Following her defeat, a solitary Queen Chrysalis attempts to start a new life as a regular pony.
When Queen Chrysalis was defeated, she was blasted to the inhospitable Badlands. Separated from her army and starving for lack of love, Chrysalis is rescued by an unknowing pony who points her in the direction of the nearest town: Ponyville. As the battle-worn queen treks to the small town, she decides that she is tired of fighting a losing battle and would rather just settle down and live a normal life. But old grudges don't just lay down and die, and Chrysalis somehow managed to choose the one town home to all six of the ponies responsible for her downfall.
Limbo trotted across the Bad Lands, his hooves crushing the occasional dry twig or knocking about the loose gravel so prevalent in this stretch of wilderness. The earth pony's silver-gray mane was being teased about by the wind, blowing in front of eyes set deep into the wrinkles of his face, scrunched up against the glare of the setting sun.
As he slowly walked across the scrubland, Limbo scanned the horizon for any sign of civilization, and found none. Excellent. This was his kind of place. He found a suitable spot and began to arrange stones in a circle to form a campfire.
Limbo began to hum as he worked on getting the pile of sticks ablaze. He was not wanting for dry kindling, and soon had a little fire up and blazing. He was just preparing to start his dinner when he caught a snippet of a voice carried on the wind. Looking around for the source of the noise, Limbo heard another small sound, and he would be damned if it didn't sound like some poor mare crying somewhere behind him.
Getting up slowly and with much cracking in his joints, Limbo trotted away from his fire in search of the mare. As he walked, he began to notice a discoloration in the ground a few yards ahead. A closer examination revealed it to be a small crevice, and sure enough there appeared to be scraped up white unicorn mare at the bottom.
Peering down at the poor lass, Limbo couldn't help but wonder how she'd gotten stuck there in the first place. "'Scuze me, ma'am, but might I offer you some assistance? I think you might be in a wee bit over yer head."
The startled mare quickly looked up, amazed that someone had found her. "C-can you get me out of here?" she stammered, looking up at the miraculous pony above her.
"Well, I can certainly try," he replied. "You just sit tight for a minute now, I'm gonna go fetch some rope. Don't you worry now, I'll be right back 'fore you even know I'm gone."
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Limbo and the unicorn mare sat around the campfire warming their hooves while the night sky above them twinkled with the light of countless stars. He examined her closely while she stared deep into the fire, absorbed in her own ineffable thoughts. Her coat was a pure, brilliant white, making his own dusty brown fur seem drab and lackluster. Her mane was jet black, standing out against her coat beautifully. Her cutie mark was what looked like a double ended quill, writing a two separate lines of text simultaneously across her flank.
Limbo coughed softly into his hoof to attract her attention, snapping her out of her reverie. "You'll have to excuse me, ma'am, but I don't think I ever caught your name."
"Hmm? Ah. Forgive me. You may call me Salchonic."
"It be a pretty name if'n I ever heard one. I go by Limbo, myself. It's not quite as interestin', but it describes what I do well enough."
"And just what do you do, if I might ask?"
"I wander. Never stay near any towns fer too long. I prefer to just kinda live in between, going wherever I see fit until I need to stock up on supplies again."
"Well, I'm certainly glad you wandered out here. I don't know what I would have done otherwise."
They lapsed into a brief silence, both trying to avoid thinking about what might have been, and neither quite managing it. Limbo pulled his saddlebag closer to where he was sitting, and extracted a few carrots and an apple from inside.
"I don't got too much with me right now - I was actually planning on heading into town to restock soon - but what I got you're welcome to share."
"Thank you - but I'm fine. Keep it for yourself."
Limbo shrugged and took a bite put of the apple. "Suit yourself. I ain't gonna impose on yeh." He swallowed and cleared his throat before continuing. "Now, when the sun comes up, I'll just show you how to get back to town, and you can do as yeh please from there. We'll be headin' over in that direction." He pointed out behind him. By squinting, Salchonic could just barely make out the dim glowing light inherent to civilization.
Salchonic quickly lapsed backed into her pensive staring at the fire, and Limbo finished his meal in silence. Not that the silence bothered him - he was used to spending months alone at a time. He worried about the mare, though.
"Well, we've got a bit of a walk ahead of us, and I ain't as young as you are, miss. I'm turning in for the night. If'n you need anything, don't hesitate to wake me. G'night."
"Night," Salchonic called back listlessly. She just continued to gaze into the depths of the fire while Limbo stepped a few yards away and laid down to sleep for the night. Salchonic waited patiently to hear the sounds of Limbo snoring. When his side was rising and falling in a steady rhythm, she let her disguise slowly melt away.
As a wave of green magic slowly worked its way over her, Salchonic's coat became as dark as her mane. Her limbs became pitted and hollow, and a pair of insectile wings sprouted from her back. In the space of a few seconds, the form of Salchonic had been replaced by that of Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings, still gazing into the depths of the fire.
Only the previous day, she had been preparing to wed Shining Armor and overthrow Equestria from within. Quite a lot had happened since then. The blast wave that had thrown her unceremoniously from her seat of victory had devastated her troops. A great many died immediately from the shock, and many more died on impact. Chrysalis had landed far in the badlands, separated from the rest of her force. The Changeling landing closest to her had been almost a half mile away, and was dead by the time she reached him. She had no information on where any of the others may have ended up.
So she had chosen a direction at random and struck out in search of, well, anything. By the next day, she was starving for lack of love, and didn't have the energy to fly or cast any but the most basic of spells. Exhausted and dangerously malnourished, she had lost her footing at the worst possible time, and was sent plunging into the crevice that Limbo had found her in.
In the hours before Limbo's arrival, Chrysalis had had nothing to do but think. She wondered incessantly over what she had done wrong, and how she might be able to extract revenge upon her persecutors. She wondered about the fate of her Changeling army, and how they were faring in the Badlands. As she pondered such topics, she came to the grim realization that she was effectively finished. She had almost no power left to her, and was starving in a pit. By now, most of her subjects would be starving as well, scattered throughout the Badlands as they were. There was little to do but admit defeat. She could never return to the power she once had - the most realistic goal for her now would be to somehow manage to escape the pit she had fallen in and manage to start over as a commoner without revealing her identity. To the battle-worn and overly weary queen, the prospect actually seemed inviting. Certainly it was better than insisting on fighting a battle she could not hope to win.
Chrysalis pulled herself once more from her musings and glanced up from then fire at the tawny stallion sleeping across from her. She had been slowly feeding off his love for travel since he had rescued her. Not enough to kill him, but enough to fill her stomach and keep her going. She had no intentions of staying with Limbo until morning. She needed to get moving and find a store of love to feed on, or face the continual risk of starvation alone. But the stallion had saved her life... and despite being as selfish and vain as she often was, Chrysalis was a good queen, and never failed to reward those whom aided her. The changeling roused herself from her thoughts and stood up, trotting over to where Limbo lay sleeping. She stood between him and the fire, her tall form casting a long shadow over him.
The stallion was old, to an alarming degree. He may have been made fit by his wandering lifestyle, but his bones creaked and popped, and he looked out at the world with jaded eyes. It was obvious he didn't have many years left to him. Reaching into her stores of magic, Chrysalis called upon the spell she used to change her appearance, and directed it instead at the sleeping pony. A small gleam of green light blossomed at Limbo's snout before quickly ringing his jaw. Expanding to fit his form, the circle of green energy worked its way across his body, slightly altering everything it touched. By the time it had reached his tail and tapered off to nothing, a very different pony laid in Chrysalis' shadow.
Limbo was young. His mane no longer held dashes of gray, instead gleaming a pure silver in the flickering firelight. The wrinkles on his face and muzzle had been smoothed, and powerful muscles rippled slightly in his legs, shoulders, and hips. In the space of two minutes, Chrysalis had easily added twenty-five years to his life.
Looking down at her handiwork, she allowed herself a wry smile at thought of the stallion waking. No doubt he would consider the entire event a miracle - he would probably think that Chrysalis had been an angel of some sort. Looking once more over his now youthful form, Chrysalis noticed Limbo's cutie mark for the first time - a simple compass rose. Fitting, for somepony who spent their entire life wandering the map. Breathing in a final small meal of Limbo's love for travel, Chrysalis donned her white coated shape once more, and set out toward the distant glow of lights.
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As Chrysalis trotted on through the night, she slowly came to be walking parallel to a dense forest that seemed to stretch far ahead, reaching almost as far as her destination city. She stopped for a minute to catch her breath and gain some information. Turning to the forest, Chrysalis tilted her head back and howled, the perfect imitation of a wolf. It was a trick that never failed - no matter the forest, there were always wolves of some kind, and they always heeded Chrysalis's summons.
Sure enough, it was not long before a wolf padded on heavy paws to the edge of the forest, staring unblinkingly at the white and black pony with fierce yellow eyes. "What information do you seek, wolf-caller?" To Chrysalis, it's voice was slow and measured. To anyone else, it would have been an unintelligible growling. Thanking fate for the gift of tongues that let her disguise herself anywhere without worrying about language, Chrysalis replied in the same manner.
"I am heading into the nearby town. What can you tell me about it and its inhabitants?"
The wolf frowned, his brow creased with the effort of remembering small details learned long ago. "Town is very happy, especially pink pegasus by forest. Pink pegasus is kind to animals, even wolves. We do not go into town in respect to her."
"How far away is the town from here?"
"Walk until sunrise and you will be there. Sooner if you run."
"Thank you. You have told me what I need. You are free to leave."
Nodding gently, the wolf turned around and padded back into the woods as Chrysalis turned toward the ever-present glow on the horizon.
"Walk until sunrise... Easy enough," she muttered to herself, setting off once more.
