Pet a changeling when you encounter one in a cell
Chrysalis was a window.
It felt like this every time. Every time Sparkle woke her up.
Her body was not solid. Neither was it liquid. Somewhere between those two.
If she had to say. But it was so hard to say. Her thoughts moved as slow as glass. When she was a statue.
She could sense what was going on around her. The conversations about whether it was worth it. Why they should give her another shot. Those conversations staged for her benefit. And it would never work.
But they tried, those persistent ponies. Twilight Sparkle gave each of her friends a chance, and herself two, and many others. But none succeeded, or made more than a dent in her now infamous resolve. They tried, with promises of Friendship and parties and a place to call home. She would never give in, never let herself be warped like that traitor. But let them try, let them break themselves!
Her body was molten glass, heating under the furnace’s flame. Sharp sensations spread from hooves and wingtips inward, searing pricks of pain that signaled her waking. It would do no good to move, encased as she was, yet the mounting desire to twist and flex in the vain hope of restoring feeling was overwhelming. So she endured, as she always had, and would continue to endure. As long as necessary.
Scales of stone fell from her eyes, and the world went from a hazy and dull place where she could barely make out sources of light to a just-as-dull stone-walled cell. The same as the last time, with a single table set against the wall and a low bed she had yet to make use of. A small lavender log lay next to the too-fluffy pillow, stained light filtering through extra-thick glass of the single small window. Her neck twisted and flexed, shedding loose pieces that whisked away into the nothingness from whence they were originally called. Her entire body felt weak and starved of love. Yet, despite all that, she stood tall and proud, an immaculate paragon of what a changeling truly should be.
And she was not alone. The bright, cheery raspberry splashed across the walls faded as Sparkle completed her spell. The remainder of the Elements withdrew, none looking particularly enthused to be there, but they kept their grumblings about another wasted attempt until they were outside the room. She did not deign them, nor the alicorn, a glance.
“Good morning,” Twilight Sparkle greeted chipperly.
Chrysalis didn’t let her sigh pass her lips. She would be badgered with salutations, each more ridiculous than the last, until she responded. And because that insufferable brat knew just as many languages as she - and could tag in that pink monster - she would keep it up all day. And had.
“Is it?” Chrysalis replied icily, reserving her venom. The response drew an immediate reaction.
“It is!” Sparkle beamed, giddily trotting the two paces to place a plate of freshly cut apples and hay on the table. She added a glass bottle filled with bubbly orange liquid, twisting the cap off with a small bit of metal she tucked away.
The changeling eyed the plate suspiciously. It was unlikely, to say the least, that it was poisoned or anything other than the pride of Sweet Apple Acres.
“We have a special guest coming today!” Sparkle continued, prancing about like a buffoon. “I think you’ll like him! He…”
“He isn’t from around here,” the alicorn continued. “Not from Equestria, or even Equus.” A bit of excitement entered her voice, a tantalizing amount, but not enough for Chrysalis to sample. “Starlight and Sunset got to talking about how to get a human to come here without using the portal. The math was really exciting to work through! We had to-”
Chrysalis’ glare was enough to silence the salivating alicorn.
“But you don’t want to hear about that,” Sparkle quickly covered up. “We called him…”
She trailed off again, then sighed at the very real possibility. “We called him because we haven’t seen any progress. Any signs of improvement, or remorse over your actions, now or before.” She turned her head away, wetness staining the corners of her eyes. “The others…”
“I don’t need you to tell me how they think you are wasting your efforts,” Chrysalis spat out.
Sparkle grimaced. “O-of course.” She looked up, barely able to meet Chrysalis’ leering gaze. “This may be your last shot.” She drew herself up, about to nuzzle Chrysalis before thinking better of it. She gulped instead. “Please don’t waste it.”
“So,” Chrysalis gloated, “I only need to endure once more before you consign me to oblivion?”
If she was being honest, which was something she did only under the most dire of circumstances, it wasn’t her preferred outcome. But anything - or, in this case, nothing - was infinitely more desirable over a pathetic existence as the ponies’ lapling.
She waved a hoof condescendingly. “Proceed.”
Sparkle solemnly nodded to herself before offering the changeling queen a faint smile. She hesitated as she walked out, taking one long, last look before leaving the door open behind her. And a creature Chrysalis had never seen before took her place.
“Hello,” the human greeted quietly as he shuffled into her cell.
Normally, she wouldn’t have spared the fairly nondescript creature a second glance. Yet the longer she studied him, the more she sensed a rising dread in the pit of her barrel. He was elderly, though not frail, with pale skin nearly completely hidden under a well-tailored yet casual suit. He sported a thinning dark brown mane that was starting to gray at the edges. Not exactly an impossible combination, but more subdued than the bright assaults of the ponies. He stood nearly as tall as her, which put him far above most others. His walk was unsteady, if only slightly.
But, despite the lack of physical muscles, he had a presence, his head up and withers squared back. His piercing brown eyes traced the room, noting the meager and untouched furnishings. A part of her, the part ever fearful of being found and rooted out, wanted to shy away, to hide in the nonexistent shadows. He had no fear of her, or revulsion, a common reaction among the guards and general populace that she could sense even without prying into their all-too-similar minds. There was fear, but it was more of a general fear, laced with uncertainty and doubt and directed at himself.
So she gave him no reply, merely studying with disdained interest.
“I’m Dr. Jordan Peterson.”
It came across as a preamble, though he paused in case she responded.
She didn’t. They stared at each other for a few long, awkward seconds.
“I’m not exactly sure why they wanted me here,” he finally continued. He turned his attention back to her surroundings, frowning. Or maybe that was just the baseline position his muzzle reset to, harsh and probing, so unlike the ponies she knew. “I mean, I am a trained clinical psychologist. I get that. I have twenty-five years of experience working with patients, so there is that.” He waved a hand dismissively. “But you’ve seen psychologists before, and psychiatrists, so I don’t think it’s that. We wouldn’t have had to run a whole story about me taking time off for health reasons if that was all it took.”
So he had reports from the previous ponies. And likely a sporadic view of her deeds. Maybe they wouldn’t go over the same ground, but she doubted it. Everypony came to her with promises of sunshine and rainbows, ignorant of the way the world truly worked. How would he put his spin on things?
“Maybe it’s because I’m believable,” he tried, not quite staring off into space. He seemed puzzled by his own statement. He rambled, “I was contacted by a Sunset Shimmer. Well, I suppose it wasn’t me, but my publicist. Anyway, she had seen a few of my videos and heard a few of my lectures. And I suppose she told that Princess Twilight Sparkle character about me, about how I tell my audiences that their life is going to be difficult, and sometimes difficult beyond both imagining and tolerance. And that that is definitely in your future, if it isn’t in your present, and for a lot of people it is in their present. And that that can be unbearable, enough to turn you against life itself.”
Chrysalis frowned. Nopony had ever admitted that to her, despite it absolutely being the case. She had been reviled before she was even born, for Faust’s sake! Ever since Star Swirl the Bearded unleashed her unto the world, and he was merely the first to condemn his own creation. Shackled with an unbearable, unquenchable thirst, a ravenous hunger, and a certain lust for power. And yet castigated for her mere existence!
