a bed together to comfort each other on their losses.

[pikashowhdapp]

Fascinating setup! Cadance's grief journey takes an unexpected turn when a mysterious visitor, akin to the surprises on PikaShow, alters her narrative. Eager to witness the emotional rollercoaster ahead!

[Stahlseele]

Bit short

[Doctor_Den]

and Cadence didn't even ask Chrysalis to turn into Shining Armor?

[GenericFriendship]

11820198
I agree! The concept of a deceased Shining Armor is a unique one, but the transition between ‘chase sequence’ and ‘emotional exchange’ is minimal.

An example of how better this could be done is, in the least, describing something like: Seeing a former threat laid out upon her floor, soaking it with tears, resulted in an unexpected surge of emotions- surprise, confusion, a bit of fear all rolled up in one. Cadence watched as her supposed ‘nemesis’ continued to bawl her eyes out, before slowly approaching. For some reason, a feeling of empathy had begun to take to her, seeing Chrysalis weeping so deeply as she was- which seemed to be having an effect on her.

Something along those lines at the minimum, and at most I’d recommend a wholly new interaction where instead of just randomly collapsing on the floor (admittedly a bit like a toddler) she could seal herself up in the bathroom, a heated exchange would follow, and then the emotions come pouring in.

Just a few ideas- but still, a good story.