And, an hour and a half later, Chrysalis passed a small cottage by the Everfree Forest and took her first step into Ponyville.
Chrysalis sat by the lake just outside of Ponyville, dappled light falling through elm leaves to dance over her white coat. Salchonic was a form she had used before, when she needed to disguise herself without taking another pony's place. Many of her soldiers had been unable to create a new form, instead being restricted to copying others, but the few who could were generally much more skillful infiltrators. Currently, the queen was using her disguise to observe the town without raising alarm. From her vantage point under the trees by the lake, she could see the stirrings of ponies going about their business as the sun rose.
Even at a fair distance from the town, Chrysalis could feel love rolling out of it in waves. It was clearly an enormous source of food just waiting to be consumed, and the quick walk across town from the Everfree Forest to the lake had been enough to quiet the growling in Chrysalis' stomach, even if the latent energy was much less potent than love directed at her specifically. Chrysalis' long-term goal was to become fully integrated into the town, so as to have a supply of food always available to her. For the short term, she needed to learn how the town was run, and where she might be able to fit in.
Getting up, Chrysalis stretched her limbs and began the walk around the lake back into town. The day was still young, and the streets were fairly empty as groups of sleepy ponies wandered about. Chrysalis knew that if she was going to successfully pass herself off as a regular pony, she would need to adopt habits she would normally forgo - most notably, eating and drinking. She would gain no nourishment from the food or drink, but she knew from experience that ponies found it suspicious when they realized they never saw her eating anything and never going to lunch or dinner anywhere. It was generally a good idea to find a few local restaurants to frequent so as to keep up appearances. Tilting her muzzle up a bit, she sniffed the air for the scent of food.
Within a few minutes of entering town, Chrysalis had found a small bakery that was being set up for the day by a yellow stallion with a short orange mane and a light blue mare with pink hair piled on top of her head like a dollop of frosting. Seeing the white unicorn at the door, the mare hurried over to pull it open to the jingling of a bell.
"Hello dearie, you'll have to excuse us, but we're still setting up for the day. If you want to buy something, could you come back a bit later?"
"Oh, sure," Chrysalis replied, "but could I just quickly trouble you to tell me where I could find the town hall? I'm new in town." Chrysalis had learned long ago that the center of government in any town was always swarming with ponies, and all of them had some complaint or another. Hopefully, by listening to what the populace was upset over, she could catch up on current events and play her role that much more effectively.
"The town hall? Well, you just need to head down this street here and make a left. When you pass the bowling alley, just turn up to the right and it'll be right there. You're here at a bit of a bad time - normally a friend of mine insists on showing everypony new around town, but she's up in Canterlot for a week to see the wedding."
Chrysalis managed to keep her face from flickering, but she was hit with a cold wave of rage inside. Ponies talking about the royal wedding were to be expected, of course; it was only the biggest social event to happen in years. Still, that didn't make it any less painful to remember. Chrysalis thanked the blue mare, and wandered off down the street in the direction of the town hall.
Turning the corner around the bowling alley, Chrysalis found herself at the edge of a growing crowd gathering around the city hall. Even this early in the morning, ponies with important business to attend to were bustling about. Strategically placed cafés pulled in hungry passerby as if they were magnetized, and conversations from the outside seating drifted through the air over the crowd. It was the perfect place to learn what made the town tick. Chrysalis worked her way into the crowd, sticking close to the cafés and tuning in to each conversation in turn.
"...love to check out a copy, but the librarian's gone with the rest of her friends. I read the last one, though, and I kinda thought..." Chrysalis turned away from two mares with large books in their saddlebags, focusing her attention on a more promising pair of stallions.
"...the rain. Really, I don't understand why they can't just skip over the field and let us play without..." Turning away again, Chrysalis crossed to the other side of the street in hopes of learning about more than novels and rainy sports games. She leaned against a fence, pretending to examine a menu posted nearby, and listened in on the mare and stallion behind her.
"...feeling that they aren't getting it. Students never do well with the foreign language unit."
"Eeyup."
"And considering how dull the material for that section is, I can't really imagine them being any different this year, can you?"
"Ee-nope."
This. This was something she could use to her advantage. Chrysalis quickly turned to face the two ponies at the table and seize the opportunity.
"Excuse me," she interjected, looking at the light purple mare who she now strongly suspected was a teacher, "but I couldn't help but overhear your conversation. Did you say something about a foreign language unit?"
Startled by the interruption, Cheerilee turned to face the white mare leaning against the railing around the café's patio. "Oh, um, yes, I was, Miss?"
"Salchonic. And might I inquire as to yourself?"
"Cheerilee, the local primary school teacher, and this is Big Mac."
"Eeyup."
"Well, Miss Cheerilee, I'm terribly sorry to interrupt your meal, but I just come into town and was looking for work. As it happens, I'm somewhat of an expert when it comes to languages. If you would be interested, I could help your students learn from a master." The proposal was rushed and unprepared, but Chrysalis couldn't afford to let the opportunity slip by. Who knew when she would next find a job that only required her to use the abilities she had been granted naturally?
"Oh - well, I must admit that you've caught me a bit unprepared, Miss Salchonic. I didn't actually expect to be able to change anything about the foreign language unit! Do you think you could drop by the schoolhouse this afternoon and show me what you know?"
"Certainly, Miss Cheerilee. Forgive my ignorance - I am very new in town - but where might I find the schoolhouse?"
"It's just on the other side of the park. School ends at three, so you can come in any time after that."
Chrysalis smiled and extended her hoof for Cheerilee to shake. "Thank you for giving me this opportunity, Miss Cheerilee. I'll drop by at three, then."
With that, Chrysalis trotted off into the crowd, mentally preparing herself for the role she would soon be playing. It was obvious that being polite was working well for her - it generally did. In fact, one of the only times she'd intentionally acted caustic was when she had been impersonating Princess Cadence. But of course the infinitely irritating Twilight Sparkle had to go and misinterpret her, seeing her behavior as that of a nefarious villain where everyone else saw her as the intended overstressed bride. If the real Cadence had been the one organizing the wedding, she would have acted very similarly, and Twilight would have ended up in a much worse situation than she had. Frankly, she was lucky Chrysalis had actually been plotting nefarious deeds.
Chrysalis spent the rest of the day listening in to more conversations coming from the crowd of ponies around her. She didn't interrupt any more of them, and instead began to compile a mental compendium of information about the town. By the time 2:30 rolled around and she left the crowd to head for the school, she knew a great deal more about life in Ponyville. She wouldn't be the town gossip any time soon, but she was at least getting some idea of what the townsfolk did in their free time.
As she crossed the park by the edge of town, Chrysalis heard a bell ringing, accompanied by a crowd of small foals and fillies spilling from an elaborate building she assumed was the schoolhouse. By the time she reached the building herself the group had dispersed, and she walked into the building to see Cheerilee grading a stack of papers at a large desk in the front of the room.
Chrysalis cleared her throat to attract Cheerilee's attention, who looked up from her work with surprise.
"Oh! Salchonic, I didn't expect you to be here so quickly. Are you ready for me to show you what we'll be working on with foreign languages?"
"Sure, let's get right to it. I expect there's some sort of standards that need to be met?"
"Yes, as always," Cheerilee sighed. She opened a drawer of her desk and extracted a thin, well-used book, opening to a marked page and reading, "'All students must, by the time of their graduation, be able to recognize Latin, French, and Spanish, more commonly known by their nonscientific names of Draconian, Northern Griffish, and Caninese, respectively. Students must also be able to read, write, and speak basic phrases in Northern Griffish and Caninese'. Basic phrases means things like 'Hello, my name is...' and 'Can you lend me a crayon.' Stuff like that. I've always had to rely heavily on the book to teach this section, which has been a bit of a thorn in my side. Can you work with these languages?"
Chrysalis smiled, amazed once more at her luck in finding this job. " Bien sûr, je peux vous aider. As I said, languages are my forte. When should I come in?"
Cheerilee looked delighted - it was obvious that Salchonic spoke excellent Griffish, which she herself had never gotten the hang of. "Well, I planned on starting the language unit tomorrow, but the lesson won't actually begin until after lunch. There's no need for you to sit around with nothing to do while the students learn math, so you should probably come in around one o'clock. I'll see the school board about paying you for your time, and I expect I'll be able to get them to give you an advance paycheck to help you settle into town. I'm not the only one who's had problems with the language section in the past."
"Thank you very much, Cheerilee. I can't tell you how lucky I feel to have stumbled across this opportunity. I look forward to working with you and your students."
"The pleasure is all mine, Salchonic. Now, I need to work through these papers, but if before I go back to my on work, is there anything you'll need to teach your lesson tomorrow?"
Chrysalis thought for a moment about how she actually would teach the lesson tomorrow, and a number of interesting tactics popped into her head. She briefly considered what would be most effective before replying.
"I'll need to know the students' names, but that should be about it. Can you give me a list of the students and where they sit?"
Cheerilee rummaged about in her desk before pulling put a piece of paper with her students' names written on squares arranged as the desks were. "Here you are! I look forward to working with you, Salchonic. I'm sure the students will love you."
"Oh, I certainly hope so. That's the real motivation in my mind." Chrysalis tried not to let her face betray any of her amusement. Cheerilee had no way of knowing she was essentially promising the white unicorn free lunch. Thanking Cheerilee a final time, Chrysalis departed the schoolhouse to find a place to spend the rest of her day.
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A little less than a day after departing the schoolhouse, Chrysalis found herself approaching it as a familiar group of young ponies crowded their way inside from their lunch break. She followed them in and stood toward the back of the room, attracting more than a few confused glances from the students.