“But it’s worse than that!”
The vitriol he infused into the words unsettled her, the way his whole body jerked before he motioned in wide, unbalancing circles with his forelegs. She could get Sparkle going like this with the right topic, or any of the ponies for that matter, and getting them to spin their wheels blathering on about some triviality often let her imbibe a little of that joy and stave off that repressive gloom that grew darker every day. But this? There was no joy in his words, only despair, and she found an odd kinship there.
“Because it doesn’t just drive you to thoughts of suicide, when you’re confronted by the infinite suffering, but to vengeance and and and to malevolence and to be turned against being itself because of its brutal nature! And how we all make this suffering worse because of our ignorance and our bitterness, whether it’s towards those that have, or even just have a smidgen more than you! That can be enough to work against them, to seek their destruction. And everyone knows that to be true!”
Her nostrils twitched at the implied accusation. Except that he was including himself in that category. She knew some of her captors had undergone trials relating to their Element, but would never expect Rarity to refer to herself as pathologically selfish. This intrigued her, and she leaned forward just a fraction.
He huffed with as much scorn as she mustered when speaking to Sparkle, dismissively shaking his head. And then there was a shift in his demeanor, or maybe it had been there all along; a light at the end of the tunnel that gradually got brighter and brighter as he got closer to his point.
“But despite that, we are quite capable creatures that can confront that suffering, that malevolence. And the evidence for this is crystal clear, that if people voluntarily face the problems around them that they can make meaning from that. And that’s practically useful! Because you might even solve some of those problems, and there’s no limit to how good life can get! You know, I mean, I don’t know how much human effort - or pony effort, or really changeling effort in your case, I suppose - is wasted on non-productive or even counter-productive things. But even as poor and insufficient as we are, we still make progress, and thrive, and we can resist the malevolence that entices us. And we know this, that it is better to live courageously than cowardly.”
Chrysalis scoffed. Here it was, where he would promise that ‘if only, if only she changed’ that her life would be better. Well, being afraid to speak her mind had never been her problem, or acting how she wished, even if she had to be pragmatic in choosing her battles. And so her appraisal of him tarnished, if slightly, though even tarnished brass was better than the brightly polished excrement the others presented.
“And it is better to live truthfully than in deceit.”
She felt his eyes on her that time, except the expected accusation wasn’t there. Well, perhaps it was, but only because he knew - as she knew - that everypony lied, and only the scope and depth of those lies varied from pony to pony. How could she have survived if she did not lie? If impersonating another was lying, then her very existence was a lie! Webs upon intricate nets, knots twisted and slipped inside snarls until the only way through was with a razor-sharp blade.
And so she stayed silent, biding her time, waiting for him to impress upon her the importance of giving up her nature, her being, her essence, for what amounted to a more brightly colored box of yarn with which to weave. And a binding cage would be the only result.
“But maybe that doesn’t matter.” He gave a small half-shrug, his focus still on her. It was like he was giving a lecture to a grand audience, yet had eyes only for her. It didn’t make her feel uncomfortable, instead a little thrilled. So many of the other ponies merely talked at her, past her, and here he was studying her every reaction. “Because what is truth?”
Chrysalis nearly opened her mouth to reply, if only in shock. Was he about to redefine truth? It's easy, right? Truth is saying things that are true, and lying is saying things that are false. Or is that too circular a definition?
He continued after a short pause, as though the rhetoricality of his question was also up for debate. “Because truth can be what helps us to survive. Because, in a certain sense, what leads you to your goal is true. That’s what the word meant, as in ‘an arrow that flies true’. And if your goal is to survive, then maybe lying is a perfectly valid method of getting there. And that makes it true.”
She found herself agreeing with this, which immediately raised her suspicions. He wasn’t going to smuggle Friendship under the rug, was he? What was his plan, his goal? And what would he say, in the guise of working toward that goal, if anything was permitted? Figuring this out intrigued her, and she paid considerably more attention to him than many, if not all, of the previous ponies.
He seemed to relax slightly, though he lost none of his vigor. “And that’s the case with a lot of our grand narratives. They may be ‘factually’-” he even made little air quotes with his hands “-incorrect, whatever you mean by ‘facts’, but let’s not even go there, and speak to a far, far deeper meaning than we can ever hope to obtain. That’s how you know they are true, because you can spend years studying them and still not expunge all the meaning. Like the story of Cain and Abel.”
Chrysalis frowned at the unfamiliar names, tilting her head to the side slightly. It was the largest reaction she had given the entire time, and he noticed.
“Cain and Abel?” he confirmed, likely rhetorically. She made no motion. "Hmm." He half-sighed, half-grunted, again at himself. "Well, I don't have the text in front of me, but I've read enough translations to at least get the general gist of it across. You see, after the creation story, and the collapse, it is the first story in the Bible, which is the religious text that served as the foundation of most of Western civilization.” He paused a moment, his face scrunching up.
She didn’t understand the references, except that they were probably not important, and dismissed his querying gaze with a swish of her hoof.
“Right. So, Cain and Abel.” He paused again, collecting his thoughts.
She began to grow weary of the constant pauses, but at least they were preferable to the hedges and corrections others made.
“It’s hard to summarize a story that’s only twenty-five sentences long, depending on your translation,” he finally said with a slight shake of his head. “We’re not really into history yet, but more of a meta-history. And Cain and Abel were the first two human beings, which I suppose is an analog for ponies, or changelings, but I’m not really sure how close a corollary one can draw between the three. Anyway, Cain was a farmer, a tiller of the ground, while Abel his brother was a shepherd, a keeper of sheep. And in those times, a shepherd was a heroic archetype, who defended his sheep against lions with a stick and sling. And Cain, being the older brother, was privileged with status, which was common at the time. So, not even two sentences in, you have a dichotomy between the two roles.”
Keeping sheep? Not exactly a pony occupation, and certainly not a noble one, instead relegated to those whose cutie mark obsessions failed to provide enough coin to support themselves. Hypothetically, if one considered a changeling responsible for maintaining her ‘flock’ of ponies whom she drew love from, then it could very well be noble, though that was not a model she had profitably maintained. It was too easy to be found out, and years of effort were wasted in a single moment.
And she could understand the ‘brother’ dynamic, especially the older siblings being protective of their younger brethren, even as she encouraged everyling to conform to her standards and in turn to encourage others to do the same. Perhaps if she had allowed less coddling for the traitor things might have turned out differently.
Peterson continued, “And they both performed sacrifices to God, where Abel gave his best and Cain gave, well, let’s just say it could be better. And it was the younger brother who was the one favored, or you could say the one who was properly manifesting the ideal, and not the older brother to whom everything was given. And this was the first time we see the motif of sacrifice, of giving up the present for the future. These early farmers living hand-to-mouth - or would you say hoof-to-mouth - they often had to confront a truly terrible choice. They were starving, during winter, let’s say, and they could eat the seeds that they needed to plant next year. But if they did, they wouldn’t survive that next year. And more of the ones who ate the seeds died because they had not properly allocated for the future, and they collectively learned from that. And that’s a hard lesson, one learned through innumerable instances of agony and suffering, of the wisdom of sacrificing the present for the future.”
