This is the story of two ponies-- or rather, ponyoids. The first is Chrysalis, nearly dead in the aftermath of A Canterlot Wedding. The second is Bold Words, a struggling author who has a near-dead changeling queen crash through his roof. Wonderful.
After the events of "A Canterlot Wedding," Queen Chrysalis is about to die, after having been flung hundreds of miles away and through an apartment roof. Bold Words is the owner of said apartment, a struggling author who always wanted an epic adventure of his own. When Public Enemy Number One comes falling (literally) into his life, near-dead, helpless, and in dire need of assistance, will he be able to resist his adventurelust and do what any good citizen should do? Or is he going to do something ill-advised, incredibly stupid, very dangerous, and ADVENTUROUS? Most ponies that know him would take heavy bets on the latter. Too bad for the changeling queen. (Thanks to Yula568, or Elia Vraay, for the cover art from her DeviantART Page.)
Chrysalis, Queen of the Changeling Empire, bitterly reflected that she probably should have been scheming, planning something nefarious to get back at those accursed equines. Unfortunately, her current situation didn’t lend itself well to planning—being a mile up didn’t lend itself well to anything, even screaming—the speed sucked the air straight from your lungs.
Not that it hadn’t stopped her from trying. After several minutes of whipping through the air, though, it grew tiring. Now, she was simply waiting. Hopefully, she’d be able to slow down before she hit the ground, or otherwise there would be a nice splotch on the ground somewhere below.
After another couple of minutes, she noticed a city ahead, its spires dangerously close to her height. As they passed on either side, she knew it was time to brake before she got any lower and hit a tree or building.
Gingerly, she spread her wings into the rushing wind, feeling herself begin to slow as the extra friction began to bleed the speed off. But then, a gust caught her wings and snapped them fully open. Chrysalis had just enough time to swear before they strained, bent backwards—and broke at the wing joints.
The agony was like nothing she had ever experienced. It struck her like a tidal wave, drowning any thoughts she might have had regarding slowing her fall. Out of control, tumbling in slow spirals downwards, her eye caught a rundown apartment complex just in front of her half a second before she hit it. Everything went white with pain and then quickly black.
In the end, only the fact she had recently gorged on love saved her from perishing instantly.
-----
Sometime later, the changeling Queen returned to consciousness with only one sense available to her—pain. The light from the hole in the upper wall hurt her eye (she couldn’t open the other), the rough floor aggravated the breaks in her near-shattered carapace, and her wings—or rather, what little was left of them—throbbed with white-hot spears of agony.
Finally, her eye grew acclimated enough for her to open it, and she cast an eye over what pieces of herself she could. Her legs were twisted at unnatural angles, and she could tell multiple bones were broken in all four. She began to try to number the breaks, but her fuzzy mind gave up past two dozen. Her tail was gone—something had ripped it entirely out of her rump, leaving only a patch of chitin oozing blood. By the feel, the same thing had happened to her mane.
She could see the blood already beginning to pool around her from the cracks in her carapace, which she couldn’t manage to count. Her wings were simply gone, only bleeding stumps, facing the wrong way entirely, remaining, with a few tatters of wing membrane hanging forlornly from them.
Her horn was broken, just over half of it missing entirely, and the rest protesting violently its loss. Magic sparked out of it as it valiantly began to rebuild its magical conduits, but its effort only increased the torment her body felt.
As Chrysalis tried to groan, something hot and bloody flopped out of her mouth, along with several teeth and one fang. For a moment, she stared at it in disbelief.
Half her tongue lay on the floor; she had bitten straight through it unintentionally. She could taste the copper from the stump of her tongue. It filled her mouth, but she couldn’t manage to cough; the most she could do was a weak spit, spluttering green blood onto the floorboards in front of her.
This was it, she knew. It would have been barely possible to recover from injuries like these in the hive itself—provided, of course, she wasn’t deposed while she was weak. But in the heart of Equestria? While the populace was on high alert for changelings? The chances she would be able to find any source of love—or any positive emotion at all, for that matter—was slim to none. She had no energy left to shapeshift, even further reducing her chances.
And that was before she was presumably arrested and thrown in a dungeon to rot for the rest of her (short) life.
It was over. She was going to die here, in this pitiful excuse for a hive. She held little hope that any changelings had fared better than she had; she was the toughest and most powerful of her species, and if she had fared this badly, her children would be much worse off. Only a few would live to see the sunset, she knew in her heart.
But that was all moot, anyway; she was the last Queen of the Changelings. The other hives were gone, destroyed by disaster, invasion, or wars of succession. When she died, there would be no more queens, no more eggs. When she passed away, so too would the changeling species.
In defeat and despair, she closed her eyes and let the black take her.
Bold Words hummed tiredly as he signed the last form in the stacks of papers arrayed before him. With satisfaction, he gazed at the work he had accomplished today. If he kept up this pace, the Red Lion would easily be ready for the yearly audit in May, one month away.
This year had been even cleaner than usual, he mused as he punched the elevator button to the ground floor and as it rose upwards. The discrepancies he had found today had been small and easily resolved—things like Taille Crayon forgetting to mention a box of pencils HR bought last November on the expense report.
He waved to the secretary, a surprisingly young and spry mare, at the main desk, who waved back cheerfully as she, too, began to wrap up her shift. Unusually, though, she trotted up to him and matched his pace as he opened the doors at the front of the hotel. It took Bold aback; usually she just went out the back with a goodbye.
“Did you hear?” she asked him excitedly.
“Hear what?” he replied.
“The news!” she exclaimed.
“I’ve been in the Records Room all day, Stencil,” he replied. “I haven’t heard any of today’s news.”
“Oh!” she gasped. “I’ll just have to tell you then. Something big happened in Canterlot—“ she began, just as Bold opened the second pair of doors and stepped onto the street.
Immediately, he was deluged with sound. The rare sight of newsponies crowding everywhere came into his view, confirming Stencil’s comment that something big had happened.
Speaking of, he could see her mouth moving, but he couldn’t hear her over the newsponies’ cries:
“Hot off the Presses! Clever Infiltration and Ambush Foiled by Elements of Harmony!”
Bold blinked as he managed to disentangle the numerous shouts. “Canterlot attacked? Good heavens!”
Stencil cocked an ear towards him. He leaned in and asked loudly, “Canterlot attacked?”
“Yeah!” she yelled back. “It’s all anypony’s been talking about since the news got here by radio afterwards. I’d explain it to you, but...” She looked to the side. “I have a date tonight I have to go get ready for. Sorry! Go buy a newspaper and read it, that’s what I’d recommend.” As she turned, she gave him a hopeful look. “You understand, right?”
“Yes, thanks,” Bold said, but as she trotted away he gave her an envious glance and muttered something under his breath before he pulled a bit from his saddlebags and bought a paper from the nearest vendor.
As he read through the details—goodness, changelings sounded like quite the pieces of work—his eyes grew wider and wider. “I wish I had been in Canterlot,” he groused after reading an eyewitness account, gaining several strange looks from passersby as he walked down the street. “Sounds like it was quite the adventure.”
“If you wanted to die, maybe,” one runner scoffed as he galloped past.
“I’m an author! I need things to write about—and a first-hand account of an invasion would have been perfect!” Bold called.
