There was a storm coming. Chrysalis could feel it in her chitinous exoskeleton: a charge in the air that crackled with goodwill and festive cheer. The land was awash in green and red fires, and the sky clouded over with gingerbread fumes. She didn’t like it—not that she ever liked anything, but she especially didn’t like this. Storms such as these came always in the winter months, just before the hive’s annual hibernation, but never one quite this gigantic and jolly. The ponies, weathermongers that they were, were behind this. They had to be.

“Bring me a prisoner!” she commanded, clapping her hooves together. Silence. She gave it another minute... still no prisoner. Not even a drink to tide her over while she waited. What disobedience! What impertinence! She would see to it that all of the drones were soundly punished for this terrible treachery against her!

Then she remembered that she was sitting at the barren peak of her freezing desert fortress, rather than its well-staffed heart. She stepped back inside and accepted the freshly-squeezed love slurry that had been prepared for her. “Bring me a prisoner!” she commanded, in between sips. “And be quicker this time!”

The prisoner arrived in fairly short order, bound with the very stickiest goo changeling biology could produce. It was an earth pony stallion from that Ponyville hive, captured by accident in the fruit pie debacle. He’d acquired some middling fame amongst the drones for his impressive resistance, as his love production remained low and no amount of torture or interrogation seemed capable of fixing that. All in all, a dangerous character, if the siphoned memories of the hivemind were to be believed.

“A tough skull to crack,” Chrysalis murmured, giving him her most devious grin. She finished the last of her love slurry and cracked its shell container in twain. “I do so enjoy cracking things.”

The pony trembled, as much as his binds would allow. “P-please, oh great Queen C-Chrysanthemum!” he squeaked. “I b-beg you, show mercy!”

“Ha!” A charmer, this one, despite his empty threats. Chrysalis wasn’t about to fall for any of it, though she did appreciate the comparison with the deadly and much-feared chrysanthemum. “I don’t even know the meaning of ‘mercy!’”

“If I may be of assistance, your Highness...” A nearby worker tapped her lightly on the wing. “It means exercising compassion or forgiveness.”

“Oh, does it?” She rapped on her head, trying to remember. “No, I’m almost certain it was that one sugar-toxin the ponies make. The one with the almonds...?”

“I believe that to be ‘marzipan,’ your Highness.”

“Well, that’s wonderful.” Chrysalis sighed. These ponies and all their idiotic words. If only they’d evolved to convey meaning by pheromone excretion, as their betters had. She turned back to the prisoner. “Then I say to you that, though I am now aware of the meaning of ‘mercy,’ I show no inclination to exercise it! You will tell me now what you know of the joy storm!”

“The...” It was the pony’s turn now to look puzzled—a very convincing act, she had to say. “The what now?”

“The cheernado!” said Chrysalis insistently. Though she admired his fortitude, she would not be denied by a simple pony such as he. “The mirthicane! It is known by all these names and more. You cannot expect me to believe that you have never heard of it!”

“I’m... I’m sorry, great Queen Chrysolite!” said the pony, determined to make things difficult for her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! P-please, it’s Hearth’s Warming Eve! I have a family, and I haven’t even bought presents for them yet!”

“Aha!” Chrysalis laughed. “Your efforts were valiant, prisoner, but I have caught your mistake! I demand you speak more of this Hearth’s Warming Eve plot!”

“I-it’s a day where we give presents to our friends and family!” said the pony, shaking like a wiggle-grub, “as a celebration of the convivial spirit that led to the founding of pre-modern Equestria!” He sobbed. “I don’t know anymore! Please, your Highness, if I’m not home in time, they might unwrap the gifts without me!”

A kinder and more caring monarch might have released him on the spot, but Chrysalis had more than half a brain. “Back to the dungeon,” she bid the guards.

“Please, your Highness!” said the stallion, tears in his eyes. “I beg you!”

Chrysalis sighed. Despite her abnormally large hatred glands and overactive disgust sacs, she wasn’t a monster. She actually did have a heart, even if declining love production had shrunken it a couple sizes below baseline. “Oh, all right,” she told him. “In recognition of the valuable information you provided us, your quota this month is reduced. Now begone!”

“Nooooo!”

As the guards dragged the prisoner off, Chrysalis sat and pondered the new insight. “Hearth’s Warming Eve,” she murmured. It seemed gibberish to her, for the most part. ‘Hearth’ was clearly a nonsense word, and ‘Eve’ surely referred to a period of time. That only left... “War-ming.” A jolt ran down her abdomen. “War! The ponies are arming each other for an invasion!”

She released the alarm pheromones immediately, putting the entire hive on high-alert. Never before had the ponies been so bold or needlessly belligerent, but she saw now that they’d been playing her for the fool. Their strategy of only reacting defensively to justified changeling aggression had lulled her into a false sense of security, and now they sought to strike. The oncoming storm was but a prelude to the terrible assault that would soon follow!

No worries, no worries. It was only the first Equestrian invasion her hive had ever faced. Probably their soft and feeble army, with its inferior endoskeleton-based biology, could not seriously threaten the hive, but on the off-chance that it could... If she allowed them to launch their Hearth’s Warming invasion unhindered...

