'Sects and the City

If you go down in the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise...

The Everfree Forest is, of course, the most dangerous wooded area in Equestria, but that isn't to say that the danger is, as it were, evenly distributed. The part of it closest to Ponyville, for example, almost counts as habitable; the fact that somepony, or somezebra, does live there might seem to remove the 'almost', but statistical anomalies can be ignored. The path to the Castle of the Two Sisters has also been mostly tamed, to the point that a group of young classmates can make regular trips there. Further out, one may run into timber wolves, but dangerous though they may be, if you're quick on your hooves you stand a good chance of escape. Then there are the cockatrice nests, the manticore hunting grounds, the Ursa runs, and things yet darker that nopony has survived to talk about.

And then there was the clearing. Nothing in the Forest (with one exception) got too close to the clearing if it could help it, especially when the occupant was screaming.

Like she did most of the time. Like she was doing right now.

"Oh, you think I failed, do you?!" she raged. "I'll have you know that this was exactly what I had planned! Now that I know where the Tree of Harmony is, I don't need anycreature's help! Not you, or the rest of those miserable wretches! You may think my hive is lost to me, but once I've devised the perfect plan to take the Elements for myself, I'll use them to destroy Starlight Glimmer and reclaim what is mine! No creature on Equestria will stop me, least of all you!"

The target of her ire gave this as much thought as it was capable of doing, then very slowly fell over.

"INSOLENCE!" Queen Chrysalis, former tyrant of the changeling swarm turned vagabond clearing-squatter, stampeded across the clearing to stand over the small purple-hued log. "How dare you take that tone with me?! Do you not know who I am? I could destroy you with a thought!" She raised her hoof high, prepared to shatter the log into splinters...

Then stopped. Her eyes grew wide, and she abruptly retreated, hiding behind a large stump. "Now I see your plan," she muttered, raising her head just enough to peer suspiciously at the harmless, plan-incapable log. "You wouldn't defy me unless you had garnered outside support. You're in league with..." Chrysalis glanced fearfully up at the trees. "...THEM."

For the most part, the squirrels in the Everfree didn't much care about the varying levels of danger. They were dark of fur and red of eye, but otherwise were very like the squirrels everywhere else in Equestria: small, fuzzy, extremely judgmental jerks. A few of them stared down at Chrysalis from the surrounding branches, snickering occasionally.

Her eyes flickered from one sniggering rodent to another. "They report back to the yellow one," she whispered. "I'm sure of it."

The log said nothing, resolute in its defiance.

In an instant, fear turned to rage once more, and a green glow snatched one of the hapless sciuridae, pulling it down to eye level. "So be it, then! Go back to your mistress, and tell her that I'm eager for our next meeting! Tell her that I shall destroy Starlight Glimmer and all of her friends! What do you say to that?!"

The squirrel blinked at her for a moment... then its eyes narrowed and it pointed a diminutive digit at her. "I say," it announced, "that you've been alone in this forest a bit too long, 'Your Majesty'."

Chrysalis dropped the creature out of shock, and it quickly scampered up the nearest tree. She took a step back uncertainly, then stopped. "Wait a moment... I know that voice."

The clearing suddenly grew brighter, and she turned her head to see a column of swirling lights in the center of it. There seemed to be some kind of figure silhouetted in the lights - an elongated, distinctly non-equinoid figure - and this fact made Chrysalis drop to a defensive crouch. An intruder! If it was who she suspected, his presence could only mean trouble. She had to be ready for-

"Who do you think it is?" a voice by her ear asked, and if she had been wearing horseshoes she would have jumped out of them. As it was, the changeling queen made a highly undignified leap into the nearest bushes.

A moment later she peered out from the shrubbery, only her eyes and distinctive horn visible. "Discord! I knew-" She halted. "What are you wearing?"

And indeed, the draconequus was clad in what appeared to be some kind of outlandish one piece uniform, made of an unfamiliar form-fitting material. It was primarily black, though blue around his (barely existent) shoulders and with some kind of irregular pin on his chest. He smiled at her placidly. "Please state the nature of the medical emergency."

Chrysalis emerged from the bush, though still watched the embodiment of chaos cautiously. "Emergency? What are you talking about?"

"Oh, you know how it is." A small, grey, strangely angled object appeared in his paw, and it produced odd noises and lights as he passed it over her. "Fluttershy told me... you do remember Fluttershy, don't you?"

"The yellow one," she growled. glancing upwards.

"Oh, good, you do. It's important to remember the names of those you kidnap. You know, just in case one of their friends comes along and wants to exact a little revenge." He stared down at her, letting his words hang in the air, and for a long moment the clearing seemed even darker... then abruptly it brightened, as did Discord's apparent mood. "Anyhoo, after a certain incident which we will not go into here, she informed me I should utilize my time a bit more productively, such as by caring for the infirm and needy." He smiled at her again. "And I couldn't think of anycreature more needy than you."

"Caring?" The scorn in the changeling queen's voice was an almost physical force. "I don't need your help! I don't need anycreature's help!"

"Of course not," he said soothingly, while glancing around the clearing. It showed every sign of her habitation, with fallen twigs and splintered branches littered across the ground, the results of her various tirades. A haphazard collection of leaves seemed to serve as a bed, while a pile of crudely stacked timber appeared to be an aborted attempt at a throne. "I'm sure you and Twilog Stumple are very happy here. This is just a little wellness checkup, to see how you're doing. Won't take a moment. And let's face it," he added, leaning in close, "it's not like you could stop me, is it?"

She glowered at him. If he was here to spy on her... but no. Without the protection of her magic-suppressing throne, he could have done so without announcing himself, and she would never have been the wiser. She really was at his mercy, but for the moment at least he seemed to have some. Chrysalis sighed. "Just get it over with."

"Don't worry. It's all non-invasive, and I am a professional." He continued passing the strange object over her body. "How have you been feeling lately?"

"I'm fine," she grated.

"Mm-hmm. No unusual symptoms? Paranoia, narcissism, megalomania?" He peered at the device. "No, sorry, obviously those would be usual symptoms."

"How dare-!"

"Are you getting enough exercise? A morning jog to get you feeling the wind through the holes in your legs?"

She snapped at him. Literally snapped, tooth and fang closing around the point in space where, just before Discord snatched it away, a furry forelimb had been holding the strange object over her torso. He made a show of looking shocked, then inspected the device again. "Irritability... check," he murmured.

As she glared at him, he beamed down at the changeling queen cheerfully. "Well, everything seems to be order," he announced, "apart from a few lingering symptoms such as having no hive or drones, the crushing shame of being completely trounced by a powerless mare and your own offspring, and..." He paused and poked at the device's surface, his brow furrowing. "...extreme malnutrition, apparently. Chrysalis, when was the last time you fed?"

"I feed," she protested. "These woods are full of-"

"-simple animals and mindless monsters," he finished, "incapable of more than the most basic, instinctual forms of love. You can survive on that for a while, to be sure, but if you don't supplement your diet with more complex emotions, you'll end up just wasting away."

It galled her to admit it, even privately, but the draconequus had a point. "I know that! But this is just a temporary state of affairs! As a Queen, I can go weeks without feeding properly!"

He stared at her. "Chrysalis... how long do you think you've been here?"

Her hooves shifted hesitantly. "Just... just a week or two... isn't it?" Discord shook his head. "Longer?"

"Much longer." Discord reached up and pulled down from nothing; a wide strip of fabric unrolled from thin air, and on its surface was a list of some kind; most of it was incomprehensible, but she was able to pick out phrases like 'Horse Play', 'Molt Down' and 'Sounds of Silence'. "By my calculations, it's been a full half-season since your attempt to claim the Tree of Harmony."

Chrysalis was so unsettled by this revelation that it didn't occur to her to wonder how he knew about that particular incident. "Six weeks?!"

"Possibly longer," he agreed vaguely.

"So long.... I had no idea..." She'd stolen some love from a family of ponies in a cottage some distance from Ponyville before creating the wooden doppelgangers, but that had been the last time; exposing her presence was too dangerous, as no doubt Starlight Glimmer and her friends would have noticed her nearly-successful attempt to steal the Elements of Harmony, and greatly increased security around Ponyville. (Paranoia had in fact settled in rather early in her degrading mental state, but had never been very far below the surface in any case.) After that, she had to admit, the days had rather blurred together...

She looked up at him sharply. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I told you. I'm here to help you." He snapped his talons, and the fabric disappeared. "What you need right now, Your Majesty, is to fill that empty stomach. Or... whatever internal organ stores love. I would guess the heart, but there's some debate on that where you're concerned."

She ignored this. "Are you telling me to go out and feed on ponies?"

"I?" He pressed a paw to what in a less noodly creature might have been called his chest. "Good heavens, no! Fluttershy would be ever so cross if I did that..."

"Then-"

"...but as your physician, it is absolutely my recommendation that you take in the nutrients you're currently lacking," Discord finished. "How you do it is hardly my concern. I would, however, suggest that you do so far away from Ponyville. That would make it easier on everycreature, if you see what I mean, and the exercise would do you a world of good."

She stared at him doubtfully. "You're trying to trick me," she said, though there was little confidence behind the accusation. "You want to flush me out of hiding so-"

"I could just send you to Celestia's court," he suggested, talons raised to snap. "Make that my good deed for the day. Is that what you'd prefer? I'm sure you'll have no problem defeating-"

"No!" She gathered up her pride. "...no. The time is... not quite right to challenge Celestia."

"Of course," he said, and if his words were heavily padded with mockery she decided not to notice.

"And I suppose the Elements aren't going anywhere..." she mused. "...very well. What you say has merit, and I will need to be in top condition for my next encounter with Starlight Glimmer."

"There you go!" he said encouragingly, and was suddenly surrounded by a group of Discords cheering and throwing confetti. "Bon voyage, arrivederci, hasta la bye-bye, you don't have to go home but you can't stay here!"

She scowled at him, then launched herself into the air and through the arboreal cover, squirrels scattering in her wake.

Discord watched her leave with a certain satisfaction. Chrysalis staying in hiding and plotting her next useless attack was boring and predictable. Chrysalis being forced to move on from her failure promised to be more interesting, and he could honestly tell Fluttershy that he'd helped somecreature.

"A good deed indeed," he said aloud to the purple log, which Chrysalis had left behind. Discord picked it up, considered it thoughtfully, then turned it into an exact replica of Twilight Sparkle, though still wooden and immobile. "Now for my bad deed for the day... I think I'll put you at the foot of good ol' Purple Smart's bed. Right where she'll see you when she wakes up. Just... staring."

And then he did.

Chrysalis hovered in the evening sky and surveyed the lands below her. It was all very well to tell her to feed, but where? The lights of Ponyville lay tantalizingly close, but even without Discord's warning she knew that would be a foolish decision. And there was Canterlot in the middle distance, which would be even worse.

You don't have to go home...

Home? She had no home now. Her hive was infested with traitors and abominations, making a mockery of what a changeling should be. She'd spent centuries taking care of them, working her hooves to the chitin, and this was the thanks she got? Ungrateful wretches! They probably never even gave a thought anymore to their poor, abandoned mother.

(The exact nature of the relationship between Chrysalis and her drones had, of course, been completely dismissed from her memory in order to heighten her sense of victimhood.)

...but you can't stay here.

Where, then? Equestria was dotted with large cities with plentiful prey, yet she had to be extremely careful. She knew about the Friendship Map, or to be more precise she knew of the Friendship Map, its exact workings still something of a mystery to her. She was aware that it would send ponies off to handle problems of some sort; did that mean it could send them after her? If so, she could go to some random town, lure in some witless pony and prepare to feed, then immediately get ambushed by those six. And weak as she now realized she was, that would be it.

No. She needed a way to feed that was guaranteed to be safe. Previously, she would have started a new hive somewhere, and possessed knowledge of several suitable locations; sending drones out to collect love and bring it back to her would have been perfectly safe, at least for her. But with the traitors out there, and more importantly the knowledge of how a changeling could rid itself of the endless hunger, any drone she hatched could betray her. The age of the true changeling was over, perhaps forever.

It pained her to even think of it, but what she needed was an ally. One she could - ugh - trust to help her get back on her hooves. It wasn't the first time she'd had the thought; her wooden simulacrums had been a step in that direction. But they'd been worse than useless, and in any case she didn't have the strength to try again. So that was out.

But then who? Was there anycreature in Equestria that a changeling queen could rely on?

A tendril of memory slowly uncurled.

...oh. Yes. Her. Chrysalis hadn't thought about her since before she lost her hive. Not precisely an ally, but the next best thing. And she definitely wouldn't be inclined to report Chrysalis to the authorities. Whatever else she might do, she wouldn't do that. It wasn't an optimal solution, but it might be the best choice available. But... would she even still be there? Would Chrysalis even be able to find her?

There was only one way to find out.

Her mind made up, Chrysalis reoriented herself and flew toward Manehattan.

