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A Princess and Her Queen

by kildeez

Chapter 17: Chapter XVII: Lulu 'n Chryssie

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Chrysalis studied herself in the full-length mirror, admiring every crease of chitin and every mossy curl of hair held in between the mirror's gold-embossed frame. "This is how a Queen should look," she said with a small smile, admiring the slender, form-fitting dress she'd stolen from Princess Cadence - or, scratch that - former Princess Cadence's wardrobe. It was of Asian design, imported from Nippony: a silken, shimmering, green thing that matched her eyes almost like a mirror.

With a shimmer of her magic, the Queen bound her mane up in a neat bun to complete the look, finishing with a silver comb accessory from Cadence's bureau. A touch of nostalgia hit her, bringing up the memory of a similar time when she'd stood on the edge of victory, in the same pony's room, standing in the same pony’s place. A part of her wanted to break into song just for old time's sake.

"My Queen?" A changeling servant, dressed in a little something from the palace servants’ quarters, poked his little black head into the room, already bowed.

"Yes, minion, what is it?" She asked with a musical little hum, the contented smile of one who truly has just about everything she wants stretching her muzzle as she set to work on the great question of her age: which of these earrings goes best with this hair accessory? Because I love the accessory, but if I could find earrings that went with it...

"I-it's your - uh - dinner guest, madam," the servant replied, watching as his queen moved from ruby sapphires inlaid in gold to pink-hued diamonds with silver.

"Ah yes, the Princess, how is she?"

"She's being - resistive, your majesty."

"Is she now?" The Queen sighed; she really should have expected no less from the only other creature she knew of that had forced Celestia to her knees in a full-on confrontation.

"My Queen? The workers in the boutique have grown desperate. They've managed to keep the Princess contained for now, but..."

"I'm coming, I'm coming," the Queen reassured, turning away from the mirror at last and following her servant into the hall.

Princess Luna's room was just a couple hallways down, and Chrysalis raised an eyebrow at the sight. A couple dozen changelings had stacked themselves against the door, desperately throwing themselves against its pretty, pink frame to contain the Princess inside.

"Jeez, she's strong! I thought we drained her magic!" One of the changelings in the pile screamed, his voice strained.

"We did!" The changeling next to him grunted. "This is just her brute strength!"

"What!? While she's injured!? What does she do to work out, toss mountains around!?"

Another slam against the door ended the conversation, punctuating it with the sound of creaking wood and straining hinges and followed by the deep, voluminous sound of the Royal Canterlot Voice: "Release us now, cretins, and perhaps we shall show mercy to thee!"

"Oh dang, what happened to the unlucky bugs in there!?" Changeling Number One asked.

"Forget them, dude, it's everyling for himself now!" Number Two replied.

"Chrysalis above..."

"Yes?" The Queen asked with a smart little smile, striding into view with her head held high.

"Your majesty!" Every changeling in the pile gasped simultaneously, a few forgetting themselves and trying to bow for a moment before another hit from the other side of the door brought them back to reality.

“I heard there was a bit of trouble with one of our guests,” the Queen said, motioning to the door.

“Trouble?” One of the little changelings asked, scoffing with a toss of his hoof. The door buckled again, and he threw himself against it. “Why, there’s no trouble, your highness! Everything is absolutely under control!”

”Tremble with fear, mortals! Beg, scream, and cry for your very lives! For you have trifled with a goddess!”

“This is under control to you?” Chrysalis asked, motioning to the door.

“Oh, this? A minor setback! A tiny snag! A…”

”Little foals! Puny insects!” The next blow nearly finished the door off, a navy hoof punching through the wood and nearly decapitating the changeling. Chrysalis deadpanned as the little black creature slowly shimmied away from the extended hoof, which promptly retracted and was replaced by a large eye, once blue, now red with fury.

“Would you mind terribly if I lent a hoof before you were all vaporized?” The Queen asked politely.

“Oh, no need to bother yourself my Queen!” One changeling enthused.

“Surely, this matter isn’t worthy of your trifling with!” Another added.

“Everything is under control!”