Chrysalis grimaced. It was not a lesson the ponies knew, not like she did. Brutal winters spent huddling on frigid mountains, searing summers in the Badlands, all so she and her brood might make it to the next unsuspecting settlement upon which they might feed. How many had she lost, through no fault of their own? But their loss had taught her, etched into her deeper than the holes through her legs, the importance of always keeping a bottled reserve, of not breeding more than they could support, and to be on the lookout for any opportunity, no matter how minute, because that smidgen of love might be the difference between a ‘ling making it or not.
“And so people figured this out, they conceptualized it as a ritual, and encoded it in their stories, because that’s all they had, when functionally no one was literate at the time. They put it in their dramas, that you might give up something you value now in the often vain hope that it might pay off in the future. But anyway, back to the story. Cain saw how his brother, everything was going well for him. And his own efforts were rejected. So what do you do at that point?”
Several responses bounced through Chrysalis’ mind. Something was wrong, and you had to fix it. You could copy what your brother was doing, learn from him, and make those actions your own. With or without his permission. You could choose a different endeavor, one more suited for your abilities and temperament. She did that for plenty of ‘lings.
She scowled. Had done.
“Well,” Peterson continued after a short delay, long enough for her to answer but not if she had to seriously think through the question, “he got angry and disappointed, but more severe than that, which is quite understandable. So he went and found God, apparently, and told him that he’d gotten a rotten deal! Here he was, toiling and sweating in the fields, and God had the temerity to reject his offering?!”
Chrysalis blinked.
...That was an option? She would fly up to Faust and argue ‘You’ve given me a terrible place in life!’ and then everything would be better?
Wait, why was she identifying as Cain? Because she felt wronged, as he did? Or because she toiled, seemingly for nothing? She wasn’t Abel, despite her efforts prolonging her existence far longer than she thought possible. Maybe she was the lion, stalking at the outskirts, ready to pounce and take advantage of any lapse of vigilance!
As he talked he waved his hands, making circular motions that every once in a while swept into a grand wave. “Now, you might ask ‘who is God?’ and that’s a perfectly valid question. One that doesn’t have an easy answer. Let’s say, for our purposes, that God, the thing you are sacrificing to, and arguing with, is the spirit of society that produces the social contract through which you expect to be repaid for your sacrifice. It’s how we view money, dollars or bits, we view money the same way, where your present sacrifice entails that you can redeem it in the future for some commensurate value.”
Chrysalis grunted, bored of the redefinitions and conceptualizing of various segments of society as personas. What was next, was he going to claim the Tyrant of the Sun was a mother figure whose entire purpose was to fail, so her children might succeed in their endeavors without her devouring their potential?
Or you could say the same about her-
No. Never. She would regain her brood, take vengeance upon the interlopers and restore their might as changelings!
Peterson noted her impatience. “So,” he continued with the same circular hand movements, “Cain went to God, unhappy. Depressed. Angry. Resentful. And God asked him, ‘Why are you angry? If you do well, won’t you be accepted? And if you don’t do well, then sin lies at your door, like a sexually aroused predatory cat who wants to have its way with you.’”
Her loud snort momentarily startled Peterson out of his lewd, inviting gesture into a quizzical cock of his head.
Her maw hung open, rows of fangs exposed, taking fast pants of breath that might have been wry chuckles in less accusatory circumstances. He thinks I am the lion! How many times had she played out that very scene?
It took several moments to collect herself. She could scarcely believe that there existed stories from elsewhere about her. Or was she reading too much into this? She was Cain, she was the lion. Who would she be next?
“Now,” Peterson continued, carefully watching her, “was this what he wanted to hear?”
Her brutish snort told him everything.
“No!” He punctuated the shout with a sharp stab of his hand. “This wasn’t what he wanted to hear at all! He wanted to hear that the social contract failed him, that the entire system was faulty. But instead God told him that he was doing something wrong! And not only was he doing something wrong, he was doing the wrong things purposefully and creatively. That he invited the cat in, and their union produced something unholy, let’s say, and he bore complete responsibility for the terrible spot that he was in.”
Her teeth came together with a clink, her jaw clenching, her body otherwise still yet tensed like a coiled snake ready to pounce. It wasn’t loud, but the room was silent. It was only the lack of a direct accusation that kept her from lunging forward, from rending the soft flesh in front of her, no matter the veracity of his statement.
After a long while the red receded from her vision, her prodigious mind mulling over his words despite her vehement desire to disregard them. Was she Cain? Was that how she was supposed to interpret this story? As the perpetrator of wrong, a deliberate actor furthering malevolence and suffering?
No! She could not accept that. The ponies accused her of wrongdoing, but she did what she did to survive. They had denied her and her brood, over and over until there was no unraveling the tangled web of lies and accusations, and forced her to become what she was! There would be, could be no resolution for the decades upon centuries they had warred, sometimes covertly and other times outright.
With a huff and a scowl she sat back, relaxing her aggressive posture just a fraction. Yet her jaw stayed clenched, vicious fangs bared, a single snort permitting him to continue.
Rather than speak he studied her a moment longer. Perhaps to allow her to vent, should she see the need, or to prepare herself for the next bolt he would fling her way. For she doubted the characters would settle their differences with words, as the ponies preferred.
“So Cain,” Peterson said, voice carefully excised of emotion, “disillusioned with the nature of being, wrathful and vengeful at creation, went to his brother, his ideal worth emulating, and murdered him.”
Chrysalis flinched, her fury dissipating, even though she suspected this was coming. It was unthinkable. No, it had been unthinkable, but ever since the traitor absconded with her hive she had mulled over far too many possibilities of how she would enact her revenge to have not considered it. She bore no compassion for him, nor any of the others who abandoned her, and refused to acknowledge his existence when he came to ‘reform’ her.
“Enough,” she whispered, quiet yet resolute. He shut his muzzle, though there was obviously more to the story. Perhaps more killing? But she didn’t want to hear that, even inured as she was to the reality of life, to the necessity of death. It wasn’t something she enjoyed, the pain or fury or even resignation of her prey in their final moments. It was impossible to avoid, as in tune as she was with the emotions of everycreature around her, and reminded her of the grief she felt when her own brood passed away.
Maybe she had gone soft. She used to sack cities and devastate them, scattering the survivors to the stars. It was, perhaps, a waste, and she had refined her techniques to reduce such outcomes, though the primary reason and benefit was through increasing their collection of love. But ever since Celestia riddled her with holes she couldn’t bring herself to such actions. Even when the Tyrant was captured she forbade revenge, though that was pragmatic more than anything else - there was no sense in condemning the world to ice and fire, not when she would rule it. Nor was her hindsight reliable; what good would murdering Cadance and the Elements at the wedding have done except cede the Crystal Empire - and perhaps more - to Sombra when he returned? Or when she had Celestia and Luna’s magic locked in the bell, and she argued for extending their life. She did not aim to kill, and they paid her the same courtesy. It was, given her current circumstances, preferable. Perhaps.