“Nutter!” the stallion replied rudely, secure in his faster pace and opposite direction. Bold gave him a sardonic wave and a rude gesture before turning back around.
As he continued his way to the subway station, he could see that Manehattan’s more enterprising vendors and peddlers were already selling changeling-detectors and anti-changeling charms—all junk, of course. But the foolish and the tourists ate that kind of stuff up. They were probably making the most money they ever had selling the new trinkets.
Bold ignored the bustling nonsense, instead reading through ‘Guidelines to Detecting a Changeling: 10 Tips that Could Save Your Life!’ in the back of the paper. Though a few of the 10 tips could prove useful, the majority of them only corroborated what the news stories said: Changelings exist, they’re out there, we know what they look like, they can shapeshift and eat emotions. But that was all. Nopony knew anything more about them, and so the tips were just as vague as the speculation on changelings and their motives. Already, the editorials showed the crazies were coming out of the woodwork with conspiracy theories and straight-up insanity.
Nonetheless, he bought a second newspaper, (always good to have more than one point of view) and read through it on the subway ride, only to find more of the same.
On the bus ride into Neigh Jersey, a third paper repeated some of the articles from the other two. Bold Words had already exhausted the formidable resources of a nation searching furiously for answers. Everything he’d read totaled up to be Not Much, capital letters included. Nopony knew enough about changelings to make any educated guesses—in fact, nopony had known they even existed before this morning.
As Bold cautiously trotted off the bus and down the three blocks to his apartment, watching for broken streetlights or suspicious stallions, he threw aside the three papers in exasperation.
Punching in the code to the door, (the lock was the newest thing on the building, he swore) the door swung open with a screech of neglected hinges, revealing a dimly-lit and poorly-furnished lobby.
Old Stallion Jenkins, the landlord, gave him a glare as he shut the door. “D’you want somepony to run in here and knife all of us?” he growled. “Close the door faster, you fool!”
“Of course, Mr. Jenkins,” Bold said automatically as he walked to the steps.
“And there was some crazy racket on your floor,” Jenkins said angrily. “If it was another one of your stupid machines, I’ll boot ya out, rent or no—I’m tired of your shenanigans!”
“It wasn’t mine!” Bold said defensively. “I haven’t been here all day!”
Confronted with the evil eye, he said hastily, “But just in case it was, I’ll go check, and I promise I’ll clean it up if something happened.”
As he made his way up the stairs (the elevator had been broken since he’d moved in, and privately, Bold held doubts it had ever worked,) he grumbled, “Old geezer. How could he even hear something that far up? It’s fifteen floors to my apartment...” The law stated that one couldn’t simply kick out an occupant who had already paid rent, but Jenkins was affronted by the “recklessness, insolence, and general insouciance to other tenants” of Bold Words, who was easily the youngest in the building by a decade or two. None of this was founded in truth, of course—well, maybe a little, Bold conceded inwardly. Or a lot.
As he rounded the landing to the fourteenth floor, he waved to Miss Short Stitch, the kindly mare who lived below him and who was watering the landing “garden,” a pitiful collection of cheap flowers and various weeds.
“Hello, Mr. Words!” she said brightly, her wheezing voice blowing dust around in the air. “Did you know something green is leaking down from your bedroom?”
“No,” Bold returned, surprised. “Really?”
“It’s dripping into a bucket in my kitchen,” Short Stitch rasped. “Could you clean up whatever it is, please?”
“Of course, ma’am,” Bold said. She was the only pony he really knew in this building who showed any degree of kindness towards the “whippersnapper intruder,” as he’d once been called. (Really? Whippersnapper intruder?) That stallion had been a cranky, shriveled pony who was well on his way to senility.
Bold was almost glad he’d died a few months back.
Fumbling at his keys, he stuck them in the lock, turned them firmly, and then shoved the door open with his shoulder, the slightly misaligned slab of wood groaning out of the way.
It was awful bright in his apartment for this time of day, he thought. Usually it was only bright in the morning—and then he noticed the hole in the upper right corner of his kitchen wall and ceiling.
“Sweet Celestia!” he screeched. “Who put a hole in my apartment?” The cool evening air shone through the gaping hole, which continued through the wall into his bedroom.
One cabinet had been knocked askew, its pots and pans lying strewn over the floor and counters where they had fallen, but in his haste Bold noticed none of that, rushing to his bedroom door and pulling it open.
The first thing he noticed was his Neightendo 64, lying in a shattered heap just in front of his door, knocked from the shelf on which it had rested.
“My Neightendo!” he fumed. “That was a classic... what sort of monster would blow a hole in my apartment and wreck a Neightendo!” Neightendos were works of art! This crime was inexcusable.
Though it probably had more to do with the fact he couldn’t afford to replace it.
Carefully, he scooped up the desecrated remains of the precious console and set them on a clear section of the counter where he could mourn them later at his convenience. Only then did he return and survey the rest of his room.
It was a wreck. Whatever had broken through his home had come in at the corner of the kitchen and the bedroom, gone through the dividing wall at a 45-degree angle, and then, judging from the sagging matress, torn canopy, and green splotches, caromed off his bed and then behind it.
Curious, Bold stepped through the doorway and circled around the bed. Cautiously, he peeked around the corner of the old four-poster.
There was a changeling on the floor in front of him.
“Ffah!” Bold reared back in shock, his curse stifled at birth as he overbalanced and fell over. He scrambled to his feet, eying the monster. “Stay away,” he warned, “I know Torujutsu!” It didn’t move.
Then, giving the changeling a closer look, it was obvious something was wrong. A green puddle surrounded its prone body, its wings looked shredded, and its legs were bent unnaturally.
As Bold put two and two together, he glanced at the hole in his apartment, then back to the unmoving changeling. He winced in sympathy.
Warily taking a few more steps, it became even more obvious that it wasn’t a threat. In fact, it looked rather dead. Really, Bold thought, if it had been flung all this way, no wonder it hadn’t survived.
No more than a hoof’s reach away now, Bold noticed that its horn appeared to be broken close to the base. Being a unicorn, this garnered the most attention. While incredibly tough, horns were also exquisitely sensitive—even tapping one could cause enough pain to disrupt a spell midcast. He could only imagine the unspeakable pain having a horn broken completely through would cause.
Then, unexpectedly, a weak spark of sickly green magic condensed at the break point, and slowly dripped off to mingle with the greenish fluid (It was blood, Bold knew, after he had put the tiniest drop on his tongue) in a disturbingly large puddle on the floor. That spark of magic meant that the soul wasn’t quite fled—that the changeling may have been dying, but not dead.
And just as he came to that conclusion, but before he could act on it, its eye opened and gazed right into his. Its pupil, unlike that of any normal pony, brought to mind a picture from the newspaper, taken by a quick-witted colt in the final moments of the attack.
This was no ordinary changeling. He, Bold Words, was facing Chrysalis, the queen of changelings, the most powerful, most dangerous, and most evil one of the lot.
Bold Words, in his haste to escape Chrysalis, tripped backwards and half-stumbled, half-fell behind his bed. Trembling, he continued his flight, crawling backwards as hastily as he could.
Scrambling upright in the kitchen, he grabbed for a pan and held it in front of him, offering what resistance and protection the piece of iron could. As he waited anxiously to, quite likely, be attacked and suffer a horrible fate, his shaking slowly subsided. After perhaps ten minutes had passed, and no changeling queen had come around the corner, cautiously he poked his head back into the bedroom.