Cheerilee walked to the head of the class and called the students to attention. "Class, I'm sure you've all seen Miss Salchonic in the back of the room. I was fortunate enough to cross paths with Salchonic yesterday, and she has offered to help me teach the foreign language unit."
This sent a wave of excited murmurs through the class - the language unit was notoriously boring and difficult. They collectively turned to watch Salchonic make her way to the front of room, where she approached the desk of a lanky yellow unicorn, speaking to him directly.
"Bonjour. Je m'appelle Salchonic. Et toi?" The unicorn stared at her dumbly, his mouth open a bit. "Tu t'appelle 'Snails'." She walked to the next desk, where a gray filly was looking equally confused. "Bonjour. Je m'appelle Salchonic. Et toi?"
"Uh... Je - je m'appelle Salchonic?"
Chrysalis smiled. "Non, tu t'appelle 'Silver Spoon'. Je m'appelle Salchonic." It was weak progress, but progress none the less. She moved on to a orange filly with yellow hair. "Je m'appelle Salchonic. Et toi?"
"Je m'appelle Apple Bloom?"
A wide smile cracked across Salchonic's face. "How do you know?"
"Well... Yeh kept sayin' the same thing before yer name, so I thought you must be saying something about that. And then Silver Spoon said the same thing, and you sounded like you was sayin' she was wrong. So 'je m'appelle' must be sayin' what your name is, and yer askin' us what our names are."
Chrysalis could already feel love emanating from the class. This was new and exciting to them, and they already were looking forward to learning from their new teacher. To Chrysalis, it was the first love for her she had consumed in days, and she felt innumerable small aches and pains fade away as she became energized and alert.
"So!" Chrysalis turned to the chalkboard and levitated a piece of chalk, writing 'Je m'appelle...' with a flourish of magic. "This is Northern Griffish. As Apple Bloom thought, 'je m'appelle' means 'my name is,' although it translates more directly to 'I have the name.' Can anyone tell me what 'tu t'appelle' means?"
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The door to Chrysalis' small apartment opened and the mare trotted in, searching for a light switch near the door and, upon finding it, flicking it up with her magic. The apartment was bare and a bit small, but it was a far sight better than the grass by the lake where she had spent the previous night, and it was cheap enough for her to cover the down payment with the advance pay an overjoyed Cheerilee had presented her at the end of the school day.
Chrysalis already loved her new job. She may have lost the luxuries of her former rule, but there was something strangely liberating about not focusing her every thought on usurping the Equestrian throne. It also provided her with a reliable source of pure, undiluted love from the students. It wasn't a permanent job, of course - the students had to finish their language studies eventually - but Cheerilee had assured her that her skills as a linguist would be in high demand by ponies who wished to travel abroad, and she would easily be able to earn a living as a personal tutor.
Taking a quick look around her new home, Chrysalis saw a kitchen that she would probably never use and, in the bedroom, a low bed with an old mattress. She would need to furnish the place a bit, but it was liveable, and it could start her on her way to a new life. Settling herself down on her bed, Chrysalis pulled some paper out of the saddlebags she had purchased that afternoon and began to draw up a lesson plan for the next few days.
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A week after her arrival in Ponyville, Salchonic had become an object of reverence to Cheerilee's class. Every day after lunch they would come into class to find her waiting, and she would spend the rest of the school day speaking to them in strange languages they had never heard before, but were learning eagerly. As the clock ticked close to three, Chrysalis went around asking a few final questions for the day.
"Diamond Tiara, could you tell me how to ask a pony what their name is?"
"Uh... What's your name?"
"In Griffish, if you don't mind."
"Oh, uh... Tu j'appelle?"
"Close. It's tu t'appelle, because you're using toi instead of je. Understand?"
"Yes, Miss Salchonic!" Diamond Tiara scowled a bit as she spoke. She had been rather upset when she learned that having grandparents who spoke Griffish didn't mean that she could do so any better than her classmates. Chrysalis moved on.
"Apple Bloom, could you tell me of any brothers or sisters you might have?"
"Sure! Uh... J'ai un frère et une soeur, Big Mac et Applejack."
Chrysalis stopped in her tracks. She recognized the name Applejack - that was one of Twilight Sparkle's friends who had been so instrumental in her defeat. A chain of thoughts flashed through her mind - Applejack and all her friends came from the same town; none were here, so they must still be in Canterlot; if Applejack's brother and sister lived here, it stood to reason that she did as well; considering the royal wedding had been held a week ago, they six ponies would be returning soon. Suddenly, it seemed much more important to keep up appearances.
Apple Bloom was giving Salchonic a concerned look. "Miss Salchonic? Y'all right?"
Chrysalis snapped herself out of her thoughts and looked down at the filly while quickly thinking of an explanation for her pause.
"Oh, yes, it's just that I think I've heard your brother's name before. Cheerilee," she asked, turning her desk, "weren't you in a café with Big Mac when I first met you?"
For some reason this caused Cheerilee to blush deeply and the class to erupt into fits of giggles, although the humor of the question was lost on Chrysalis. Fortunately for Cheerilee, the bell chose that precise moment to ring, and she weakly called out "Class dismissed!" before having to explain herself. Chrysalis walked out of the schoolhouse amid the crowd of children, distracted once more by her thoughts. If Twilight and her friends lived in Ponyville, it was very much a double-edged sword to live here. Chrysalis altered her course to carry her toward an inexpensive restaurant. The food wouldn't fill her stomach, but eating was a monotonous activity to fill the time while building her image as a pony, and it left her mind free to wander over possible courses of action and her options in each. She arrived and ordered a cheese sandwhich before sitting outside to watch the crowds.
A train whistled somewhere in the distance as Chrysalis began to eat. Without an army behind her, she had nowhere near the power required to take on Twilight and the others. Nor could she really hope to impersonate any of them, considering how little she knew of their lives, coupled with the fact that all of them now had experience with changelings. Really, the best course of action would be avoidance. With any luck, she'd never even have to speak to Twilight or her friends.
Chrysalis finished her sandwich and left a few bits on the table. Wondering whether she could really avoid six separate ponies without seeming suspicious, she turned the corner around the restaurant and immediately collided with another pony, causing a number of suitcases to crash to the ground around them. Chrysalis rubbed her head and looked up, directly into a pair of purple eyes she had never wanted to see again - the eyes of Twilight Sparkle, evidently just off the return train from Canterlot.
Taking a quick step back in alarm, Chrysalis stammered for something to say that would let her slip away, but Twilight hardly even noticed.
"Oh! I'm so sorry, I should have been looking where I was going. I just got back from a trip and I was hurrying home. Are you alright?"
Chrysalis nodded silently, fearing her voice would betray her surprise.
"Excellent, I really am sorry." She lifted her bags in a sparkling purple aura, and turned behind her to call out to someone. "Spiiike! Let's go! You can sleep later!" She turned to wish Chrysalis a nice day, and then she was off in a flash, being tailed by a young purple dragon.
Chrysalis stared after her blankly for a moment, and then a scowl crossed her face as her rage at the purple unicorn resurfaced. She couldn't attack Twilight directly - but she could do plenty without risking her disguise, and she planned to deal with Twilight severely. She quickly set off after Twilight, a look of impatience frozen on her face.
Twilight's home turned out to be the enormous tree near the center of town. If she recalled correctly, Chrysalis believed it to be the library. Cheerilee had pointed it out to her, although she had never yet been inside. Now, as she approached the living building, she peered in through the windows. Inside, she saw Twilight already lying down with a book, absorbed in her own world. Perfect - Chrysalis wouldn't be long anyway.
Looking up at the branches above her, Chrysalis sought an ideal spot. After a moment's search, she found it: a joint where a branch had recently been broken off, leaving a jutting spar of wood free of the wet green leaves that covered the rest of the tree.
Focusing her magic on the branch, Chrysalis called a miniscule green flame into existence, burning at the very end of the broken branch, where it smoldered gently in the dry wood. Before releasing her hold on the magic, Chrysalis imbued it with one goal: grow and consume.
Her work done, she trotted off to plan her next school lesson while Twilight's home very slowly began to burn behind her.
The Purple Unicorn, and the Problems She Inevitably Causes
When Ponyville was founded, it had no library. The first settlers had been mainly farmers, and could afford little time to read for pleasure. The single exception was a gray unicorn who had accompanied the Apple family in their settling of the land. He had an extensive personal collection, ranging from ancient tomes giving instructions on performing powerful magic to cheap paperback novels to thick cookbooks with dog-eared pages. It was this unicorn who had the dream of a grand library in Ponyville, and it was he who planted a sapling near the center of the small town and cared for it, growing it healthy and tall over the course of a decade.
By the time his sapling had grown, the unicorn had seen the town of Ponyville take shape around him. A collection of shops formed a ring around his garden with its solitary inhabitant. Like every night for the past decade, the unicorn trotted up to the tree and judged whether it was finally ready; unlike every other night, he decided it finally was. The moon hung in the sky, a tangle of branches swayed gently in the breeze before him - and the gray unicorn began to sing.
As he sang, a miasma of magic grew around the tree. The few present at the time of the magic's working described it later as awe-inspiring and mysterious. It was unlike any magic they had ever seen or even heard of before. The gray unicorn continued his song, and the tree began to grow. Before the eyes of the ancient inhabitants of Ponyville, it bulged outward and shot upward. Its branches, trunk, and roots formed shapes that were unnatural, but purposeful. Inside the tree, hollows were formed, and the wood of the sapling became stairs, doors, a series of rooms - and many, many bookshelves. When the gray unicorn had finished his song, the tree before him was no longer a sapling - but a building.
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"And thus, the Ponyville Library was created - or, like I said before, grown."
