Someone Else's Heart

by Effigy

Settling In

Chrysalis sat by the lake just outside of Ponyville, dappled light falling through elm leaves to dance over her white coat. Salchonic was a form she had used before, when she needed to disguise herself without taking another pony's place. Many of her soldiers had been unable to create a new form, instead being restricted to copying others, but the few who could were generally much more skillful infiltrators. Currently, the queen was using her disguise to observe the town without raising alarm. From her vantage point under the trees by the lake, she could see the stirrings of ponies going about their business as the sun rose.

Even at a fair distance from the town, Chrysalis could feel love rolling out of it in waves. It was clearly an enormous source of food just waiting to be consumed, and the quick walk across town from the Everfree Forest to the lake had been enough to quiet the growling in Chrysalis' stomach, even if the latent energy was much less potent than love directed at her specifically. Chrysalis' long-term goal was to become fully integrated into the town, so as to have a supply of food always available to her. For the short term, she needed to learn how the town was run, and where she might be able to fit in.

Getting up, Chrysalis stretched her limbs and began the walk around the lake back into town. The day was still young, and the streets were fairly empty as groups of sleepy ponies wandered about. Chrysalis knew that if she was going to successfully pass herself off as a regular pony, she would need to adopt habits she would normally forgo - most notably, eating and drinking. She would gain no nourishment from the food or drink, but she knew from experience that ponies found it suspicious when they realized they never saw her eating anything and never going to lunch or dinner anywhere. It was generally a good idea to find a few local restaurants to frequent so as to keep up appearances. Tilting her muzzle up a bit, she sniffed the air for the scent of food.

Within a few minutes of entering town, Chrysalis had found a small bakery that was being set up for the day by a yellow stallion with a short orange mane and a light blue mare with pink hair piled on top of her head like a dollop of frosting. Seeing the white unicorn at the door, the mare hurried over to pull it open to the jingling of a bell.

"Hello dearie, you'll have to excuse us, but we're still setting up for the day. If you want to buy something, could you come back a bit later?"

"Oh, sure," Chrysalis replied, "but could I just quickly trouble you to tell me where I could find the town hall? I'm new in town." Chrysalis had learned long ago that the center of government in any town was always swarming with ponies, and all of them had some complaint or another. Hopefully, by listening to what the populace was upset over, she could catch up on current events and play her role that much more effectively.

"The town hall? Well, you just need to head down this street here and make a left. When you pass the bowling alley, just turn up to the right and it'll be right there. You're here at a bit of a bad time - normally a friend of mine insists on showing everypony new around town, but she's up in Canterlot for a week to see the wedding."

Chrysalis managed to keep her face from flickering, but she was hit with a cold wave of rage inside. Ponies talking about the royal wedding were to be expected, of course; it was only the biggest social event to happen in years. Still, that didn't make it any less painful to remember. Chrysalis thanked the blue mare, and wandered off down the street in the direction of the town hall.

Turning the corner around the bowling alley, Chrysalis found herself at the edge of a growing crowd gathering around the city hall. Even this early in the morning, ponies with important business to attend to were bustling about. Strategically placed cafés pulled in hungry passerby as if they were magnetized, and conversations from the outside seating drifted through the air over the crowd. It was the perfect place to learn what made the town tick. Chrysalis worked her way into the crowd, sticking close to the cafés and tuning in to each conversation in turn.

"...love to check out a copy, but the librarian's gone with the rest of her friends. I read the last one, though, and I kinda thought..." Chrysalis turned away from two mares with large books in their saddlebags, focusing her attention on a more promising pair of stallions.

"...the rain. Really, I don't understand why they can't just skip over the field and let us play without..." Turning away again, Chrysalis crossed to the other side of the street in hopes of learning about more than novels and rainy sports games. She leaned against a fence, pretending to examine a menu posted nearby, and listened in on the mare and stallion behind her.

"...feeling that they aren't getting it. Students never do well with the foreign language unit."

"Eeyup."

"And considering how dull the material for that section is, I can't really imagine them being any different this year, can you?"

"Ee-nope."

This. This was something she could use to her advantage. Chrysalis quickly turned to face the two ponies at the table and seize the opportunity.

"Excuse me," she interjected, looking at the light purple mare who she now strongly suspected was a teacher, "but I couldn't help but overhear your conversation. Did you say something about a foreign language unit?"

Startled by the interruption, Cheerilee turned to face the white mare leaning against the railing around the café's patio. "Oh, um, yes, I was, Miss?"

"Salchonic. And might I inquire as to yourself?"

"Cheerilee, the local primary school teacher, and this is Big Mac."

"Eeyup."

