A Mother's Tale
Twilight Sparkle looked up from her book as Spike crashed through the door, holding a scroll. “Twilight!” he gasped, having run back to the castle from Rarity’s shop, “Message… from the Princess! Chrysalis surrendered conditionally. They need you in Canterlot.”
She took the scroll from Spike with wide eyes, “Hmm. I’ll try to be back soon,” she promised before her horn lit up, and she teleported.
Chrysalis yawned in genuine boredom as the guardsponies around her held their spears at the ready. “You do realize these won’t even scratch my carapace?” she inquired.
“No, but we will certainly do some damage,” Chrysalis turned and saw all four Princesses of Equestria entering the police station she’d been taken to. “The guards said you had a condition. Why should we accept when we already have you here?” Luna demanded.
Chrysalis chuckled mirthlessly, “Because firstly, my demand costs nothing but time and a willingness to listen. Secondly, because I have nothing left to lose, Princess. If you refuse, I have no reason not to detonate my magic and blow up half of Canterlot as a final farewell. I came here in good faith. The changelings are done, Princesses. Our race is dead. You are looking at the last living Changeling on Equis.”
Cadence gasped, while the Diarchs looked surprised and Twilight’s jaw dropped. “I don’t expect to live for more than a few days,” Chrysalis continued, “So… At least heed a dying mare’s last wishes and listen to our story. I wish to take you four to the hive, yes I am fine with being under guard and everything,” she rolled her eyes, “But there are several things I must show you. I must let you understand.”
“If this is a trap…” Luna trailed off threateningly.
Chrysalis scoffed, “Princess Luna, I lost. I know that, and I accept it. There is nothing more I can do, and bemoaning my fate won’t change it. I simply wish to have the true history of the changelings recorded by those who matter. I wish to leave something that will teach others that there was more to us than shapeshifting and stealing love. Please.”
The last word cinched it. “We will allow you to direct a chariot,” Celestia stated, “If you are indeed dying… Well, let it never be said Equestria does not respect even our enemies.”
Chrysalis stepped off the chariot and pushed a part of the cliff. It glowed for a moment, before a hole faded into being beside it, “Here we are. My home for one thousand three hundred and eighty four years. Our hive.”
The ceilings were high, though the tunnels were narrow. Likely because the changelings could move on both the floor and ceiling.
It was lit every so often by glowing cysts of crystallized gel, shining a faint green glow over everything in sight.
After almost fifteen minutes of walking, descending down a very steep slope, Chrysalis turned to them. “What you are about to see requires some context,” she began, “Several facts about our race are required to comprehend this.”
She glanced up at the ceiling, pondering how to word it, “I suppose I should start at the beginning. We were not always like this, you know. Insectile and disgusting. We once were hailed as the most beautiful of equine races. Do you remember, Celestia, Luna? Do you remember the flutterponies?” Chrysalis’s form lit up in green fire, causing all four princesses to tense, but when it faded a different mare stood there. She was golden yellow, with bright solid blue eyes and antennae, but the biggest surprise was two beautiful butterfly wings on her back. “Do you remember me, Princesses?”
Celestia and Luna stared at the new mare in shock, “…Queen Ambrosia…?” Celestia breathed, “You are… You were Queen Ambrosia?”
“Ambrosia?” Chrysalis mused, “Was that my name? I genuinely don’t know,” she added seeing the sudden wary looks of the Princesses, “I ruled the flutterponies though. That much I remember clearly.”
She shifted back, though her eyes were closed. “Three thousand years. I led them for three thousand years. I was over two millennia old when you were born,” she chuckled grimly, “Then the Windigos came.”
Celestia frowned, “If you are telling the truth, then you didn’t die when Paradise Valley froze?” she asked curiously.
Chrysalis gave her a grim smile, “More than half of us died holding them out of the hive. In desperation we called on a higher power… and made a deal with the devil.”
She turned away, though it did nothing to disguise the sobs, “We were desperate. So we summoned Discord, and I bargained with him. We could hold the Windigos off indefinitely, but we would all starve in the process. I had just finished burying half my hive, and I was feeling vengeful. I bargained that in return for one thousand years of obeying him, he would enable me to feed our entire race with our enemies. To devour them and feed the hive through me. He laughed, and agreed.”
She shuddered, “Do you know what it’s like, having your form changed so drastically?” she asked softly, “No, of course not. It is a feeling of violation, unlike anything you’ve ever felt. When we awoke, Discord was nowhere to be found, and we were Changelings as you see us now.”
Chrysalis turned back to them, “We devoured the Windigos besieging us. Every one my drones fed on empowered me – and I was never weak. Before becoming a changeling, I could likely have matched Discord in raw power, if not versatility. After it… well, you saw me at the wedding; after starving for months I was more than powerful enough to defeat you. I claimed I was feeding on Shining Armor, which was true, but I kept none of it. Those drones you ruthlessly threw out of the city. They were where I sent the energy.” Her gaze fell on Cadence, “Did you know that you killed more than three thousand of my children that day? And guaranteed we would all die out. I hope you’re happy with yourself, Princess of Genocide.” She hissed and turned away, “Ahem. When my drones feed, the energy goes to me, and I can redirect it down the line into the drones. In short, I eat, the entire hive gets fed. We defeated the Windigos just in time for the temperature to drop to about twenty below zero. We are hardy, but not that hardy.” She grimaced, “So we left our ancestral home in Paradise Valley. We found this place after years of searching, and excavated an entire city! For years we flourished, using our newfound shapeshifting to steal love and care from the Crystal Heart, goodness knows it has enough to spare.” She shrugged at Cadence’s frown, “Then, a thousand years and a bit ago, Sombra pulled his little trick and our food source vanished.”