So they waited. And as they waited she wondered how the story would end. Was there a cycle of killing, on and on, ad nauseum until the present day? And thus highlighted the importance of forgiveness? That would be a very pony thing to finish with, though nopony would ever have told a story so brutal to get that point across. Maybe a griffon would, or a dragon, though their ending would not be so idyllic.
“Why are you here?” she demanded coldly. She motioned to her meager furnishings, since it was obviously not for the ambiance. “Just to tell stories?”
“Hmm,” Peterson grunted. “That’s a good question.” He sat back a little, hand rubbing at his chin as he mulled it over.
She didn’t think he would pat himself on the back for having asked himself the same question when he first arrived, but she wouldn’t put it past him, either.
"To be sure I understand your question," he clarified, "are you asking why I told that long-winded story when surely a shorter explanation would have been just as effective?"
"Sure," she snidely replied.
"Mm," he said, not looking like he completely believed her but going along with it.
She found she respected that. But what benefit would there be in calling her bluff?
“We all tell stories,” he explained. “We are fundamentally narrative creatures. That’s how our brains are organized. Our cognitive abilities are nested inside stories. And we extend those stories outward, and upward, creating these grand narratives in order to explain the world around us. And this was really conceptualized and put forth by Carl Jung and his archetypes, such as the heroic figure, the wise king, or the devouring mother. We tell stories to each other as the best, most relatable, most gripping way to communicate about the structure of reality. To deny the validity of large-scale narratives, or to think that we can talk to each other without telling stories, is to deny the validity of how we organize our psyches, and that’s unbelievably destabilizing for people.”
“I wasn’t saying that stories are inherently meaningless,” Chrysalis spat out defensively. “Unless you think that is what I believe, and that is why I’m the way I am. In which case, you know nothing about me.”
She stared at him, chilling the atmosphere with her gaze.
“Mm,” he grunted again, this time adding a single nod of his head. “You know, that’s right. I don’t know much about your history, and what the ponies were able to share was woefully inadequate, at best.”
Chrysalis snorted, though she was again surprised at his admission. Most ponies she saw pretended to know everything about her, why she did what she did, why she was who she was, and came with preconceptions and prejudices that tainted every interaction. She despised it, and them.
“Maybe you can help with that,” Peterson continued, inviting her in the same way she would secure invitations into houses from unsuspecting ponies.
She found herself unconsciously brightening at the opportunity, that perhaps he might be different, and immediately cut that seed off. He wouldn’t be. And she wouldn’t let herself be trapped that easily!
“But to answer the first half of your question, I’m here to help you.” The corners of his mouth tugged to a scant smile. “As cliche as that sounds, I know. But I would say…” He trailed off again, hand scratching at his short cropped beard contemplatively. “I would say that I’m here to help you find meaning in your life. Because a life with meaning is the best antidote to the chaos that surrounds us, inescapably, and the suffering innately saddled upon all of us.” He chuckled at the pony pun, however unintentional.
“I’ve met Chaos,” she spat out. “He intended to betray us, to sacrifice us on the altar to the ponies’ sense of self-confidence. A mere hurdle the ponies might crest so Sparkle would feel better about taking the throne.”
She wasn’t sure if she got the terminology right, as only the griffons practiced any sort of ritualized murder of their captives, and Celestia stamped out that abhorrent practice centuries ago. But the imagery certainly felt correct. She never bothered with anything so formal, if somecreature needed disposing, and they invariably ended up down someling’s gullet. Waste not, want not.
“Mm,” he grunted, and then waited.
Ugh. Could he be more transparent? The last thing she wanted was to talk about her feelings, how crushed she was at her plans going awry yet again. So she waited, as patient as a block of stone, and was elated when he blinked first.
“So that’s why I think I’m here.” He leaned forward, interested in her answer, paying close attention to her. “Why do you think I’m here?”
There it was. “Oh?” she sneered, giving a taunting laugh as she settled back. “Are you hoping I will lay bare all my secrets? Or just the one where my dam was a magical flytrap and my sire left as I was born, only spending enough time to erect a sign condemning me? And this was responsible for all my suffering and malevolence?”
That would do it, giving him a convenient Oedipal excuse. She harbored no attraction to Star Swirl, nor any other pony for that matter, but was curious what he would project onto her.
If her answer perplexed him he hid it well. “Mm,” he grunted, which seemed to be his general response to anything. He chuckled to himself as he glibly said, “Well, they’re paying me either way, so whichever one you want, I suppose. I’ve got however long you need, though I might need to take a break now and then.”
“Wait,” Chrysalis interjected, cocking her head to regard him quizzically. “You’re getting paid for this?”
Peterson nodded. “I don’t know if I should say how much, but they did include a chariot tour of Canterlot and Ponyville, narrated by a very amiable and knowledgeable dragon.” He awkwardly scratched the back of his neck, whispering as an aside, “Truth be told, I would have preferred riding in a balloon.”
“Nopony else was paid,” Chrysalis muttered to herself. “They all saw it as their ‘civic duty’, or so I gathered.” She cocked her head as she looked at him. “What makes you so special?”
“That’s a good question.” The frown that crossed his face mirrored his confusion. “Because my time is valuable,” he stated forthrightly. He left unstated what this must mean for the other ponies. “And, obviously, they think that your time must be too, or else why would they pay for it?”
Because Sparkle can be as stubborn as I can. At least it wasn’t for some unbroken streak; she had failed, twice, with convincing Sombra to be anything other than a one-dimensional villain, and overheard similar remarks regarding her two prior… ‘allies’ would be too strong a word. Convenient pawns, at best. She wouldn’t have thought Sparkle would give up on her, even despite her earlier remark. No, she’d just be turned to stone for a decade or two. However long it took for another brilliant idea to blossom, or another crop of ponies to want to have a go at her, and not in the productive way she convinced most ponies to, and she’d have to sit through another tedious month of failed conversations.
“How valuable do you think your time is?” Peterson probed.
“Unquantifiably,” she retorted snidely. “Though I seem to have an awfully large amount of it as of late.”
He took her response in stride, merely nodding along, as if any response was an improvement over silence. “What makes it difficult for you to put a number down?” He paused for a moment, not enough for her to respond. “Some of my previous clients might have said things like lack of experience, or low self-esteem, or just that they got so scared at even the idea of going outside that just the thought terrified them.”
“Oh, nothing like that,” she smoothly retorted. “The number would be negative.” She waited a beat before explaining, “Because I steal things.” She licked her full lips, lingering on the bottom row of sharp incisors as she moaned at the carnal memories evoked, leaving a glisten trail dangling from one fang. “Love, bits, ideas. Mates, if only for a night.” She winked at him, and her smile only grew as he rubbed one hand against the other, searching for the trinket ponies often exchanged as a sign of their union.