Twilight closed the thin book she was reading from and set it back atop one of the many precariously stacked piles scattered throughout Salchonic's front room.
"So I have the song," she added, addressing the white unicorn in front of her, "but I can't read, or probably even pronounce the words - it's all in some obscure ancient Equestrian dialect that I've never seen before, probably from wherever the gray unicorn was born. I thought you might recognize it. If you can guide the growth of the tree, I can provide the magical power needed to fuel the process."
Chrysalis looked over the lyrics Twilight had copied out for her. The librarian had been right - the language was very ancient indeed. The characters were strangely twisted and foreign, and many of them appeared nowhere in the modern Equestrian alphabet. Some looked more like hieroglyphics than letters.
"I don't think this language is from anywhere anyone was born in a long time, Twilight. There are a few particular runes used throughout that predate Discord's original reign, and haven't been used since. When Ponyville's original librarian wrote this spell, he was writing in a dead language. I'm surprised he got the pronunciation right at all."
"But can YOU read it? I mean, if it's that old..."
"I can read it just fine. You just focus on pumping out the energy to cast it." An image of Cheerilee's class beaming at her flashed through Chrysalis's mind, but she shook her head to clear it away. Using them as sustenance was harmless, but harnessing their energy for such a large spell would undoubtedly be detrimental to their health.
Twilight checked a few boxes on the list she was holding before rolling it up. "Well then, all that's left is choosing a time. I think the spell needs to be performed in darkness to have full effect - any night good for you?"
"I'm open every night, Twilight. You know that. Whenever you're ready, I'll be ready.
--Four Days Earlier--
Chrysalis walked casually to her apartment, leaving the hidden green flame smoldering behind her. The books of the library were a small token to take in comparison to her Changelings, but their destruction would be revenge enough. Chrysalis didn't think Twilight herself would be caught in the conflagration; that was never the intention. The destruction of what she cared about, on the other hand... Smiling a bit at the thought, she unlocked the door to her apartment and went inside to plan her next lesson, shedding her disguise as the door swung shut.
Much later, after she had crawled into bed for the night, Chrysalis was woken by a symphony of screams. She sat bolt upright in bed and gazed out her window. Looking over the rooftops of Ponyville, she saw an ominous green glow coming from near the center of town.
"Are you ready to share my loss, Twilight Sparkle?" Chrysalis swung herself out of bed and trotted leisurely to her door, cloaking herself in the guise of Salchonic as she made her way outside and began to walk toward the distant blaze.
As Chrysalis drew near to the library, she began to see the extent of the devastation she had caused. The upper half of the library was engulfed in emerald flames, which hissed and sputtered as buckets of water were levitated and upturned above them by a small group of unicorns below. They were making little progress - the flames flared back up in the absence of water, and were only just held back by the unicorns' efforts.
A line of earth ponies was passing buckets back and forth, providing the water that the unicorns were throwing. Beside them was a crowd of gawking onlookers, faces lit with the grim light of the enchanted inferno. It was with these citizens that Chrysalis took her place and watched. She looked around for Twilight, who she expected would either be in the crowd or with the unicorns throwing water, but frowned when a quick scan of the ponies present failed to locate her.
Her gaze quickly shifted to the front door of the library when a pony burst out of the burning building, silhouetted against the fire. As they emerged, Chrysalis felt a powerful wave of empathy wash over her, knocking her to her haunches with its potency. It was a blast of anguish and despair such as Chrysalis had never felt, unparalleled even by her own devastation at the loss of her army. The pony rushing from the library was Twilight Sparkle, and she was levitating a huge pile of books in her stead.
"Keep the water coming!" Twilight shouted to the unicorns at the end of the bucket line, "I'm going back in!"
An orange mare Chrysalis recognized as Applejack leapt after the purple unicorn, but too late - Twilight had disappeared back inside the building. Applejack paced nervously outside, but didn't have long to wait before Twilight emerged once more, tail smoking slightly.
"More water! See if you can focus it at- aaauugh!"
Applejack tackled Twilight as soon as she was a safe distance from the library and pinned her to the ground. "Ya'll can't go back in there, Twilight! It's too dangerous! You'll get yerself killed!"
Squirming against her friend's hold on her, Twilight let out an anguished cry coupled with a second blast of empathy that hit Chrysalis like a stone. This wasn't how things were supposed to be. These were just books; Twilight should never have cared this much for them. Sitting silently on her haunches, Chrysalis was being forcibly treated to a range of emotions she had known were coming, but of an intensity she had never expected. She could feel every pang of loss radiating out from Twilight as the restrained mare twisted and fought to run back in and save as many of her beloved books as she could without considering the risk to herself. It was as much hers to bear as Twilight's, and unlike anything she had dealt with before.
Overhead, a blue Pegasus with a rainbow mane was combing the skies for clouds, pushing the ones she found into place over the library before blasting them apart with her hooves, letting loose a torrent of rainwater onto the branches below. It was this more than anything else that was keeping the flames in check, and even slowly beating them back.
And the night wore on.
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A gray unicorn stood inside his new home - a beautiful library grown from a living tree, just waiting to be supplied with books to fill its empty shelves. But the unicorn had not yet finished his spell - not quite. Trotting over to a bookshelf seemingly at random, he knelt down and peered beneath the bottom shelf.
Below every other bookshelf in the library, this space was solid wood, grown there to elevate the books housed on the bottom shelves so as to protect them from water or dust on the floor. Below this bookshelf, however, the space was empty.
The gray unicorn pulled a thin volume bound in tough brown fabric from his saddlebag and looked at it for the last time. The cover was unmarked, but he had grown familiar with it across a number of years. With a sigh of regret, he slipped the book into the space beneath the bookshelf, and quietly sang the last measure of his song. As he did, the floor swelled up to join seamlessly with the wood of the shelf. The bookcase with its hidden treasure was now indistinguishable from all the rest.
"It's for the best," the unicorn muttered to himself. "The world isn't ready for that kind of magic just yet."
His goal accomplished, the unicorn trotted back out into town. In the coming years, he would fill his library with all manner of books - mainly for the noble pursuit of knowledge, but partly to better hide what he had gone to such lengths to protect. After all, even if it was found, what attention could one book ever get in a library, surrounded by so many countless others?
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The last flicker of enchanted flame was extinguished just after two o'clock in the morning, over three hours after the first cry of alarm was heard across Ponyville. Many ponies trudged back to their homes, eager to get to sleep. A feeling of exhaustion hung in the air, mingling with the smell of burnt wood and scorched pages.
Sitting alone amongst the milling groups of ponies was a purple unicorn, sobbing quietly into her hooves. The flames may have been extinguished, but they had taken a considerable amount of the library with them. Her friends had all stopped to give her words of condolence, but drifted back to their own homes when she had failed to respond to their efforts. Half an hour after the last bucket of water had been emptied, Twilight sat quietly in front of the husk of the library next to a thoroughly downtrodden Spike. The two were alone in the night, save a white unicorn mare that had been equally still throughout the ordeal.
Chrysalis stared at the ground muttering to herself, occasionally glancing up at the pony that had once been her foe. "She caused you so much harm... She is the reason your army is dead," Chrysalis whispered to the patch of ground between her hooves. "She was the only pony who managed to find you out. If she hadn't, you would sit in the Equestrian Throne right now. But... She cares. She cares about her books. They are HER army. So I've done as much to her as she has to me." Chrysalis glanced up once more and decided to act on a wild impulse. Standing up to a chorus of cracks and pops from her stiff joints, she slowly trotted over to the librarian and her dragon assistant. It was time for her to make amends.
Chrysalis stopped slightly to Twilight's left and had cleared her throat before she realized that she had no idea what she was going to say. Twilight turned to face her in surprise, revealing wide eyes with brilliant glittering tears in their corners.
Best to feign ignorance, I suppose, Chrysalis decided. "Um - it's Twilight, right? I think I bumped into you this morning."
Twilight rubbed a stray tear away and looked up at the unicorn. "Oh, yeah. I remember you. I'm sorry; I don't think I ever caught your name."
"My name is Salchonic. I just came to Ponyville recently, and I've been helping Cheerilee teach her students foreign languages." Chrysalis shifted her weight between her hooves. "The library - um, well, you live here, right?"
Fresh tears began to well up in Twilights eyes, and Chrysalis cursed herself silently. "Well, used to live here. I guess I need to find somewhere else, now. And I still need to see how many books made it..." She let out a deep sigh and sunk to the ground. "I just don't really know what to do now."
"Well, you need to find a place to sleep to start with. I have an apartment on the edge of town. If you'd like, you’re welcome to stay there until you can clear out your house. It's not very big, but you've been through so much... It seems like the least I can do."
Twilight blinked up at the white unicorn with her mouth slightly agape. "Y-you'd do that for me? I mean, I hardly even know you, and..." she trailed off, a smile hinting at her lips for the first time in hours.
"It just seems like the right thing to do. You and your, uh-" Chrysalis tilted to the side to get a better look at Spike "-servant can stay with me as long as it takes to fix up your house."
Twilight stood up quickly. "Spike's not a servant! He's my assistant!"
"I dunno," Spike grumbled as he walked over to stand by Twilight, "sounds like she's got the right idea to me.
"Spike! That's just uncalled for." Twilight cast a scorching glance down at the baby dragon.
"Yeah, well we'll just see who ends up cleaning up this mess."
The corners of Chrysalis's mouth twitched up as she interrupted the bickering. "Look, it's really late. Let's just head back to my apartment, and we can discuss who's cleaning what in the morning. Deal?"
"Deal," Twilight said, smiling back.