Chrysalis turned, pushing through the curtain that lay at the end of the tunnel, “And that was the beginning of the end of our race.”
All four princesses gaped at the size of the cavern. You could put four Canterlot Castles side by side in the middle of the place without touching the ceiling. The cavern itself was a sphere, with a ‘sky’ of that luminous gel, and buildings made of chitin and changeling goo. Only, upon further inspection one side of the cavern was flat. Completely flat. And as Twilight squinted she could see black on it, though more was impossible to see from here.
“Follow me. Don’t worry, there are no more changelings, remember? Feel free to scan the area if you want,” Chrysalis said with forced bravado.
The four alicorns followed the changeling, each wondering just how the changelings made this place. It was truly a titanic city, dwarfing Canterlot. “This is the love repository,” Chrysalis announced, arriving at a big building and pushing through the curtain the changelings used instead of doors, “It’s basically a giant pool where excess love would theoretically be stored. It hasn’t been used in almost three centuries,” she gestured to the thick layer of dust on the floor, “As you can see. Ponies just don’t give enough love to sustain our hive. Yet… Well…” Chrysalis turned towards them, and the four alicorns stared at the tears running down her face, “Changelings…don’t reproduce. I am the mother of every last changeling. From birth, their minds are linked to mine. Yet they have their own hopes and dreams, and I guide and watch over them. Or I did. But a single reproducing queen isn’t nearly enough to sustain a healthy population, or at least it wouldn’t for most species. Rather… Once a month I lay an egg sac, filled with anywhere from one thousand to two thousand changeling larvae, each smaller than a normal insect. The sac is placed in liquid love, and the larvae eat through it and absorb the love until they’re old enough to survive outside it. This happens whether or not I have sex, whether or not I want it to.”
The tears intensified, “Do you know what it’s like, Princesses? Do you know what it’s like to not even have enough love to make the sac? So when it comes time to lay, all that comes out are many already-dead larvae? I do. I sorted through each and every one of them, despite being dead, and named every last one. Every time. Come. I have one last place to show you.”
She held her head high, despite the sobs coming from her as she made her way through the city towards the flat wall of the cave.
Twilight could read it now. Thorax. Pupa. Katydid. Word after word after word, only some of which made sense. She frowned, “What is this?”
Chrysalis smiled through her tears.
All four mares flinched away. It was a broken smile, the smile of a mother that has buried her children. The smile of a parent who has held their dead offspring in their hands and pleaded with the gods to just give them back. A parent who has been forced to watch generation after generation be stillborn, has forced themselves to sit through and name each and every dead child to honor them.
“This is the wall of the starved,” Chrysalis whispered, “On it are the names of every last changeling killed through starvation. One to two thousand eggs per month, though even before we ran out of liquid love they tended to end with only two or three hundred living nymphs. I told you we haven’t had enough love to create the pool necessary for incubation for more than three hundred years. Do. The. Math.”
Twilight paled as she realized what Chrysalis meant. “At least three point six million…” she whispered in absolute horror, “…Every last one was your child, wasn’t it?”
“I held them all in my hooves. I named them even when they were dead. I… I just wanted to give my people a future,” Chrysalis fell to her knees, sobbing, “We never wanted to hurt anypony, just get access to the crystal empire through imitating Cadence! I didn’t even know about the wedding until I’d already started the plan! We… I… We just wanted to live.”
Cadence walked forward as if in a trance, extending one hoof to the wall, “You truly love them. Each and every one,” she murmured in awe and horror, “I… I can feel it… I can feel them.”
“Why did you not simply ask us?” Luna asked, tears flowing down her face, “You were once our close friend and mentor, Ambrosia! We would never have denied you!”
Chrysalis let out a sobbing laugh, “I have been hungry for so long… My mind is clouded, drowned in thirst, and I am only clear-minded occasionally. It is maddening. And you deceive yourself. Had we shown up claiming to be the Flutterponies, you would have called us liars and said we were insulting your friends’ memories. Even now, I know you still have some doubts. We would have gotten nothing. Either way the changeling hive is finished… but maybe not forever.”
All four alicorns gathered around Chrysalis, sharing in her pain. Former enemies or not, they all grieved with the mother of the changelings. “I… I wanted to bring you here,” Chrysalis sniffed, trying to restrain her tears, “Because you needed to know. There is one thing I know how to do. It is forbidden, but we can turn sentient living things into a nutrient sludge that is comparable to love in its healthiness. I have only ever used it once, and was so horrified I refused to ever do so again. Today is the day I lay, within the hour if I do not rush it.”
She met each of the Princesses, “I want to feed on you to create the sac… then turn myself into that sludge to give them a chance at life. When one queen dies, another is chosen. That is how the Flutterponies always lived, and I believe it should still work. Please… I can’t offer much, we have gold and gems, sure, but not much. Still, if you’ll let me, everything here is yours… Tear it all down if you wish, or leave it as a mausoleum. Just… please let my race continue. I beg you.”
The alicorns exchanged glances, conveying entire conversations in glances, “I swear we will raise your children as best we can,” Celestia promised, leaning down and nuzzling Chrysalis lightly, “And should a new queen not be born, I will do everything in my power to ensure your kind survives, even if I have to convince Discord to change them back into Flutterponies,” she swore.
Chrysalis’s curved horn glowed as she opened her mouth. The four mares closed around her, trying to be as affectionate as possible, to give her as much love as they could.
And then Chrysalis’s horn glowed again, and the floor shifted, forming into a bowl-shape below her. “Please… Take care of my children…” she whispered before beginning the birthing process, while simultaneously starting a long spell directed at herself.
Five years later, Queen Ambrosia the Second was officially crowned Queen of the Badlands Hive, an ally of Equestria and close trading partner of the Crystal Empire.