“Mm,” he grunted, a touch less sure of himself this time, before a wry smile crossed his muzzle. “So people should pay you to stay away from them. And maybe there’s a value in that.”
She couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity.
“That reminds me of a Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard.” Peterson paused briefly, staring off at the ceiling before returning to her. “He lived toward the end of the Industrial Revolution, when people’s lives were being made far easier from technological progress, and he had a hard time discovering what he was supposed to do. So he thought that he might be a person who makes life more difficult, because there will come a time in people’s lives where they don’t want ease, they want something to strive against.”
Like she did for Sparkle? She scowled.
He eyed her, cautiously, then said in a mocking tone, “I want an easy, happy life.” He shook his head, and she agreed with the absurdity of that statement, not to mention its impossibility. “No, that isn’t what people truly want. An optimal challenge. Doing something worth accomplishing. That’s what people want.”
It all sounded… suspiciously similar to how Discord manipulated her. Yet she knew she was more than that! More than a monster of the week to be beaten back, some sort of Oubliette Overlord constructing challenges to overcome, or the recurring villain who existed purely to escape her cage and come back for revenge.
Was that what he thought she should become? Embrace her role as ‘The Bad Girl’, and maybe form a support group with all the other pathetic villains where they blathered about their ‘feelings’? Ugh, she’d take permanent petrification over that miserable existence.
“You know me so well,” she purred, taking her first step of this awakening. She lowered herself, if just to make her presence less threatening, as she often found taking a tall form made the shorter stallions less sure of themselves. Her tail swished alluringly, her wings spreading to make a larger surface to rest on. “Would you like to know me more?”
“Mm,” he grunted.
“That’s a good question,” they both said together. She copied his tone perfectly.
He chuckled at that, and she snatched that amusement and transformed in a flash of green.
“Huh,” the two humans said as they stared at each other. The only difference was her suit was the blue of her wings; they were otherwise identical.
“You know,” Jordan Peterson laughed as he looked over the copy of himself, “there was a time when I worried that I might become a parody of myself.”
“Parody?” she echoed. DJ P0N-3 would be jealous as she perfectly spliced his words. “I’m Dr. Jedan Porterson. Hello.”
“Hello,” he responded amiably - well, as amiable as he could while biting his tongue. “Your execution is flawless, at least as far as I can tell.”
“Mm,” she grunted. She was just that good, wasn’t she?
“Mm,” he grunted back, smirking.
“Mm,” she grunted, suppressing her laughter.
“Mm.”
“Mm.”
“So I wrote a book,” Peterson said, obviously changing the subject, since they could have repeatedly grunted for hours, “called Twelves Rule For Life, An Antidote to Chaos. And in it, I detail the steps you should take to lead a meaningful life.”
“Everyone knows that might drive you to thoughts of suicide,” Porterson stated in exactly his tone. “Turn you against life itself. You could spend years and still not expunge all the ponies. They can be difficult beyond imagining and tolerance.”
His face scrunched up as his frown deepened. “No,” he stated bluntly. “We tried that. It didn’t work.”
“Maybe it’s because it’s more of a meta-narrative,” she guessed, stitching together his previous phrases. “How much it is better to live with the malevolence that entices us. There’s a heroic archetype, the sexually aroused predatory cat-” she lewdly motioned like he did “-and their union produced something that is God.”
“I see,” he said, somewhat annoyed. “That’s not so good.”
“Or,” she spouted, “it does a lovely job of elucidating in narrative form how these self-evident moral presuppositions are necessarily nested inside a broader metaphorical substrate.”
“Now you’re just stringing words together,” he asserted, crossing his arms across his chest, “ignorant of the meaning behind them.”
Chrysalis huffed. She hated being called out on her actions, especially when they were right. She transformed back into her natural self, not willing for her reserves to dip too low without him replenishing them. He didn’t seem too surprised. “Then explain yourself, if it’s so simple. How should I act?”
“Mm,” he said, not rising to her goading.
“And you better not say that’s a good question,” Chrysalis spat out.
“It’s not just a good question,” he countered in sheer defiance. “It’s the question. An insanely difficult question, quite possibly the most complex and hard to answer we’ve come up with. It’s at the heart of every religion, every culture, and even evolution takes its own blood-drenched stab at answering it. I’ve written two books on the subject, which took years of research to merely make my own pathetic attempt. Though I like to think I did a pretty good job, seeing how many people have responded positively, with Twelve Rules especially.”
“Then explain,” she prompted. Her words were cold and harsh, but she truly wanted to know. Despite the pithiness of the statement, changelings could change, and she had adapted more times than she cared to count. And if it saved her from a fate as a statue, allowed her a chance at revenge? She could say, do, be whatever it took to reach that goal.
“How you should live.” Peterson paused for a moment, and she nodded. “Some of this comes from Jean Piaget, and it’s a deep way of looking at things. Obviously, you should act so things are good for you. Like you are taking care of someone you are responsible for, such as a pet, which is one of the chapters in my book. You wouldn’t let someone you are responsible for get away with nearly as much as you would let yourself. But you can’t act just for yourself; you need to consider family, and society, and the broader environment. You have to balance how you act at all those levels simultaneously. And not only do you have to act for yourself in the now, it has to be valid next week, and next year, and ten years from now. There’s no sense in betraying your future self for the present! Acting properly requires harmonious balancing of all these levels simultaneously.”
Chrysalis nodded, which she found herself doing a lot of. Being Queen had already taught her the importance of what he was saying, of considering the ramifications of the future and to consider her entire hive. But the idea that she would, that she must consider how society would take her actions? They shall serve at her behest, not the other way around!
“Another aspect of living properly is seen in sports. A performance is at its most exciting not when a routine is performed perfectly, but when there is an element of danger, they are on the brink of disaster, and yet manifesting their discipline in a way that signifies improvement, stretching into the unknown. It’s the balance of order and chaos; you don’t want to stagnate, doing the same things over and over, but neither do you want to fail all the time. It’d be too stressful.”
“For some,” she retorted. Some ‘lings thrived as scouts or infiltrators, where the territory outside shifted more treacherously than the walls of her hive. When she had a hive. Others were more suited for staying inside, taking care of nymphs or prisoners, where conditions did not change as frequently.
He waved a hand, acknowledging her point. “We have a brain that is attuned to this balance. That tells you it’s meaningful when you are at the edge of order and chaos. Where chaos is the land of the unknown, where things are too complex to handle, and order is the known, which can easily become too rigid. You should be balanced across those two, one foot in each, to both stabilize and renew for all these things across times. The Daoists have an excellent model of this with Yin and Yang, dots inside waves of white and black that continuously engulf each other. You can see this existential demonstration modeled in music, and is the reason why music is so meaningful to us. Imagine an orchestra, with different instruments doing different things, but they all come together harmoniously and fill us with a sense of religious awe. Music models the proper way to exist.”