“Just put your hooves up and relax, your highness!”

”Insignificant bugs!” Luna protested, another hoof slamming through the door, this time jamming right between the hind legs of one of the stallions, coming within an inch of permanently transforming him into a mare. Carefully, said stallion eased himself off the hoof, one of his hind legs pulling up over it and carefully shimmying away, as if the Princess’s hoof was a jet of white-hot flame. The others stared at him as if he’d just grown a griffon’s head spouting knock-knock jokes, then turned back to their sovereign, their hind legs all crossing subconsciously.

“But if you really must insist…”

“Surely you can handle this far more efficiently than we could, your majesty.”

“Obviously, your aid would make what could be a mildly complex job infinitely easier, your highness.”

“I peed a little.”

Rolling her eyes, the Queen scooped her subjects up in her magic and gently laid them all in a neat pile next to the door, immediately focusing on holding the splintered piece of wood in place. Her subjects meant well, but for pity’s sake, they didn’t have to nearly get themselves killed just so she could avoid chipping a hoof!

”Thy foul creatures! Thy wicked cretins! We shall see to it that…”

“Princess, enough!” The Queen barked, her face morphing from that gentle and reassuring smile she’d had for her subjects to a glare of pure authority. “How much longer do you plan on acting like an uncontrollable foal in the midst of a temper tantrum!?”

”A foal!? You dare call the Princess of the Night a foal! Thy foul wretch! We shall have…”

“Princess, you are acting like a foal! I let you out of your cocoon out of the good graces of my heart, and you plan on throwing that in my face!?” The Queen barked. “What are you going to do once you get out, eh? Take on all of my changelings by yourself, injured as you are!? And I suppose you’ll take me on as well, because that worked so well last time!”

Something hit the door again, but it was weaker, more resigned. It was followed by something sliding along the wood to the ground, hitting with a low thud. Chrysalis sighed with relief. The Princess had seen reason after all.

“Foul creatures,” the Queen heard the Princess mutter. “You shall pay for the pain you have caused here.”

“Not likely,” the Queen replied with a little smirk. “Maker above, I’d be surprised if you didn’t open up an injury or two with this little outburst.”

She was met with silence, long and steady. The Queen rolled her eyes again. That the Princess was silent for the first time since being let free of her cocoon could only mean one thing. “You did, didn’t you? You opened up your wounds again!”

“’Tis just a cut on our shoulder,” the Princess replied defensively, as if that were any better.

“’Tis a cut that will get infected if not treated,” Chrysalis replied, leaning her head against the door. “Princess, I need you alive to keep the spirits of these ponies high, or I will not be able to feed my Swarm, and we might get…desperate if that happens. Is that what you want? A desperate, unfed army and a defenseless civilian populace?”

A few more moments of quiet followed, the Queen holding her breath the entire time. Finally, what was left of the door creaked open. “Make haste with it, and let us be off,” the Princess grumbled from inside, and the changeling allowed a trembling sigh of relief to escape her lips.

Chrysalis eased the door open, carefully pressing through into the dressing room. She was nearly in awe at how much destruction the Princess had managed to wreak without any magic at her disposal. The heart-shaped mirror perched upon the wardrobe leaned on its side, half its lights shattered, and the walls were covered in various makeup and cosmetics from the drawers. A tornado couldn’t have made a finer mess, and she hadn’t even looked at the unfortunate changelings that had been caught up in the Alicorn’s rampage. At the very least they were still breathing, but every one of them looked like they’d just lost a fight with a manticore: one was draped from the blades of the ceiling fan, another laid against a wall with a tube of lipstick through one of his hoof-holes, pinning it in place (how in the hell a bit of lipstick could pound through a crystal-lined wall was anyone’s guess). Finally, there was the pair in the corner with...oh. Chrysalis had no idea the Princess could be so crude! She had to suppress a little giggle at the sight of a pair of unconscious changeling stallions spooning one another. The front changeling held the rear one's hoof in his grip, clasping it to his chest like a lover's forehoof. She couldn't see where the rear changeling's other hoof was, but she knew it couldn't be anywhere pleasant.