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By the time Twilight had been living with Chrysalis for two days, she had covered every available surface of her apartment with paper of some kind. Books stood stacked precariously in chairs and lists cataloging the library's collection were taped over the walls. Returning home from a day teaching Cheerilee's class, Chrysalis gingerly pushed open her door, sliding the books stacked against it across the floor. She had to carefully step across a carpet of loose notes before she reached her table, where Twilight was pouring over a book propped up against a stack of encyclopedias.
"What are you working on, Twilight?" Chrysalis craned her neck over the table to see what appeared to be sheets of music.
"Well, you know how I told you that the library was originally grown?
"You never told me the rest of that story."
"Irrelevant. I've been researching how it was grown, and a few sources are saying the first librarian in Ponyville sang some sort of magical song to it. I've been trying to find a copy of it, but I just haven't had any luck so far..." Twilight slammed her book shut, causing a small cloud of dust to drift from the pages. "Well, I can always look for it later. Ready to go do some more sorting?"
"Sure. Just let me drop off my bags first." Chrysalis worked her way through the crowded room and stumbled into her bedroom, which was blissfully clear of books. As she unhooked her saddlebags, she called to Twilight over her shoulder. "How much do we have left to sort? I only have so much space here, you know."
Twilight's voice came floating back from the front room. "I managed to convince the mayor to let me use some of the extra offices in city hall as temporary storage. We just need to box up what's left and send it over. Shouldn't take more than another day or two."
"Good, I just know I'm going to trip over these things and break something if they stay here much longer." Chrysalis stepped back over the books scattered across the floor and joined Twilight at the door. "Alright. Let's go sort some books."
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A light purple aura surrounded a cardboard box and lifted it onto the back of a wooden cart parked in front of the remains of the library. "Alright, it's all loaded up!" Twilight called to the stallion hooked to the cart. "Tell the mayor thanks again for me!"
The stallion merely grunted in response and began to haul his heavy load off to the town hall. Twilight watched the cart go down the street, and then turned to head back into the library. Inside, Salchonic was packing some of the last of the books salvaged into stacks of cardboard boxes. Light shone through gaping holes in the ceiling, and the shadows of twisted, charred branches overlaid the debris littering the floor. Having finished loading up a box, she sealed it with a roll of heavy tape and stacked it on top of a considerable pile of similarly packed boxes. She wiped a bead of sweat off her brow and turned to face Twilight.
"Whew. Well, that's all mathematic books done. Once we pack up what's left of the biology section and clear out all the ash and dust, we should be ready to start repairs."
Twilight looked around at the small piles of debris scattered around the library and frowned. "Ugh, easier said than done. I've never seen the library this messy. Well, at least it will all be clean before I have to start reshelving." Twilight trotted over to a soot-stained shelf housing such titles as Parasprite Husbandry and The Complete Timber Wolf Reference Guide. She scanned the shelf for a moment before letting out a small "Ah!" and extracting a very thin volume that looked very old. "I was afraid something had happened to this one; it took me forever to get a copy, and now I think I might actually have a use for it."
Twilight levitated the book over to Salchonic, who glanced at the title, did a double take, and immediately proceeded to drop the book on the floor. It landed splayed open, face down. On the spine, the title was printed in neat silver capitals: A Moste Incompleat Treatise on the Race of Changelings.
Twilight gasped and rushed over to pick up the book and brush the ash from its pages. "Careful! That book is really, really old!" She flipped open to a page at random and scanned over it. "This treatise was written centuries ago, back when Changelings were a common threat to Equestria." She flipped back to the front of the book and ran her hoof along the lines of the introduction. "It contains all the knowledge the Princess's scientists knew at the time. They'd planned to expand it into a full guide on Changelings, but the project was cancelled when conflict with them subsided. The records are a bit unclear, but the general consensus is that the Changelings decided Equestria was too powerful to keep fighting, and that they went somewhere else." She carefully closed the book and placed it in a box before turning to face Salchonic. "Evidently, they were wrong. Have you heard about what happened at the royal wedding?"
Chrysalis forced her mind back into gear to reply to Twilight. "Oh, uh, yeah. Didn't a bunch of Changelings show up there?"
"Yes!" Twilight stormed back to the bookshelf and started to throw books into boxes across the room. "And they almost ruined everything. Luckily, my brother is really good with shield spells, or I don't think we could have held them off."
Chrysalis suppressed a wince over the memory of a wall of solid love slamming into her. "So it would be fair to say that you don't like them very much, then."
Twilight abruptly stopped packing books away and dropped to sit on her haunches, staring into the middle distance. "Well... That's the thing. I mean, obviously I don't like them for what they did..." she turned to face Salchonic with one eyebrow raised, "but isn't it kind of in their nature to feed on our love?" She stood back up and began to pace the room. "And really, that's not even that bad. Wolves and hydras will actually kill ponies; Changelings feed on love, but that doesn't make them inherently evil. The problem is that they STEAL love." She stopped pacing and turned to face Salchonic. "And that's why I want to start researching them. I want to know why they do what they do, and how to deal with them in the future. But, well - I need to finish fixing the library before I can research much of anything."
A slew of possibilities raced through Chrysalis’s mind as she revaluated Twilight's motives. "Well, if you want to fix the library sooner, you should head back to my apartment and look more into that song. I can finish up here."
"Thanks, Sal! I think I'll do just that." Twilight sealed the box she had been filling and stacked it with the others. "Hopefully, I'll be able to find a copy of it somewhere. I think I'll check the old newspaper archives. Maybe they'll tell me something about the song..." The unicorn mare trotted out of the library, already dipping her head and muttering about potential sources of information. Chrysalis watched her go trot off down the street, and then sat down to be alone with her thoughts.
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"Salchonic! Hey, Salchonic! Wake up!"
Chrysalis shot upright to the sound of Twilight pounding at her bedroom door. When Chrysalis had returned from the library late the night before Twilight had been engrossed in her research; presumably she had just found something. Chrysalis quickly got out of bed and assumed the form of Salchonic, thankful that she had remembered to lock her room. She twisted the lock and Twilight burst through the door, slamming into Chrysalis and sending both to the floor.
"Oof! Sorry about that, Sal. Are you alright?" Twilight rubbed her head and she got to her feet.
"It's, like-" Chrysalis grumbled, glancing at her clock "-four in the morning. What gives?"
Twilight clapped her front hooves together, a smile wide on her face. "I found the song! We can use it to rebuild the library! All I needed to do was look in the old town construction archives. The blueprint for the library had a copy of the song right next to it!"
"I still don't really know what you plan to do with that song. What did it even do in the first place?"
Twilight extended a hoof to help Salchonic up. "Sit down," she said, "and I'll tell you how the Ponyville library was grown."
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Twilight and Salchonic sat in the front room of the apartment as the sun rose. Soft beams of light filtered through the curtains, casting oddly shaped shadows to creep from the many stacks of books and spread across the room. Twilight had spent the last hour relating the story of how Ponyville was founded, and how the gray unicorn had created the library so long ago.
Twilight checked a few boxes on the list she was holding before rolling it up. "Well then, all that's left is choosing a time. I think the spell needs to be performed in darkness to have full effect - any night good for you?"
"I'm open every night, Twilight. You know that. Whenever you're ready, I'll be ready." She stifled a yawn and stood up from the pile of books she was sitting on. "But for now, I need to get back to sleep. When will the library be ready to work on?"
Twilight hoofed her way through her checklist and found the entry she was looking for. "Well, as far as I can tell everything is packed up, so as soon as we move out the boxes we can get started. We could probably try for tonight."
"Alright, I think I can handle that." Chrysalis picked up a copy of the gray unicorn's song and scanned it. "This isn't an easy bit of music, to be sure, but I've yet to see a language that I can't crack. You should head over to the library and make sure everything gets loaded into the carts alright. I'm going to start reading through this and figuring out how it sounds." She stepped back into her room and sat on the bed, pouring over the page of lyrics and notes. As soon as she heard Twilight closing the front door, she stripped pretending and collapsed back onto the bed, asleep.
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Outside of the library, a grumpy brown pegasus stallion with a stubbly beard and a black cap was helping Twilight load the last few boxes of books into his cart. A steady stream of dust was floating out of the library door, accompanied by the disgruntled mumbling of Spike.
"Hey miss," the stallion called out to Twilight, "we're startin' to run low on space here. 'Bout how many boxes do ya have left?"
Twilight emerged, coughing, from the rising cloud in front of the library. "This is the last one!" She levitated the cardboard box over to the cart and set it gently inside. "There. All done. Thank you so much for helping me move these! You have no idea how helpful you've been."
The stallion shrugged and closed the cart's back gate. "Would've been faster if I'd had that ditzy mare here. She keeps getting called to make deliveries at the worst times. I swear she's gone to Sweet Apple Acres a dozen times in the last month, Celestia knows why." He let out a small sigh and headed to the front of the cart to hook himself to the harness. Pausing for a moment, he glanced in the direction of the library before turning back to Twilight. "You mind if I ask you a bit of a personal question, miss?"
Intrigued, Twilight shook her head. "Not at all. What do you want to know?"
The stallion tilted in toward Twilight and spoke in a hushed voice. "Just between you and me, why are you keeping that dragon around? Seeing as how he started the fire and all."
Twilight jumped back in shock. "What! What in the hay makes you think THAT?! Spike would never do something like that!"
The stallion tilted back and held up a placating hoof to Twilight. "Whoa, whoa there miss. I never said he intended to do it. It's just that, well, he's the only fire-breathin' thing around, and he's just a baby. I mean, accidents happen, and well... you saw the color of the flames."
Twilight's nostrils flared in rage as she leaned in to face the stallion. "How dare you accuse Spike like that! Why don't you just take your cart and go!"