The Ponera Hippodrome wasn't the largest venue in the city - it was, in fact, the seventeenth largest - but in a town with as many stadiums, theaters, concert halls and convention centers as Manehattan had, that was still saying quite a lot. It wasn't as famous as Carneighgie Hall or as popular as Maredison Square Gardens, but it contained all of the modern amenities and had a core following of attendees who preferred its 'big, but not too big' atmosphere. If you could get booked there, you weren't necessarily among the elite entertainers, but you were definitely a pony to be watched. Literally.

For the performer currently on stage, it was the highlight of her career thus far, and so it was a shame that her evening was going to go so very sharply downhill in less than an hour.

Six thousand ponies were arrayed in the seating, a full house. Something less than twelve thousand eyes watched the cream colored unicorn down below; a not-insignificant portion of the audience preferred to focus on their hearing over their sight, and the mare sang so strongly, so purely that this was completely understandable. It was the last song of the evening, and Harmony Delight, the spotlights making her sky-blue mane glow, was giving it everything she had.

"And I'll never be..." she sang into the microphone she clutched in one hoof, "...no, I'll never be..." She let the lyrics hang in the air for a few seconds, building anticipation. "...the mare that you... neeeeeed!" The music crescendoed as she maintained the note for as long she she could, finally dropping into a bow. The spotlight winked out, the music ended, and the crowd went wild, stomping enthusiastically onto solid, dent-resistant wooden plates built into the stadium floor.

A moment later the spotlight came back, somewhat dimmed, and the house lights began to rise. Harmony was still on the stage, panting heavily and smiling just as hard. "Thank you, everypony!" she called, waving happily. "I love you all! Thank you! Good night!"

With that, she trotted off stage and into the forelegs of the stage manager, Dress Rehearsal, who bustled her off to her dressing room. A picture of Harmony's cutie mark, a golden musical note whose flag extended into a pastel pink ribbon and twined around the stem, was hung on the door. "That was amazing! Simply spectacular!"

"Thanks, Re." A purple field clutched at a glass of water proffered by a stagehoof, and she gulped at it eagerly.

"I mean it! I've seen a lot of talent come and go, and filly, you've definitely got what it takes!"

Harmony gave her a weary smile. "That's so sweet of you!" And there was this about her voice: it was light and bubbly, and always seemed an the cusp of laughter. She sat down in the room's only chair and leaned her head back; her makeup artist - a huge beast of an earth pony named Heavy Foundation - moved in and, with soft cloths and cleansers, expertly began to undo his previous work. "Is Blitz here yet, Vi?" she asked, keeping her face otherwise immobile.

He grunted. "Harmony, you know that colt's always around somewhere when you're on stage. He'll be here."

"I know, I know. It just.... doesn't feel like it counts until I talk to him."

"Beats me why you two don't make everything more official. You're already pretty inseparable; might as well set a date for the inevitable."

"Oh, stop," she said with a giggle. "It's not like that. He's just an old family friend."

"Sure," replied Heavy, his gravelly voice laden with amused skepticism.

Time passed as the earth pony worked, ensuring there would be no permanent staining, and she allowed pleasant exhaustion to sweep over her, enjoying the coolness of the cleansing wipes stroking across her fur. Eyes closed, she listened as the sound of thousands of ponies gathered together slowly ebbed and quieted. An immense feeling of satisfaction grew within her as the tiredness faded, and it was more than just the sense of a job done well. In some ways, she enjoyed these post-performance moments more than the performances themselves; it was when she could finally-

A towel suddenly fell on her face. She moved it aside with her field, and was presented with the gently smiling and upside-down face of an earth pony, his hide an unremarkable shade of brown. "Great show, Harmony. As always."

"Blitz!" She hopped out of the chair. "What took you so long?"

"Oh, I was just having a discussion with a writer from Before the Horse magazine," replied Promo Blitz. The 'unremarkable' descriptor extended to his mane, features and general countenance, but he was preternaturally adept at navigating the entertainment industry. "Her bosses sent her to see what you're all about. We talked for a while, and she thinks she can get them to put you on the cover." He lifted a hoof and waved it through the air. "'Elements of Harmony: The Story of Manehattan's Newest Rising Star."

"Oh, Celestia, that's so cheesy!" she said with a giggle. She threw a foreleg around his neck. "You're amazing, Blitz!" Behind her, Heavy just shook his head as he put away the contents of his makeup kit.

"That's what I'm here for." Her just-an-old-family-friend manager and promoter eventually drew back from the hug. "And if that works out well, maybe we can look at a cross-country tour. Canterlot, Vanhoover, Fillydelphia..."

"A tour?" She sat down and touched her forehooves together uncertainly. "I... I don't know, Blitz... I don't want to leave Manehattan, you know that."

He took her hooves between his. "There's nothing holding you back any more, is there?" Blitz watched her a moment longer, then let her go. "But we can talk about it later. I'm going to stay for a while and make sure everything gets put up properly. Are you okay to make it home? You look beat."

"I'm fine," she assured him. "I'll just grab a coach."

"All right. I'll see you later. And Harmony? Good work tonight."

He slipped out, narrowly avoiding bumping into a stagehoof, and Heavy rolled his eyes. "'Oh, Blitz,'" he said mockingly, the falsetto sounding strange coming from a voice usually pitched in the basement, "'you're just so amazing!' Filly. You aren't fooling anypony."

"I promise, Vi, it isn't like that."

"Uh-huh. I'm just saying, you should stake your claim before somepony snatches him up. That colt's sharp as a tack. There's artists out there that'd love to add him to their team. Or maybe their... collection." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. They were good eyebrows for this purpose.

"I'll keep it in mind," she responded dryly. "But... thanks. Hey, I'm opening for Haulin' Oats at the Clydesdale next week. You available?"

"For you? Absolutely." He held out a hoof, and she bounced her own off it. "Take care of yourself, Harmony."

"You, too." She trotted out the door, in the manner of one without a care in the world.

A bit later, a stagehoof that had been lingering outside the dressing room doing very little while trying very hard to look busy followed after her.

The most evil pigeon in Equestria tracked the coach by air, and followed it to one of the more expensive residential blocks in a city already famous for its high rent. As it approached the tallest building on the block, a flock of pegasus paparazzi swooped down toward the vehicle, cameras at the ready, before building security moved in to disperse them with oversized flyswatters, the only thing that reliably worked. They didn't care about pigeons, though.

Harmony exited the coach and passed through the building's main doors, two extremely beefy guards stepping aside briefly to let her through. The pigeon regarded them for a moment, then decided they didn't seem the type to let even a mouse pass by unchallenged. She would have to find another way.

She circled the building as she ascended, peering into every window as it passed. If she had cared at all, the scenes she witnessed could have given her a brief but densely packed education about life in the big city. But she wasn't there for such trivialities, which were entirely beneath her. She had drones for that sort of...

She closed her eyes and tried to banish the thought. Then opened her eyes just in time to prevent slamming into a wall.

When her initial search proved fruitless, she made a few educated guesses and went to the building's upper levels searching for an ingress. She found it in the form of a steaming central heating vent, its grate far too small for even a poorly-fed pigeon. But that was hardly a problem.

She gripped the grate with one claw, poked her beak through the largest opening she could find, and in a flash of green fire there was instead a small garter snake entangled in the wire mesh. The snake squeezed through and fell a few hooflengths onto the metal floor of the ventilation shaft. Another flash, and a mouse sniffed the heated air. Yes... definitely a familiar scent there. As she'd suspected, her target had chosen a high place. She scurried along the metal, poking nose and whiskers into every vent she passed, until-

This one. There was something... different about the scent than what she was used to, yet it was still everything she wanted, and her tiny rodentine mouth watered.

She shifted from mouse to ant, and crawled through into a darkened kitchen before resuming her true form. It seemed that Harmony hadn't made it to her apartment yet. Good. Now all she needed to do was find a hiding spot and ambush the ungrateful little-

A sudden instinct made Chrysalis duck quickly, dropping heavily to the floor. It was the only thing that prevented a rolling pin, propelled by a purple magical field at astonishing speed, from occupying the same space as her head. As it was, it sailed onward and embedded itself in the wall.

"Did you really think I wouldn't notice you skulking around at the stadium?" Harmony demanded, all of the cheerful fluffiness in her voice replaced by steel. With a flick of hornlight, she lit a nearby lamp. "How did you find me, anyway?"

Chrysalis carefully got back to her feet. "Oh, I don't know, perhaps the fact that this city is plastered with posters of your face might have helped."

"Oh. Right. Concert advertisements. Fair enough." It was a large kitchen with a central island counter, and they began to circle it, watching each other warily. "What do you want, Chrysalis? I have a life of my own here! You're not part of it!"

"Yes, I saw. Playing songbird for a bunch of wretched ponies. That's quite the 'life'!"

"That's rich coming from the laughingstock of Equestria," Harmony snapped. "Everypony knows how you lost your hive!"

"'Watch your tongue!" Chrysalis shot back. "That was just-"

"A temporary setback? You would've gotten away with it if not for those meddling ponies? Give me a break!"

The changeling queen made a sound somewhere between shock and outrage. "Such disrespect!"

"What are you doing here, Chrysalis?" the unicorn asked again. "You shouldn't even be here, remember? We had an agreement! Manehattan is mine!"

"I'm changing the agreement. I need a fresh supply of love, and you absolutely reek of it."

"I don't see how that's my problem."

"Oh, don't be so selfish! You're carrying far more than you need!" Chrysalis looked the unicorn up and down. "And let's be honest: you could stand to skip a meal or two."

"How dare-!"

But Chrysalis was ready for the anger. She launched herself at Harmony, turning into a tiger in mid-pounce. In a flash of purple (and multiple tearing noises as the mare hadn't removed her performance outfit yet), the unicorn was replaced by a timber wolf, wooden jaws snapping at feline throat. The tiger managed to twist in the air and bounced off the wolf's head with both hindpaws, vaulting over it into the living room. Before it could reorient itself, the wolf charged forward, becoming a large ram and bashing into the tiger, throwing it back into the front door to the sound of splintering wood.

The dance continued like this for several minutes, filling the apartment with so many sporadic bursts of green and purple light that if the windows hadn't been securely draped, a passing pegasus might have suspect either an amateur firework artist or a rave. As it was, it was fortunate that the high-rise included really good soundproofing. But one combatant was suffering from acute malnutrition and the other had just completed a strenuous evening and was using abilities she hadn't had much call to use so vigorously in quite some time. Neither of them could keep it up for long, and the melee was eventually reduced to a macaque trying desperately to remove a koala from its leg.

The monkey resumed its unicorn form, panting heavily. "This... is... stupid."

After releasing the leg and scurrying backward, the koala was replaced by Chrysalis, also the worse for wear. "...agreed."

"Truce?"

"Truce."

Harmony looked down at the tattered cloth draped over her body. It had been sparkly, sheer and sequined, and had not been designed for battle. She sighed. "Make yourself comfortable, I guess." She stood up and trotted into the bedroom.

Chrysalis stared after her suspiciously. "Where are you going?"

"To get changed."

"But-"

Harmony poked her head back out briefly. "You know what I mean!"

"You can wear any clothes at will! Why are you even bothering with physical garments?"

"Because they look better when I'm performing, all right? And maybe this one can be salvaged." A moment later she returned, unadorned and holding two damp towels in her field. One of them suddenly accelerated and slapped against Chrysalis' face. She quickly removed it, suspecting a new attack, but Harmony had turned away, rubbing her own face with the second towel as her hornlight directed kettle, faucet and stove into action. Soon, a pot of tea was in the making.
"Sit down."

Weary and battered, Chrysalis still demanded standards. "Not until you return to your true form. You know how I feel about being shapeshifted in my presence!"

Harmony's smile was nasty and premeditated. "Of course I do. That's why I'm still like this." They glared at each other a moment longer, then Harmony released the air from tensed lungs. Not a sigh, but a burst of exasperated breath. "Fine. If that'll make this easier..." Another burst of purple, and...

The figure standing there now was a bit shorter than Chrysalis, but not by much, and the holes in the legs and horn were in different positions. Nevertheless, the resemblance was still strong, apart from color, for where Chrysalis' mane and tail were a fungal green, the other changeling sported a toxic purple. The hair was styled into sensible curls, and was clearly washed more often than the other's hair, in that it had been washed. And instead of a cluster of orbs, the tines of her crown were bent outward from a magenta cap, segmented in a manner reminiscent of spider legs.

She looked at Chrysalis. "Better?"

But Chrysalis was incapable of grace even in her small victories. "I suppose, as long as you also address me properly, Spinnerette."

The other changeling queen ground her teeth at this, then managed, "Yes, mother."