“Well?” Luna asked behind her. “You came in here for a reason. Finish it and let us be off.”

Grimacing at the fact that a six-foot-tall, blue, Alicorn princess had managed to sneak up behind her (was she that out of practice with deception!?), the changeling turned to the source of the voice. “You know, it could be considered quite rude to conceal oneself from…”

Chrysalis cut herself off. Luna stood before her in all her royal splendor. Her wings were tipped with silver bands that cut her ability to fly, but complemented her coat perfectly. Her body was clad in a dark dress: black as night, covered in silver sequins, and form-fitting enough to show off every curve of her well-toned body. The bit of green goo on the tip of her horn, meant to drain her magic, was made into the topper for a set of silver bands that ended near her forehead with a set of chains, strung along her hairline to mimic the Saddle-Arabian style and framing her face in such a way to draw the viewer to those wonderfully deep, blue eyes. All this in spite of the black eye and recently-cauterized bloody nose that marred an otherwise beautiful face.

“And just what are you staring at?” Luna barked.

Chrysalis shook her head, giving herself a little punch in the jaw to clear her mind. “Nothing you need to be concerned with, Princess,” she replied, looking the Alicorn over for any opened wounds, starting with her shoulder. “Just ensuring my underlings performed satisfactorily in making sure you were fit for a dinner with royalty.”

“Ah. And?”

“You are quite a bit less unattractive than you were in the cocoon, I will admit,” the Queen snorted with a sideways little smile, brushing the Luna’s feathers aside in her search for the open wound.

“Hmm,” Luna grunted, and then winced as Chrysalis moved a certain bundle of feathers.

“That it?” Chrysalis asked, and Luna nodded, her face holding at neutral, though one could easily tell she was biting the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out. Rolling her eyes, the changeling stepped back and eased her horn deep into the bushel of feathers, moving as carefully and cautiously as she could, trying to avoid touching any feathers if she could help it. A bit of the antiseptic goo spurted from her horn, and Luna allowed a tiny gasp to escape her mouth, imperceptible except for the little jolt it sent through her wings.

“Almost...and…there!” Chrysalis took a few quick steps back, and Luna let her breath out in a long, slow exhale. “That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t,” Luna turned her flat and emotionless, yet still utterly stunning, eyes on Chrysalis. “Can we get this over with now?”

“As you wish, Princess,” the Queen motioned to the door, making sure Luna was the first to trot out, her head held high. She tried to tell herself that this was just out of the obvious tactical advantage of keeping one’s enemies in front of oneself, and not just because she wanted to admire the Luna’s royal flank as she trotted by. Chrysalis almost had herself convinced this was the case and was halfway out the room when she caught the sound of a pair of changelings stirring.

She trotted just out the door as Luna disappeared around a corner somewhere down the hall, flanked by changeling guards on her way towards the dining caverns. With her out of sight, the she immediately pressed herself to the wall, her subjects watching as they struggled to untangle themselves from their pile.

“My Queen?” One asked. “What are you…”

“Shh!” She raised a hoof to silence him as, all at once, the shuffling inside the room stopped.

“Carapace?” A voice inside asked.

“Nictis?” Another said.

"Why did you just kiss my hoof?" Nictis asked.

"Why are you holding my hoof?" Carapace retorted.

"Where's your other one?"

"It's between these two pillows."

"Oh." A few moments passed of pure silence, anticipation rising in the Queen's chest. For a moment, she thought she might have to miss the big payoff, and then a horrified scream added: "Those aren't PILLOWS!"

"GWAAAHHHH!" A loud crash sounded, and Chrysalis trotted off, biting her lip hard enough to draw blood as she suppressed a snicker.