Nothing had changed that he could see. Ever so slowly, he put one tentative hoof in front of another, guardedly advancing closer to the crash site. Peering over the bed, the changeling hadn’t disappeared. In fact, Chrysalis hadn’t even moved. One eye, a bit unfocused, slowly rolled around to look at him, went past, and then returned to his face.
A drip of blood fell from the corner of her mouth. Even as it hit the carpet, another began to pool.
Bold realized she certainly didn’t pose a threat to him right now. She didn’t look like she could even move. In fact, it was quite possible that without immediate help, she would die on his bedroom floor.
He walked once more around the corner of the fourposter, this time unafraid of the terribly mangled changeling. Her eye tried to follow him but lost its battle halfway through and rolled to the bathroom door, before refocusing and painfully making its way back to his face.
Careful not to step in the still-spreading puddle of blood, he leaned down and began to inspect the various injuries he could see. At that moment, he was glad he had learned some things from that observation shift in the hospital—he actually knew basic healing and diagnosis skills from that ill-fated trip. (He still had nightmares about that night.)
But as he catalogued the badly broken legs and what looked like a near-shattered ribcage (Bold felt sick at at the sheer extent of the changeling’s injuries), a small, pinkish lump on the floor caught his eye. Intrigued, he gave it a closer look—
Oh, dear Celestia. It was her tongue.
He felt bile come rushing up his throat, and frantically he turned and shoved open the bathroom door. He barely managed to get the toilet seat up before his revolted stomach rejected his dinner. Spluttering, he heaved for a minute, before resting his head on the counter to his side.
Her tongue had been—was—lying on the floor of his bedroom. Sweet mercy, she had bitten it off completely when she had crash-landed here. The kind of pain that would entail—and the sheer helplessness of being unable to call out, choking on your own blood—Celestia and Luna!
He shuddered in a combination of horror and pity, and with certainty, he came to one conclusion. He would not let her die on his floor, and neither would he turn her in to be arrested in such a state—it would surely kill her. He was going to ensure she lived.
After all, he could always turn her in later, after she had healed enough to be moved.
-----
Sometime later, for Chrysalis was in no shape to keep time, she was broken from the peaceful black by the emotions of somepony nearby. Very nearby—her weakened sense told her within this very room. The presence radiated a strong curiosity, anger, and a strong undercurrent of fear.
As she came back fully to awareness, she wished she had never woken up. Her existence was an ocean of pain as every nerve in her body cried out with their messages of agony, and it was only punctuated by waves of torment with every breath her destroyed body took.
But it was what it was, and in this condition, she couldn’t even choose to slip away, for she knew she couldn’t move her legs even an inch to end her own misery. The only thing she could do was open one eye, and even that brought an elevated sense of torment.
She focused on a startled stallion’s face only a few feet from hers. With a cry of shock, he scrambled around the corner of the bed next to her, and his emotions suddenly shifted to recognition—and the fear came fully to the surface.
She tried to open her mouth, to say something, anything, perhaps ‘wait’ or ‘help’, but all she achieved was a raspy breath, her missing tongue making it impossible to speak. That breath led to a short cough which quickly turned into convulsions, as her battered body protested with all its might at being forced to breathe sharply. After her lungs surrendered and the throes of agony subsided, she lay, beyond beaten.
Involuntary tears tracked their way down her face.
Trying to muster enough will to focus once again, Chrysalis didn’t know how much time had passed. However, the emotions of the stallion, now hiding nearby, had begun to lose its tinge of fear, and as he came closer she gathered what she could to roll her eye towards him.
It caught but for a moment, and she studied intently the features of his face before another breath disrupted her concentration and her eye rolled past him unwillingly. She sent it questing back towards him, and the cycle repeated—catch a glimpse, breath, lose focus, repeat.
He was close enough that, had she been whole, Chrysalis could have reached out and touched him. He gazed intently at her legs, then her carapace, and began to move his inspection up to her face when his eyes darted to something on the ground.
Her eye came slowly to it as well, and she recognized it. Evidently, he did as well, for a sudden tide of sickness and horror overwhelmed his concentration and concern, and he bolted towards the bathroom.
The turmoil of his emotions was enough to add another pain to her own litany of problems, but she welcomed the interaction as she watched intently his feelings change and take strange turns down odd paths. Then, something unexpected rose up, she could feel—protectiveness! Resolve!
Never had such feelings been directed towards her, and her breath stalled (it didn’t catch, because her ruined lungs couldn’t perform such sudden actions anymore) as she worked through what those emotions probably meant.
He wasn’t going to put her down on the floor.He wasn’t going to turn her in—or at least, not yet, she reflected, with the taste of law-abidingness—to the authorities. He wasn’t going to do nothing and leave her here to die. The element of caring told her something she could have never expected and found incomprehensible.
This stallion, upon finding her in his room, was going to do his best to nurse her back to health—to keep a bitter enemy of his kind alive because he felt it was right.
Right. What a strange, abstract wide-ranging term; one that had never meant much to her, before. It had simply been something which those foolish ponies had believed in, an artificial veneer on the harsh realities of survival. It had been a concept to be scoffed at and mocked, for there was no such thing as ‘right’ except in the survival of oneself and one’s family.
But now, it was a word which might now be her salvation.
If she could have moved her mouth, Chrysalis would have grinned at the irony. If she could have voiced something, a short bark of laughter would have echoed in the room.
As it was, however, she simply twitched, and another rasping gasp met her ears.
Another drip of her lifeblood hit the ground. -----
Bold Words gulped as once again he surveyed the devastation of both his apartment and the mare who had done it. Trying to fix his apartment would be hard and expensive.
Fixing a changeling, however, promised to be harder and costlier than any home repair could be.
“First order of business is to put something over that gaping hole in my wall—maybe a tarp,” muttered to himself. “Do I even have a tarp?” Not knowing, he checked a couple closets, only to find that no, he did not own a tarp. He did find that coat he’d been looking for months, though. But lacking a tarp, the only other thing he had to make a cover with was his spare bedsheets.
Hissing his breath out in resignation, he quickly grabbed a hammer and some nails, and before long had nailed a white sheet over the hole in his bedroom and another in the hole in his kitchen. That done, he turned his attention back to Chrysalis.
She seemed to be awake, but her eye constantly lost focus on what it was looking at. It was probably a concussion mixed with some rather severe pain.
Grabbing his small first-aid kit, he opened it and surveyed the pitiful medical supplies within. The bandages he owned would in no way suffice to wrap all the wounds he could see on this side of her body alone, which meant—Hanging his head and sighing, he removed the sheets off of his own bed. He’d be sleeping on the couch tonight.
Slowly, he sopped up the pool of blood with towels and rags, wringing them out in the sink and using them again and again until they were stained green and filthy.
Then, with the most caution he could muster, he lifted her head a quarter-inch above the ground and slid a corner of the sheet under it. Slowly, he did the same for her front legs, but halted as a low noise of pain informed him of her injuries. Grimacing, he continued despite the terrible noise, and huffed out a breath of relief one she was settled on the sheet and the sound ceased.
