"Ugh," I yelped as random surge of pain emerged in my chest, "Argh. With all this agony wringing throughout my body makes me feel as if I'm levitating," I spoke out to Chrysalis in semi-irritated, pained voice.

"That's because you actually are floating," Chrysalis scoffs. "Have you forgotten that you are almost completely crippled thanks to that little performance you did? Next time, try to avoid getting nearly killed so that I don't have to drag you out of whatever hole you crawled to die in."

"Oh yeah..." I muttered. I forgot that I can't even stand, let alone walk. "Thanks for this, I guess."

Chrysalis replies with a smirk, "Think nothing of it." She swiftly adds, "Though, this means that you do owe me."

I replied with no words, but with the roll of my eyes.

And so we progress... rather monotonously. Nothing to do other than to look around, and the scenery seems to repeat itself--nothing but bloody corpses, bloody disembodied limbs, bloody trees, bloody rocks, bloody craters left by artillery fire for as far as the eye can see.

I sighed. "This... this is boring," I feigned agony as I said those words.

"Occupy yourself in something," Chrysalis said, rolling her eyes as she did.

"Like what? There's not much to do in my current state," I answered back.

"I don't know." She begins scanning the area. "Count... the dead bodies, or something."

"That's a rather grim activity to indulge in..." I pondered before she could reply, "Wait, what's the date?"

Chrysalis eyes me with a bemused face, "Do you really expect me to know the current date?" She sneers, "How could I possibly know that when I had my sleep deprived from me, the majority of my time spent on killing, or avoiding to be killed, and of course, I haven't had the chance to see a calendar for a few months now."

I clenched my teeth down as I overlooked that glaring fact. I suppose that my mental reasoning has-

"Yes. I actually do know the date; it's the twenty-first of May," Chrysalis answers with a rather smug smile. "Can I assist you in anything else?"

"Wait- How could you possibly know that?" I stammered.

Chrysalis shrugs, feigning a proud tone. "I have a rather keen memory. It's quite a basic necessity for someone of my caliber."

I dismissed her attempt at boasting. "Whatever- anyways..." I stared at the sky for a few moments, and back to her, "it was my birthday six days ago."

Chrysalis slowed her pace down suddenly, her eyes widening as if she just saw a train being derailed. "Really now?" she questioned. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

I let out an annoyed grunt. "I didn't know the date. What did you expect?" I said with a scoff. "Anyways, what's so special with birthdays with you?"

"What do you mean?" Chrysalis snaps into reality as she let out a chuckle, "Oh right. The birthday thing; it's really a changeling custom." A faint smile adorns her face as she daydreams about something--most likely about her culture. "You see, when a changeling queen has her birthday, a very large celebration is normally held."

Chrysalis looks down and stifles a laugh, "I remember my previous birthday celebration. Banquets of the finest cooked meat-"

"Meat?" I stared at her with a dumbfounded look. "I thought you changelings feasted on love, or am I mistaken?"

She sighs in irritation before she responded, "Yes, you are greatly mistaken, for that is a very big misconception," she glances at me as she opens her mouth wide, "See these?" she gestured her hoof to her fangs, "What do you think these are for?"

"Oh," was all that I could muster at that moment. "I see... so I take it that you pursue 'love' only to fuel your magic?"

"You catch on quick," she said as she sly smiles. A look of trivialization on her face. She looked as if she wanted to pat my head, or something . "Yes, we do use it to this," she points her horn at a charred tree. Horn radiating with a green luminescence, she unleashed an emerald fireball upon a nearby tree, enveloping it in flames.

Upon impact, the orb detonated, engulfing the tree in fire. "Given enough time, even the most resilient and most formidable of changeling hives will crumble without hunting for love."

I rolled my eyes. "Was that demonstration really required?"

"No," she dismissively waves her hoof at me, "but I do like showing off."

Chrysalis continued, "But back to what I was saying. There were banquets-"

"Yeah, I get it. You had an awesome birthday party." I clapped my hands, faking celebratory cheer as I said, "That's great and all, but... I really wanted to celebrate it with, you know, less bloodshed and explosions."

"That is an inevitability, considering the rather notorious reputation you uphold here." Chrysalis snickered.

"Still, it would've been nice to celebrate it with friends."

For a brief second, a hint of sorrow was apparent on Chrysalis' face before it returned to a more neutral look. "Am I not considered a friend?" she asks, her tone devoid of any emotion.

"Wait, what-"

"Nothing," Chrysalis interrupted. "It's nothing."

"Uh," I uttered as my mind briefly blanked on me with panic. Her usual charismatic mien just plummeted suddenly. What's up with that? "No need to get upset. I said friends--plural. Now that you mention it, I didn't even get to celebrate my birthday due to a number of hectic transitions in my lifestyle." I chuckle sheepishly. "Of course you're a friend."

