Part 1: Adapting
She plowed into the ground like an iron comet, kicking up grey dirt as her body dug a long trench. The great power she had gained from that stallion's love was used, now, to keep her alive, healing spells and body reinforcement zapping through her again and again even as she skipped against a rock and whirled back into the air. Her eyes widened for a moment as she buzzed her wings in a desperate attempt to regain control, then shut tight as her face slammed into the ground and pushed aside another large divot of dirt. And finally, a few moments after that, her journey stuttered to a stop; her body arced over her neck briefly, before her rear hooves ended up planted in front of her.
"Stmmfph fmmphing demph ech mekmmma..."
Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings, Lady of the Swarm, Seductress Supreme, groaned as she extracted her forelegs from the grey ground around her and planted them firmly to either side. With a grunt of effort, she managed to pop her head free from the grip of the earth, spitting and snorting grit out of her mouth and nose. Her reptilian eyes opened, and she looked up to get an eyeful of her own rear.
"Well at least I'm still flexible. And well toned. Maybe I should have tried seducing that pony in my natural form...." She chuckled. "No, he probably would have been intimidated by my raw sex appeal. Ally-oop!"
Chrysalis flipped back into a normal quadrupedal stance, glancing behind her and wincing at the long line of dug up dirt behind her. She shook her head after a moment, shrugging off the last of the dirt; that was the past, and it was best to look forward! And right in front of her was...
...well, it was either a giant egg or a rock shaped like a giant egg. Right on a cliffside too. Oh, and there was a house as well, pretty simple looking with a few silos next to it. So, a farm... but where were the crops? Was this place abandoned? She walked toward the structure, careful to avoid being in line of sight of the windows, just on the off chance that a pony looked through. Her gaze fell on a string, supported between the corner of the house and a pole; dangling on it was a small assortment of clothes, mostly hats and accessories.
Yet Chrysalis's eyes were drawn to the single grey-blue dress, pinned delicately to the string. To a pony, it would have been seen as a dull example of stichwork, the fabric thick and stuffy, with the only flare being a black belt and a basic collar. To a changeling, though, it radiated with suffused love energy, like the smell of a well-cooked meal might to a pony that had just come in from a hard day's work in the middle of a blizzard. The only reason that Chrysalis didn't leap at the dress herself was her own recent feeding on Shining Armor, which were more akin to decadent meals every day, yet even she could not help but take a few steps forward.
"Mmmm." She poked at the fabric. "Damp. Recently washed. There are ponies here."
Well, if there were ponies, she could easily enough feed on their love. In fact, this very dress could be the first step to conquering... well, maybe it was just a small outpost, but any base would do in a pinch. All she had to do was mimic this dress, and the moment whoever put it on was alone she could constrict around them, robbing them of their breath, and then quickly cocoon them and take their place. Given how absent the signs of civilization were from this house, there were probably less than ten ponies living out here; easy enough to capture most of them, and then fight the rest if she REALLY needed to.
With quick motion, she popped the dress off, draining it of its suffused love and buzzing up to the roof where she hung it carefully on the chimney. Then she flew down to the clothesline, pinned herself up, and in a flare of green flame she was fluttering in the breeze. She didn't have to wait long. The door to the house opened, and a gray pony with flat eyes trotted out to the clothesline.
The very first thing the mare did was put Chrysalis on--the queen couldn't believe her luck! She instantly began squeezing tightly on the mare's neck... who merely moved on and started gathering the other accessories in a small basket.
Um.
Well, earth ponies were known for their endurance, after all. Perhaps if she took her true form now and took her by surprise--
"Dearest Maud!" An elderly pale mare peered out of the door. "Art thy done with the laundry?"
"Just about." The mare's voice was almost emotionless. "I'll bring it in now."
"Our thanks."
Well... this was annoying. But Chrysalis could afford to be patient. All she needed to do was wait until the mare was alone, and then...
Uh...
Okay, so it would be hard to wriggle off the mare without her noticing, and she couldn't just drop her morph now that the mare was wearing her. So she just had to wait until the mare was alone and took the dress off. Ponies didn't usually wear clothes, so that should be easy enough, wait until she was asleep or something. She could do that.
***
Chrysalis grumbled to herself as she felt the mare's chest raise and lower rhythmically. What kind of crazy pony slept in a dress? If it was a bathrobe, maybe. Lingerie, well, technically there wasn't much sleeping involved but they did usually end up exhausted. Shoes on occasion, if they were planning to wake up quickly, and hats were popular for whatever reason.
But a dress?