He began to apply what little actual bandage he had to the most grievous of her cuts, sticking them in place with telekinesis. After that had been exhausted, he lifted the edges of the sheet and draped them over her body as a makeshift dressing, careful to avoid moving her legs.
That done, he surveyed his inexpert handiwork. It would have to do until he could get more supplies. Hopefully, however, it would suffice for tonight—for the sun, he noticed through the sheet, had finished setting and the moon was high in the sky, the night nearly half-over.
Unfortunately, his work would not be over until well after the sun had risen. He knew he’d be using one of his carefully-husbanded sick days tomorrow. Strangely enough, that was the thing he resented most about this whole situation. Not the changeling or the damage to his house, but using sick days! How strange.
Of course, the damage to his house could probably be paid by insurance if he made up a convincing enough story, and he could hardly begrudge Chrysalis for nearly dying. Having to use a sick, day, however—Oh, heaven forbid! Not the sick days!
He laughed at the ridiculous thought, but sobered as he turned to his next task.
It seemed most of her cuts had closed or were beginning to close, but persistently, blood came from her mouth, from the stump (eurgh) of her tongue. The moisture was probably keeping a scab from forming, and would continue to do so, and with her dangerous state, it could well kill her. And if she fell asleep or unconscious, she could choke on her own blood—which would be a terrible way to go.
Bold didn’t know how to perform stitches, and even had he known, he had no sterile thread to perform it with. Though he owned a subscription to Potionmakers’ Monthly (which was a terribly hard-to-get magazine, so far from Zebrica), he was no master of potions. That left him with only way to treat such a wound: such healing spells as he had learned back in school and while observing at clinics and hospitals for information for his books.
He wasn’t very good at them, but Bold couldn’t simply call a clinic and ask for a doctor. Um, Upper Neigh Jersey Clinic? I have an injured pony here... well, not exactly a pony, she’s a changeling. Could you perhaps come heal her?” He pulled a face at the thought of that conversation. Yep, definitely not happening. So his own inexpert magic it would be.
Hoping she could understand, he said, “I’ve done everything I can do for you without magic, but in order to help you anymore, I’m going to have to use some. Is that alright?”
Her eye found his and held it for ten seconds before blinking. It had lost his eye after the eyelid slid back open, but Bold thought he saw the slightest nod.
“First things first... let’s get this thing,” and with revulsion and the least amount of telekinesis he could use (even touching it made him queasier), he lifted the severed tongue. “Whole and where it’s supposed to be.”
Chrysalis’ mouth was slack, and carefully he telekinetically eased it open a fraction more. “Sorry, sorry,” he apologized preemptively, “But this is probably going to hurt.”
Placing the severed muscle about where he thought it should go (he really needed to hurry and finish this before he threw up again; it made even his magic feel nasty), he ran his memories back to those long-ago classes and the healing spell he had memorized in school.
Beginning the spell, he stuck his tongue out in concentration as he directed the stream of magic to mend tissue and revive dead cells, to join rendered blood vessels and create new nerve connections. Healing was a complicated business at the best of times, and by the time bold had finished even that little task, he was tired and sweaty.
As the spell terminated with that odd little mental ding embedded within its structure that said, “Spell completed successfully,” he huffed out a breath and sat back on his haunches, shaking slightly. “How does that feel?”
The changeling, eye clenched in pain, slowly recovered and opened it once again. Ponderously, she opened her mouth slightly, and her tongue moved slowly, confirming it was indeed whole once again. After one more scratchy breath, she spoke in a hoarse, breathy tone. “Water?” she asked.
Bold blinked. Water, of course! In his hurry to mitigate what damage he was capable of, he had completely forgotten things like food and water. For that matter, what did changelings even eat? At least some of their diet was emotion, judging from the reports, but was it everything they needed to survive? Did they need food as well? Were emotions simply a tasty or preferred food to them, and if so, could they live off of normal food like anypony else? Were some foods essential to them? Were some poison?
With a sinking feeling, as he trotted to the kitchen to grab a cup and some water, he realized that the newspapers had known even less than he had thought they did, which was saying something, for his opinion hadn’t been high in the first place.
How was he going to care for a creature he knew almost nothing about? He could inadvertently kill her through an innocuous deed that was dangerous to her kind.
Returning with the requested water, Bold carefully levitated it to her lips and tilted it slightly, allowing her to drink. After a few sips, Chrysalis sighed. “Thank... you,” she said arduously, and then laid her head back and closed her eyes.
With sheepish realization, Bold gave her a pillow for her head. “I’m going to get some more supplies tomorrow,” he thought out loud, “And perhaps some food. Can you eat food?”
She made no response.
Bold waited for a few minutes to make sure she was, indeed, asleep, and then resignedly curled up in the ransacked remnants of his bed, blanketless and with only a single pillow to lie on.
Needless to say, sleep was not something he accomplished much of that night.
-----
He was raised from his uneasy slumber by an incredibly strange noise—a rattle mixed with a hum. Wondering what was causing that noise, he checked first the sheets over the hole in his apartment. Then, he looked over to Chrysalis.
Her eyes were closed—not the relaxed close of sleep, but rather the clenched eyelids of somepony in pain—and with every exhalation, that noise repeated. It didn’t sound healthy.
“Are you alright?” he asked, concerned.
The changeling breathed in once more, and then unsteadily asked, “What... do you... think?” She shuddered slightly, clenching her teeth.
Quickly, Bold opened the door to the bathroom, and unlocked his medicine cabinet. Rifling through its full shelves, he hastily grabbed two containers, setting them on the counter. He returned to the cabinet, picking up a few more bottles and scrutinizing them carefully, turning them around and around in the light. He studied the labels carefully, though their words had long since been burned into his memory. For a moment, he traced the words with a hoof, but thinking better of it, he threw them unceremoniously back onto the shelf, and slammed the doors closed. Pausing, he reopened them, searched around in the back of the cabinet, and withdrew a small syringe.
Returning with a glass of water and the two bottles, he poured one from the second. “This is an antibiotic pill,” he said, holding it up. “I’m afraid it’s quite likely that you get infected with all those cuts, and so it would be best if you took one or two of these a day.”
She made no response when he paused, so he forged onwards. “This,” he said, holding the syringe aloft, “is morphine. I don’t have very much of it, and I’m not sure if I can get any more, but it’ll certainly help with the pain.” He halted, waiting for a response.
After an awkward minute of silence, Chrysalis opened her eyes and shivered, “Get... on... with it,” and closed her eyes again.
Taken aback, Bold levitated the pill and the water over to her mouth, where she unenthusiastically swallowed it whole. Then, simply making his best guess as to blood vessels, he gingerly lodged the syringe in her neck and depressed the plunger.
Obviously, he had guessed right, for within seconds, she let out a groan of relief and loosened, her breath steadying and no longer having that disquieting death rattle.
Having dealt with one issue, Bold noticed that the sheet she was wrapped in seemed mostly clean, though a few greenish blood spots did mar its surface. With care, he removed the makeshift bandage and began to once again study his patient.
Though the bleeding had stopped and most of the cuts had scabbed over, her legs, and now that he looked closer, her wing joints, were badly broken. Before she could move or heal any further, the legs had to be splinted and the wing joints set right so that they didn’t heal wrong.
He explained this to her, but the only response was “Mmmmm,” a noise that could have meant anything. Assuming consent, he proceeded.