"Good." She glanced around vaguely at what remained of the living room. The battle had resulted in the destruction of many fine and loyal pieces of furniture, some of them quite expensive. Not that Chrysalis could tell, or would have cared if she did. She selected the least damaged part of a sofa and settled into it, hooves beneath her. "You know, I wouldn't have found you if you'd changed your identity on a regular basis like you're supposed to. The last time I received reports on your progress as 'Harmony Delight' was before I lost my hive, and that was ages ago."

"You were spying on-?!" Outrage quickly turned to weariness. "...of course you were. Couldn't risk me coming back, could you?"

"Can a mother not sincerely worry about her daughter?"

"When it's you? No. But that was when Harmony really started to do well. If I took a new form, I would have had to start from scratch."

"And would that be so bad? You're letting this 'career' nonsense distract you. When are you going to start your own hive?"

"I'm not ready to settle down yet," Spinnerette protested. "I'm only eighty! I have my whole life ahead of me!"

"Pah! When I was your age, my hive was five thousand drones strong!"

"...and you flew to Canterlot every day in your bare hooves, upwind both ways, I know, I know..." A teacup sailed through the air and stopped in front of Chrysalis. "Drink."

Chrysalis watched her cautiously, then took the cup in her own field. Her daughter carefully perched on a love seat that had been torn in two by a bugbear's claws. They sat in silence for a moment, one wondering how they could bridge a gap of non-communication that spanned decades and the other staring into her cup as if trying to remember what to do with it.

Spinnerette spoke first. "I don't understand, Chrys... mother. Even without your hive, why do you need me to get more love? I'm sure you haven't lost your touch."

Chrysalis ran a hoof along the lip of the cup awkwardly. "It's gotten... dangerous for me," she said, and the admission of even that much weakness required effort. "The agents of the Pony Authority are just waiting for me to make one mistake."

Her daughter peered at her over the rim of her teacup. "The... 'Pony Authority'?"

"They have a nationwide intelligence network, with agents in every bush and tree," Chrysalis insisted. "And that wretched map. How can I feed when any potential prey could be simply bait in a trap? And after what happened in the Everfree..."

"Wait. What happened in the Everfree?"

Her mother laughed darkly. "Of course you wouldn't know. The government hushes it up."

Spinnerette carefully put her cup down on a miraculously undamaged end table. "Oooookay. So if it's so dangerous here, just leave Equestria."

Chrysalis stared at her, uncomprehending. "What?"

"Go somewhere else. I'm not saying try to get love from dragons or gryphons, they're tough customers, but there's plenty of other places outside Equestria. You could go to Prance, or Saddle Arabia, or Zebrabwe..."

"But... that would be admitting defeat!"

"Yes!" Spinnerette, losing patience, raised her voice. "Because you were defeated!"

"I was not defeated! I was betrayed!"

"Because you never took care of your drones! You kept them just above starvation levels! How does that feel now, mother?"

Chrysalis shot to her hooves. "Don't take that tone with me, child! You don't get to complain after you abandoned me and the hive!"

Spinnerette sputtered at such blatant gaslighting. "You kicked me out when I was ten!"

"Because you tried to overthrow me and take my throne!"

"Oh, please! I'm a queen! That's what we do! Don't even pretend you wouldn't have done the same thing if our positions were reversed!"

"Of course not," Chrysalis said with a sneer. "I would have won." Without warning she launched herself at her daughter again, forgoing shapeshifting for the more economical art of hoofticuffs. Before she knew what was happening, Spinnerette was caught up in a fierce grapple.

"Get off! What about the truce?!"

"A true queen seizes every advantage!"

The younger queen, too tired to even change, struggled against her mother to no avail. Chrysalis' head leaned inexorably closer, mouth open wide (and gently drooling) and fangs bared. There was no way to stop her from feeding...

And things would have gotten really weird if the door hadn't opened at that exact moment. "Harmony," came the voice of Promo Blitz, and they both froze in place, "I got some of those Yakyakistan cabbage rolls you love. I was hoping- whoah. What happened to your door?" He inspected the tiger-sized imprint for a moment, then turned his head toward the living room. "I thought you didn't... like... afterparties...?"

Blitz took in the mangled furniture and the two changeling queens locked in mortal combat. Five seconds later, the package he carried fell to the ground. "Oh, BUCK!" he screamed, and turned to run. Before he could reach the elevator at the end of the hall, however, a green glow enveloped him, and pulled him into the apartment, the door closing behind him. His trajectory brought him into flank-first contact with a wounded recliner, which did not so much cushion the impact as explode around him. He landed flat on his back, surrounded by stuffing and springs; Chrysalis was upon him immediately afterwards, her expression now one of rage.

"Mother, stop!" Spinnerette protested. "He's on our side!"

"Ridiculous," her mother snapped, never looking away from the luckless earth pony. "Do you think I don't know a traitor when I smell one?!"

Realizing that the proverbial jig was up, a burst of blue fire surrounded Blitz, revealing a reformed changeling of periwinkle and green. "...hi, Mom..." he said hopelessly.

"Mandible," she snarled. "Well, now everything makes sense. You were one of the first to betray me! Did you do it on her orders?!"

Even amidst his terror, he found defiance. "What I did," he said sharply, "was for the good of the hive!"

"I AM the hive!"

Spinnerette grabbed hold of the other queen's barrel and tried unsuccessfully to pull her away. "I swear, mother, if you hurt him I'll..." She hesitated, then gave in. "...I won't help you."

Chrysalis' head spun a full 180 degrees to look at her. "Then you will help me if I don't? You swear?"

Spinnerette sighed. "Yes. I'll help you. I promise."

Her mother glared at Mandible a moment longer, then roughly pushed away from him. He painfully got to his hooves with the younger queen's assistance. "Spin, what's going on?"

"Drones should speak only when spoken to!"

Spinnerette glared at her mother. "Chrysalis needs my help..."

"Lies," Chrysalis announced breezily, returning to the sofa. "I have deigned to accept your help."

"...but it's only for a little while until she gets back on her hooves." She raised her voice. "It's only for a little while. Isn't that right, mother." It was a statement, not a question.

The elder queen chose to show magnanimity to a humiliated foe. "Of course, of course." She gestured at the floor in front of her. "Now, be a good girl and come sit with mother."

Younger queen and reformed changeling shared a glance, then Spinnerette sighed and sat down in the indicated spot. Chrysalis draped her forelegs over her daughter's shoulders and leaned in. "You aren't planning to share this love with me, are you?" she asked warily.

Spinnerette's expression twisted in disgust. "Give me some credit, mother. I am still a queen, hive or no hive."

Her mother glanced at Mandible, who had decided to let the queens do queen stuff, and was helping himself to some tea. "Has he tried to... you know...?"

"Reform me? Oh, he's tried. Filling my ears with all that nonsense about 'joining the changeling community' and 'making friends'. I'm doing just fine right here, thank you very much."

"Well, at least you still have some pride left," Chrysalis admitted.

"What can I say? I'm my mother's daughter."

"As it should be." With that, she pulled her head back, positioned her mouth above and behind her daughter's ears, inhaled...

And then things got really weird.

Streams of energy rose from Spinnerette's skin and flowed into her mother's mouth. The energy had no real substance, yet Chrysalis slurped and chewed happily as if it was a delectable chocolate cake, delicious and moist. "Oh!" she managed between swallows. "Oh, it's true what they say. Hunger does make for the best spice. This is delightful!"

Spinnerette just grimaced. Having her reserves siphoned away like this didn't exactly hurt, but it was still extremely unpleasant. The sounds only made it worse. "Aren't you done yet?" she asked after a few minutes of masticating bliss. The concert had left her full to bursting, and already a substantial portion of that was gone.

Chrysalis chuckled wetly. "Not hardly." Another minute passed, then the chewing became more thoughtful. "Although... there is something different here. This taste is..." Another inhale, another barrage of squelchy sounds. "...this isn't romantic or familial love, it's not devotion... what is it?"

"Adulation," her daughter explained. "It's the love ponies feel for... well, performers, artists, just about any type of celebrity that gets their emotions running, really. It's not the most intense kind of love, but it does the job."

"Interesting." More slurping. "And you're able to steal it from all those ponies at once? Clever."

Spinnerette snickered nastily. "That's the best part. I don't have to steal it. They give it to me willingly."

The chewing stopped. "Willingly?"

"Sure. It's a lot safer and more efficient than trying to pick off one at a-"

There was a crash just behind her, and a sudden feeling of emptiness. Spinnerette turned to see the couch knocked over and Chrysalis crouched in the far corner of the room, hissing loudly.

She rolled purple eyes. "Mother, it's safe. I've been doing this for years. Do I look like a deer?"

"But..."

"They're not giving their love to Spinnerette," Mandible explained as he returned from the kitchen. "They're giving it to Harmony. Apparently it doesn't count as 'sharing' if it's done under false pretenses. It's just another kind of theft."

Chrysalis glowered at him. "This was your idea, then?"

"Believe it or not, no," he replied. "After... well, after you 'left', I decided to check on Spin and see if I could bring her back to the rest of us. Turns out she'd figured this whole routine out ages ago. I've just been helping... bring it to the next level."

"And why would you do that?"

"Because I don't want what happened to you happen to her," Mandible said bluntly. "If she can stay fed and doesn't hurt anypony, she won't end up... hiding in a cave, or wherever you've been for the last year or so. She can have a mostly normal life." He looked at the younger queen. "Besides, she's an amazing singer. It's a shame to let that go to waste."

"Aww, Dib," Spinnerette said fondly. "That's sweet of you."

Chrysalis looked between the two with a scowl. "Ugh. Must you carry on like that? I saw you hanging over each other at the stadium. You're broodmates! It's disgusting!"

"It's just an act, mother," Spinnerette said dismissively. "If somepony approached me and tried to get romantically attached, my instincts might take over and get me to feed off them, and then it's goodbye, Harmony. It's happened before. But with Mandible posing as Harmony's plausibly-deniable coltfriend, it heads off problems before they can start."

The elder queen looked unimpressed. "Yes, well, even so. You two are still closer than I'd like. If I didn't know any better, I'd almost say that you two were becoming friends." If anything, her expression was even more repulsed than it had been a moment ago.

"Whaaaat? Nooooo," Spinnerette scoffed. "A changeling queen doesn't make friends. Especially with a drone. That's crazy talk! Right, Dib?"

"Y-yeah," he said weakly. "Crazy talk." Then he sighed and looked at his mother. "Okay. I can't make you leave, obviously-"

"Obviously," Chrysalis agreed.

"-but I'm not going to let you interrupt Spin's schedule. She's got multiple performances lined up and we have to keep the ball rolling."

The elder queen raised an eyebrow. "A drone presumes to dictate terms to a queen?"

"If Spin doesn't feed, you don't feed," he pointed out. "And that's about the only thing you care about, isn't it?"

Crysalis couldn't deny this, couldn't even decipher why he spoke as if it were a bad thing. But his tone annoyed her. "That, and revenge," she added warningly. "But very well."

"And you can only stay a couple of days," Spinnerette added, "so you need to start making plans about where you're going to go after that."

"Oh, don't worry, child. Planning is my specialty."

"Two days," her daughter repeated. "I mean it."

"Of course."

Will Work For Love

View Online

And now it was three weeks later.

The damaged wall and door had been repaired, and the furniture had been replaced. The order for the latter had not included, much to Chrysalis' disappointment, a giant magic-dampening throne, the inclusion of which Mandible would have considered something of a 'tell'. But she had repurposed the ruined furniture by dragging the pieces into a spare room and fashioning a makeshift nest, despite Spinnerette's offers to buy her an actual bed. She seemed satisfied with it, at least, and slept soundly among the stuffing and shattered wood, apart from occasionally waking up in the middle of the night to shriek in rage about Starlight Glimmer.

She had also been reacquainted with the concept of personal hygiene, though it had taken both of her children twenty minutes to force a kicking and screaming Chrysalis into the bathtub.

Nevertheless, regular meals and social contact had blunted much of Chrysalis' feral edge, though this mostly meant she was able to return to older, practiced ways of spikiness. Her presence in Spinnerette's apartment (Mandible having his own in the same building under a different identity, to reduce the potential for scandalous rumor) became the new normal. Whenever Spinnerette returned after a performance, Chrysalis would immediately demand her share of the love her daughter had harvested before returning to her room where, judging from a careful ear to the door, she would spend most of her time muttering to herself, though she would occasionally slink into Spinnerette's room while her daughter was asleep and help herself to a midnight snack. At about the two week mark, Chrysalis began to hide in the apartment and ambush her daughter, violently tackling her before feeding. She insisted this was to prevent Spinnerette from becoming too complacent, which might lead her to consider the 'withdrawals' as sharing, but her daughter suspected she was just indulging in some kind of hunting instinct. Even queens needed some enrichment in their environment.

It was during one such feeding that Mandible paid a visit to the apartment. "Who wants cabbage rolls?" he called as he entered.