The worst part was that this mare shared her bed with two others. One of them snorted and rolled all the time, occasionally growling. The other was remarkably still and quiet, except that she would randomly pipe up to talk in her sleep. And what she said was--
"...kind of parents name their filly after a disaster?! I should rip off your horn and..."
...amazingly disturbing.
She couldn't take three ponies at once if they woke up, unfortunately, and that was almost inevitable if she tried to wriggle off. At the very least, the mare who was wearing her had directed a constant mild stream of love at her. This dress was well loved. Maybe she'd inherited it from a dead relative or something.
With an irritated sigh, Chrysalis tried to get some sleep; she could figure out some great scheme in the morning.
***
The plan had been foolproof! ABSOLUTELY FOOLPROOF! She constricted tightly around this... this Maud pony as she worked, keeping the sweat on her skin until the mare had to take a bath! And when she entered the bathroom, she would have taken off the dress and Chrysalis would have taken her true form and cocooned her!
Except, for whatever reason, Maud Pie bathed while entirely clothed.
Somehow, the aggravating mare managed to stick a hose into her dress and spray herself with frigid torrents--and Chrysalis had to keep from squeaking out as her innards were splattered with ice-cold water again and again. Then, once she was entirely wet, she stepped outside the house, started a campfire, placed a metal platform on it, and stood above the cackling flames. The changeling couldn't help but coil her hem up Maud's legs, trying to avoid the cackling flames and sparks beneath her.
And once the mare was dry, she hopped down, doused the fire, and went right back to work.
Well. FINE. Chrysalis knew there was more than one way to undress a mare. She coiled gently around Maud's firm flanks. Just a little 'massage,' and the poor pony would have to take her off to handle the situation.
***
The changeling-disguised-as-a-dress was trying her hardest to keep from freaking out. Apparently Maud did everything fully clothed.
Was it some childhood trauma? A mental quirk? Was she just that vain, unwilling to ever be parted from her favorite dress? She couldn't tell; the stoic face of Maud Pie, unlike her sisters, was impossible to read, and even trying to get a feel on her heartbeat didn't do much for the changeling queen. She'd tried, vaguely, to strangle her again, but Maud's only reaction had been to absently brush at her collar.
Maybe if Chrysalis waited until Maud needed to use the bathroom--
She gave an internal sigh. It was very likely that Maud would probably just hike up her dress to avoid it getting dirty.
But if she did, Chrysalis could maybe wrap around her face and--
No, that would be too obvious. Maud Pie was strange, but she wasn't stupid.
At the very least she could keep up this disguise indefinitely, given how much love the filly was dumping into her on an hourly basis. All she had to do was be patient. She could afford to be patient.
***
Over the course of the next few weeks, Chrysalis learned more about rock farming then she even knew she never wanted to learn. The rotation of crops, the measurement of geological motion, the analysis of leyline distortion, the economics of gravel. THE ECONOMICS. OF. GRAVEL. All picked up from various conversations that these... Pies had.
She briefly considered whether or not the Pinkie Pie she'd met was related to this family. But that was impossible, because really this family was so very very boring and Pinkie was... well, stupidly cheerful.
Chrysalis rustled in boredom as Maud filed another college application. At least this mare was willing to work to make herself something more. Her parents were settled where they were, Limestone was apparently aggressively hounding for running the farm, and Marble....
Well, she couldn't really get a good read on Marble. The filly hid her face all the time, and her 'awake' persona was a radical one-eighty from the stuff she would let out while she was sleeping.
There was some interesting news, though. Apparently the Crystal Empire had returned. What exactly that meant wasn't clear, but from the way the Pies were chatting about it she couldn't help but be interested. An entire city made of crystals... with supposedly crystal ponies? That was incredibly unlikely, most likely they just wore crystals a lot.
Oh, and apparently that pink mare she'd pretended to be was the ruler now. Fine, whatever. It wasn't like there was anything but boring crystals up there that she would be interested in anyway. She still needed to figure out how to get her changelings back together.
***
When the unicorn had first arrived, Chrysalis had tried desperately to make contact. But the mare didn't get any of the secret changeling signals she was making. Not even the one where she constantly 'spanked' Maud whenever she was around. It didn't help that Maud's reaction was to merely raise an eyebrow.
This led to the unfortunate conclusion that Trixie was not a changeling. Which, in retrospect, made all of Chrysalis's subtle shifting rather awkward. Not that she liked pressing against the sculpted grey body that was Maud Pie, in either an emotional or physical sense, but... well, the fact was at the moment she was a dress. A supposedly inanimate object. If anypony ever noticed her moving, that would be the end of it.