Though he searched, there wasn’t a spare board in his house, meaning that his supply of splinting materials was limited to two broomsticks—only enough for one leg. He wasted a few more minutes by double-checking, but was finally forced to admit he’d have to improvise.
Muttering under his breath, he removed his headboard and hoofboard and tore them into thirds with rather more force than was necessary. Viciously, his remaining sheet was torn into strips and cast to one corner.
The changeling was in a morphine-induced haze, breathing peacefully and staring at nothing in particular, and Bold regretted what he would have to do. Slowly, he felt along her shattered legs, mapping the multiple breaks that would have to be straightened.
Then, he took hold of one hoof and pulled just a little bit. She grunted, but otherwise didn’t seem to notice. She definitely noticed when he popped the first break straight, though.
Even morphine couldn’t sufficiently dilute the agonized messages her legs were sending her, and her breathing once more grew harsh and ragged as break after break was pushed back to its rightful position. After one leg had been finished, she coughed a few times and gritted her teeth as Bold placed the two broomsticks on either side of her leg, wrapped sheets tightly around the whole apparatus, and started in on the next one.
With every bulge he pushed into place, Bold winced at the increasingly manifested distress his activities were causing. After only two legs, her breath came in shuddering gasps and her coughs began to sound wet.
By the conclusion of his third splint, the rest of her body was twitching in anguish. Impelled by this, Bold began to mutter under his breath, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” in a chant of sorts as his grisly work continued. When he was finished, it was clear morphine wasn’t doing much to dull the pain anymore.
Retrieving a third item from the medicine cabinet, he shook out two small pills before administering them. He knew that the combination of the two medicines should alleviate most of the pain and make her completely insensible to the world, with the only side effect a migraine the day after.
Then, he slowly began to cast healing spells, mending each break he found individually. It was exhausting work, and he couldn’t frame more than six, which was barely halfway down one leg.
However, the combined medicines and the mending of a few breaks seemed to do the trick. Chrysalis was once more off in a drug-induced dreamland, and would be for some hours. He was out of morphine, though, and he wasn’t proficient enough with healing to fix the damage before it wore off.
He’d have to get some more supplies, of considerable strength, from somewhere.
Which meant he’d have to visit Poppy—an extremely unwelcome prospect.
-----
As Bold finished cinching his saddlebags tight, he glanced over at Chrysalis, who was still staring vacantly into space. Quietly, he shut the bedroom door, and then shut and locked his apartment door, before sneaking a furtive gaze down the stairwell. Seeing nopony present, he quickly clattered down the steps to the ground floor, where he eased open the back door (It was supposed to be alarmed, but it had been broken even before he disabled it) and slipped outside.
Trotting down the alley, he looked both ways, before turning right towards the subway station. However, three blocks short, he crossed the street, and took a road south. Old townhouses crowded both sides of the road, but these townhouses, unlike those on his own street, did not have the feel of an old stallion easing into death, proud in his previous majesty despite his current sad state.
These had the feel of a wreck of a pony refusing to die.
Even at this hour, when most ponies should be rushing to work, nopony else walked the streets. The city was silent, with only the rushing of wind down the roads breaking the quiet.
Bold’s eyes darted from left to right in constant vigilance as he loped down the street, not quite fast enough to be a gallop, but faster than a trot. He whipped his head around at a crunch emanating from an alleyway, but it was only a cat digging for food among the trash bags strewn on its surface.
After some time, he began to see fewer boarded-up windows, and a handful of others going to and fro around their business outside. In the middle of this small pocket of better living was a small, unassuming shop. It was brightly painted and cheerfully decorated, out of place among the old, dull buildings surrounding it. The sign above it read, “Poppy’s Medicine Shop,” and a smaller sign beneath it stated ‘this shop is an accredited pharmacy.’
With a few deep breaths, Bold pushed open the door and entered the belly of the beast.
Poppy’s Medicine Shop had been founded nearly a century before by Poppy Seed, a newly-graduated pharmacist, back when this section of town had been new. His son, Poppy Sprout, inherited the business just as the newer parts of town had been build, and Seed’s grandson, Poppy Plant, saw the slide into poverty completed. The shop had struggled along, barely solvent, for Plant’s entire lifetime in the slums. Then, his only daughter, Poppy Fields, took over with a will when he died suddenly under mysterious circumstances a decade ago. Most of the people nearby were just happy for the new management of the pharmacy and the generous donations and improvement projects sponsored by Fields. A few, however, knew that there was more to the improved living conditions and new affluence of the pharmacy than new management. Bold Words was one of that number. As he shut the door, a small bell tinkled, alerting the clerk to a customer’s presence. A crimson earth pony mare noticed and turned around from her inspection of a medicine container. She smiled widely when she saw Bold. “Boldie!” she exclaimed, waving. “It’s been forever since I’ve seen you around here!” He offered her a smile which nopony could’ve told it was forced. “Nice to see you, too, Poppy,” he offered. “It has been a while, hasn’t it?” “Last time you came in you bought quite a few prescriptions,” she commented, setting the container on the counter. “I thought you’d be back around sooner, though. You had a tendency to go through pills faster than you should.” Her smile turned a bit enigmatic. “My bet was a week ago.” “Guess I’ve just learned self-control,” Bold said. “I need to refill some prescriptions, though. And grab some more painkillers. Liquid, if you have them.” Though her face didn’t change, her ears perked. “You know we have quite the selection of flavors. What are you going for this time? Apple? Orange? I know you love oranges.” She winked. “Or maybe you’ve graduated to grape?” “I’d like your strongest flavor,” he replied, throwing a glance back out the door. “As much as you can sell me right now.” She paused. “Strongest, eh? Having some pain issues?” “I can’t say.” Bold tapped a hoof. “If you could.” He opened one saddlebag, showing the glint of gold. “I’ve got more than enough to pay.” “Anything for a paying customer,” she said, turning to the door marked ‘Storage.’ “Any other flavors while you’re at it?” “Not today,” he said. She was intrigued, Bold could tell, but she went into the storage room. As she did, Bold took a refresher look at the shop. It hadn’t changed in the month he’d been away: cute paintings still hung on the walls, common gossip rags and tabloids stood on the small waiting table, and the five stuffed shelves of medicines were still dangerously full. The storage room took up more space than it really should, hence the crowded nature of the building. But he knew she kept more than prescriptions back there. She trotted back out, a nondescript paper bag in her mouth. “I’ve got seven bottles of it,” she said. “And because I like you, I’m throwing in a bottle of orange.” Bold had to suppress a grimace. It would not be good if she saw that; Poppy did not take well to people who didn’t like her products. Not well at all. And he wanted his kneecaps intact. She opened the bag and showed him the contents. Within were seven sizable syringes filled with morphine and a small bag filled with pills. “That’ll be three hundred bits, Bold,” she said. Bold took the bag from her and wordlessly floated over the bits, a hefty chunk of his change, and trotted out the door as fast as he could without appearing hurried. She called, “If you need more orange you know where to find me!” as the door closed behind him. As he began the trek back to his home, the sun was high overhead, and the day’s traffic had ceased until evening, when the occupants would come home from their jobs to the crowded apartments. But for now, the street was as empty as the grave, and Bold's hooves clacked conspicuously along the sidewalk. The silence was even more oppressive as he crossed out of the ‘good’ section of the slums and into the less-savory lane between his home and Poppy’s Pharmacy. He hated having to walk through these streets—in fact, on days where he had time to spare, he took the long way around, taking the bridge across the river and then the second back, avoiding this area entirely. There was good reason to avoid this place as often as one could. But his haste had warranted no dawdling or avoiding today, and he was repaid as the sounds of other hooves sounded from an alleyway he passed. He sped up; at this time of day, nothing good came of alleys. (In fact, very little of good ever came from alleys anywhere, let alone here.) “Oi!” Came a voice from behind him. “Don’t move!” The stallion’s yell was accompanied by a foreboding clack, and Bold knew exactly what it was. He skidded to a halt and turned to face the pair of stallions.