"Alright, alright. Don't get your mane all twisted, I was just putting a theory out there." The pegasus hitched the cart's harness over his shoulders and started slowly down the street. Turning his head, he called back, "Just don't blame me if it happens again." And, with that, he trundled off.
Twilight stood huffing in the street for a few seconds before calming herself down. "Don't be ridiculous, Twilight!" she muttered to herself. "Spike could never do something like that." But as she turned to face the library, Twilight couldn't help but think that Spike was only a baby - and that green fire was especially uncommon.
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"Are you ready to sing, Sal?" Twilight stood next to the white unicorn, the moon visible above them through the blackened branches of the library. For a moment Chrysalis considered asking Twilight to call her by her full (albeit false) name, but conceded that it really was a bit of a mouthful.
"I've been practicing all day, Twilight. I'm ready. I just need to sing, right?" She turned to see the purple unicorn, who was running her hoof down a page of notes and calculations.
Twilight stowed the paper in her saddlebags and faced Chrysalis. "Yep, just sing. What I'm going to be doing is releasing lots of ambient energy into the area surrounding the library. In theory, that energy should be formed by the song and cause the tree to grow into exactly the same shape it did when the gray unicorn first sang to it. That's why we had to move out all the books. The wear on the wood over the years means the library as it stands now is in a different shape than the original. It wouldn't do to have books destroyed by warping wood." As she finished speaking, her horn began to glow with a brilliant aura. "Alright, Sal! Start singing - NOW!"
Twilight sent a jet of magic shooting at the library. It stopped abruptly a few feet from the wall and blossomed out into an oblong dome, surrounding the tree with a strangely distorted light. As the dome settled into place, Chrysalis began to sing. Her song was slow and flowing, and was less comprised of words than of a sequence of sounds. There was no comprehensible meaning to it - presumably, it meant something to the tree, and not even Chrysalis could speak that language.
As Chrysalis sang, the tree slowly began to warp and twist inside the dome. Some branches faded away into nothingness, while others appeared as ghostly images before solidifying. Leaves popped out of twigs in an accelerated parody of spring budding. The trunk bulged and deflated in various places, changing to become what it had once been so long ago. As the last note left Chrysalis's lips, the dome dissipated, and before the two unicorns, the tree stood whole and healthy.
Unbeknownst to either, on the inside of the library a small compartment under a shelf slid open, revealing it's long hidden treasure of a single book.
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Twilight and Salchonic trotted around the library, admiring the sharp edges of the wood. Everything had been restored to its original state - the library looked better now that it had before.
"I can't believe it actually worked," Twilight exclaimed in awe, "I thought I would have to patch everything up with planks." She turned to face Salchonic and cleared her throat. "Well Sal, I think this means I can finally get all those books out of your apartment. With everything fixed up I can go back to living here."
Salchonic smiled back at Twilight. "Hey, don't worry about doing that tonight. I'll help you with the reshelving tomorrow. For now, just focus on putting a bed in here so you can sleep on a mattress instead of in a sleeping bag."
"I think I'll do that," Twilight giggled. "Spike! Ready to start moving our stuff back in?"
"Way ahead of you, Twi." Spike stumbled through the door carrying a stack of blankets and pillows taller than he was. "No offense to your floor, Salchonic, but I'm looking forward to getting my old bed back."
Salchonic smiled at him as he mounted the stairs, and then turned back to Twilight. "Well, I should be heading home. Got to get ready to teach tomorrow and all. I'll stop by after school gets out to help you reshelve, all right?"
Tears dotted the corners of Twilight's eyes, and she pulled Salchonic into a brief, unexpected hug. "Thank you so much for your help, Sal. You really, really don't know how much this means to me."
Embarrassed, Salchonic rubbed the back of head with a hoof. "Hey, it was only what any decent pony would do. Don't sweat it."
Twilight wiped her eyes and sniffed, a smile breaking across her face. "You're too modest, Sal. If you ever need anything, just ask. I'll do what I can."
The two stood on the middle of the new library for a moment in silence. One was filled with joy over her home being fixed; the other did her best to hide her guilt. "Aaaanyway," Chrysalis said, "I've got to head back home. I'll see you tomorrow, Twilight."
"Alright, see you tomorrow, Sal." The two exchanged a quick smile, and then Salchonic turned and headed out into the night. Looking around once more, Twilight decided to see just what had changed in the tree's rejuvenation. An empty space under a book shelf caught her eye. "Huh," she thought, "I could have sworn there was solid wood under all the shelves.
She crossed the room and bent her front legs, peering under the ingrown shelf. "Oh!" she cried, spotting a thin book, "I guess we must have missed a book." She reached an arm under the shelf and fished the book out, noting it's lack of a title as she trotted up the stairs to bed.
Spike lay snoring in his bed for the first time in almost a week. Small flickers of green flame burst from his nostrils with every exhale, sending dim flares of light through the library. Every now and then an especially large jet of flame would catch Twilight's attention, but for the most part she ignored them. After all, the same light show had been playing every night for years; and besides, the book she was reading by candlelight was so much more interesting.
Since she had found the book under the shelf, Twilight had spent hours scrutinizing it, doing her best to understand the ancient vernacular the book used. She'd had some experience with older Equestrian dialects due to her reading of the Moste Incompleat Treatise and her discussions with Princess Luna, but this seemed to predate both, meaning it was well over a thousand years old.
"How did I miss this?" Twilight muttered to herself, "I thought I knew every book that was in the library!" She continued to carefully flip the dry pages, never staying on any one page long enough to fully unravel its contents. "Maybe I should ask Salchonic about this... I'll bet she can read it, and probably tell me what time period it's from, too. Yeah, I should do that!" Twilight snapped the book shut and set it on her bedside table. "First thing tomorrow," she resolved, settling herself under her blanket and stifling a yawn, "first thing tomorrow, I'll head over to Sal's house and ask her what she thinks."
Twilight rose early the next morning and left the library quietly, doing her best not to wake Spike, who was still sound asleep upstairs. She swung the front door shut behind her and took a deep breath of the chill morning air, lingering for a second beneath the restored leaves of the library before beginning her trot to Salchonic's apartment. Not many ponies were up and about yet, and the morning dew hung undisturbed on the patches of grass on either side of the road. As the sun rose the dew caught and refracted the light, scattering fragments of rainbows across the ground.
"Morning in Ponyville certainly shimmers," Twilight said quietly. She abruptly stopped and stared into the middle distance. "Huh. That seems oddly poetic. I should write that down somewhere." She shook her head and carried on along the road to Salchonic's apartment.
The sun had risen in earnest by the time Twilight had reached Salchonic's apartment, and low murmurs drifted through the air as bleary eyed ponies began to go about their day. Twilight trotted up to the apartment door and rapped it with her hoof, looking around while she waited for Salchonic to answer. To her left, she saw a young filly trotting along the road that would eventually reach the schoolhouse. "Always good to see young ponies going off to learn," she said to herself, smiling. She turned and rapped on the door again; a bit harder this time, in case Salchonic was still asleep. She heard distant laughter and turned to see two small colts going along the same road as the filly she had seen earlier. "Hmm. I certainly hope they take their studies more seriously than that," she frowned. "And what is taking Sal?" She lifted her hoof to knock on the door again, but abruptly stopped. "Oh. Right." She turned and looked back at the now distant colts. "School."
Twilight stepped back onto the road and began her long walk back through town. "Urgh! How could I forget that! I'm usually so good with my schedules!" She kicked at a pebble and sent it ricocheting off into the grass. There was nothing for it but to wait for school to end and ask for Salchonic's help then. Twilight trotted dejectedly down the main street, brooding over the mystery of ancient book before wandering in to a cafe and ordering a cup of tea. It might not provide her with any brilliant insights as to the contents or purpose of the book, but it would certainly help to improve her mood.
About halfway through her tea, and feeling much more lighthearted than she had a few minutes ago, Twilight's ears perked up as she heard her name from somewhere in the street. She turned to listen, and saw the moving stallion who had helped move her books talking to a small crowd of enraptured onlookers.
"...Yeah, so I was talking to this Twilight, and this is what I says - I says, that dragon of yours is the one who burned down your house, mark my words. And of course she says, well, she says nothin', 'cause she knows I'm right, and she gets all defensive-like. But the dragon, he knows what's going on, 'cause when I'm liftin' some boxes I see him out by my cart trying to set it on fire and all! So I goes up to him, and I grab him and I says -"
Whatever the stallion was going to claim he had said was lost, though, and replaced with a loud howl of pain as a half-full mug of tea flew into the side of his head at a velocity never attained before or since by any other piece of pottery in Ponyville. Twilight stormed over to the stallion, who was cowering on the ground cradling his ear.
"How DARE you make up those horrible lies! You terrible, awful pony!" Twilight's chest was heaving and hot air rushed out of her flared nostrils. "Spike never set anything on fire at all, not the library, and certainly not your –" Twilight stepped forward and felt a warm liquid below her foot. Looking down, she saw a small pool of blood flowing from a gash on the side of the stallion's face and leapt back. "Gah! Blood! Ohmygosh, are you alright! I didn't mean to hit you so hard; I'm so sorry, I –"
"Oy! I get it!" The stallion groaned and pushed himself to his feet, pulling a stained hoof away from his ear to inspect it before pressing it against his head again. "Gah, that hurt for pony's sake!"
Twilight hopped from hoof to hoof in place, torn between lingering anger and genuine concern. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to throw it that hard, but then you were talking about Spike like that and, well..."