Luckily for her, Maud seemed to dismiss it as Trixie's magic going haywire due to poor eating. Which made Trixie rather angry for some reason, since apparently it was rude to call a unicorn on their magic going out of control or something. Which meant that she had to challenge Maud to a fight.
Which wouldn't have been a problem, except that Maud fought like she did everything else--wearing a dress.
In this case, Chrysalis.
And Trixie looked pissed enough to start tearing Maud (and by extension the dress) into bits.
The following few minutes were utterly terrifying for the changeling queen. She couldn't move without tripping up Maud, and she couldn't risk that--not with Trixie firing fireworks spells. Her whole life was dependent on the stoic grey mare--not just as a food source, but as an unwitting protector, one that might not even care for her, one that didn't even know she was alive. She was helpless, only able to watch as flare after flare whizzed only inches away from her clothen surface, each able to tear into her and rip a deep gash into her body.
And yet... it never happened. Maud didn't move against Trixie, but she danced--dodged the flares and the blasts with acrobatic skill, her hooves smacking away some of the smaller sparkles that would have impacted against her. Trixie's assaults grew more and more frenetic, more and more wrathful, till at last with a final cry she unleashed a barrage of magic--and Maud kicked into the ground, a thousand pebbles launching and intercepting each glowing dot.
Well, except the one that set her mane on fire, but she put that out with a lick of her hoof.
Trixie stayed only long enough to earn her money and left, sullen and resentful. Chrysalis was grateful; the constant glowers she'd sent toward Maud had been disgusting, an unwanted counterpart to the feeling of love that enveloped her daily.
***
She was beginning to forget what it felt like to have legs. Of course, it had to feel something like having sleeves, she knew that, but more... solid, and with four of them. Still, being a dress had its perks. Especially when worn by such a... well... warm pony. Maybe she was physically attracted to Maud, fine. As a changeling she had to be able to identify physical attractiveness. And it wasn't like she wasn't still planning on cocooning the mare at some point anyway. Once they were alone, and Maud had actually gotten her off.
Chrysalis let herself relax around the grey pony's frame as she slept. Still, it might be best to enjoy this as long as she could. Once she was free of this ironic self-imposed prison, she'd have to go right back to commanding the swarm... well, finding the swarm first. And with all that had happened at the wedding, it might be harder for changelings to live out in pony society.
Stupid random love shield thing. How in Tartarus did that even make SENSE?!
Speaking of things that didn't make sense, apparently Discord had turned over a new leaf. At least, if the letter from Pinkie Pie, who was somehow Maud's sister, could be trusted at all. It wasn't very likely, though. Their brief interaction had shown Chrysalis that the pink pony was not someone who had their mind on reality all the time. A creature like Discord being reformed was slightly less likely than a random pony suddenly becoming an alicorn.
***
....why did the universe like to mock her?
Or was it just Twilight Sparkle? Twilight, who she had not known about at all, who threatened to break her facade, who somehow brought together Cadance and Shining and managed to get them to pull off their reality-defying love-shield of doom, who was now a freaking alicorn?!
Celestia must have done it. Done it as some form of twisted vengeance. Some way to flip her off without going to the effort of tracking her down. Dammit.
Chrysalis fluffed her collar in agitation as Maud worked on some college paperwork. She might as well settle for being a damned dress for the rest of her life. At least Maud took good care of her, she was an acceptable servant, and not too bad to look at. Still, it was frustrating for her to know her changelings were out there, with no idea how they were faring or... or if they were still alive.
She could very well be the last of her kind. And she wouldn't even know.
Something had to be done. She'd grown lax. She had to do something...
A crazy idea hit her head. Chrysalis would normally have ignored it, but... well, Maud talked to her rock a lot. Maybe, just maybe...
For a moment, her pocket became a set of lips, and one word passed through them. "Changelings." And then she was an ordinary dress again.
Maud's ears perked, and she reached for the pocket, pulling out Boulder. "What was that?"
Chrysalis said nothing, wondering where Maud's mind would go.
"...Hmm." The grey pony tapped the table. "Changelings."
Yes... YES...
"...I'll have to ask Pinkie about them."
"No!"
Chrysalis morphed her lips away, but Maud was already up, glancing around the empty room. "Who's there?" She looked everywhere, under tables, in cabinets, peering into sinks... everywhere but her dress. Eventually, she sat back down.
"...I've been filling out these applications nonstop. I must be hearing things."
The changeling queen relaxed. She'd almost been found out.
She had to be more careful in the future.