"Ooo! Mine!" Spinnerette's field took hold of the takeout container and swept it away to hover in front of her, plucking out one vegetable filled, cheese covered leaf and moving it to her mouth. The sounds she made while chewing almost rivalled her mother's. "Mmmm, so good."

Chrysalis broke off her feeding, looking slightly nauseous. "Why are you doing that?"

"Because it tastes good. Obviously."

"You don't need to eat, though. Love is the only nourishment a true changeling requires."

"Maybe so," Spinnerette admitted, "but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy other things." She raised a second one and waved it under her mother's nose. "Go ahead, try one. They're delicious."

The elder queen made a face. "Congratulations," she said. "You've done something I didn't think possible."

"Hmm?"

"You've made me lose my appetite." With that, Chrysalis vacated the new couch and slunk back into her room.

"More for me, then." Spinnerette popped the roll in her mouth and devoured it as Mandible sat down across from her. "So, what did you want, Dib?"

"Me? What do you mean?"

"You only bring me cabbage rolls when you want to get me in a good mood. Well, objective achieved. What's the occasion?" She took another bite.

"Okay, okay. I wanted to talk to you again about going on tour."

She stopped mid-chew, swallowed. "Oh."

"Your album's done well enough across Equestria that there are ponies all over desperate to hear a live performance. And fresh audiences mean a fresh supply of love, am I right?"

"I know, but... Manehattan's my town. It's kind of like my hive. I've watched it grow up around me. It's home."

He moved to sit next to her and took her hooves in his. "Spin, you were locked in this town for seventy years because of Mom's stupid territory agreement, but now she's in no condition to enforce it. This is your chance to get out and see the world a little." He smiled at her gently. "And Manehattan will still be here when you get back, I promise."

"I know, I know." She closed her eyes for a moment, then sighed. "Okay. I'll... think about it."

"Fair enough."

Then Spinnerette glanced down the hallway to her mother's room. "But there's another issue. I can't exactly leave her here on her own. Who knows what she might get up to?"

He shrugged. "Well, we could always turn her in."

"Dib!"

"What? It's what she would do."

A bellow came from down the hall. "I HEARD THAT!"

"Do you deny it?" Mandible called back. There was no response.

"We are not turning in our mother, and that's final," Spinnerette told him. "You and the other drones already took everything from her. I know you had reason to do it," she said as he started to protest, "and she brought it on herself. Even so, to lose her entire hive in one day... you don't know how awful that would be for a queen."

He leaned back and looked at her. "You're not trying to make me feel guilty, are you?"

"No, of course not. But... you guys have everything you want now and can live your lives as you please, and she's got nothing. You won. Don't you think she's suffered enough?"

"She's still dangerous, Spin."

"Is she really, though? Like this?"

"What happened to 'two days maximum'?"

Spinnerette looked down at her hooves. "I know, but... she's still family, Dib. I can't just abandon her."

"That's what-"

"-she did to me, I know, I know. That's different. That's just how queens work."

He shook his head. "She's still going to have to feed on her own sooner or later. And until we find out what she's been planning all this time-"

"Oh," Chrysalis said, popping up from behind the couch. "You want to know about my plan?"

The two siblings started, then turned to look at the elder queen. "...yes," Mandible said finally. "By all means. Please tell us about this amazing plan."

She chuckled. "I thought you'd never ask. It's still in its early stages, but... I suppose I can give you the broad outline. Just one moment, and I'll get ready." She trotted back to her room; the next few minutes were full of rummaging and under-the-breath commentary.

Her children looked at each other. "I've got a bad feeling about this," Mandible said.

"C'mon, Dib, be more supportive."

"Given that 'being supportive' in this case probably means approving of a plan to take over Equestria... no, I'm not going to do that."

"...maybe she's learned her lesson?"

"Really? Have you ever met our mother?"

The presentation took half an hour. There were props. There was a diorama and figurines cobbled together from miscellaneous trash and, Mandible suspected, small items pilfered from the other apartments. And all the way through it, Chrysalis maintained a detailed and thorough explanation of each stage of her plan. None of it made any coherent sense, but it was well explained. Because when it came to expositing every detail of their plan to an audience, no creature in Equestria was as experienced at the 100-Yard Monologue than Queen Chrysalis.

"...and then," she said at last, "at the exact moment the meteor falls on Canterlot Castle, my army of trained and loyal battle elephants will uproot the Tree of Harmony and Starlight Glimmer will be forced to apologize for everything she's done to me and admit that I am superior to her in every way! AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!" Her final laugh tested the integrity of the apartment's soundproofing to the breaking point. "Well? What do you think?"

Mandible was sitting there slackjawed. Spinnerette was covering her face with both forehooves, and had been like that for ten minutes. "...okay," Mandible managed, "two questions. First, how are you going to make a meteor fall specifically on Canterlot Castle at a certain time?"

"It will fall because it's in the plan!" she told him. "Obviously!"

"...obviously. Second, where are you going to get the elephants?"

"Oh, where does anycreature get elephants?" Chrysalis asked dismissively. "I'm not concerned with such petty details."

"I see." He turned to look at Spinnerette, who still hadn't moved. "Well, I guess you win. I don't think she's dangerous anymore."

"Oh, Grogar," she groaned. "She's never going to leave, is she?"

"Or if she does, she'll just get herself captured. We could just turn her in and save time?"

"No!" She raised her head, taking a deep breath. "That's it, mother. You need something else to do with your time. Tomorrow we are finding you a job."

Chrysalis recoiled with a hiss. "But... my plan!"

"Your plan sucks, mother," Spinnerette said as kindly as she could, which was not, at this point, very much. "It's going to get you caught. And maybe me, too, if they start looking into where you've been hiding."

"Nonsense! It just needs more fine tuning."

She looked at Mandible, who shrugged helplessly. They both knew their mother would never admit to anything less than perfection. Spinnerette thought for a moment. "All right. Let's try it this way. If you want this plan to work, you're going to need resources. You don't have a hive full of drones to take care of everything for you anymore. You're going to need money."

"Money..." The elder queen frowned thoughtfully. "I remember hearing that word before."

"And the thing about having a job," he daughter continued, "is that it gets you money. Which you're going to have to have if you really need a..." She paused, looked at the diorama, then lifted a used, slightly oily takeout container with her field. "...gold-plated trebuchet."

"I do."

"And if we can find you the right job, you can feed and finance your world domination scheme at the same time. Win-win."

To her children's surprise, this logic seemed to be working its way past Chrysalis' stubbornness. Spinnerette supposed that not even the legendary narcissism of the Queen of the Changelings could find a way to spin a lack of funds into somecreature else's fault. Or at least, it could, but not in a way that would solve the problem.

"A queen shouldn't have to work," she tried, having decided to go down swinging.

"This queen has busted her flank to get where she is," Spinnerette countered. "If I can do it, you can do it."

"Ah, that's right. You have money, don't you? You could-"

"I'm just a pop star, mother. I'm good at it, but I don't have that big of an audience."

"Yet," Mandible added.

"And besides, you wouldn't want to taint your victory by using another queen's bits, would you?" she continued, a critical strike to the ego.

"...no, I suppose not." Crysalis lifted her head and assumed a pose of utmost pride, as if the idea had been hers all along. "Very well! Then for my first 'job' I will take the place of the ruler of this city and receive both their money and the love of its citizens!" she said. Just because that plan had failed so completely the last time she'd tried it didn't mean it was a bad plan.

Before Spinnerette could protest, Mandible shook his head. "Nah, most ponies really don't like the mayor all that much."

Chrysalis' brow furrowed. "I was under the impression that she was chosen by election."

"She was. The citizens just liked the other pony a lot less. You're not going to get Princess-level devotion by impersonating a city administrator."

"Oh. Well, there must be something worthy of my efforts."

Both siblings knew 'I can't think of anything but I'm not going to admit it' when they heard it. "Well," Mandible said, slightly reluctantly, "can you sing? I got Spin up and trotting, I should be able to do the same for you."

"Of course I can sing!"

"All right, show me."

Five minutes later, Spinnerette's downstairs neighbor finally stopped pounding on the floorboards, and the glasses in the cupboard ceased vibrating. The soundproofing that had withstood a monster-to-monster combat had finally met its match. Chrysalis just looked at Mandible proudly, expecting nothing but the highest praise.

"That... might... not... be your forte," he said once he regained his hearing. Spinnerette had retreated to a ceiling corner, wrapped around herself so that only her eyes were visible and her ears very definitely were not.

Chrysalis snorted. "You just can't appreciate singing of my caliber."

"Yes, that's probably it."

"Do you have any other suggestions, then?"

"...not off the top of my head," he admitted. "I've mainly been focused on the music industry, and unless you can play an instrument..."

"I could play anything! And win!"

"...there probably won't be a lot of openings I'm aware of. We could use someone with a more general scope of knowledge..." He frowned in thought for a time, then suddenly brightened. "Oh! Spin! I just remembered: your favorite consultant is back in town."

She blinked in surprise, then dropped from the ceiling, hovering briefly before landing hooves down. "Really? That's great! I've been meaning to talk to her again."

"Didn't you say she keeps up with all of the entertainment and celebrity news?"

"Oh, sure. You kind of have to in her line of work, she says, for the inspiration." Her eyes widened. "Oh, I see what you're getting at! Yeah, that's got to be worth a try."

Chrysalis watched them suspiciously. "Who are you two talking about?"

"But are you sure it's a good idea?" Spinnerette continued, glancing at her mother without acknowledging that she'd spoken. "I was going to bring her with me."

"Oh. Right. Yeah, probably should leave her behind."

"Leave who behind? Me?"

"Besides," he added, "I'm not sure she's ready to go out in public."

"Good point. Could you-?"

"ENOUGH!" Chrysalis stomped her hoof hard enough to splinter the hardwood floor. "I will not be treated like a grub! Whatever you two are planning, I will be accompanying Spinnerette tomorrow."

The siblings flinched. "That's... really not a good idea, mother..." Spinnerette began.

Mandible cut in. "Just let us take care of-"

"That was not a request, children." Chrysalis announced. "That was a decision!"

They looked at each other helplessly for a moment, then Spinnerette sighed. "Okay, but just remember: this was your call."

"And it was the correct one! Now. Tell me about this 'consultant'."

Another pause, more shared glances. "Well," her daughter said carefully, "she's only sort of a consultant, to be honest. It's just that I've done plenty of business with her and she's given me a lot of tips and advice to help out my performances in return."

Chrysalis frowned, trying to spot the problem Spinnerette was trying to avoid mentioning. "What kind of advice?"

"Um... fashion advice."

The elder queen thought about this for a while, then her eyes went wide. "Oh, no...!"

"Harmony, darling! It's so good to see you again!" The two unicorns - or, rather, one unicorn and one unicorn-shaped changeling queen - exchanged fake cheek kisses before stepping apart. "I heard you're getting the Before the Horse cover story! Very impressive, and of course entirely deserved!"

"Oh, thank you, Rares," the singer gushed, using the aural cotton candy that was the voice of Harmony Delight. "That means just so much coming from you! But I can't take all the credit. Blitz is the one that arranged it all."

"Oh, pish tosh! He may be an excellent manager, but you are an astounding singer!" Then Rarity leaned slightly to the right, peering around Harmony. "And... this is...?"

The blue unicorn with a cream-white mane quickly straightened up from where she was having a glaring contest with the boutique's resident raccoons. "This is Divine Star," Harmony offered. "my mo-"

"Sister," the taller unicorn added swiftly. "I'm just in from Fillydelphia to see how my famous little sister is doing. Oh, it's such a pleasure to finally meet you. Harmony's told me so much about you!"

"...yeeesss..." Rarity seemed to be staring at Divine Star, puzzled eyes tracing her features. "...um... I apologize if this seems rude, but have we... met?"

Divine laughed this off. "I hardly think so! I would have remembered meeting you before!"

"...of course. Of course." The unicorn seemed to shake herself. "Well, any relative of Harmony is a welcome guest here. Mi boutique es su boutique, as they say! Now. What can I do for the two of you?"

"Well, first," Harmony began, "I wanted you to have a look at this." She produced a collection of mangled cloth that was still bleeding sequins. "I'm so sorry, Rares."

Rarity gasped and grasped the pile in her hooves as one might hold a wounded pet. "Oh my goodness! Harmony, what happened?!"

"Oh, Rares, it was simply awful! This vicious, brutish, stupid creature just attacked me out of nowhere after my concert!" For some reason, Rarity noticed, Divine was giving her sister something of a side-eye glower. "Do you think you can save it?"

The unicorn held up the damaged garment. One sleeve made a final bid for freedom and dropped to the floor. "Only as dishrags, I'm afraid."

"Awww." Harmony was genuinely disappointed. "I really liked that one."

"But not to worry! From loss comes opportunity. I've been brainstorming a bit on what look would most suit you for the cover shoot. I've got some sketches in the back. Won't be a moment!"