One held a large knife in his mouth, and the other floated a heavy pistol by his side. “That’s better,” the pistol-wielding thug smirked.
Oh, Celestia. He was going to die here, Bold realized. There was nopony else around. They were all at work, or of the same caliber of pony as the two pointing weapons at his chest. And he knew that ponies around here, if they went into crime, didn’t bother with pesky things like witnesses to get them caught. After all, there were plenty of places in the slums the guards would never look or even think about. Many of them were just the right size to stuff a stallion—or mare—into. His knees grew shaky and he began to hyperventilate. “Throw me your saddlebags,” the knife-wielding one snarled, taking a step forwards for emphasis. Bold stammered, “There’s very-very fragile stuff in my bags—can I set it down and back away so you can get it and nothing breaks?” “Boss?” The pistoleer hummed, then nodded. “Sure.” Bold set down his bags and hurriedly backed away. “There you go.” ‘Someone, please help me!’ he prayed as they checked his bags. “Whoo, the boy here had some pretty strong stuff,” one whistled. “Look at all that morphine.” “Nice.” The boss grinned. “Now to finish the job.” ‘Somepony, anypony, save me!’ he desperately pleaded as the pistol once again floated level with his head. ----- Chrysalis took a sip from her teacup. “Thank you for the tea, Mrs. Star,” she said nicely, disguised as her maid. It was the same house she remembered; same dim lighting, same old curtains, and the same nauseously expensive dining set. Only one thing was different, and that struck her as of being of no importance. Mrs. Star was a magenta penguin. “It’s no problem, dearie, with all the work you do around here,” the penguin quacked, a kindly old mare’s voice coming from its beak. “The least I can do is offer you some tea.” The changeling’s reply was forestalled as something pricked at her senses. A drone was in trouble. It was spewing fear and trouble signals to her wavelength. She caught the feeling of impending doom. For some reason, the connection was very weak and tenuous. It was like nothing she’d ever felt, but as the diningware complimented her manners, and the floors slowly began to change colors, she sent a burst of courage and reassurance to her drone, pushing it through the connection and forcing the connection back to something resembling full strength. What a strange dream this was. Chrysalis was quite aware she was still lying on the stallion’s floor, terribly injured, and this was a drug-induced hallucination, but it felt nice. Comfortable. She had no intention of breaking the illusion anytime soon. And being able to feel a drone again—that one was so close, even if it was imaginary and in trouble—made her irrationally happy. There were no more drones in real life, in the city she was in—only a gaping emptiness and pain. So she smiled at the penguin and complimented, “This is a very nice tea set, Mrs. Star. Tell me, where did you get it from?”
The trigger clicked, and Bold flinched, but no ball of lead came flying out of the muzzle. A few more clicks confirmed to the thug that the gun had jammed. “Darned subpar piece of manure,” he cursed as he smacked it a few times. But the precious seconds of reprieve it brought his victim made all the difference. A sudden wave of confidence struck Bold, stopping his shaking and cutting off his cold sweat. Something deep inside murmured, ‘You can do it. I know you can,’ and suddenly, he knew it was right. He could save himself. He may not have been particularly strong with his magic, but he was an author! How many hours had he pored over ancient books to get the details of old combat spells? And how many times had he practiced them, again and again, until he succeeded, so he could get the details just right for the next chapter? The real danger of guns was the element of surprise and their speed and range; if somepony happened to be at close range, be noticed, and not be able to follow up (like the thug), just about anypony with a little training or talent could deal with him. Smirking irrationally, he slapped a bit-sized shield in the barrel of the gun. Finally getting it unjammed, the thug aimed hastily, resting it on his cheek, and squeezed the trigger. The bullet traveled roughly an inch and a half before encountering the thick magical shield and stopped dead, trapping the rapidly expanding gases behind it. In a contest of force, the weakest part of the impromptu container blew out. Unfortunately for the wielder, the weakest point wasn’t the very small and very thick shield; it was the breech of the pistol, which blew sideways into his face in a shower of hot metal and gas. He screamed and fell over, clawing at his shrapnel-riddled, terribly burnt face, and the other thug stood, frozen, for a second. “You little bucker!” he screamed, rushing at Bold, knife held high. “I’ll gut ya for that!” But Bold had regained his confidence, eyes full of arcane formulae and blind to the world outside, and even with his entirely average hornpower, he’d spent dozens of hours studying warspells for his novels. In effect, he was the equivalent of an apprentice warmage. And even apprentice warmages were terrors on the battlefield. Bold tossed out a diagonal wave of force, aiming to knock the knife out of the thug’s head. Instead, it whipped his head around with a crack and threw him skidding sideways, knife falling out of suddenly-slack jaws. The difference between an apprentice warmage and an adept is the amount of control one holds over one’s spells. “Luna’s hot flank,” he whispered, confidence draining out, replaced by horror. The knife-wielding pony wasn’t moving, and by the way his head was looking backwards, would never be again. The other had stopped screaming, but he’d also stopped breathing. What had he done? They were dead, because of him. Even if they’d been scum, they were dead. Even if they were planning on killing him, they were dead. Even if it had been a miscalculation, they were dead. They. Were. Dead. Bold vomited, barely avoiding his own hooves. He was a murderer. He was a murderer! His knees gave, and he slumped to the street, shivering, all vestiges of composure slipping away. Slowly, almost unwillingly, his head turned to the bag of morphine which now law sideways on the pavement. He watched, unable to break away, as a syringe of morphine rolled onto the pavement. Then another. And then the bag of pills fell out, and though Bold recoiled, his hoof reached for the bag. No. He couldn’t. He’d sworn he wouldn’t, that he would never again. He tried, tried so hard, to move away, to gather the morphine and leave the pills in the street where they belonged, but almost against his will, his hoof nudged the bag open, revealing the innocent capsules within. Then, with a final effort of what was left of his will, he pulled his hoof away. No. Not today. Not now. But then some sickly familiar noises pricked his ears. It was the sound of somepony’s body realizing it was dead—the beginning of the process that led to rigor mortis and eventually decomposition. Goddesses, he’d researched those sounds only a month before. And he’d caused them. He reached for two of the pills, and shakily popped them into his mouth, coming open though he half-heartedly wished for it to clamp closed. He swallowed. Then it didn’t seem to matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore. Except... For one thing.
Chrysalis was offering flowers to the young heir of the Star fortune (who was also a penguin, albeit one with a normal black-and-white coloring) when something banged loudly enough to startle her out of her daydream.