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The ceilings of the palace dining cavern towered enough to give anypony looking up an intense feeling of vertigo. Add to that the massive, layered chandelier with a thousand little crystalline tines shimmering off its edges that hung from the ceiling’s apex like a twenty-foot tall, upside-down wedding cake, and any viewer would be utterly dazzled. Then there was the marble mantle, large enough to fit a full redwood tree (chopped up, of course) and engraved with a lion’s head at both its upper corners, all sitting next to a hardwood table capable of seating the full Canterlot court, with enough room left over for both the guards and the servants they’d almost certainly bring along, not that the Canterlot nobility would ever allow commoners to sit with them (Celestia forbid).

And then there was the food. The table was covered in platters piled high with biscuits soaking in butter and green beans with stuffed peppers. A couple pumpkins sat in the middle of the table, steaming with something neither pony nor changeling could quite place, but smelt irresistible. Pans overflowed with collard greens, mashed potatoes with little flecks of garlic mixed throughout, and for dessert: cupcakes of every color imaginable, coffee cake, brownies covered in chocolate shavings and light-brown toffee frosting, cookies slathered in chocolate syrup and licorice bits, and enough chocolate pudding to give an elephant a sugar rush.

The Princess and the Queen stood just within the gold-encrusted doorway, jaws agape. “Well…Princess…” Chrysalis stammered before regaining herself. “Go ahead and…dig in.”

“R-right,” Luna said, still staring with eyes wide as dinner plates at the opulent feast before them: a meal that would be considered gluttonous for twenty ponies, much less one plus a changeling. While she trotted along, trying to figure out which of the many high-backed, heavy-wooded chairs she would sit in, Chrysalis motioned for one of her servants to approach.

“What is this!? Did you tell that mare we were feeding the entire kingdom in here!?” She hissed.

“No, my Queen, we just told her to cook enough for two or three ponies, and this is what she did!” The tuxedoed changeling said defensively, ears folding back.

“Who did she think she was feeding!? The moon made incarnate!? The ruler of a starving nation!?”

The changeling blinked at his ruler. “Y-yes?” He answered, cringing with fear.

Her eyes flared for an instant, sending the little changeling flying down the hall as fast as his little wings could carry him. “I’m so sorry I’ll make sure to straighten it out with the kitchen my beloved Queen k thnx bye!” He called over his shoulder as he vanished.

Chrysalis shook her head and pressed a hoof to the lightly-powdered bridge of her nose. As if the food situation in the city wasn’t a problem enough! If this ever got out - if ponies knew the Changeling Queen was eating in such splendor while they choked down whatever rations the supply convoys would be bringing in…

“Well, this is a nice surprise,” Luna’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “And here, a part of me was afraid we would be supping on nectar or bits of rancid meat.”

“Aheh,” Chrysalis forced a laugh, grinning in that way everyone grinned when they really wanted to break a hoof off in somepony’s rear end. “Contrary to popular belief, changelings are not insects, but in fact are mammals, like any other pony.”

“Fascinating,” Luna replied, her voice completely flat and robotic. She finally settled on a chair and seated her royal tush in as graceful a manner as one would expect from Canterlot royalty.

Rolling her eyes, Chrysalis grabbed a plate (gold-trimmed with floral designs, of course. Maker above, was there any part of this castle that didn’t scream overindulgence!?). She seated herself right across from Luna, shoveling heaping helpings of mashed potatoes and collard greens onto her plate and noting the plain salad with feta cheese on the Princess’s own plate.

“Aren’t you going to take anything else? There’s plenty more,” Chrysalis said, motioning to the veritable feast set before them.

“This shall suffice,” Luna shrugged, munching passively at the greens. “What about you? I thought changelings did not require food.”

“Is that interest in discovering more about my race I detect, Princess?” Chrysalis asked, a smart little smile on her face as she scooped up her silverware (sterling silver inlaid with jewels because of course it was) and slicing off a bit of baked potato.

“Know thy enemy,” Luna replied, her own smart little smile splitting her muzzle.

“Quite,” Chrysalis replied, a sliver of potato dangling before her mouth. “While emotional energy can sustain a changeling quite adequately, we still hunger for food. That hunger will not kill us as it will a pony, but there is still that feeling of an empty stomach one must contend with. It would look suspicious for a changeling infiltrator if they never ate, after all.”