“Again with ‘harmony’ and acting together!” she blurted out. She couldn’t help but scowl. Some of her brood tried to involve her in the songs and dances the ponies had taught them. But she stuck out like a dissonant chord, and they no longer cared for minor keys and counter-melodies. “You are trying to make us just like ponies!”
“Hmm,” he grunted, sitting back a little and motioning with a hand for her to continue.
“What?” she shouted, vehemently staring him down as her voice rose even more. “That isn’t enough? That my people, my changelings, are losing what makes them unique? That our culture is being ground out like so much cud, spat out and crapped out until we become just like ponies?”
Peterson studied her for a moment, long enough for her to huff and turn her head away.
“I don’t think so,” he said, and she looked back at him out of the corner of one eye. “And you can correct me if I’m wrong. But from where I stand, if that was all that it was, you would have acted differently, to preserve and integrate your culture with that of the ponies.”
“Preserve?” She spun around to face him. “Integrate!?” She could not have put more venom in her words, and she tried. Rage poured out of her, pent up not only from the months wasted as Sparkle’s pet project but from the years and years before that. “That’s exactly the problem! Changelings…”
She broke off, her emotions already spent. She was exhausted. She could not remember a time when she was this weak, this pathetic. She could barely manage righteous indignation, not to mention fury, and felt herself slipping into an apathy only present in ‘lings dying of starvation.
But she was stronger than that! She was Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings!
“You are ignorant of Changeling history,” she snapped, whirling to her full height as iridescent green wings fanned out behind her in an imperious display. “And you know nothing of pony history, either!” A broad sweep nearly knocked the human over as she motioned to her sparse surroundings. “Celestia has ruled this land for a thousand years. And what has she accomplished for her efforts?”
She glared down on him, and a lesser creature might have quailed under the pressure. But his gaze remained steady, which did nothing to abate her rage.
“Nothing!” she bellowed. “They tell stories of Hearth’s Warming, and how-” her voice raised to a falsetto almost as high as her utter disdain “-everypony should come together in love and harmony!”
She spat at the floor, and he automatically moved his foot away.
“But do you know how utterly simple it was to turn them against each other? To break all their tenets of harmony? It was so easy, even Tirek could do it!”
Rage left her body, and there would be no third wind. She slumped over on her bed, cradling the lavender log like it was a young nymph. She stared up at the ceiling through teary eyes.
“All that power,” she sniffed, wiping away the tears. “All that power, all that potential, wasted. If I controlled… If everypony was under my control, there would be no limit to our greatness!”
She glanced over, afraid of his reaction. Would he condemn her for her ambition? Would there be hatred, or scorn, or disgust? That was how everypony else reacted when they heard of her goals.
Would he call her out, claim it was just an act? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried, and been accused, of that before.
Or worse, would there be apathy? Because she was an insignificant insect who would never amount to anything. And, as he might say, everypony knows it to be true.
But instead? There was concern. And not a patronizing concern, but a genuine hope that her aspiration wasn’t meaningless, that it was worth striving for and sacrificing for. There was a smile on his face, a bona fide smile full of warmth, and he patiently waited for her.
It gave her hope, a tiny bit of strength, and she continued in a low voice.
“And it’s…” she started, closing her eyes as she stroked the log. It gave her comfort, but nothing compared to what she could steal from him. And, yet…
Devouring that love felt wrong. Like she would be sacrificing her future for the present, at best getting a meal before Sparkle burst in and petrified her. And that…
That wouldn’t be in her, or her hive’s, best interest. Or in the best interest of the ponies. Of society.
She scowled at the injustice of it, that somepony else might be right, but there it was.
“It’s their fault,” she claimed. She felt drained, unwilling to support her position further. “I may not be blameless, but Friendship is not the answer.”
She curled into a ball on the bed.
Would he leave? A part of her wanted that. So she might be alone with her misery. So he wouldn’t see her weakness.
“What is the answer?” he asked regardless, refusing her unspoken request.
She lay there, uncaring. She wished Sparkle would barge through the door, declare her unable to be reformed, and petrify her. She might even muster the strength to regain her furious pose.
There came a rustling from behind her, then a loud scrape as he dragged the table next to her bed. She rolled, lethargic yet curious, to see what he was up to.
He produced a pen from inside his suit jacket, then two blank sheets of paper, which he placed on the table facing her. He clicked the pen, extending the tip from the opposite end, and he placed it next to the paper in easy reach.
“I developed a program called the Self Authoring Suite,” Peterson explained as she sat up, taking the pen in her hoof.
It was a fascinating design, self contained without the possibility of ink dripping off a quill, and she pressed the clicker experimentally. Then she gently twisted, and to her surprise the top half rotated.
“It helps you analyze your past, going over key experiences that helped shape who you are today, as well as understand your faults and virtues. But what I wanted to try was a part of the Future Authoring section, where you envision a meaningful, productive future, and the steps necessary to get you there.”
By the time he finished speaking she had fully disassembled the pen. She brought the long, thin inkwell to her tongue, only to find him staring at her with a lengthening frown. She glanced down at the neat row of components, then back up at him, with the smile of a nymph caught muzzle deep in her stores of love.
She tasted the ink, heedless of his consternation. Coal. Oil. A half-dozen other substances, minute amounts, with unknown purposes. She may be able to reproduce them, though spawning a specialized ‘ling for mass production would be preferable.
With a few swift motions she reassembled the pen, setting it next to the papers and grinning at Peterson as if nothing had happened. And certainly not designing the factory needed to mass produce the springs and casings.
“So,” he said, bemused with her antics yet ignorant of her true intentions. He motioned to one sheet. “I would like you to envision, to write out, what you think the best possible future is for you, three to five years down the road. Now, it should be something attainable, so Queen of the Universe is probably right out.”
She glared at him.
He chuckled. “Okay, with your ambition, maybe it is. But focus more on the people around you. Those you admire. The social networks you will have built, the family you have. Career. Education. What do you do for fun, leisure. How much time is spent on each of these pursuits.”
Chrysalis stared at the page in front of her. What should she write about? He would see through something pithy in an instant. What if…
What if she actually considered the question?
Revenge.
It was almost a given, as easily as the word sprung to her mind. Ink flowed like water, all onto the page and none on her hoof, as she listed the people around her that she would take her revenge on. Starlight Glimmer deserved a place at the top of the list, and she spat as she wrote the name. Celestia next, then Sparkle, then the traitor. The list could run on and on. Those she admired? Hah! But her hive would be reborn, restored - no, exalted at the pinnacle of society! She needed no formal career except as Queen, everycreature bowing to her might! Education? It was still a priority for her ‘lings, the new broods that would be spawned and raised.
She quickly reached the end of the page, and by his look of astonishment it was far faster than anypony else would have finished.
He motioned to the other sheet as she spun the pen in her hoof. “Now, same thing, but-”
“Wait,” she interrupted. “You don’t want to read it?”
“Only if you want me to,” he said carefully. “But this is for you. You are the one who decides your goals. Just like everyone has their own problems, and will find meaning in solving those problems, everyone needs their own goals.”