The morphine’s effectiveness had just begun to fade—small amounts of pain were beginning to slip through if she shifted, though they felt like no more than bruises. Still, she avoided moving to see what had made that noise. Certainly, if it was the Guard they’d be making rather more noise, and a burglar would be making less.
It was probably Bold Words, back from his trip to... wherever. He’d never mentioned his destination.
Speaking of Discord, Bold stumbled in through the bedroom door. His pack was full to bulging with glassware that clinked with every step. It was packed haphazardly—the morphine vials were quite visible to anypony giving more than a cursory glance to the stallion. How careless.
More disturbing, however, was the small spatter of blood on the bag. She had quite the eye for detail; it hadn’t quite dried, yet—it was fresh. Very fresh. Something had happened either on the way there or back.
Bold smiled loosely. “Hey, Chrissy,” he beamed, giving her a wide, lopsided smile. “Got some morphine!”
Had he just called her Chrissy?
He extracted a vial of the drug from his saddlebags, tossing the rest carelessly onto his bed. “Morphy-morph-morph-morphine,” he crooned, spinning the vial in his telekinetic grasp.
Something was wrong with the stallion, it was plain to see. But what? She’d never really dealt with sick or injured changelings—that wasn’t her job. The drones took care of casualties.
Her train of thought was interrupted painfully as the syringe darted in and planted itself in her flank, carelessly dispensing its medication and then flying to one wall, where it shattered in the corner. “There we go,” Bold cheered. He popped something into his mouth and swallowed.
Without warning, his horn lit and the bones in her legs began to heal themselves, at a rate that was incredibly fast. He hummed absentmindedly while he worked—though he didn’t seem to be paying attention, there weren’t any obvious errors with his work.
Almost visibly, with each healed break, he sagged a bit more, the energy leaching from him unhealthily quickly. After a dozen or so breaks, he stumbled, grabbing a paper bag from his saddlebags and removing the contents—some pills which seemed vaguely familiar to the changeling, though she couldn’t recall why. She’d seen them before, but... where?
Gulping a pill, he straightened, smile loosening again and eyes sparking. He finished with one leg and moved on to the next, moving faster and faster, with a third pill making its way down Bold’s gullet as he finished. He began to sing nonsense syllables, stringing them together without a care to rhythm or pitch. He seemed almost deliriously happy, off in his own little world.
The pain was much diminished, now—her broken carapace still ached, but since she hadn’t been moving for hours, it was a muted thing, pushed under by the morphine coursing through her veins. Her horn still throbbed, but all things considered, it was easy to ignore with the relief of shattered legs gone.
On the third break in her last leg (it was a disconcerting feeling, the bones mending with this speed—almost like worms were crawling around in her legs), he paused, eating another pill. He finished that fracture, but not five seconds later, before he could move on, he blinked a few times.
Bold Words smacked his lips, almost thoughtfully, and then his pupils dilated. Bloodshot eyes rolled upwards, and he collapsed senseless onto the carpet at her feet, twitching.
That wasn’t good. The pills—something in them was causing this. The symptoms were known to her—it looked like changeling venom, at least in its final stage.
Her stomach lurched unpleasantly as she suddenly remembered why those pills seemed familiar. She’d hoofed them out before—sold them, as a matter of fact.
Created a whole industry around them.
No wonder the symptoms looked so similar to changeling venom—it was.
Now, changeling “venom” wasn’t very poisonous, so it wasn’t proper to call it venom. Mostly, it made the victim more susceptible to manipulation by overwhelming inhibitions and misgivings with a blanket wave of contentment and joy. When collected from drone fangs and tongues (now that was a room that had always made Chrysalis want to snort, just a little, seeing all those drones licking and biting poles to drip venom into the pools below) and allowed to dry, it formed a powder with no taste and only slightly diminished effects. It was terribly addictive. Funnily enough, stupid equines (of which there were so many) thought it was great as a drug and went to some lengths to buy it voluntarily, which baffled her. Why would you buy something that impaired you? But buy it they did, and she’d seen a perfect opportunity to help her hive. After all, its unique properties, imparted euphoria, and easy addiction made it a perfect drug if you were trying to build an empire off of it. There were some side effects, she remembered, that had seemed great at the time. Now, however, they could prove disastrous. Ignoring her creaking barrel, she levered herself upright—slowly. There was no need to hurry—the overdose lasted a quarter-hour. But when Bold awoke, happy grin on his face (the effects tended to linger for hours) she demanded harshly, “How many times? “How many times have you overdosed?”
It was a nice feeling, helping his friend, Bold decided. It made him feel really happy. In fact, he’d never been so happy as he was at this moment. Not even when
...
Bold blinked, and suddenly, everything shifted, returning to a view of his home. His horn throbbed with pain, and he felt exhausted.
And Chrysalis was shaking him vigorously, demanding something.
It took a few more seconds for his mind to clear completely, just in time to catch her question: “How many times have you overdosed?”
“Overdosed?” He’d overdosed... buck.
He curled up around the pain in his horn—or tried to, as her insistent hold stopped him short. “Not again...” he muttered. “Thought I was over this...”
Chrysalis released her grasp, and he toppled forwards as his support suddenly fell away from under him. “Why are you equines all idiots?” she moaned. “How you ever managed to defeat us is a mystery.”
“What?” he stammered. Then a shock of pain ran through his hoof, nearly making him buckle, and he blanched. It wasn’t a one-time thing, apparently; he had no curse strong enough. He made do with repetition. ‘Here comes round two,’ he thought blackly. ‘Wonder if I’ll survive this one.’
Chrysalis began to rant something off, but even though she wasn’t five feet away, he didn’t hear her. What she had to say had absolutely no bearing on the grim situation. His hoof strayed towards the bag—he needed some morphine. A lot of it— more than was safe. He might very well kill himself if he gave himself the dosage he was thinking of. Without it, he might not survive anyway.
Chrysalis made it a moot point by slapping his hoof away, her anger only ratcheting up and translating to her voice. “Bucking Luna and Celestia, it’s starting!”
The changeling broke off her monologue in confusion, staring at him, but the next flare of agony, this one making the previous feel like love taps, broke his locked knees.
More, cascading in speed and intensity, stole his last footing and curled him on the ground. Less than half a minute in, he began to crack. “Help!” he moaned, escalating into a scream as the flares merged into a single never-ending abyss of pain. “Help me—nnrrgh!” It transformed mid-plea into a primal cry of agony. -----
Taken completely by surprise, the changeling queen stood just out of reach. What had just happened? One moment, he was unconscious—the next, awake—and now he was screaming on the floor. It had blindsided her; was this the result of a venom overdose, or something else? She’d never seen anything like it before, and she was at a loss.
Instinctively, she focused her empathic sense on Bold—which was the worst move she could have made. They were of a potency beyond that which she’d ever felt—even with her own drones. The first emotion she felt, disconcertingly strongly, was fear. Bold was scared for his life. The second was despondency, a feeling of giving in and letting the pain consume him. Speaking of which, his pain wasn’t quite as bad as hers had been just after she’d awoken the first time in his apartment, but that was like saying the fire was only burning down most of the building, or only half of somepony’s limbs were being sawed off. It was quite bad enough that, added to her own not-inconsiderable store of remaining pain, only barely held at bay by the morphine and her own inner discipline, that her unprepared mental walls began to fall like dominoes in a storm.