“Hmm,” Luna nodded, studying the lettuce leaf on the end of her fork as if it were an ant waiting to be crushed underhoof: a small annoyance just waiting for something much larger and more powerful to annihilate it completely. “So, it would be possible to keep a changeling absolutely starved for food and in the constant agony of hunger indefinitely, as long as they simply received a regular allotment of love?”

Chrysalis looked up from her wedge of potato, the chitin of her forehead scrunching up. “Theoretically speaking, course,” Luna amended, the smile morphing into a wicked grin.

“Of course,” Chrysalis nodded sagely and nibbled at the wedge, wiping away any crumbs with a few dainty dabs of her silken napkin, pulling it out of a plain, cherry wood holder to do so. She almost did a double-take on the napkin holder: and here she’d been expecting it to be solid gold and encrusted in diamonds!

The conversation stalled like a stallion being asked by his marefriend when he was going to pop the question already. The only sound between the pair for a few minutes was the usual snapping and gulping that accompanied any two civilized beings eating at a civilized meal, sounds one only noticed when it became clear that the conversationalists had nothing more to say to one another and were now just there to perform a bodily function, two if someone had chronic gas.

Unable to stand the silence any longer, Chrysalis sighed as she scooped a few errant green beans into her maw. If she was going to get anything out of this pony, she would have to resort to that most desperate of tactics, reserved only as a last resort for infiltrators. Yes, as much as it left a bad taste in her mouth, she was out of options here.

It was time to make small talk.

“So, is it always this cold in the Empire?” She asked.

“Yeah,” Luna replied curtly, her eyes never leaving her plate as she scooped up the last of her feta cheese.

Chrysalis frowned. Well, that didn’t work. However, if the Princess thought being discourteous would earn her a reprieve from further talking, she thought wrong. She wasn’t the only one versed in the art of conversation!

“I mean, it is really always this cold? Never a heat wave in sight?” Chrysalis asked.

“Nope,” came the reply, Luna apparently taking more interest in the stray olive rolling around her plate and soaking itself in vinaigrette than in anything the Queen had to say.

Dang it, Chrysalis cursed silently. “So, how is your sister doing?”

Luna missed a stab at the olive with her fork, sending it flying off her plate and onto the table. One of her wings quivered, and a wave of barely-restrained rage inundated her dining partner. And then it was gone in a flash. “She’s fine.”

Dang it! “I…think…that new Doctor Whooves episode looks alright.”

“I don’t watch TV.”

DANG IT! “So…I hear the Empire’s soccer team is doing quite well in the world cup. Quite impressive, considering they haven’t had any practice in a millennium, don’t you think?” Dear Maker, she was actually resorting to sports!?

“I don’t follow sports.” Silence.

DOUBLE GOD-FREAKIN’ PISSING DANG IT! Okay, she got a bit of a reaction from talking about family, maybe that was her way in? “Alright, what about Cadence? Has she been doing a fair job in ruling the Empire?”

Luna’s fork scratched against her plate, emitting a high-pitched sound that made one of the changeling servants standing at the door cringe. She finally looked up at the changeling ruler, her eyes blazing. “She was,” she hissed.

Okay, anger was something, this was progress. Probably. “A bit deep into pink, though, hmm?”

“Hmm.” Luna grunted and returned her attention to picking at her plate.

"I mean, what is with that girl and pink? I know it is the color of her coat and all, but nopony else is obsessed with a color just because they were born with it! Take me, for instance! I am black, but the only thing black about my life is my castle, and most of my evening gowns, and the tunnels my hive digs..."

"Don't forget about the royal jewel collection, your majesty." One of the servants added.

"Ah yes, thank you servant. The royal jewel collection, and...uh..." Chrysalis's eyebrows hunched in thought. After a moment, she turned back to the servant still standing at attention by her side. "Remind me to hire an interior decorator later. Our color scheme requires diversifying."

"Yes, my Queen." The changeling intoned.

“Isn't that funny? I never noticed it until now, but my entire kingdom is just black and green," Chrysalis mused thoughtfully as she picked another leaf of lettuce off the plate. "I guess it's just one of those things you get so used to that it never even occurs to question..."