"Well, Miss Cheerilee, I'm terribly sorry to interrupt your meal, but I just come into town and was looking for work. As it happens, I'm somewhat of an expert when it comes to languages. If you would be interested, I could help your students learn from a master." The proposal was rushed and unprepared, but Chrysalis couldn't afford to let the opportunity slip by. Who knew when she would next find a job that only required her to use the abilities she had been granted naturally?

"Oh - well, I must admit that you've caught me a bit unprepared, Miss Salchonic. I didn't actually expect to be able to change anything about the foreign language unit! Do you think you could drop by the schoolhouse this afternoon and show me what you know?"

"Certainly, Miss Cheerilee. Forgive my ignorance - I am very new in town - but where might I find the schoolhouse?"

"It's just on the other side of the park. School ends at three, so you can come in any time after that."

Chrysalis smiled and extended her hoof for Cheerilee to shake. "Thank you for giving me this opportunity, Miss Cheerilee. I'll drop by at three, then."

With that, Chrysalis trotted off into the crowd, mentally preparing herself for the role she would soon be playing. It was obvious that being polite was working well for her - it generally did. In fact, one of the only times she'd intentionally acted caustic was when she had been impersonating Princess Cadence. But of course the infinitely irritating Twilight Sparkle had to go and misinterpret her, seeing her behavior as that of a nefarious villain where everyone else saw her as the intended overstressed bride. If the real Cadence had been the one organizing the wedding, she would have acted very similarly, and Twilight would have ended up in a much worse situation than she had. Frankly, she was lucky Chrysalis had actually been plotting nefarious deeds.

Chrysalis spent the rest of the day listening in to more conversations coming from the crowd of ponies around her. She didn't interrupt any more of them, and instead began to compile a mental compendium of information about the town. By the time 2:30 rolled around and she left the crowd to head for the school, she knew a great deal more about life in Ponyville. She wouldn't be the town gossip any time soon, but she was at least getting some idea of what the townsfolk did in their free time.

As she crossed the park by the edge of town, Chrysalis heard a bell ringing, accompanied by a crowd of small foals and fillies spilling from an elaborate building she assumed was the schoolhouse. By the time she reached the building herself the group had dispersed, and she walked into the building to see Cheerilee grading a stack of papers at a large desk in the front of the room.

Chrysalis cleared her throat to attract Cheerilee's attention, who looked up from her work with surprise.

"Oh! Salchonic, I didn't expect you to be here so quickly. Are you ready for me to show you what we'll be working on with foreign languages?"

"Sure, let's get right to it. I expect there's some sort of standards that need to be met?"

"Yes, as always," Cheerilee sighed. She opened a drawer of her desk and extracted a thin, well-used book, opening to a marked page and reading, "'All students must, by the time of their graduation, be able to recognize Latin, French, and Spanish, more commonly known by their nonscientific names of Draconian, Northern Griffish, and Caninese, respectively. Students must also be able to read, write, and speak basic phrases in Northern Griffish and Caninese'. Basic phrases means things like 'Hello, my name is...' and 'Can you lend me a crayon.' Stuff like that. I've always had to rely heavily on the book to teach this section, which has been a bit of a thorn in my side. Can you work with these languages?"

Chrysalis smiled, amazed once more at her luck in finding this job. " Bien sûr, je peux vous aider. As I said, languages are my forte. When should I come in?"

Cheerilee looked delighted - it was obvious that Salchonic spoke excellent Griffish, which she herself had never gotten the hang of. "Well, I planned on starting the language unit tomorrow, but the lesson won't actually begin until after lunch. There's no need for you to sit around with nothing to do while the students learn math, so you should probably come in around one o'clock. I'll see the school board about paying you for your time, and I expect I'll be able to get them to give you an advance paycheck to help you settle into town. I'm not the only one who's had problems with the language section in the past."

"Thank you very much, Cheerilee. I can't tell you how lucky I feel to have stumbled across this opportunity. I look forward to working with you and your students."

"The pleasure is all mine, Salchonic. Now, I need to work through these papers, but if before I go back to my on work, is there anything you'll need to teach your lesson tomorrow?"

Chrysalis thought for a moment about how she actually would teach the lesson tomorrow, and a number of interesting tactics popped into her head. She briefly considered what would be most effective before replying.

"I'll need to know the students' names, but that should be about it. Can you give me a list of the students and where they sit?"

Cheerilee rummaged about in her desk before pulling put a piece of paper with her students' names written on squares arranged as the desks were. "Here you are! I look forward to working with you, Salchonic. I'm sure the students will love you."

"Oh, I certainly hope so. That's the real motivation in my mind." Chrysalis tried not to let her face betray any of her amusement. Cheerilee had no way of knowing she was essentially promising the white unicorn free lunch. Thanking Cheerilee a final time, Chrysalis departed the schoolhouse to find a place to spend the rest of her day.