She had to get away before she ended up just like him. She HAD to. But as she backed a step, Bold’s manic, pain-filled eyes found hers. “No,” he groaned. “Don’t...”
She backed another step. “You’re sick—I can’t stay here—not like this—I have to go—”
“Don’t!” he persisted, panting, one hoof clawing slowly towards her. “Don’t... go...” His body convulsed, lifting him off the ground and throwing him back down. “Please...”
She had to get some distance. The pain threatened, a wave of such might it promised to leap along the empathetic link which she was now powerless to break in full force. It was one of the few drawbacks of instinctively knowing the feelings of everypony around oneself.
So she backed through the door and into the kitchen, but as she turned to the door—uncaring of the consequences of revealing herself—a sudden rush of despair slammed through her defenses and sent her stumbling into the counter, clutching at the wood like to keep from curling to the ground and giving up.
The emotional whiplash was so strong that her vision swam and her ears felt stuffed with cotton. Her hooves shook, robbed of what little strength they had recovered. Her horn, still slightly sputtering as it tried to repair itself, dimmed, then failed entirely. It was all she could do to stay upright.
Chrysalis took one halting step, and then another, trying to escape, but there was no lessening of the weight which sapped her limbs of their strength. She fell to her front knees, but forced herself back upright and slammed against the wall, relying upon it to keep her erect.
There was no possibility of making it far away to escape the feeling before it overwhelmed her. Besides, there was nowhere to go, anyway, she recalled lethargically. Everyone outside of this apartment hated her and would most likely arrest her—or just lynch her as soon as they could. There was no point in leaving, unless she wanted to die.
Already, her mind grew depressed. There wasn’t much time—if she couldn’t escape it, she’d soon join Bold Words, quivering on the floor, if not worse.
There were two ways to stop empathetic overload—get away, or fix the problem causing the strong emotion. But how to solve such a crushing weight?
She staggered, leaning against the drywall, back to the door. Bold had curled into fetal position, constant spasms of agony rocking his trembling frame. He was sobbing, tears of agony mixed with the deepest sorrow she’d ever felt.
“I... I don’t want... to die,” he cried. “I don’t want... to... to die...” His voice trailed off into mumbling after that, and his eyes slowly focused on a far-distant point.
Chrysalis felt her last defenses crumbling, and without warning, she noticed her flank was on the carpet. She had blacked out momentarily and fallen over, and there was no chance of getting back up.
Sluggishly, with excruciating sloth, she edged, dragging herself along, towards Bold, who was thrashing uncontrollably, eyes shrunk to pinpricks, babbling soft gibberish.
He was beyond help now, it was obvious. All she needed to do was find the strength to lift one hoof—only a few measly inches—and drop it back down. That was all. There would be peace, and to hell with the finality of the consequences.
But as she finally drew within hoof’s distance and painstakingly raised her hoof, she caught the gibberish—which wasn’t gibberish at all.
“I don’t... want to... die...” he whispered brokenly. “I don’t want... to die... alone...”
Her leg froze, stuck in its awkward position. No matter how much she hurt, no matter the mercy it would be, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Though she wanted to, oh so badly, her body refused to obey, and disconcertingly, she didn’t know why it wouldn’t. Never before had she found herself unable to do anything, no matter how grisly or dirty.
But, for whatever reason, it was now that her body failed her.
Her chance faded quickly, and her hoof fell, no longer propelled by her will but by gravity winning its battle with her spent muscles. Gently it dropped, with all the finality of a funeral bell, and she resigned herself to the pain.
But the moment her hoof landed softly onto Bold’s fur, his eyes lost a little of their pain-madness, and his chant broke. “Chrys....Chrysalis... you didn’t... leave?”
“No,” she rasped. “I’m still here.” It took a moment to regain her wind, and then she continued sourly, “It’s not like I had a choice...” She still had the presence of mind to clamp her lips over her thoughts only ten seconds before, but it was a near thing.
But Bold wasn’t listening. “Thanks,” he whispered, once more staring at the ceiling sightlessly, “For... caring enough... At least... I won’t be... when...”
Then he stiffened once more, and his coherency disappeared, his mouth resuming its mantra, but the pain she felt was (while no less intense) somehow less important. Less... all-encompassing. Her barriers, slowly, waveringly, began to rise. She couldn’t stop herself from feeling the pain, but she could narrowly prevent it from overwhelming her.
It was only after several minutes that she noticed his chant was missing one conspicuous word.
It was less like waking up then it was an abrupt shift from darkness into light. He gasped, head jerking as he instinctively tried to scramble upright, but he was foiled by a sharp stab of pain stealing the strength from his limbs.
He couldn’t remember last night—the whole thing was covered in a darkly familiar haze. “Oh, no,” he groaned.
“Are you finally coherent?” an exasperated voice asked from behind him, and he drew his head backwards. Chrysalis was sitting against his bed, a bored expression on her face. “Took you long enough.”
“You were here… the whole time?” he coughed.
She nodded slightly. “And such an entertaining time it was,” she said with a roll of the eyes. “Really, the agony was wonderful to watch.”
Bold attempted to stand again, succeeding this time. “Was it bad?” he rasped as he hobbled over to the kitchen.
“Of course it was,” she snapped. “Because a Venom overdose is ever anything but bad!”
“Venom?” He’d never heard that street name.
She said nothing, and after a moment he shrugged and slowly filled a cup with water, drinking it gratefully. A second cup, then a third, recieved the same treatment, and only then did he step away, feeling slightly refreshed.
There was an awkward silence, until Chrysalis said abruptly, “How much do you have?”
“What?”
“How much?” she demanded.
Gingerly, he returned to the bedroom, grasping the paper bag with the slightest tendril of magic. Holding it as far away as possible, he peered into its depths. “Looks like… half a bottle, and three vials of morphine left.”
“Hoof me a vial,” she said.
He floated one over to her, and as she pressed it to her neck and depressed the plunger, she continued, “We’re going to need to get more Venom, then—and a lot of it.”
“Why? I’m never touching the stuff again,” Bold said with a shudder.
“Bit late for that,” she said with black humor. “You said it was your second overdose, and I’m quite experienced with the… aftereffects of Venom. Two of those, and you’re hooked forever. If you don’t take regular doses, withdrawal will kill you.” She snorted. “And now, you’ll have to take some every day for the rest of your life—meaning that that little half-bottle is going to run out quickly. You’re going to need as much as you can get.” She paused. “There’s no time to waste, as well—I happen to know that the supply is about to dry up completely.”
Bold asked, “How do you know so much about this?”
She scoffed. “Isn’t it obvious? Venom is—was—produced, refined, and distributed entirely by changelings. A little side project to keep funds flowing. But now, there aren’t any more changelings to produce it. They’re all dead.” She stood, the remnants of her horn sparking. “Which means no more Venom. If you don’t get more, you’ll die, and I can’t have that.”
Bold smiled weakly. “That’s… not welcome news. You’re sure about the aftereffects?”
She nodded.
He sat down abruptly. “Buck. I’m so screwed. I’m out of money for at least another month.”
She shrugged fluidly. “Then you’ll just have to steal it.”
He stared, utterly flabbergasted. “Steal drugs? From a supplier? You can’t be serious.”
She shrugged again, rolling her eyes. “It’s that or die. Your choice.”