"Take your time!" Divine Star called, then as soon as Rarity had left the room Chyrsalis grabbed her daughter's ear with a green glow. "I still can't believe you do business with one of my archnemeses!" she growled quietly.

"Ow!" Spinnerette pulled away. "She's not my archnemesis! And she does good work! Now behave! Or do you want her to realize who you really are?"

They glared at each other until they heard the first hooffall of Rarity's return, then it was nothing but pure, genuine smiles on display. "Here you are, darling," she said, light blue hornlight gripping a small carrying case. "Look those over with Blitz and let me know what you think!"

"Thank you." Harmony tucked the case into a saddlebag. "The other thing I wanted to ask you about concerns dear Divine here. She just left something of a bad situation in Fillydelphia and is looking to get her hooves under her. Do you know of any positions that have opened recently, especially in the entertainment field?"

Rarity gave her an odd look. "That's unusually vague and open-ended, darling." Her gaze moved to Divine Star, or more specifically her flank. "That mark is for...?"

Divine glanced back at a star containing a star surrounded by stars within a circle of stars. "General superiority in all fields," she said confidently.

"Except singing. Or anything musical," Harmony quickly added.

Rarity's expression was now one of deep skepticism. "...I see. Does that 'superiority' extend to acting?"

"You have no idea," responded Divine, and laughed a strangely sinister laugh until Harmony lashed out with a hind leg and kicked her in the shin.

"Well, it just so happens you're in luck. A local theater has been consulting me on one of their new scripts." A pen and pad of paper floated up, and she scribbled some details before sending a page over to Harmony. Very pointedly Harmony and not Divine. "I believe they'll be starting auditions in the next day or two. Let them know you're friends of mine, and they should be quite happy to give her a shot."

The singer stowed the paper away. "You're designing their costumes as well?"

"Partly, but it's a bit more than that. Oh, but I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise; go and see for yourself. I'm sure she'll be able to land a part, especially with..." She looked at Divine Star again, a bit longer than was comfortable. "...'general superiority in all fields.'"

Divine Star walked to the center of the theater stage. The house lights were dimmed and the seats were empty except for a scant few ponies clustered in the center rows, barely visible in the groom. "Read the first numbered section," one told her. "Start whenever you're ready." She placed the page she had been given to study on the lectern provided for non-unicorns and took a breath.

This opening had been an astounding stroke of luck, she had to admit, though any gratitude she felt toward Rarity was immediately banished by the undeniable truth that she would have found this part without the white one's interference. And how could she not? There was no question that it was perfect for her; it could only be her destiny to start an acting career with this role. After all, it had her name written all over it.

She glanced down at the title on the page one more time, and couldn't help but smile.

CHRYSALIS

Apparently it was supposed to be not only a retelling of her many deeds and victories, but also a look into the mind of the changeling queen herself. She'd only been given a sample of the script, but she was sure the writers would be happy to let her correct the places they inevitably went wrong.

The waiting room had been filled with poor, foolish mares who were also lined up to audition. A few had taken extra steps to either get into the right frame of mind or make themselves more memorable to the casting director: fur dyed black, false horn and/or wings pasted on, and so forth. One particularly unimaginative pony just had a sign around her neck reading 'CHANGELING IN DISGUISE'. It was just so unfortunate that they'd all wasted their time.

She began.

"Foolish ponies! How dare you challenge Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings! Long have I prepared for this day-"

It was, she had to admit, a very good speech, and took a few mental notes of the more promising lines for future use. She could just visualize her enemies standing before her as she explained just how useless and pitiful they were, and it felt so good just imagining it. She got so into it, in fact, that it took a solid minute before she realized that the ponies in the darkness were talking to her. "What is it?" she snapped, then remembered she was in disguise. "I mean... what is it?" she asked sweetly.

"Uh, yes, thank you. That's enough. We'll be in touch."

"But... I haven't given you my contact information." She realized belatedly that she had no idea what Spinnerette's address was.

"Yes. We know."

She was not always the fastest on the uptake, but this time she connected the dots rather quickly. "You're rejecting me?!"

"Just return the way you came please."

A nondescript stagehoof crept out of the wings and headed toward her, but at the moment a herd of yaks couldn't have removed her from the stage. "I demand that you explain why!"

The pony started to respond, but another held up a hoof to stall him. "I apologize, Miss Star. I can tell you have a lot of passion for this part. A little too much passion."

"What do you mean?"

"It's just that your reading of that speech was pretty... over the top."

She frowned, confused. That speech had been perfect. She'd declaimed it exactly how she would have in a real situation. "I don't understand."

"To be frank, it was kind of ridiculous."

"...what?"

"There's no way anypony would believe that Queen Chrysalis would talk like that."

"WHAT?!"

"Yeah, and you didn't stick to the script," the first pony added. "You kept talking about meteors and elephants and squirrels. I mean, if we were going for a comedy, you'd be our top pick so far! But unfortunately we've got more of a sober, thoughtful look at Chrysalis in mind, and I don't think that works with your own imagining of her."

"So, I'm sorry that it didn't work out with us," the second pony said, unaware of the aura of seething fury developing on the stage, "but best of luck to-"

"YOU WORTHLESS VERMIN! I'll make you rue the day you dared insult the queen of the changelings this way! I'll-" At this point, the stagehoof (who none of the other staff members could ever rememer seeing before) and the actress with the sign around her neck rushed over to Divine Star and hustled her out of the building, never to be seen again.

The two ponies looked at each other. "Method actors," the first one said, as if that explained everything. "Go figure, right?"

Spinnerette tossed the sign into a trashcan and sighed. "Well, that was a bust."

The moment they'd returned home, Chrysalis had stolen all of the blankets from her daughter's bed, reinforced her nest with them, and was now engaged in a Class III Maximum Sulk. "You two were spying on me," she said flatly.

"I wouldn't say 'spying'," Mandible said. "We just... wanted to make sure it went well."

"Well, it didn't! I was humiliated! I, the Changeling Queen, cannot even portray myself!"

The siblings looked at each other. It said a lot, they realized, that their mother's ego was so wounded that her normal reality-defying overconfidence was reduced to this. "Don't be like that, mother," Spinnerette tried. Chrysalis huffed and dug herself deeper into the blankets. "If it helps, I personally liked that speech."

"...just saying that."

"No, honestly. It really spoke to me, as a queen." She gave Mandible an insistent look, and he capitulated.

"She's right, Mom. That was one of the best speeches I've ever heard you give, and I've heard a lot of them."

Chrysalis uncurled slightly, the sulk downgrading to a Class II. "...really?"

"Really. They just weren't able to appreciate the full Chrysalis experience, that's all."

"Mmf. You didn't need to drag me out like that, though."

"You were going to destroy them, mother," Spinnerette said gently. "Rarity might have gotten a little suspicious if the theater she sent you to ended up as a crater."

"...I suppose."

"So what do you say?" Mandible asked. "Do you want to try again? There's bound to be other acting jobs out there."

"No." She curled up tighter again. "If the acting world doesn't want me as me, they don't deserve to have me as any lesser role."

Another glance was exhanged. "...okay," Spinnerette said. "That's okay. We'll find something else."

"I did find another possibility while you were at Rarity For You," Mandible said, sliding a piece of paper toward the bundle of blankets. "Just in case things didn't pan out."

A green glow seized the paper and lifted it up for examination. "...what is 'buckball?'"

"It's a sport. Three ponies on either side trying to get a ball into their bucket on the other side of the field. It's really popular, but still pretty new around here, so they're always on the lookout for fresh talent. It brings in huge audiences who love seeing their favorite athletes compete against each other."

She perked up slighly. "And beat the daylights out of each other?" she asked hopefully.

"Uh, no. It's a zero-contact sport."

"Hmph." She dropped a blanket over her head. "Sounds dreadful."

"It'll let you prove your superiority over mere ponies," he said, in his 'who wants cabbage rolls?' voice.

The blanket lifted slightly.

One of the (many) perks of being a changeling queen was enhanced control over one's transformations. Any drone could look like a pegasus or an earth pony, but a queen could fine-tune her new form to make it stronger, faster, and more durable than almost any natural-born pony. She would be less physically adept than her actual queen form, of course, but could maintain her disguise in perfect condition by drawing on her reserves of love. When put up against all but the best natural pony, she would always be the victor.

This, of course, was just a random factoid and had nothing to do with Swiftfeather, an up-and-coming young pegasus mare from the mean streets of the Pronx. She defended the airspace on her side of the buckball court with an iron hoof, deflecting every single ball that dared invade her territory. Nopony could oppose her, and she would clearly be the MVP of any team that hired her.

It could be said, later, that she'd tried her best. And she really had. There were just... extenuating circumstances.

"I dunno what happened," said Fullcourt Press, coach for the Manehattan Miracles. It was the next day, and he was speaking to the stadium's insurance representative, Pencil Pusher. "She just went crazy all of a sudden."

"Why don't you start from the beginning and tell me about it?"

"Okay, well, at first everything was goin' great, y'know? We were runnin' one of our public tryout sessions, just to see if we could find some rough diamonds out there. And oh boy, did we! When that Swiftfeather mare showed up and took a defense spot?" He lifted a hoof to his lips and made a 'mwah!' sound. "Poetry. She had moves that'd put a Wonderbolt to shame!" He leered at the unicorn stallion. "Made me 'wonder' what other kinda moves she knew, yaknowhutI'msayin'? Heh heh heh...! Ow." He rubbed at the skin around the neck brace he wore.

"I see."

"Real easy on the eyes, too. Had fetlocks for days. A real set of fetlongahoogalas. A gorgeous quartet of anklagongamalongas. Four-"

"Could you just move on, please?" Pencil asked coldly.

"...right. Well, it didn't lake long before I could see she was startin' to lose her patience. See, the unicorn and earth pony she was matched with? Oh, they were garbage. I'm surprised they even made it to the stadium without walkin' into traffic. Swiftfeather was blockin' every kick, but when she sent the ball down to the earth pony, he was lettin' it roll out of bounds two times out of three. And on the third, he'd kick it straight to the other team's earth pony, who sent it right back up to Swiftfeather. The one time he managed to get it above the earth pony and past their pegasus, I swear his team's unicorn moved the bucket away from the ball. I couldn't blame Swiftfeather for startin' to get mad."

"And that's when she 'went crazy'?"

Fullcourt shook his head, but very gingerly. "Nah, I thought that's where it was goin', but then she starts barkin' orders, tellin' her team where to stand and what to do. She wasn't nice about it, but they immediately started to do better. And I'm thinkin', this is a filly who knows how to lead! That's rare, even moreso than her buckball skills. Havin' them both in one package? I had to take her under my wing! Or maybe she could take me under her wing, yaknowhutI'msayin'? Heh heh heh...! Ow."

"Mmmm." Pencil scribbled some notes regarding sensitivity training. "And then what?"

"Well, the other team started gettin' mad. There was this young mare playin' like she'd been doin' it all her life, puttin' a lot of pros to shame, and we only got so many spots to fill, right? And their unicorn hadn't gotten to do anything all match since Swiftfeather was like a freaking wall, so he wasn't even getting the chance to show off his own skills. That's when he pulled a Ponyville Polka on her."

"A what?"

"It's where you 'accidentally' lose control of your bucket and lob it at another player," Fullcourt explained. "Hit her square in the back of the head. Wasn't hurt, but hoo boy, was she mad."

"Then that's when...?"

"Not yet. I called a time out, sent off the unicorn, and brought her down for a chat. And that's when she lost it."

"...spraining your neck, sending three other ponies to the hospital - including the other team's unicorn who is currently awaiting surgery to remove his head from the bucket - kicking a buckball through the reinforced window of the stadium's VIP booth..."

"Yeah, that was beautiful."

"...and causing extensive generalized damage before a pair of nondescript pegasi hustled her out of the building," Pencil read from his report. "The police are still looking for her." He looked at Fullcourt severely. "You didn't make any inappropriate suggestions during that 'chat', did you?" He was starting to hope Swiftfeather was never found, lest she counterclaim for sexual harassment.

"Hey, now," Fullcourt said, raising a hoof. "I got a strict policy: never make a move on a player before the ink on the contract is dry. Swear to Celestia."

"You're not supposed to...! Never mind. So what did you say to her?"

"I was just givin' her some encouragement. I wanted to tell her she had a lot of potential, so I compared her to the best defensive player I'd ever seen."

"That's it?"

"Yeah! All I said was that if she kept trainin' and workin' hard, she'd be almost as good as Fluttershy!"

"...the TEMERITY of that WORM! Suggesting that I, QUEEN CHRYSALIS, am inferior to that MEWLING, COWARDLY, YELLOW-!"

"You know, maybe we're going about this all wrong," Spinnerette suggested, trying to ignore the slightly muted ranting coming from her mother's room. She was currently in her Harmony disguise, wearing a gown of silver and copper lamé.