"Yeah, I said I get it. Not the first time I've been hit for makin' stories a bit more interesting." He pulled his hoof away from his ear again to see less fresh blood than before. "I'll be okay once I get cleaned up. Message received: the little purple firebug didn't do it. Fine. Don't mean they got the message, though." The brown Pegasus pointed in the direction of his now distant audience, who had all gone running from the wrathful librarian. "Good luck getting them to believe you after that little episode. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go clean up. Ugh, I hate tea..." The stallion continued to grumble incoherently as he trotted, then flew off, leaving Twilight alone to wonder if she had just made things worse.
Chrysalis trotted out of the schoolhouse behind a group of giggling fillies. She smiled down at them, and then frowned at herself. Had she really become that accustomed to life as a pony already? She shook her head to clear her thoughts. There was always time for such existential questions later – for now, she needed to meet with Twilight to help with the reshelving.
"Well, at least Twilight can carry on an intellectual conversation," she muttered to herself. She stopped abruptly and considered her own words before shaking her head again and moving on. "My word, I have changed."
As Chrysalis turned the corner and the library came into view, she saw Spike swing the library door shut and hurry down the road with every appearance of someone who is hiding from an arduous task. He stopped Chrysalis as he passed her and glanced back at the living building as he spoke.
"Hey, I wouldn't go in there if I were you, Sal. I just barely got out of reshelving duty, and Twilight's all grumpy about something or other."
"Hmm. I'll keep that in mind." It would be a dark day before Chrysalis found herself afraid of a grumpy unicorn, even if said unicorn had once been her foe.
"Well, don't say I didn't warn you," Spike cautioned as he hurried off into town. Ignoring the baby dragon's warning, Chrysalis trotted the short distance to the library and rapped on the door with her hoof, which was immediately followed by a startled scream and the sound of lots of things falling to the ground. The door was enveloped in a lavender aura and swung open to reveal Twilight pulling a cardboard box off of her head surrounded by piles of books.
"Oh, hey Salchonic. I was hoping you'd stop by!" Twilight stood up and began to levitate the many fallen books back into the box they had fallen from. "Sorry about the mess, you startled me just at the wrong time." She turned her head to the staircase and raised a hoof to her mouth. "Spiiiiiiike! Come down here and help me clean this up!"
Chrysalis cleared her throat to get Twilight's attention. "Ahem. I actually just passed Spike on my way here. I think he must have been avoiding, well... this. I can still help you reshelf, though."
Twilight dropped the books she was levitating roughly into their boxes. "Oh. Great. Well, we'll just have to work without him. Here," she levitated a box of thick books over to Chrysalis, all bound in the same style with nothing but a golden number on their spine, "this is my copy of the Encyclopedia Equestria. Just pile it all on the bottom two shelves over there; it shouldn't be too difficult to put it all in order. I'm going to start on the psychology section. Just tell me when you finish and I'll give you something else to put away."
Chrysalis started levitating the encyclopedia volumes into place, running her eyes over the box repeatedly to find the next book in the sequence. It was incredibly tedious work, and Chrysalis soon found her thoughts wandering. "What do you even do with all these books?" she wondered aloud.
Chrysalis jumped when Twilight actually replied, not having realized she had been thinking aloud. "Actually, there are a lot I still haven't read; it is a library after all. Most of these books are here so that other ponies can use them for research if they need to."
Chrysalis finished shelving the encyclopedias and turned to face Twilight. "And do many ponies use them for research?" She levitated the now empty cardboard box she had been working from onto a pile of similar boxes by the staircase.
"Well, no..." Twilight's face fell and she glanced at the door, unable to recall the last time somepony had come in to check out a book. "But that just means I can do more varied research of my own!" A wide smile spread across her face and she started rummaging through a box of books. "For example, why is your magic aura green when your coat is white? Generally they're the same color. I know I have a book on magic auras here somewhere..."
Chrysalis stood in the middle of the library, unmoving, for the second time in as many days. Had she really forgotten to disguise her magical aura? It was something she'd let slip before when she had impersonated Cadence, but she should never have been so lax after what had happened on Canterlot. Twilight said something that didn't quite penetrate her ears, and she shook herself out of her reverie. "Excuse me, what did you just say?"
Twilight was running a hoof along a page in a book levitating in front of her. "I said that this book says unicorns' magical auras are very rarely a different color than their coat, but when they are, they're generally the color of the pony's eyes." Twilight looked up at Chrysalis and snapped the book shut. "And your eyes are green! So there, wasn't that enlightening?" She trotted over to an empty shelf and started to place more books onto it. "That's the reason I have so many books. There's just so much to know!"
Chrysalis pulled a box closer to her and started slotting books into shelves as well. "Too close, Chrysalis," she thought specifically not aloud. "You can't be that lucky forever."
The sun had set when Chrysalis took her leave from the library. The afternoon had been largely filled with an activity that Chrysalis had alarmingly little experience in: light conversation. Still, between her and Twilight most of the books had been reshelved, and the rest could be finished in another afternoon. "There are certainly worse ways to spend my time," Chrysalis muttered to herself. For the first time in her life she was able to maintain a steady source of food without impersonating anypony, and that meant that for the first time her life she could make friends by being herself. "Quite the liberating experience," she thought. "Perhaps this should have been my goal all along." The white unicorn carried on down the road with a slightly springier step, wearing her first genuine smile in ages.
Meanwhile in the library, Twilight was having a very bad time. She'd been working with Salchonic all day, had talked to her at great length, and had said goodbye less than five minutes ago – and in all that time, had not once thought to ask about the mysterious book she had found.
"Stupid, featherbrained, egg-headed..." Twilight paced around the library letting loose a stream of self-deprecating insults before forcing herself to stop and sit down in the middle of the floor. "Alright. Take a deep breath and calm down, Twilight. It's a book. Just read it yourself." She inhaled deeply and held her breath for a moment before exhaling peacefully. "Now, where it that book?"
Twilight spotted the ancient volume resting on top of a stack of unsorted books on a windowsill. She grabbed it with her magic and opened it in front of her, flipping to a page at random. "This can't be that hard. I know how Sal said that symbol there, and this one here... So if this translates to 'energy', and this group is 'change of form'... Oh! It's a spell!" Twilight flipped to the cover of the book and examined it for any marks she may have missed before. "An ancient spell book, huh? What sort of magic are you hiding?" She flipped back to the page she had open and tried to decipher more of the runes. "Right. Instructions. So if I channel my energy just like this–" Twilight's horn began to glow with a gentle violet aura– "and then I modify the spell like this–"
The result was instantaneous and catastrophic. In the space of less than a second, Twilight's horn flared a bright emerald green, and a massive shockwave exploded from the tip, knocking dozens of books from shelves, accompanied by a wave of green light that shot out of the windows of the library directly into Ponyville. The light was followed shortly by an ear-piercing scream that echoed in the night.
Chrysalis stood at the corner of the road the library was situated on, breathing in the chilled night air and reflecting on how peaceful her life had become. There was no desperate search for food or plots of subterfuge. Gone was the threat of somepony noticing she was impersonating someone. She was free to enjoy life; to just sit back and enjoy the air. The air, thinking itself a bit too enjoyable, chose that moment to transmit an enormous barrage of light and sound directly into Chrysalis, blasting her mane forward in front of her face. Stunned, Chrysalis turned to see small traces of smoke flowing from the library windows. She was galloping before she had even registered standing up and calling out Twilight's name ahead of her.
Chrysalis threw open the library door and galloped in, looking around. "Twilight! I heard an explosion and I came running, what –" her eyes landed on Twilight and she recoiled in shock. "Gah! What the hay happened!"
Twilight lifted a hoof defensively, and saw Salchonic staring at her through a blackened hole near her hoof. "Sal, wait! It's me, Twilight!" As she spoke, her now sharp teeth clacked on a hard lower jaw, and light glinted off of blue multifaceted eyes. A pair of insectile wings adorned her back, riddled with holes similar to those now spread throughout her legs, horn, and mane. Her now matte black coat completed the image: in all regards, Twilight now appeared to be a changeling.
"Of course it's you!" Chrysalis snapped, "Nopony else was in here." She began circling Twilight and looking over her new form. "But how did you even manage to do this? I've been gone for all of ten minutes!"
Twilight hopped from hoof to hoof, nervously inspecting her unfamiliar limbs. "I found this book the other day that I kept meaning to ask you about. It was written in the same language as the spell we used to fix the library, so I thought you could tell me what it said. But then I forgot to ask you, and I thought I could work out what it was saying, and well... I just kind of tried to do some of the magic based off of what I could read."
By the end of her short speech Twilight had dropped to her haunches and hung her head. Chrysalis stopped pacing around her and instead scanned the room for damage that might have been done by the blast. Other than a few books that had fallen from their shelves, everything seemed to be undamaged. "Alright Twilight, where's this book now?" Twilight pointed in the direction of a window looking out into Ponyville without lifting her head. A very old looking book was splayed open, pages down, on the windowsill. Chrysalis picked up the book with her magic and brought it closer to examine it.
As Chrysalis read, her eyes widened. The book described in detail how unicorns could use magic to replicate the inherent abilities of changelings. From the looks of it, Twilight had attempted to change her appearance without specifying what to change it to, and so had assumed the form of a changeling by default. Chrysalis flipped through more pages and found what she had hoped would be absent – spells to determine whether or not a pony was actually somepony else in a magical disguise. If anypony could read this book, they would easily be able to uncover her.
Chrysalis turned toward Twilight, her hooves shaking slightly. "Twilight, where did you get this book? This is full of information on incredibly advanced transformation magic!"
Twilight pointed to an empty space under one of the now filled bookshelves. "I found it under there. I have no idea how it got there, I've never noticed any sort of space under any of the bookshelves before." Twilight shook her head and turned back to Chrysalis. "But that's not even important! You can read the book; does it say how to change me back?"