She pushed the finished page at him. It didn’t feel as good as she thought it would. She thought there would be some satisfaction in seeing his reaction to her ambitions. But if he didn’t see it as his duty to criticize, to condemn her for them, if he was just an uninterested observer?
He took it, but didn’t start reading. He continued, “You’ll still think three to five years in the future. But this time, write the worst possible outcome you can think of. What are your relationships like? How does society view you? Your family, career, free time. This way, you have a little heaven to work toward-” he held up her completed page “-and a little hell to run away from.” He motioned to the blank page in front of her.
This time, the words didn’t come as easily. Celestia and Luna seemed to think that being petrified with her former pawns was a fitting end, but that didn’t seem terrible enough. Sure, you could have her tortured, tossed into a volcano for years while a dragon ate her subjects as she screamed in vain. But having escaped that confinement once, and devoured the great Sergio alive, she knew any sort of external torment would be met with resistance and either overcoming or death.
No, the worst possible outcome would be the one that she inflicted on herself. As Cain had with the lion. Where it was her plans, her decisions, that led her to Tartarus. Only there were worse places than an eternal prison.
She struggled to get the words down. Starlight Glimmer and Celestia and Sparkle, they wouldn’t condemn her. They would look at her failure, her repeated failures, with not scorn but disappointment.
And she would be alone. Abandoned by her hive. Even her block of wood, the only remnant of her once vast power, combusted by her own horn. Freed from her shackles, but unable to attain anything.
Fury rose inside her as she slashed words onto the page. Each stroke of her pen only fueled that raging fire, directed at the ponies who might inflict it upon her. She would never let that happen! She would slog through a thousand pits of lava, push the moon through the heavens with her bare hooves before allowing that!
A minute later and she was done. The page looked like her leg, black with cramped writing, ripped and torn where she had stabbed the pen through. But it was there. A little - hah! - hell to run away from.
To her great annoyance, he held up her little heaven. But there was no revulsion, no disgust and loathing. As if her intended actions couldn’t hold a candle to what he had seen and read.
And that frightened her. But when confronted with fight or flight? She fought.
“Some of these are a bit vague.” He slid the page back to her, finger indicating the first line. “For example, ‘revenge’. What does that look like? Be specific.”
Rage rose past fear as she struck the table, toppling the flimsy metal to the side!
“I would twist their horns until they popped off their skulls! Shear Celestia’s wings and mane! Burn Sparkle’s library in front of her! And her friends! I would! I would…”
She stared down. Her ‘little hell’ clung to her foreleg, impaled on one of the jagged sections. A shake of her leg failed to dislodge it, and she couldn’t bring herself to tug it away.
She glanced up at the human. He had taken a defensive step backward, looked startled and perhaps afraid, but was otherwise unharmed. The food was strewn across the floor, the cider still intact but leaking. He was watching her carefully, as he had the entire time.
Her gaze returned to the paper.
How her hell would cling to her, even should she be successful at ruining the ponies who opposed her. And how, should she… should she fail, it would certainly be the case. And it would be entirely her fault for choosing that path. And then she would never change. Never grow, never improve.
“Give me another piece of paper,” she ordered. But her imperious manner was a sham, and she knew it, and by the calm way he reached inside his jacket and pulled out another sheet he knew it too.
“If we don’t aim at something,” Peterson said as he slid the paper on the stone in front of her, “we’ll never achieve it. That doesn’t mean that aiming at something is sufficient. You’ll still need to work at it, and you might fail.”
Anger entered his voice, backed by the knowledge of what would happen if she didn’t. “But you should bloody well pick the right thing to aim at. You need to be truthful in all of your pursuits, as otherwise you corrupt the very process of improving. And that doesn’t work.”
She nodded, chastened. Her thoughts turned to her changelings, and their achievements. They were productive, given the proper constraints and reward structures. Or they had been; she wasn’t sure what motivated them now. But this was her best future, and she would have figured that out. Would they become captains of industry, utilizing the techniques of the best craftponies, the ancient knowledge of dragons, the ruthlessness of griffons? Or, perhaps artists, creators of culture and music, dramas whose actors far surpassed the schmucks they seemingly pulled off the street?
“How does the story end?” she begged, her anger gone. She bent down, one leg at a time, slowly so as to not startle the human, until her barrel rested against the floor. When he didn't immediately answer she whispered, “Cain. How does his story end?”
He gathered his thoughts as he carefully righted the table and cider, then sat close to her. His words were solemn, barely loud enough to reach her. “God found out what Cain had done. He declared his punishment thus: Cain would be cursed by the earth, which would no longer yield itself to him. He would be a fugitive and vagabond.”
Resignation filled her. It was as she thought. Unable to derive sustenance from the earth, cursed and reviled by society. Familiar ground.
“So Cain cried out, that this punishment was more than he could bear. That he would be killed by everyone who found him. And so God put a mark on Cain. That whomever killed Cain, vengeance shall be taken upon him sevenfold.”
Seven!? Unless it was a meaningful number, as six was to the ponies, that seemed entirely excessive. More than enough to get the point across, which was perhaps the point.
“Then there’s a bit of genealogy,” Peterson said with a dismissive wave of his hand, “the exact names unimportant. But what is important is that while Cain may be avenged sevenfold, his son would be avenged seventy and seven times. And looming on the horizon was the artificer of the weapons of war.”
“So there are only two stable equilibriums.” Chrysalis glumly sighed into her hooves, the page ruffling in the wind. All that time cultivating an aura of fear. Was it all wasted? “Zero retribution. Or a retribution that kills the entirety of the opposition.”
“The opposition?” he asked. No, demanded, his temper rising. “What opposition? The people who disagree with you now? The people who will disagree with you at some point in the future?” He shook his head, short and decisive strokes. “We tried that. It doesn’t work. Because very soon you’ll find yourself as a majority of one. Because that’s all that’s left.”
She snorted, finding a small bit of mirth. “I could rebuild from there.”
His wry smile was unamused. “Perhaps. If you’re lucky enough to be the one left, and you didn’t get taken out in the second wave, a Lenin to some worse Stalin. And some people just want to watch the world burn. They see creation as unjust, as filled with suffering. And they have a point, you have to give the devil his due. The world is filled with suffering and injustice. But it’s our duty, all of our duties, to work toward meaningful lives that confront that suffering.”
“So we must do what you said before.” She waved a hoof at him, and while it might have originally served to brush him off, to push him away, she grasped instead, searching.
And closer he came, clasping her hoof with his hand.
He was warm against her clammy chitin. Firm, unafraid of the jagged areas around her holes. She clenched, and he clenched back, resisting her tug with just as much force as she put in. She found it comforting, far more than she would have liked.
“Living on the border between order and chaos.” She twisted, peering into his eyes. They were busy inspecting her foreleg and unshod hoof, but still met her gaze. “Do you think that was intentional?” She motioned outside with her other hoof. “To have Sparkle and the Elements come from Ponyville, a town at the literal boundary between order and chaos?”