"What do you mean?" Mandible asked. He lifted one of Rarity's sketches and showed it to her; one swirl of purple flame later, she was wearing a kind of sheer body suit of medical green and a pair of inscrutable sunglasses. He peered at her a moment, then shook his head and leafed through the sketches again.

"I mean, I'd like to get her on an adulation diet, because it's the safest way, but since it's also relatively weak, she'll need a fairly large audience to draw from, right?"

"You're the expert." As a pre-reformation drone, he had been told to steal only the strongest, purest forms of love: romantic love and familial love. The study of love, or amareology, wasn't his strong point, but according to Spinnerette those two types of love were powerful because they (usually) comprised a two-way bond, each pony's love strengthening and reinforcing that of the other. This made them the most efficient sources of feeding for changelings, but it also made them the most dangerous if the changeling were to be found out, as they inevitably would if they drained a given subject too long or too deeply. This meant that hit-and-run tactics were the rule, leaving a trail of loveless ponies all over Equestria. It was not a time he was proud of. You could technically also drain romantic love from a pony you'd just met, if you played your cards right, but the lack of an established double bond meant you were only tapping into the raw desire for affection, which was barely better than feeding off animals. It was rarely worth the effort.

He had also been aware of a different type of love, which Chrysalis called 'devotion'. It was the love for one's ruler or other authority figure. It was much less intense than romantic or familial love, as it was a one-way bond; a leader could love their subjects in a general, unspecified way, but that couldn't reinforce their subjects' love in the same way. On the bright side, there was no shortage of devoted ponies to take a quick snack from; on the down side, it took a lot of effort (and the replacement of the existing ruler, always a tricky detail) to pull off, and discovery was always a possibility. Chrysalis had made many plans to capitalize on devotion, but none of them had ever panned out, to put it mildly.

Then after the hive fell he'd tracked down Spinnerette, who had discovered adulation, the love generated from the joy of experience, or at least that's how she'd described it. It was weaker yet than devotion, and you had to put in the effort to give ponies what they wanted to see (or hear), but it was safe; you didn't have to impersonate anypony, and you weren't taking anything against their will. Either they liked what you were doing, or they didn't. But as Spinnerette pointed out, you had to draw from a significantly larger group of ponies to get the same effect as a single dose of romantic love. When he'd found her, she was performing a few times a week at clubs and festivals, with audiences around twenty or thirty ponies at most, and had barely avoided going hungry. There were times when she'd had to make up the difference with pigeon love, and that was paltry fare indeed.

"I had to work my way up - with your help, of course - and I've never seen anypony just step straight into the spotlight like she's trying to do," Spinnerette continued. "Maybe she needs to do it like I did."

"Yeah, but she'd never go for that." Another sketch, another outfit, this one he could only describe as an ornamental haystack with tubes. He quickly started looking for another one. "Why settle for some attention when you think you deserve it all?"

The young queen peered into a nearby mirror. "Ew. Not your best work, Rares. Anyway, it doesn't have to be forever. Just until something better comes along. Do you think she'd be willing to try buckball again?"

He paused and listened to the ranting with an ear long practiced in the art of deciphering his mother's anger. "We'll probably need to leave it for a few weeks at least," he decided. Another sketch, and Spinnerette was clad in a light and breezy summer dress, complete with floral hat. "Oh, I like that one."

The mirror was duly inspected. "Hey, yeah. Me, too. I'll let her know."

Mandible sighed. "Can't sing, can't play an instrument, won't act... we're running out of options here. Street performer?"

She shook her head. "I tried busking. You really need to be able to establish some kind of connection with your audience to make it work. On the street... it's too chaotic, too many distractions. I had ponies listening to me and even dropping bits in my hat, but ended up hungrier than I started."

"Ah. Something in a club or as a restaurant show, maybe..." He pondered for a moment. "What about... dancing? Are there clubs that have dancers?"

"Probably not the kind of dancing you're thinking of," she said dryly.

"...oh. Oh!" He blushed. "Yeah, let's just... forget I ever suggested that, please."

"Deal." They fell silent, thinking, then suddenly she giggled.

"I said-"

"Not that." She looked him dead in the eye. "Stand-up comedian."

He watched that scenario play out in his mind, then gave her a pained look. "Why do you hate me so?" She cackled.

They grew quiet again, and remained so for several minutes. Chrysalis continued expressing her displeasure in the background, but both were able to tune it out. Finally Mandible rubbed his chin. "Let's think outside the box a little. Does it have to be an actual performance? Would the buckball idea have even worked, or did we ruin a stadium for no good reason?"

She frowned, considering. "I'm pretty sure it would've worked. There's nothing unique about a performance that wouldn't still work for something else. Like I said earlier, it's about the connection. Love is all about connections."

"That's good for a Hoofmark card, Spin, but-"

"Hush up and I'll explain, drone," she said without malice. "This is queen stuff." She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts. "Okay. Romantic love, familial love, devotion. At the point a changeling enters the picture, those are long-established connections from one pony to another. Got it?"

"Yes, my queen."

"Hush it. With adulation, there is no connection, at least to start with. When I sing, that connection starts to form with any pony listening." She paused again. "Now, this is all under-the-surface stuff here, okay? The pony isn't even aware this is going on."

"Okay."

"I'm basically putting myself out there in their perception. 'I am here. You are here. We are together. I am singing, and you are hearing my song.' That's all it takes to make a little thread of connection between us. If they don't like my singing, or just don't care, that's it. The connection doesn't get any stronger, and probably snaps the second I stop singing."

Then her eyes gleamed. "But if they like it, if they appreciate it and want to hear more... that's when the magic happens. The connection gets stronger, their enjoyment starts generating love - not necessarily of me, but of the experience, what I'm doing for them - and that love starts flowing to me along the connection. It's still a tenuous link, but sometimes it becomes strong enough to stick around. Those are the dedicated fans."

"So... as long as you're doing something they enjoy, you'll automatically draw love from them?"

"That's basically it. The more they enjoy it, the more I get. New experiences are basically always better, but there's something to be said for a pony with an established connection listening to a favorite song. The love flows more easily along those links."

Mandible nodded. "Okay. So at least that opens options. We need to find a way to have her do something that a lot of ponies will enjoy. The more ponies we can get to witness it, or the more they enjoy it, the better."

"Right."

"...bring destruction down upon every last despicable pony and obliterate this city BRICK. BY. BRICK..."

"...that's still going to be really difficult, isn't it?"

"...yeah."

The Fellowship of the Ring

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"Are you sure you can do this? This isn't something you can just pick up. It's a skill."

"Don't underestimate your mother like that, drone. Why, I spent several years working as a hoofmaid to the aristocracies of Prance."

"You? A hoofmaid, and not a noble?"

"The nobles of the time were venal and stupid, easily manipulated to my own ends. And best of all, they didn't care if some of their peasants turned up drained of their love." She sighed. "Better days."

"Don't listen to him, mother. We're sure you'll do fine."

"...yes. That's why you're going to lurk in this alley and watch me, is it?"

"We're just... concerned."

"Well, stop it. I am...!" She hesitated, knowing a loud declaration would end poorly. "...well. You know who I am. I shall do spendidly."

With that, a mauve unicorn with oversized sunglasses and an astounding manestyle crossed the street and entered a shop whose sign read 'A Perm For The Better'. The lobby was full of mares leafing through magazines and newspapers; as one, they lifted their heads and stared at the unicorn blankly, then went back to their reading. Further in, the proprietress was halfway through helping another client. "I'm sorry, ma'am," she said distractedly, "but as you can see, we're fully booked, and I'm a little short-hoofed at the moment. You should probably come back another-"

"Oh, honey, I know! That's why I'm heah!" The unicorn's accent was quintessentially, even stereotypically, Manehattanish. She held out a hoof. "Bulbous Bouffant, atcher service. Just call me Bulbie. I saw you were hirin' and just knew you could use someone with my manestylin' expertise!"

"Oh!" Relief coursed from the earth pony's very being, slicing through any caution or uncertainty she might have felt at this fortuitous arrival. She cleaned a hoof with a towel and touched it to that of the unicorn. "Pastel Highlights. And if you're able to start immediately - and I do mean immediately..."

"Of course!"

"...then by all means take a station and call up..." She checked a nearby list. "...Miss Copper Braid." An earth pony near the door perked up and looked hopeful.

"Rightcha are, sweetie!" Bulbie selected a swivelling chair more or less at random, then glanced around, located the mane washing sinks, and moved to inspect them. "Running water," she murmured. "How convenient." She lifted her head and nodded to the designated customer, who stood up and trotted over eagerly. "Take a seat, honey. We'll getcha taken care of."

"Thanks so much." She leaned back in the specially made chair and sighed happily as the hot water rushed through her mane.

Bulbie expertly applied the right amount of shampoo and gently rubbed it into the mare's scalp. "So, what brings ya inta this fine establishment today, hmm? I get the feelin' this ain't your usual salon."

"Oh, my go-to stallion, Sparklehoof, is off on one of his escapades. Again." She sighed, this time out of faint frustration. "It's that huge lump of a boyfriend of his, I'm sure. Always getting him into trouble..."

As she massaged Copper's head and made appropriate sympathetic noises, Bulbie could literally feel the connection open between them. Surprisingly fast, in fact, and the adulation started flowing almost immediately. Just a trickle, as yet, but it was still far better than the mere dribble she had felt in the buckball stadium from that loathsome coach. This method wouldn't be as efficient as entertaining multiple ponies at once, she knew, but it would be a start.

Finally the wash and rinse was finished, and Copper Braid was moved to the manestyling station, the chair spun around to face the mirror. "Now!" Bulbie chirped. "What can I do ya for today?"

It was then that Copper Braid ruined everything. "Oh, I trust you, Bulbie! I'll leave it up to you! I just need a bit of a confidence booster these days. Give me something regal. Something powerful. Give me the manestyle of a pony who wants to take the world in her hooves!"

And Bulbie, who knew of only one manestyle that fit that description (and which had never, as far as she was concerned, gone out of fashion) smiled. "Say no more, sweetie! I know just whatcha need!"

Twenty minutes later, Bulbie was chased out of the store by screams and threats of legal repercussions, which was a bit unfair because the manestyling had undeniably been the work of an expert. It didn't even seem physically possible.

They never did figure out how she'd managed to make circular holes in mane hair.

Pizza! Everypony loved getting pizza, didn't they?

Mandible expressed a certain amount of doubt as to how much actual enjoyment could be generated from the brief interaction of delivering a pizza to a pony who was going to have to pay for it, but he'd had to admit he didn't have any better ideas just yet. Quantity over quality would have to do.

The teenaged pegasus knocked on the door and removed the cardboard box from the insulated side-loading saddlebag tied to her barrel. As the door opened, she laid it on the floor. "One medium deep-dish with carrots and celery." She produced a paper bag. "And an order of bendy bread. That'll be seventeen bits, please." For the first time, she focused on the pony on the other side of the door... and her jaw dropped.

The pegasus stallion was leaning in the doorway, muscles gently flexing. He wasn't wearing anything, and while this wasn't particularly unusual for ponies, somehow he was extremely not wearing anything. And he held a rose in his teeth.

"Ah, duuh." He paused and spat out the rose. "Oh, dear. I'm afraid I don't have that much on me. Is there some... other way I could pay you?" His eyebrows waggled.

And the pegasus... smiled, as if she had just been given free pizza. "We might be able to come to an arrangement," she agreed with a purr. "Why don't we discuss it... inside?"

The stallion, secretly amazed that this had actually worked, grinned broadly and backed into the apartment. The mare followed him, and the door closed after her. The pizza and bread lay unclaimed at the doorstep.

At the end of the hallway, two nondescript ponies looked at each other. "...aren't we going to stop her?" the stallion asked.

"We don't know she's doing anything wrong," the mare said, looking extremely conflicted. "Maybe they're just talking."

"Spin..."

"Okay, she's definitely draining him, but look at what he was doing! Can you really tell me that creep doesn't deserve it?"

"Spin!"

"Oh, fine! But we're keeping the pizza!"

"...deal."

The three nondescript ponies watched as the ice cream parlor burned to the ground.

Two of them managed to turn and look at the tallest of the three, their expressions... no, their entire body language asking the question that their voices had given up on: why?

The tallest raised her head and sniffed derisively. "...they were insolent."

And that seemed to be it.

Mandible knocked briefly before entering Spinnerette's apartment. "In here," she called, and he found her in her Harmony disguise, leaning back on a couch with a damp towel over her eyes, a package of breakfast cabbage rolls at her side, and one of her own albums playing in the background.

"You look comfortable," he noted.

"I am," she said happily. "I needed this after running after mother so much."

"Sorry I had to leave early yesterday. I'm having to have to jump through so many hoops to get this Before the Horse shoot lined up." He glanced around. Apart from the song, the apartment was quiet. Too quiet. "Where's Mom?"

"She's at the new job we found for her."