A memory of an earth pony named Limbo, suffused in a magical green light in his sleep, swam into Chrysalis's mind. Given enough time and energy she could certainly return Twilight to her original form, but it wouldn't be a fast process. Chrysalis opened the book again and pretended to search for the appropriate spell before looking up at Twilight. "Twilight... I do think I can fix this. But you need to agree to something first."
"Of course!" Twilight let out an exasperated groan. "Whatever needs to be done. Just help me fix this!"
Chrysalis snapped the book shut once more and laid it on the floor, then gently stepped on the cover. "You don't get this book back. If I help you, it becomes mine. It's just too dangerous for someone who doesn't know what they're doing."
"What!" A violet glow surrounded the book, and Chrysalis quickly pressed her hoof down to keep it firmly on the floor. "But think of what we could learn from it! The language alone could revolutionize how we interpret ancient transcripts!"
Chrysalis's nostrils flared and she increased her pressure on the book. "I said no, Twilight Sparkle. If you want my help, my price is the book."
Twilight fell back to her haunches and bit her lip, fragments of tears refracting light onto her faceted eyes. "Fine. Fine. Just... turn me back before anyone from Ponyville sees me and thinks I'm a monster."
Chrysalis began to cast a spell of reversion, but stopped abruptly and tilted her head toward the window. Coming from the direction of Ponyville was a group of concerned voices, approaching alarmingly fast. Evidently, the shockwave sent out by Twilight's mistake had been noticed. "Twilight Sparkle," Chrysalis said without turning her head, "go hide in the closet, now. No matter what you might hear, don't open the door. If you don't want anypony to see you as you are now, you're just going to have to trust me until I have time to change you back."
Alarmed by her friend's serious tone, Twilight did as she was told without protest. She shoved aside a few old boxes and a winter scarf to make room to sit down in the small closet, and then swung the door shut with her magic, plunging her into total darkness.
"How in the world is Sal going to explain what happened?" she whispered to herself. "And for that matter, how is she going to explain why I'm not here?"
Twilight heard the library door crash open and stopped whispering immediately. She heard a voice she didn't recognize, but that was full of panic. "Is everything alright in here? Is anypony hurt?"
At the sound of the reply, Twilight bit back a gasp. She definitely recognized that voice. "Oh! No, I'm actually perfectly fine. I was just doing an experiment and I got some of the magic wrong." Twilight pressed her ear against the door to hear better. There was no denying it – the voice she had heard second was her own, down to the awkward pauses and overall awkwardness resultant of so many years reading books instead of making friends.
"Oh, thank Celestia. I was just walking through town and I saw this enormous flash of light –"
"Yeah. Magic experiment gone a bit wrong," the voice of Twilight interjected. "Are there any others who came with you?"
"I think I saw a few other ponies behind me," the unknown voice replied. The sound of multiple pairs of hooves clacking on the wood floor immediately followed, and Twilight heard a crowd of voices all talking over each other, all voicing their own concerns and theories on what had happened.
Twilight listened in wonder as she heard her own voice explain what had happened to the ponies present. Not that it was a truthful explanation – there was no mention of the ancient book, and the explosion was blamed on attempting to find out what had caused the fire before. Halfway through this explanation Spike wandered in, oblivious to what had happened, which happily enough meant he was the subject of no blame for causing the explosion and greatly lessened blame for causing the fire. Within about half an hour, the voice of Twilight had assuaged Ponyville's concerns and the crowd had slowly trickled out, content to get back to their evening schedules.
Eventually the only figures left in the library were Twilight's voice impersonator, Spike, and Twilight herself, hiding. From within the closet, Twilight could hear her voice ask Spike to go to Carousel Boutique to ask Rarity if she could borrow something, and he was out the door before she could say what it was. Twilight was left alone with the source of her own voice, which she heard trotting over and stopping just outside her door.
"Twilight Sparkle, can you hear me?"
Responding to her own voice was one of the oddest things Twilight had ever experienced. "Yes, I can hear you just fine. Is that you, Sal? Can I come out now?"
A green glow suffused the door, but it remained closed. Twilight heard her voice again. "I'm going to open the door now, but do me a favor and refrain from screaming or fainting or any of that silly nonsense. I don't mean you any harm." With that, the door swung open. The bright light of the library blinded Twilight for a second, and she covered her eyes with a hoof while her vision cleared to reveal... herself.
Inside the closet, an insectile Twilight's jaw dropped. Outside the closet, a regular looking Twilight allowed a wry smile to make its way onto her face. "Good," said the second Twilight, "no screaming or fainting. Now sit still for just a moment."
Twilight watched as an a green glow surrounded the horn of her doppelganger, building in intensity until a thin electric bolt shot into the tip of her own horn. From the point of impact, a ring of green flames began to work its way down Twilight's horn, leaving it its original lavender color in its wake. The fire slowly spread down Twilight's head, reached her torso, and split into four to cover her legs. By the time the last flicker of green had faded from the end of her tail, Twilight was herself once more.
Twilight looked over herself, and then at her double with suspicion. "You are Salchonic, right? Why didn't you just turn me back instead of taking my place?"
In a flash of green, the second Twilight's coat became bleached white and her mane darkened to black as Chrysalis assumed the form of Salchonic. "Firstly because even with as much experience as I have with transformation spells, it takes much longer to perform them on somepony else."
"Wait, what experience?" Twilight levitated the book of transformation spells in front of her and began to flip through the pages. "You can't have cast any of these spells before. I just found the book–"
"Secondly," Chrysalis interrupted, pulling the book from Twilight's grasp with her own magic, "I wanted you to know that if I needed to – if you were to do something foolish and tell any pony what happened tonight –" Chrysalis stared directly into Twilight's eyes, and in brilliant flash of green reverted to her own form. She spread her tattered wings wide, and stared down at a dumbfounded Twilight from a much loftier stance. "I can and will replace you."
Twilight scooted back on her haunches in horror, her legs tangling over themselves. "C-Chrysalis! But how did you get here! What happened to Salchonic?"
In another green flash Chrysalis resumed the less imposing form of Salchonic. "Salchonic was always me, Twilight Sparkle. I've been in Ponyville since before you even returned from Canterlot. Please, don't try to fight me. I've already absorbed enough love from this town to defeat you." Twilight, who had leapt to her hooves when Chrysalis had changed form, let the violet aura surrounding her horn fade.
"But why?" she questioned. "I don't understand. Why are you not trying to take over here, too?"
Chrysalis let out a deep sigh and turned her back on Twilight. She began to wander the library picking up fallen books and replacing them on shelves. When she began to speak, she avoided making eye contact with Twilight. "I'm tired of fighting, Twilight Sparkle. Is that really so difficult to believe?"
Of anything the changeling could have said, Twilight had not expected that. "Tired of fighting? You fought against us once."
Chrysalis continued placing books on shelves. "Contrary to what you might believe, Twilight Sparkle, the wedding in Canterlot was not the only ordeal I've been through. My army and I have been for want of food for years. Canterlot was our last-ditch effort at a supply of love large enough to feed the entirety of my forces." Chrysalis placed the last fallen book into its shelf and turned to make eye contact with Twilight. "I am alone now. I only need to find enough love to provide for myself. By the time you returned from Canterlot I had already made myself a new life here and found a renewable source of love. Not stolen love either, but love earned by my own actions." Chrysalis took to pacing, once again avoiding Twilight's gaze. "When you arrived, I saw you as a threat to the new life I had established. I was still filled with rage, and that made me rash." She stopped her pacing and forced herself to look Twilight in the eyes. "I was the one who set the library on fire, Twilight. For that, I am genuinely sorry and I feel deep remorse."
Twilight stared back into the eyes of one of the greatest threats Equestria had ever faced, and heard her admit to arson. A large part of her mind told her to attack Chrysalis then and there, and do all she could to subdue her. A more rational part of her mind saw the regret in the changeling's eyes, and knew that Chrysalis was telling the truth. She let out a low breath she didn't know she'd been holding and said what she had never thought she would. "I forgive you."
Chrysalis let a smile cross her face. "Thank you, Twilight. If it gives you peace of mind, you don't need to worry about any nefarious plots on my part. I'm ready to begin my life as a normal pony."
"And if it gives you peace of mind, I don't plan on telling anyone who you are anytime soon, so long as you don't cause any trouble."
The two stared at each other for a long time. It was a shaky truce, entirely based upon faith. Neither could know for certain if the other was being truthful; but both of them were.
Spike plodded into the library to see Twilight humming to herself while flipping through a book. "Hey Twilight, you'll never guess what happened. I got all the way to the Carousel Boutique before I realized that I never heard want you wanted me to borrow! Funny, huh?" he giggled. "Oh yeah, and I saw Sal on my way back carrying that book! Did she tell you what it was all about?"
Twilight closed the book she was reading and replaced it on its shelf. "Actually, she couldn't make head or tails of it. She checked it out to see if she could work out what language it was written in later." Mentally, Twilight added that the book was probably going to be long overdue. "But that's not important right now. Spike – take a letter."
Today I learned that remorse is a powerful emotion. It took a lot of doing, but somepony who I thought was bad through and through showed me they had a glimmer of goodness inside them all along. I don't think that everypony who does bad things will come to regret their actions, but the pony I met today proved to me that even the most heinous of crimes can be forgiven, if only the perpetrator realizes what they have done wrong and works to make it right. Today I saw an enemy become a friend, and a wrong be righted. Today I saw a pony change to become something better than they were before, and a good deed done to help lessen the guilt of past bad deeds. Not all ponies show remorse when they need to, but when they do, it can give them someone else's heart entirely.