“I don’t know enough to say,” he said. “Perhaps Princess Celestia knows.” It was impossible to miss her scowl. “But if you asked me to speculate, I think we do a lot of things unconsciously that mirror deep narratives. Perhaps it was just a big, scary place where the unknown resides. Because that is where adventure and treasure lies.”
“Mm,” she grunted. “And ponies are on the other side. A grand order, ossifying those it purports to protect. They have not changed in a thousand years.”
“Order gone too far,” Peterson agreed. “Sometimes we need that safety and security. But we also need to venture into the unknown, because we don’t know everything.”
“I think it is the fault of cutie marks,” she mused. She found herself qualifying her statements like he did. “And I don’t mean to pin the blame on others. But it is deserved.”
“Cutie marks?” he prompted with a glance at her flank.
She wished there was more behind the glance than gathering information. “Changelings don’t get them. Only ponies, when they discover what will give them joy in life. And they gain skills and knowledge pertaining to that domain. That is lost when they perish.”
“Ah,” Peterson said. “So you think the reason, one of the reasons, behind the ponies’ stagnation is their cutie marks give them what they need, or allow them to see what will give them meaning.”
He prompted her with a motion of his free hand.
“Precisely. They lack the curiosity, the drive, to venture into the unknown.” She looked down at her limb, twisting it so the holes were most prominent. “My hunger, our hunger, drove us forward. We refined our techniques. In extraction, to maximize the love we gained from an amorous suitor while minimizing the lasting consequences. In impersonation, until we could mimic a target as they were acting. In magic, until we could communicate across vast distances, teleport unwilling targets, and even negate the mystical powers unicorns and others might wield. Would none of that have been achieved had we been sated from the start?”
“Mm,” he grunted, and she nearly reached up to smack him.
She would have if he said it was a good question.
He noticed, as he said, “Difficult to say. Did you find meaning in that pursuit?”
She considered. And not just his question, but the hypothetical as well. If she could go back, to the very start, and give love - convert to Friendlings - would she do it? Were the centuries of suffering worthwhile? What would they have accomplished? Would they ever have made it out of the swamp, ventured forth into the dangerous unknown, when they could have sat around sharing love?
They would have made nothing of themselves. Never grown, never improved. Never changed.
“I did.”
She might have said more. Despite all the setbacks, the obstacles, the suffering in her wake. It was worth it.
“And, to be sure I understand your position.” He paused, frowning briefly. “To me, it sounds like, after a millennium of searching, the solution to the problem of this hunger of yours is sharing love.”
She nodded, wanting to interject that there was more to it than that, but he continued.
“And that’s tied up with the problem of ‘what now?’ Because life is not about the destination. Not purely. Life is better summarized as a series of journeys, and we are beasts of burden that need both a heavy load and something to strive toward. And so you no longer have that clear goal. And that’s also entangled with the, hmm, how would you say, joining and integration of the bulk of the changeling people into the broader pony and global society in a manner that allows for their continual improvement.”
“Indeed,” was all she could muster.
“That’s quite the challenge.” She met his gaze, and saw the twinkle in his eye. “Something worthwhile to pursue. Something meaningful.”
Something worthwhile. Something meaningful.
The words echoed in her mind. Here was a path she could take, one that would help not just her but her changelings as well. So that they wouldn’t lose that drive to improve, to succeed. But getting there wouldn’t be easy. She couldn’t afford distractions from such a worthwhile goal. What would she have to sacrifice? Could she give up her hive?
No! They were hers! She was doing this for them!
But maybe she could give up her need for control. If what she was doing was… was a meaningful way to live, and a proper way, then she wouldn’t need to force anyling to join. They could, they would choose to follow her example.
Could she give up her thirst for revenge? On Starlight, on Celestia, on Sparkle?
...Yes. It wouldn’t be easy. But she could, if she and her kind needed to integrate with the ponies. And any other distractions, things that might hinder her efforts, that might reduce the greatness they would attain. That wouldn’t stop her from confronting the ponies where they were in the wrong, or too stifling. But… she wouldn’t be doing it with malice.
But with love.
She staggered forward, almost a lunge, and threw her forelegs around Peterson.
“Thank you,” she whispered as she hugged the stunned human, tighter than she had ever hugged her own young. Words spilled out of her, a keening lament she meant with every fiber of her being. “I was depressed, addicted to the rush I got from stealing love. I had no goals beyond myself, no real relationships. I know I can change that, will change that, and become a better person. And I have you to thank for that.”
Her eyes closed as he awkwardly reached his arms around her back, bumping into her wings before clasping his hands against her elytra. She felt a wetness against her chitin. Tears? Hers or his? She took a deep breath, mentally preparing herself. What was it like for the traitor… for Thorax, for the others? An overwhelming sense of joy, of assuredness, of rightness?
One moment passed, then another.
She felt no different.
She opened one eye, glancing down.
Her legs, tightly wrapped as they were around his back, were still black and holey.
A thin growl escaped her muzzle as she pushed him away.
“You okay?” he asked, confused.
“Hey!” she shouted, furiously raising a hoof at the ceiling, at Faust herself. “Where’s my transformation!? My sleek new body, all whites and pretty pastels! I still have holes in my legs!”
“What?” he exclaimed, exaggerating his shock as he brushed off his suit. “You expected to have a radical transformation happen in the blink of an eye, undoing a millennium of neural pathways and habits, because you made a single decision? That isn’t how this works.”
She scowled at her still-pocked limbs. She felt an awful lot like Cain, and it was a good thing she had a distinct lack of brothers to murder. “It worked for Pharynx, when he changed his ways.”
Peterson rolled his eyes. “Okay, so you have one example-”
“And the rest of the changelings, when they deserted me.”
He closed his mouth, crossed his arms across his chest, and stared at her unamused.
“And Twilight Sparkle,” Chrysalis muttered. “When she became an alicorn. And the rest of the Elements of Harmony when they defeated Tirek. And Sunset Shimmer. And Twilight Sparkle again, but the other one. And Stygian.”
If anything, his glare intensified.
She meekly added, “And every time a pony gets their cutie mark.” She glanced at him. “I don’t think it worked.”
“Look,” he said sternly, arms gripped across his chest like he was choking out a changeling queen, “You can keep making excuses about why you should give up. I get that. But just because you didn’t have some-” he waved his arms around like an earth pony pretending to be a unicorn “-mystical, transformative experience doesn’t mean you’re on the wrong track.”
“It’d be easier if I had one,” she muttered.
“Easier? Oh, sure. But would it be as meaningful? Could you stick with it as long?” He shook his head. “No. I don’t think so. And you can’t compare yourself today to someone else. You have to compare yourself today to who you were yesterday.”
“Is that one of your rules in your book?” she asked, frustrated with herself. But more so with reality.
“It is,” he said, brightening. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a copy. “Would you like to read it?”
“Well,” she said, rolling her eyes as she took the book. “If I’m doing this the hard way. Is your way the right way?”
“Mm,” he grunted. “That’s a good question.”
She threw the book at him.