"What art thou doing?"

The Queen looked up in shock at the interruption. Her dinner guest glared back at her from across the table, her plate still full. "Making conversation?" Chrysalis shrugged, another leaf of lettuce passing through her lips, her tongue lapping at a dab of vinaigrette in the corner of her mouth. "Isn't that what ponies usually do at these things?"

“'Tis what friends do,” the Princess hissed – straight up hissed! – in reply. “Thou and I are not friends.”

"No, but we could at least pretend to tolerate one another during this little jaunt, and conversation would make this evening pass by a bit faster!" Chrysalis nearly screamed, her hoof hammering down on the table's surface.

"Verily well, thou wishes to talk?" Luna snorted, the air rocketing out of her nostrils so hot that it reignited the candelabra at her side. "Let us talk about what we art doing hither. Just what was it thou wish’d to accomplish with this charade of a dinner!?"

"A bit of forgiveness was all, Princess,” the Queen hissed. “I had hoped this would be a time for making amends with you.”

“Amends,” the Princess snorted. “Thou thinks dinner makes amends f’r taking our cater-cousins hostage, invading our nation, and further traumatizing a couple who’s wedding thou ruin’d on an almost identical atrocity!?”

“I apologize for none of that!” The Queen screamed, slamming her hooves onto the table and spilling some of the food off her plate. “I was only doing what was best for my people! I’m here to apologize for the way I incapacitated you!”

“Oh, thou means when thy beat the daylights out of us f’r defending our cater-cousins!?”

You think I lost my temper because you…” Chrysalis cut herself off, a hoof massaging her temple as she slumped in her seat. “You seriously think that was only because you fought to defend your friends?”

Luna arched an eyebrow, but the steely glare in her eyes informed Chrysalis that she was still primed and ready for battle.

“This entire meal was a waste of time,” Chrysalis grumbled, shaking her head as she pushed away from the table. "I had heard the forgiveness of ponies to be profound, unmatched by any other creatures'. Apparently, that doesn't extend to monsters like my kind, does it?"

“Monsters?” Luna’s eyes widened as if the punch line to a joke she’d forgotten had just dawned on her. “This is all about me calling you a monster, isn’t it?”

“It wasn’t obvious?” Chrysalis snorted, turning away from the table. “Of course it wasn’t. Not to you. Typical.”

She stomped her hooves twice. “Guards!” She called, glaring at the Princess the entire time.

Immediately, a couple dozen changelings clad in full armor burst through the door. “Yes, your highness!?”

“Take the Princess back to her holding cell,” she barked, trotting through their ranks. They parted and allowed her to pass by to the hallway, all staring straight ahead as she pulled the comb out of her hair and let her mane loose. “Have someling take the leftovers down to the caverns, maybe the ponies donating love down there will put it to better use than we did.”

“Yes, your majesty,” the massive soldiers droned, their armor shimmering in the artificial light as a pair of them advanced on the Princess, two of them seizing her forelegs while another four stood back with spears levelled on her. Surprisingly, she didn’t resist, only stared at the Queen as she trotted away, the royal changeling seething with anger.

“I’m sorry,” Luna rasped, her eyes wide, as if Chrysalis had just told her the moon was in fact made of cheese and had provided photographic proof.

The Changeling Queen paused and turned just as the doors slammed shut between them, sealing the dining hall off as the changelings inside set to work carrying out her orders. She raised a hoof, as if to reach up and push her way back in. “That’s the first time…anypony’s…apologized…” she stammered.

Someday, my princess, you will meet someone who will make you feel like the stars were something they wove together just for you.

Snarling, Chrysalis’s expression soured. “Another pony trick, Chrysalis, get a grip,” she muttered, storming back to her room as the first of dozens of changelings streamed past, carrying pots and pans for the leftovers.

Author's Notes:

Still not the worst first date I've ever heard of.

Next Chapter: Chapter XVIII: Sprinkleshine Estimated time remaining: 10 Hours, 17 Minutes
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