"Heh. It's going to take a lot to deceive who practices deception." She managed a weak phantom of a smile as she slouched back, her head slightly drooping.

I hesitated before replying, "I do mean it, though." My tone was weaved with guilt. Chrysalis lights back up, reverting back to her more enthusiastic posture. I take it that she saw no motive of deceit behind my words.

Chrysalis shook her head as if dismissing a thought in her mind. "Like I said, don't pay too much to it. It's nothing." Chrysalis chuckles once more. "As a changeling queen, I will not allow your birthday to go without commemoration."

"Huh? What do you have in mind for me?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"Nothing, at the moment." An infuriated expression crossed Chrysalis' face . "Gah. I'll think of something later. For now, let's focus on getting out of here."

I simply nodded in agreement.

I felt as if I was going to die. Simply walking was a seemingly inconceivable task due to the tormenting amount of pain riddled through me. My body was crippled; I could barely move my arms, and the pungent smell of burnt flesh does not help at all.

"Is this all that is left of this forest?" I said, my half-opened, weary eyes gazing through the charred trees doused in blood and eviscerated corpses. Ash and blood solidified in unity to form a black ooze with a red tint. The abundance of trees was erased completely, being replaced by blackened stumps and branches.

"It seems so," Chrysalis paused, taking a sigh indicating fatigue, "it seems that the inferno engulfed everything." She sneered in disgust as the scent of profound amounts of sizzled flesh assaulted her nostrils, "Trees and corpses alike."

"What a pity," I wheezed and coughed, a small trickled of blood alarmingly escaping my mouth, "I always liked the terrain..."

Chrysalis glances at me, genuinely concerned, "You just coughed out blood... is that something humans do normally?"

I stared at her with a sarcastic glower, "Yeah. We normally do that when we're dying, or suffering a very serious ailment." My remark seemed to only annoy her as she chose to avoid responding, her eyes directed focus forwards, a bemused frown apparent on her face.

I thought to myself aloud, "Now's not the best time to be snide, I guess."

"What makes you say that?" she quipped.

I managed to emit a chuckle, although it was extremely raspy and stifled. I doubt that she could even hear it, seeing that there was no reaction from her.

So we walked. Well, technically, she walked and I hovered just a few feet away from her, encased in her magical grip. As we progressed through the ashy wasteland of blood that was formerly a great forest, I witnessed the severely mutilated bodies of both ally and enemy.

"Something I'd rather not look at again," I muttered feebly.

Chrysalis shook her head, "I can agree with you on that one."

On the fallen branches were impaled corpses, blood staining every bit of their bodies. Some even were grasping the sharp branch skewering them.

"Those look as if they were alive for a few seconds before they died..." I uttered in both shock and terror.

"What a terrible way to go." Chrysalis shivers before she spoke, "I wonder if this is what that red psycho meant by a 'plan' reserved especially for me."

"I... really hope not." I shook my head, "It doesn't matter. She's gone."

"Yeah, you're right." Chrysalis looked forwards, braving the unforgiving pathway of damp, bloodied, darkened soil. Her hoofsteps making a splashing noise.

I looked around further. As much as didn't want to stomach the brutality, I just simply had an urge to examine the war-torn forest. Shards of glass are scattered throughout the ground, most likely from the face-plates and visors of my comrades.

I just can't help but feel extreme pity and sorrow towards them; they were loyal to the end, yet their bodies remain here on this foreign land, condemned to never be satisfied with a proper burial, rotting away here.

Ack. The more I think about that, the pain seems to multiply.

I shrugged that line of thought from my head. Opting to examine area further, seeing that there was nothing better to do, I could barely stomach the sight before me. Every time we pass to another area, it's as if their morbidly grotesque aspects progressively become more gruesome.

Their faces were either burnt, or torn from their respective areas. Cartridges of ammunition were scattered everywhere. Craters caused by bombardment were filled with the blood-ash mixture.

Appendages and weapons were floating just above the glimmering surface of the black pools of blood. As much as I wanted to regurgitate at the sight, I refrained from doing so.

"Chrysalis," I beckoned, "I'm fine now. You can put me down now. The majority of the pain isn't there anymore, and I think I can feel my legs again."

Chrysalis glared at me with unpersuaded eyes, "Ha. You don't look like you can even walk." She chuckles, "Do you think that this strains my magical supply? If so, you underestimate a queen's ability in magic."

"No." I struggled to suppress a sudden spike of pain in my shoulder, "It's just that I'd rather not be a burden."

"You'd be an even greater burden if I allowed you to walk."

I hesitated to answer. "Good point," I admitted.

Suddenly, I am infuriated by a confounding question that has been confounding my mind for a lengthy amount of time by now. Sighing, I resulted in asking the one who definitely knows the answer, "Hey Chrysalis," I called out, prompting her to look towards me.