Mandible looked at her askance. "And you're here?"

"Relax. I watched over her all afternoon yesterday, and she did fine." She lifted the towel and smiled at him. "I think I've solved the problem."

"...I'm almost afraid to ask how."

"Foals!" she said proudly.

"Foals?" he asked uncertainly.

"We've just been thinking in terms of adult ponies," she explained, "but even though the ice cream place... didn't work out, it made me realize that foals would have appreciated being given ice cream way more than any adult customers. And foals are easier to entertain, make connections a whole lot faster, and every experience is new to them! Boom! Ready-made high-efficiency adulation transmission!"

"...I'm... not sure I like where this is going, but continue."

"So I got her a job where she can entertain a ton of foals: Moona Park in Poney Island!"

His brow furrowed. "I thought it was called Luna Park."

"They had to change it when the Princess came back. Moona Park is the legally-distinct version."

"Ah. So what kind of job did you find for her? Ride manager? Ring toss fraudster?"

Her smile broadened. "Park mascot!"

Mandible froze in place. "What."

"I know, it's perfect! She doesn't even have to do anything! The foals will be entertained just by having her around! She'll be feasting on adulation in no time."

"And you watched over her.... yesterday afternoon."

"...yeah?"

"How many foals did you see there?"

She frowned. "None, I think. It was a school day, after all. Dib, what are you getting at? She's not going to be set off by a bunch of foals."

Mandible took a long breath. "Normally, I would agree. But, Spin... Poney Island is full of little stands selling greasy, unhealthy food. Funnel cakes, cinnamon churros, cotton candy, hooflong deep-fried cattails. And amusement parks are full of rides that go up and down and all around. And then when foals get off the ride, they see our mother, and run toward her..."

Spinnerette waved a hoof at this. "That's no big deal. She won't like it, sure, but she'll just have to clean it off her mascot costume."

He fixed her with a stare. "Costume."

She nodded. "Costume!"

The stare intensified, and he enunciated both syllables clearly. "Costume."

She stared back, trying to determine his meaning... and then it hit her, and her eyes slowly widened. "...oh, no. She... she wouldn't. She couldn't!"

"You know how she feels about wearing garments! I once saw her kill a hat just to watch it die! There's no chance she wouldn't just turn her actual body into a mascot costume! And today is the weekend! Tons of foals will be there!"

Spinnerette was already throwing open a window, cabbage rolls and towel tossed aside. "If we hurry, we should be able to find her before things get too bad!" Two flashes of purple and blue later, a pair of falcons were cutting through the sky in the direction of the amusement park.

"'Giant Monster Resembling Moona the Dreammare Savages Poney Island," Mandible read in the next morning's paper. "'The joy and frivolity of Moona Park was disrupted yesterday morning by the sudden appearance of a huge, misshapen monster with an uncanny resemblance to the park's mascot, which tore into the Wonderbolt roller coaster ride and several other buildings around the Park and Poney Island. This reign of brutality only ended when a pair of strangely nondescript bugbears appeared and hustled the enraged beast into the sea. Damages have been estimated at over six hundred thousand bits...'"

"I think that's enough, Dib." Spinnerette looked at their mother, who was slumped on a loveseat after taking several baths. "Don't worry. We'll figure something out, mother."

"Oh, what's the point?" She threw a foreleg over her eyes dramatically. "This city clearly does not want me to entertain it! The only time I was the slightest bit successful was when I fed my way, and I know enough that I can't rely on that particular scenario happening again!"

"That was good pizza, though," Mandible offered.

"And I never even got paid for all that work I did! I'm sure I could have afforded at least one or two gold-plated trebuchets by now!" The siblings remained silent; neither of them had the heart to tell her.

Then Chrysalis insinuated across the floor and pressed up against her daughter. "This adulation business is a waste of time. If we worked together, we could set up a proper hive and rule this city ourselves!"

Spinnerette rolled her eyes. "We've been over this, mother. I don't want a hive. And adulation's working just fine."

"Come now," Chrysalis purred. "Don't deny your instincts. Queens are supposed to consume only the purest, strongest forms of love. When was last time you fed? Truly fed."

Her daughter opened her mouth to rebuke Chrysalis again... but unexpectedly, she hesitated. "It... has been a long time," she admitted.

"Do you remember how it tasted?" he mother crooned in her ear. "The rich, velvety texture of it. You won't get that from adulation."

Spinnerette shook her head roughly and backed away. "No! I'm not like you, mother. I've proven I can be a queen without hurting anypony! Anyway, I thought you were worried about Starlight Glimmer and the Friendship Map."

Chrysalis shrugged. "They didn't show up for that fool. Perhaps I overestimated them. And at any rate, they won't be expecting two of us."

"No, mother. That's final."

"...of course," said Chrysalis, in the tones of one who knew when to bide their time. There would be more opportunities later.

Forgotten in the background, Mandible had watched this exchange without comment. He glanced up at a clock and decided it was as good a time as any. "Well, I've got another meeting with the Before the Horse crew."

"Again, Dib?"

"'Fraid so. You two have fun."

As he closed the door, they started to bicker again. That was good; bickering meant that he still had some time.

He took the elevator down, but it was a different pony that exited it. He'd made sure that Chrysalis had never known about the identity he wore to rent his own apartment, but he still looked around himself carefully before leaving the building. He crossed the street and slipped into an alleyway that was full of cats and, deeper in the shadows, rats. He'd ensured this was the case by placing inobtrusive piles of cheese here and there several days ago.

One burst of blue fire later, and the beasts were fleeing the alley in a panic, feline and rodentine alike. The pedestrian ponies near the alley screamed and scattered, causing even more confusion. One of the rats ceased its apparent mad dash a few blocks away, then scurried into a drainpipe; a moment later, a pigeon wriggled out of the top of the pipe and flew toward the entrance to a nearby Maneway station. It bypassed the ticket turnstiles, dipped into a shadowy corner, then a beleaguered earth pony emerged and slumped toward the railway tracks. A Maneway train soon arrived, and he climbed onto a mostly-empty car. When the train arrived at its next stop, one of the stallions on the car had been mysteriously duplicated, though since they left by different doors one of them never noticed. The other exited up the stairs, then looked around once again. Deciding that this was probably enough, he emerged into the sunlight and made his way down Saddle Row.

The door to Rarity For You had a CLOSED sign hanging from it, which made him start to panic. Had she left town already? But there was a second sign, he noticed: 'Back in 1 hour!' He knew his target's habits, and a bit of searching brought him to an outdoor cafe where a certain white unicorn was sipping tea and perusing a newspaper. He moved to stand near her and cleared his throat. "It's me," he said when she looked up.

She stared at him for a moment. "Indeed. But who, might I ask, might 'me' be?"

"Oh, right. Um... 'the alicorn flies at midnight'."

"And 'the countersign is difficult to guess.'" Rarity chuckled, then waved at the adjacent chair. "And now that we have provided our bona fides... by all means, sit, darling, sit." He did so gratefully. "So, how is it going?"

"Miserably," he admitted. He glanced around, but the only other pony nearby was an elderly earth pony wearing a city maintenance jumpsuit, in the process of pasting posters to walls. It was as safe as it was going to get.

"Mmmm, I rather suspected as much." Her field held up the newspaper. "This was her, I assume?"

"I'm afraid so."

She tch'ed. "I mean no offense, darling, but what did you expect? She was bound to snap sooner or later."

"It's not like that." He explained what had happened, then had to wait until she stopped giggling. "She's trying, Rarity. In her own way."

"That's as may be, darling, but this cannot go on. How is she handling this most recent failure?"

He winced. "She's... trying to get Spin to help her take over the city."

Rarity spread her hooves in a gesture that said Well, there you go. "And we can't have that, now can we? Mandible, darling, I like Spinnerette, truly I do. I admire her for resisting her natural instincts for so long and trying to be a better creature. But if Chrysalis cannot find a path for herself that doesn't involve... what was it again? Gold-plated catapults?"

"Trebuchets."

"Ugh. How gaudy. Then I'm afraid I'll simply have no choice but to inform Twilight. And if this leads to Spinnerette becoming found out as well... then that's just what will have to happen. We cannot have one rogue changeling queen threatening Equestria, let alone two."

He groaned and laid his head on the table. "Even if she stayed secret, Spin would never forgive me. She still doesn't realize you know about her; she'll think I'm the one who turned Chrysalis in. Especially since I was suggesting that from the beginning. And then Twilight will tell Thorax and it'll be a huge mess."

Rarity sipped her tea sympathetically. Neither of them paid any attention to the maintenance pony as his work brought him slowly closer. "If I may offer an outsider's perspective?"

"Please."

"Throwing your mother at random professions was never going to work. She may not be able to have a cutie mark - or, at least," she sniffed, perhaps remembering a collection of stars, "not a real one - but she still needs to find her true calling. Preferably one that doesn't involve world domination. Whatever job you find for her, it has to be something she enjoys, or she'll never stick with it."

"Yeah, well, that's the problem, isn't it?" he replied, frustrated. "The only thing she really enjoys is being horrible! And talking about how great she is. And planning revenge. So you tell me, Rarity: what kind of job would let regular ponies enjoy being around somecreature who's constantly at maximum drama, who has an ego the size of the Moon, who thinks betrayal is just part of a game until it happens to them, and who wants everypony to hate them?"

SPLAP! The noise made them turn and look at the maintenance pony as he smoothed the air bubbles out from under the newly-applied poster, then continued on his way. Their attention turned to the poster itself. It was, in fact, hard to look away, the poster having been designed to not only catch the eye but also stuff it and mount it on the wall.

And although both Rarity and Mandible saw the perfect answer to the changeling's question in the fortuitous poster, they reacted quite differently.

"No..." Rarity breathed, aghast.

"Yes!" Mandible replied, his grin growing ever broader.

"No, darling, please no! You can't ask this of me! My skills are destined for far greater things than-"

"Don't worry," he said calmingly. "I know some other ponies that can help with this."

"...oh. You do? Well, that's. That's fine. I suppose."

He stood up and stepped closer to the poster, his smile never wavering. "This is going to be amazing."

Six thousand ponies stared down to the center of the stadium, where the usual stage had been replaced by a square ring, its sides bounded by thick springy cords. Excitement was running high, and the durability of the wooden stomping plates in front of each pony had been thoroughly tested.

There was a table near the ring at which two ponies were currently seated. Despite having devices such as record players and speakers, Equestria lacked the technology for any kind of long-distance media, yet somehow endeavors of this nature didn't feel complete without somepony delivering color commentary. "This is what we've been waiting for, folks," the unicorn stallion wearing a well-tailored suit said into his microphone. "Tonight's main event: Three-time world champion Yurta the Yeti will defend her belt against up-and-coming newcomer, the Countess. I am of course Booth Relay, and joining me at ringside is the challenger's manager, Skeezy Dealz."

"Pleasure to be here," said the large earth pony in a smooth baritone. He wore a red flared jacket, sunglasses, and an air of complete indifference.

"Mr. Dealz, do you think your client has the skills and endurance to take the belt from the Yeti?"

"Ah, my stallion," Skeezy rumbled, "The Countess has skills this sport has never even seen! She not only can take that belt, she will take that belt!"

"The Countess has been rising through the ranks in the Equestria Wrestling Federation at a remarkable speed over the last few weeks, standing undefeated at this time, but she has been accused of dishonorable conduct in the ring and of assaulting her opponents before the match has even started. What do you say to that?"

"Clearly these are simply the unjustified words of ponies jealous of her success. Every last one of the Countess' wins have been entirely legal and within the rules of the sport!"

"Well, we're going to have to see about that," Booth said, "because our announcer has entered the ring!"

Clean Jeans, sparse of mane but sharp of tuxedo, long-time veteran of the squared circle and all of its permutations, paused briefly before speaking into the microphone he held in one hoof. "Lllllet's get ready to RUMBLE!"

For a brief moment, the noise in the stadium became more than mere sound, transforming into an almost tangible force as ponies stomped and cheered.

"This match is scheduled for one fall," he continued once he could hear again. "In this corner, three-time EWF World Champion, standing five-and-a-half hooves tall and weighing in at three hundred and twenty two pounds... Yurta... the YETIIIIIIII!"

Music began to play, a traditional Yakyakistan folk song updated with guitars and at twice the tempo. Spotlights focused on an area at the top of the ramp leading down to the ring, and a female yak, huge even by the standards of the species emerged from the wings and trotted downwards. Her fur was a blinding white, and around her barrel sat a belt of black and gold. Mostly gold. She occasionally paused to playfully headbutt the fans pressed against the rails to either side of the ramp, some of whom collapsed into giddy senselessness.

When she reached the bottom of the ramp, she lay the belt on the commentator's table. "Keep eye on this," she said. "Yurta will be back for it."

"Yes, ma'am," Booth said. Skeezy just sneered faintly.