----------------

A little less than a day after departing the schoolhouse, Chrysalis found herself approaching it as a familiar group of young ponies crowded their way inside from their lunch break. She followed them in and stood toward the back of the room, attracting more than a few confused glances from the students.

Cheerilee walked to the head of the class and called the students to attention. "Class, I'm sure you've all seen Miss Salchonic in the back of the room. I was fortunate enough to cross paths with Salchonic yesterday, and she has offered to help me teach the foreign language unit."

This sent a wave of excited murmurs through the class - the language unit was notoriously boring and difficult. They collectively turned to watch Salchonic make her way to the front of room, where she approached the desk of a lanky yellow unicorn, speaking to him directly.

"Bonjour. Je m'appelle Salchonic. Et toi?" The unicorn stared at her dumbly, his mouth open a bit. "Tu t'appelle 'Snails'." She walked to the next desk, where a gray filly was looking equally confused. "Bonjour. Je m'appelle Salchonic. Et toi?"

"Uh... Je - je m'appelle Salchonic?"

Chrysalis smiled. "Non, tu t'appelle 'Silver Spoon'. Je m'appelle Salchonic." It was weak progress, but progress none the less. She moved on to a orange filly with yellow hair. "Je m'appelle Salchonic. Et toi?"

"Je m'appelle Apple Bloom?"

A wide smile cracked across Salchonic's face. "How do you know?"

"Well... Yeh kept sayin' the same thing before yer name, so I thought you must be saying something about that. And then Silver Spoon said the same thing, and you sounded like you was sayin' she was wrong. So 'je m'appelle' must be sayin' what your name is, and yer askin' us what our names are."

Chrysalis could already feel love emanating from the class. This was new and exciting to them, and they already were looking forward to learning from their new teacher. To Chrysalis, it was the first love for her she had consumed in days, and she felt innumerable small aches and pains fade away as she became energized and alert.

"So!" Chrysalis turned to the chalkboard and levitated a piece of chalk, writing 'Je m'appelle...' with a flourish of magic. "This is Northern Griffish. As Apple Bloom thought, 'je m'appelle' means 'my name is,' although it translates more directly to 'I have the name.' Can anyone tell me what 'tu t'appelle' means?"

----------------

The door to Chrysalis' small apartment opened and the mare trotted in, searching for a light switch near the door and, upon finding it, flicking it up with her magic. The apartment was bare and a bit small, but it was a far sight better than the grass by the lake where she had spent the previous night, and it was cheap enough for her to cover the down payment with the advance pay an overjoyed Cheerilee had presented her at the end of the school day.

Chrysalis already loved her new job. She may have lost the luxuries of her former rule, but there was something strangely liberating about not focusing her every thought on usurping the Equestrian throne. It also provided her with a reliable source of pure, undiluted love from the students. It wasn't a permanent job, of course - the students had to finish their language studies eventually - but Cheerilee had assured her that her skills as a linguist would be in high demand by ponies who wished to travel abroad, and she would easily be able to earn a living as a personal tutor.

Taking a quick look around her new home, Chrysalis saw a kitchen that she would probably never use and, in the bedroom, a low bed with an old mattress. She would need to furnish the place a bit, but it was liveable, and it could start her on her way to a new life. Settling herself down on her bed, Chrysalis pulled some paper out of the saddlebags she had purchased that afternoon and began to draw up a lesson plan for the next few days.

----------------

A week after her arrival in Ponyville, Salchonic had become an object of reverence to Cheerilee's class. Every day after lunch they would come into class to find her waiting, and she would spend the rest of the school day speaking to them in strange languages they had never heard before, but were learning eagerly. As the clock ticked close to three, Chrysalis went around asking a few final questions for the day.

"Diamond Tiara, could you tell me how to ask a pony what their name is?"

"Uh... What's your name?"

"In Griffish, if you don't mind."

"Oh, uh... Tu j'appelle?"

"Close. It's tu t'appelle, because you're using toi instead of je. Understand?"

"Yes, Miss Salchonic!" Diamond Tiara scowled a bit as she spoke. She had been rather upset when she learned that having grandparents who spoke Griffish didn't mean that she could do so any better than her classmates. Chrysalis moved on.

"Apple Bloom, could you tell me of any brothers or sisters you might have?"

"Sure! Uh... J'ai un frère et une soeur, Big Mac et Applejack."

Chrysalis stopped in her tracks. She recognized the name Applejack - that was one of Twilight Sparkle's friends who had been so instrumental in her defeat. A chain of thoughts flashed through her mind - Applejack and all her friends came from the same town; none were here, so they must still be in Canterlot; if Applejack's brother and sister lived here, it stood to reason that she did as well; considering the royal wedding had been held a week ago, they six ponies would be returning soon. Suddenly, it seemed much more important to keep up appearances.

Apple Bloom was giving Salchonic a concerned look. "Miss Salchonic? Y'all right?"