"What's with the sudden change of heart for me?"

She appears to be confused, "What do you mean, exactly?"

I groaned, in both pain due to the excruciating agony freely roaming my entire body, and from uncertainty. Finally, I managed to conjure an answer. "We were enemies for what seems to be just a few months ago, colleagues that are bitter to each other a few weeks ago, and now you're helping me with considerable compassion."

She smirks. "Well, you prove to be a very formidable asset." She continued, "Consider this as a late birthday gift."

I arch my eyebrow in a criticizing manner. "Really? I'm just an asset?"

She muffles a laugh with her hoof, before answering, "What can I say? Not only did I obtained a rather large sum of captive ponies for me and my hive to feed off of, you just made one of my worries go away for me. It's simply a necessity for me to repay you."

"Never did I condone, nor give you permission, in letting you taking in the survivors as simply magic-fuel for your changelings to luxuriate in." I sighed. "And by 'worry' you mean the Red Queen, correct?"

"Indeed. I was certain that she had 'plans' for me when she discovered where I escaped to," she shuddered, "It's against my vanity to say it, but her hive surpasses my own; only in combat, to be specific. Eradication... would have been a possibility, had it not been for your intervention."

"Well, about that..." I had to conceal the gradual increase of tension in my voice by pausing before actually replying, "I don't think I actually killed her."

Chrysalis stopped in her tracks abruptly, "What?!" she asked me in an extremely distraught tone. "If she is still well and breathing, me and my changelings are in-"

Before she could continue on panicking, I interrupted, "Woah. Allow me to give you some clarifications," I took a deep breath, "She confronted me just before the sisters did. I managed to shoot her, and she fell down while screaming, and thus, I was under the pretense that I have murdered her."

"But she escaped?"

"Not exactly," I said as I shook my head in disappointment. "I don't exactly know where I shot her. You know, the agony and the adrenaline sometimes blur your mind."

I continued, "Some time later, the sisters found me, and as expected, demanded me to surrender. Being under the dementia-like influence of the damned book, I refused, and a battle subsequently followed. I kinda won, and then I passed out."

I added further, "When I woke up, her body was gone, and I'm quite sure that she wasn't just simply hiddened in the dusky blood-ash."

Chrysalis slowly resumed her walking. With a snarl, she replied, "If she is still alive. Then that is quite, quite problematic for us and our well-being."

"Who knows? Maybe she bled out and died?" I suggested.

"An optimist's way of thinking," Chrysalis shrugged off the thought, "We must always be ready for the worst." And so our conversation ends with that, and only a haunting silence accompanied the following several minutes.

I looked upwards to the sky as I am being carried via telekinesis. Honestly, one of the reasons I want to just go back to walking is that being kinetically carried by an unseen force is quite disorientating. Very disorientating.

My eyes wandered towards the clear blue skies. As if oblivious to the unmeasurable carnage present below them, flocks of birds flew past by the annihilated forest. Oddly enough, judging by the position of the sun, it was still quite early. The battle was not as long as I've anticipated, it seems.

"Hm," I spoke out to my changeling companion, "Where are we exactly going?" Once more, I coughed out a trickle of blood. "The stronghold isn't exactly there, anymore."

"Where-" Chrysalis paused as she had called forth green flames to incinerate a large branch obstructing our path. With a sigh, she continued, "-do you think I'm taking you?"

I closed my eyes, trying to make a hypothesis. I opened my eyes as I've made an assumption, "Well, this forest is burnt to the last tree, and there's blood everywhere, and the castle is most likely demolished by the artillery. So, I'm guessing we're headed for Ponyville?"

"Correct," she chirped out mockingly. "You know, you're not as idiotic as you were before."

I waved my hands around dismissively. "Whatever," I said with apathy.

As we trudged carefully among the marshes of blood, Chrysalis spotted a rather dry, untainted patch of green grass. There was not a single tendril of grass was doused in blood. I suppose that this is one of the areas excluded from the violence. "Ah, look. We can take a rest there," Chrysalis suggested.

"Yeah." I stated with a hint of worry, "Through all that walking, surely you're tired by now."

Before Chrysalis could give a cocky reply, a ghostly whisper came from behind the tree. "Ah yes, Chrysalis. You must be tired." The source of the voice revealed herself; it was the Red Queen, her gunshot wound still apparent, but no longer bleeding.

"What? Did you expect me to go that easily?" she laughs grimly. "Chrysalis, have you forgotten to inform your pet here that me and my changelings have a rather appalling regeneration rate?"

Author's Notes:

I... I AM NOT DEAD!

HOORAY!

Now then. Who's still my pre-reader?

Credits to Mad Maudlin and TSLsmokey for pre-reading this.