As she climbed into the ring, Jeans spoke once more. "And in this corner, from the highest mountains of Transylmaneia, standing four hooves tall and weighing in at one hundred and forty three pounds... the Counteeeessss!"

The folk song had faded out, and was replaced by a deeply menacing tune played on pipe organ and yet more guitars. The cheers quickly turned to boos as a tall and lithe midnight blue pegasus stepped into the spotlight, holding a microphone in one hoof. "Well, well, well," she said, the music abruptly cutting off. "It seems that you have something that belongs to me, Yurta."

In the ring the yak hooked her forelegs over the top rope and seemed to shout something up at the pegasus, though it was drowned out by the jeers of the crowd.

"That belt doesn't belong around the barrel of a filthy animal like you!" the Countess continued. "It deserves to be worn by a creature of brilliance and elegance! Too long have you disgraced it by wrapping it around that mangy pelt! Tonight! Is the night! That the title shall be won by the creatures of darkness!" With that, she spread her wings wide, and casual observation would notice a definite bat-like quality to them.

The jeers redoubled. Oddly, so did the stomping.

She stood posed for a long moment, basking in the defiant shouts, then raised the microphone to her lips once more. "And on that note... Punch! Judy! Sic 'er!"

Yurta stared at her in confusion, and so didn't notice when a pair of lanky figures climbed out from under the ring, then into it. The Diamond Dogs grabbed the champion by both shoulders, one on each side, and with some difficulty lifted her up and propelled her backwards to drop heavily to the mat, spine first.

"What is this?!" Booth shouted, as Clean Jeans quickly dove out of the ring. "The Deep Down Duo just came out of nowhere and performed a double half-Neighson slam on Yurta! And now they're laying into her mercilessly! It seems the rumors of the Countess seeking an alliance with the Duo were true after all!"

"You can't prove that!" Skeezy protested. "You can't prove that! My client and I absolutely deny this unsubstantiated claim, and we abhor this obvious act of unsportsponylike conduct!"

"The ref better stop them before... And now they're attacking the ref! What is going on?!"

The Countess watched the chaos down below for a moment, then tossed her microphone to the side, flapped her wings once (and anyone who knew anything about bat wings would recognize that bat wings didn't move like that), and glided down to the ring. By the time her hooves touched the top rope, Yurta had barely managed to stand up again and security staffers had rushed in to remove the Duo. The pegasus let her weight settle on the rope briefly, then launched forward, spinning in the air to deliver a double-hoofed kick to the champion's chin.

"And the Countess begins hammering at the Yeti!" Booth announced. "A left! A right! Another left! A back left! She is not letting the champ get her bearings, but... wait just a minute!" The most recent hoof strike had sent Yurta's head snapping to one side, but after pausing for a moment she simply turned it back toward the Countess, whose eyes began to grow wide. Another strike, but the yak's head didn't even move this time. She just stared at the pegasus... and then grinned. The Countess took a step backward in disbelief.

"You can't underestimate a yak!" Booth continued. "A few cheap shots aren't going to be enough to take down an athlete of Yurta's caliber!"

"Someone needs to test that cow!" Skeezy protested. "She's clearly taking performance-enhancing zebra potions!"

Another few shots were equally no-sold, then Yurta reared back and brought her forehead down heavily on that of the Countess. The pegasus staggered back, bounced off the ropes, then fell over in the middle of the ring.

"A solid headbutt from the champ! The Countess is out of it! And-" There was a sudden surge of cheering; Yurta was holding one hoof in the air and looking around at the frantic crowd. "-she's setting up for an Avalanche! This could be a career-ender, folks!"

The yak slowly climbed a turnbuckle, then paused at the top to dramatically hold a hoof up to one ear and take in more cheers.

"No creature has ever gotten up after being hit by an Avalanche! It looks like the Countess' bid for the belt is going to be... wait, where are you going?!"

Skeezy had raced to the edge of the ring and was shouting at the Countess, who raised her head to look at him blearily. He reached a foreleg under the skirt surrounding the ring, where the Duo had climbed out of, and then slid something wide, flat and metal out from the darkness. Picking it up in his teeth, he whipped his head around and tossed the folding chair across the canvas floor of the ring; the Countess managed to roll aside, leaving the chair where she had been a moment before.

"What are you doing?!" Booth demanded as Skeezy returned to the table.

"I dunno what you're talkin' about."

"That was an illegal weapon!"

Skeezy peered at the ring in an exaggerated fashion. "Oh, really? You'd better get the ref on that, then."

Booth looked at the referee, who was still recovering from the Duo's assault. No help to be found there.

The yak, oblivious to this chain of events, bounced in place a few times before somersaulting backwards, her huge body twisting to land hip-first. The noise the chair made when crushed between canvas and yak pelt was not a loud one, but Yurta's body language told a story of excruciating pain, and she fell over on to her back once more.

"Disgraceful!" Booth shook his head angrily. "Mares and gentlestallions, I've never seen such an underhanded display in all my years!" In the ring, the Countess had gotten back to her hooves, and was deliberately prodding the champion to move her to the exact center. "Oh, no! She wouldn't dare...!"

Skeezy cackled. "It's over, stallion. It's over!"

Then the Countess began to gallop from one side of the ring to the other, bouncing off the ropes and leaping over her fallen foe as she went. The jeers and stompings from the crowd continued to intensify as this went on, until finally she jumped up, bounced off the top rope, performed one huge wing flap that carried her high above the ring, hung in the air for one long moment directly above Yurta, bat-like wings spread wide...

...and then dropped.

"Darkness Falls! Darkness Falls! Darkness Falls!" Booth screamed in both amazement and panic as the pegasus landed hoof-first in the fallen yak's stomach. Yurta's limbs spasmed briefly, then she fell still, tongue lolling out and lungs desperately seeking air. The Countess quickly hooked a fetlock around Yurta's hind leg and pressed her shoulders to the mat; the referee chose that moment to come to his senses, and quickly slid in next to them and started pounding the canvas. Three hoofdrops, and it was over.

Clean Jeans returned to the ring as Skeezy brought the belt to his client. "The winner and new World Champion... the Counteeeessss!"

The stadium was filled with angry shouts and boos, and the Countess, title belt draped across her back, drank it all in like it was finest wine.

A few minutes later found the Countess alone in her dressing room, a towel draped around her neck as she leaned back in a chair with her eyes closed and the belt laid on the table beside her. She smiled, and while winning the championship was a factor in that, it was not the main cause.

She couldn't remember when she'd last felt this full! The matches leading up to this one had been nice, but there had been significantly more ponies here tonight, and many of them had carried with them established connections from the previous fights; a fan listening to a favorite song, indeed. It was true that a queen was always hungry, but it seemed like this could definitely take the edge off for a little while.

The door opened and closed behind her, and a pair of hooves fell on her shoulders. Her visitor slowly inhaled, just behind her head... then began to choke. "...ugh! So bitter!"

"Really? I find it quite... robust." She opened her eyes and turned her head to see a young mare just behind her, pale of hide and crimson of mane, wearing a black linen jacket with far more zippers than necessary. Skeezy Dealz stood quietly near the door. "If you'd like me to repay the love you gave me, though...?"

The mare's mouth twisted, trying to remove a taste that was only ephemeral in nature. "Keep it. I insist. You really found a way to feed on hate?!"

"Of course not. It's all adulation. They hate me - or, rather, the Countess - but they love the experience of hating the Countess. The hate is just flavoring."

The mare scowled. "That makes no sense. You'd have to be a pretty sick pony to enjoy hating, and even then that wouldn't count as you providing the enjoyment. It can't be adulation!" Then she prodded at one of the Countess' wings. "And what do you think you're doing with bat wings?! Somepony's going to-" She stopped, and pulled at some kind of fabric mesh that surrounded the wing. "What's this?"

"Ingenious, is it not?" The Countess stretched the wing out, and it really did give the appearance of a bat's wing... unless you looked closely enough to see how the fabric shaped and directed the feathers beneath. "It doesn't allow for full flight, of course, but the rules of the sport prevent that in any case."

"But... I mean... it's a garment..."

The Countess made a face. "Let's just say that I've revised my thinking about proper costuming. And you were right about one thing: it does look better than attire I dream up myself."

There was a sound of heavy hoofsteps in the hallway, and then the door was thrown open, mildly concussing Skeezy in the process. "COUNTESS!" Yurta the Yeti bellowed cheerfully. "Yurta is-" She stopped as she surveyed the room, particularly the presence of the young mare, and immediately assumed an angry scowl. "...going to SMASH for cheating Yurta out of-"

The Countess waved a hoof. "It's all right, Yurta."

Skeezy emerged from behind the door, nursing a lump on his head. "This is my niece, Jazzy Jacket. Jazzy, meet Yurta."

The teenaged pony shifted awkwardly, looking up at the giant yak then away. "...hey."

"Ah." The anger vanished as if it had never been. "Is good to meet you, Jazzy! You are... smark?"

"Uh... maybe?"

"Not even a mark, I'm afraid," Skeezy said, and his voice lacked the sneering, superior quality that it had had at ringside. "But it's not in her field of interest, so it's fine."

"Ah, that is good, then. Yurta like to crush enemies, not dreams."

"...I'm very confused," Jazzy admitted. "Weren't you going to, like, murder her for stealing the title?"

Yurta looked as puzzled as Jazzy felt. "Why would Yurta do that here? Backstage, with no paying audience?"

"To... get your belt back?"

The yak scoffed. "Countess can have it! Yurta carried belt for half year now! Ready to take time for Yurta! Being champion is fun, but rough on body."

"And besides," the Countess continued, "the audience really wouldn't welcome her back at this point. The belt needs to change hoofs every so often to keep things from getting stale, especially when the champion is a complete face like Yurta. And since she could never convincingly pull off a frog turn, the writers are simply giddy at the opportunity to come up with storylines for my..." She spread her cloth-covered wings dramatically. "...new age of darkness!"

Yurta giggled and nudged Jazzy, who fell over. "Yurta likes Countess. She good at being frog! Just so natural for her!"

Jazzy felt no more enlightened. "Frog?"

"'Bad guy'," Skeezy provided helpfully. "And a 'face' is a good guy."

"So, when the Countess cheated and stole the belt..."

The Countess nodded. "All part of the script."

"Huh. Wrestling really is fake, I guess." A sudden silence fell over the room, and Jazzy realized that what she said might not have seemed very complimentary. "I mean..."

Then Yurta threw a foreleg around the teen and lifted her up to her hooves didn't touch the floor. The yak chuckled. "Is common misconception. Wrestling is not fake, little one."

"It's not?" Jazzy managed, feeling the air being crushed out of her.

"No! Wrestling is..." Yurta waved her other forehoof in front of her theatrically. "...acting!"

"Acting?"

"Precisely," the Countess confirmed. "It's all part of... what was that word again, Skeezy?"

"Kayfabe," he said, as Jazzy wriggled out of the yak's grip. "See, for the most part nopony in the audience really thinks the wrestlers are trying to actually hurt one another. But if every wrestler always played by the rules and it was just match after match after match... well, you could do that, but it wouldn't be pro wrestling. Wrestling is all about the spectacle of it. So the audience understands that there is a story behind it all, and that stories require antagonists. The villain knocks down the hero, so that the hero has something to strive for again. They might hate the villain..."

Jazzy looked at the Countess, understanding dawning. "...but they enjoy the experience of hating the villain. Because it's all part of the story."

"Just so," the Countess said. "Although it is also a display of skill and physical fitness, at which I of course excel. That plays no small part as well."

"I... think I get it now."

"Anyway, we'd better get going," Skeezy said. "Jazzy and I are heading off on that cross country trip tomorrow." He turned to the Countess, well-guarded concern behind his eyes. "You'll be all right while I'm gone?"

"Please. I'll be spectacular," she assured him.

"Yurta need to go too. Need to get fur dye washed out." She peered down her alabaster hide. "...Yurta sometimes regrets this gimmick. Takes two hours to apply before every show."

Once goodbyes were said and her visitors had filed out, the Countess sank back into her chair and, after a moment, pulled the belt into her lap and smiled down at it.

It felt... good, to taste victory like this. Scripted though it may have been, she wouldn't have climbed so high, so quickly, if she didn't possess the abilities and charisma to catch the attention of the 'marks'. She'd undeniably earned this win.

And there would be more victories later, and they would be glorious. And there would be bitter losses, but - and this was vital - because of the nature of the game the losses would not be her fault. And she would be making money, good money, certainly enough to buy as many gold-plated trebuchets as she pleased, although she was starting to forget how they fit in to her plan. And some day, there was still the option of getting revenge upon Starlight Glimmer, but that seemed like hardly a priority at this point. There was no rush.

Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings and (in her own mind) destined ruler of Equestria, looked upon the new future spreading out before her, and was happy.

A Taste of Stardom

by Kotatsu Neko

'Sects and the City

Will Work For Love

The Fellowship of the Ring