Chrysalis snapped herself out of her thoughts and looked down at the filly while quickly thinking of an explanation for her pause.

"Oh, yes, it's just that I think I've heard your brother's name before. Cheerilee," she asked, turning her desk, "weren't you in a café with Big Mac when I first met you?"

For some reason this caused Cheerilee to blush deeply and the class to erupt into fits of giggles, although the humor of the question was lost on Chrysalis. Fortunately for Cheerilee, the bell chose that precise moment to ring, and she weakly called out "Class dismissed!" before having to explain herself.
Chrysalis walked out of the schoolhouse amid the crowd of children, distracted once more by her thoughts. If Twilight and her friends lived in Ponyville, it was very much a double-edged sword to live here. Chrysalis altered her course to carry her toward an inexpensive restaurant. The food wouldn't fill her stomach, but eating was a monotonous activity to fill the time while building her image as a pony, and it left her mind free to wander over possible courses of action and her options in each. She arrived and ordered a cheese sandwhich before sitting outside to watch the crowds.

A train whistled somewhere in the distance as Chrysalis began to eat. Without an army behind her, she had nowhere near the power required to take on Twilight and the others. Nor could she really hope to impersonate any of them, considering how little she knew of their lives, coupled with the fact that all of them now had experience with changelings. Really, the best course of action would be avoidance. With any luck, she'd never even have to speak to Twilight or her friends.

Chrysalis finished her sandwich and left a few bits on the table. Wondering whether she could really avoid six separate ponies without seeming suspicious, she turned the corner around the restaurant and immediately collided with another pony, causing a number of suitcases to crash to the ground around them. Chrysalis rubbed her head and looked up, directly into a pair of purple eyes she had never wanted to see again - the eyes of Twilight Sparkle, evidently just off the return train from Canterlot.

Taking a quick step back in alarm, Chrysalis stammered for something to say that would let her slip away, but Twilight hardly even noticed.

"Oh! I'm so sorry, I should have been looking where I was going. I just got back from a trip and I was hurrying home. Are you alright?"

Chrysalis nodded silently, fearing her voice would betray her surprise.

"Excellent, I really am sorry." She lifted her bags in a sparkling purple aura, and turned behind her to call out to someone. "Spiiike! Let's go! You can sleep later!" She turned to wish Chrysalis a nice day, and then she was off in a flash, being tailed by a young purple dragon.

Chrysalis stared after her blankly for a moment, and then a scowl crossed her face as her rage at the purple unicorn resurfaced. She couldn't attack Twilight directly - but she could do plenty without risking her disguise, and she planned to deal with Twilight severely. She quickly set off after Twilight, a look of impatience frozen on her face.

Twilight's home turned out to be the enormous tree near the center of town. If she recalled correctly, Chrysalis believed it to be the library. Cheerilee had pointed it out to her, although she had never yet been inside. Now, as she approached the living building, she peered in through the windows. Inside, she saw Twilight already lying down with a book, absorbed in her own world. Perfect - Chrysalis wouldn't be long anyway.

Looking up at the branches above her, Chrysalis sought an ideal spot. After a moment's search, she found it: a joint where a branch had recently been broken off, leaving a jutting spar of wood free of the wet green leaves that covered the rest of the tree.

Focusing her magic on the branch, Chrysalis called a miniscule green flame into existence, burning at the very end of the broken branch, where it smoldered gently in the dry wood. Before releasing her hold on the magic, Chrysalis imbued it with one goal: grow and consume.

Her work done, she trotted off to plan her next school lesson while Twilight's home very slowly began to burn behind her.

Author's Note:

Woo, Chapter 2 is up! Everything was typed on a Nexus 7, so if you see any weird words that shouldn't be there, or strange spelling errors, I'd greatly appreciate comments pointing them out.

Comments

[hamcon]

DAMN Chrysalis, you scary!

[Namara]

Oh! Snap! GUUUUUUUUURRRRRL!

[Drynwhyl]

FEEL THE HATE

[Johnyapple]

The French must be getting to her :P but I guess a former ruler of an entire race needs to indulge in an arson every now and then.

[jeap118]

Given the amount of PURE RAGE I feel whenever I speak French, and the fact that chrysalis is now teaching it... arson seems like a perfectly reasonable ventilation method. Yup.

[Darkstar195]

Oh Chrysalis, just give it up. Don't seek revenge any further than this, or you will inevitably be discovered, put in prison, and then given a nice blast from the Elements of Harmony. It's not worth it just to get some petty revenge.

[Trixie Treats]

A little arson never hurt anypony, right?

[Light Ascend]

Chrysalis smiled, amazed once more at her luck in finding this job. " Bien sûr, je peux vous aider. As I said, languages are my forte. When should I come in?"

C'est très simple Français vous avez utilisé...
Mais, pour les enfants.