No, she didn’t dare take that chance. Deep breath. She had it all under control. “Send out the scouts!” she ordered, as the hive exploded into a battle-ready frenzy. “We must know more of their plans, before it is too late! The workers shall evacuate the larvae to the deeper chambers, and a drone shall bring me another drink!”

“Of course, your Highness!” said a warrior drone, halting his panic just long enough to salute. “But what shall your glorious army do?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” said Chrysalis, accepting the fresh love-slurry. She took a long, slow sip from it and grinned. “You all strike first.”

“Well,” said Chrysalis, as the final light in Ponyville flickered off. “It seems they’re asleep now.” She reclined in her battle-sleigh, constructed from only the hardest plates of cast-off chitin. “Can the scouts confirm?”

“Of course, your Highness,” said a commanding worker. “The scouts confirm that the last ‘store’ has gone silent.”

“Finally.” Her wings buzzed in frustration. All day, the ponies had been swarming about their little stores, grabbing every last weapon they could lay their hooves on. She had no idea as to the devious ends they’d planned for their cookie tins and official Power Ponies™ merchandise, but Equestria had clearly spared no expense on arming its soldiers. “Are the drones in position?”

“They are, your Highness. Squad three, however, reports that they are cold.”

“They’re cold.” Chrysalis cocked her head. “And...?”

The worker shrugged.

“Order them to eat all the snow they can find,” said Chrysalis, “and to reflect on the importance of my time.”

“Of course, your Highness.”

Chrysalis looked upon the tiny, warlike village of Ponyville. It seemed so quiet and sleepy now, and it would remain that way until they all woke on Hearth’s Warming Day. She couldn’t help but wiggle with excitement. This plan was so perfect, so simple, so deliciously evil, that she could scarcely believe she hadn’t thought of it sooner. In a single, solitary swoop, the entire changeling army would secure every weapon stockade in Ponyville, claiming them for the hive. Genius! Only she could have thought up such a masterful scheme, if she did say so herself. What better way to foil the ponies’ invasion than to steal it out from under them?

In a flicker of green flame, she changed into her disguise: a blood-red garb and snow-white beard of ‘Santa Claws.’ The scouts had all but confirmed him to be the ponies’ primary weaponsmith, which made his guise perfect for infiltrating their homes. She took up her reins and cracked them to waken her changedeer—birthed specifically for the occasion.

“Hiya!” she commanded, cracking the reins. The changedeer charged forth, and the battle-sleigh creeped steadily through the snow. “We ride!”

And all throughout town, the signals were sent out to begin. The entire changeling army set about breaking and entering into Ponyville’s humble abodes. Chrysalis had feared this to be the weakest part of the plan, but the scouts had done their job well. Preliminary reports had revealed that every major pony dwelling bore a critical weak point: the exhaust port at the roof. This was a much better entry method than ‘straight through the wall,’ and allowed many of the dumber drones to sneak in with some modicum of stealth.

The smarter drones realized that most ponies never locked their door anyway, and walked in through that.

Chrysalis arrived at town square in her battle-sleigh, mowing down a few ornamented trees with its war-mandibles. Already her loyal minions were returning with membranous sacs of weaponry, supplies, and outright loot. Not to mention all the useless junk the drones normally picked up on raids. Still, taken altogether, it had to represent a sizeable chunk of the town’s total material wealth.

“You definitely are a mean one, Chrysalis,” she chuckled to herself. Ponyville’s capacity to wage battle would be crippled for generations of changelings, and would surely need whole weeks to recover from this plot of hers. “I really am too evil for my own good.”

“A question, my liege,” said the commanding worker, as drones hefted piles of dolls into the battle-sleigh. “If we can steal all of this from the ponies without their notice, why do we not simply capture the ponies too, or conquer this insignificant town?”

Chrysalis pondered this for a moment. It was a thought-provoking question, and deserved a decently thoughtful answer to fully explain the matter to her subordinate. “Because shut up,” she told the worker. “I’m the Queen here.”

“Of course, your Highness.” The worker bowed. “I shall punish myself for my indiscretion.”

“I recommend the excruciator this time,” said Chrysalis, sending a few drones out to steal the last cans of hay-hash. “We’ll take the food, too, and burn it for warmth.”

With that, Chrysalis stepped from the battle-sleigh and set out for a house of her own. She couldn’t let her drones have all the fun. A trio of soldiers followed her as back-up, and waited patiently as she took her pick of the litter. Most of the houses had already been looted, leaving but a scant few remnants. Most of them looked boring and stupid, but one in particular—some kind of gaudy house-tree, by the looks of it—seemed especially boring and stupid.

Why not?

She broke down the door, because she could, then walked in through it. The stealthy nature of her operation dictated that she shouldn’t have done that, but the noise was almost negligible, and it satisfied her need for pointless violence. Sometimes, being leader meant she was forced to make the tough decisions.

“Lights,” she ordered, and the drones activated their bioluminescence sacs. The room filled with a sickly blue light, shining upon scores of tidy bookshelves and neatly outlined paperwork... but no weapons? She looked about, scanning the room from left to right. The scouts had reported that they would always be found beneath strange and ugly trees, but the entire house was a strange and ugly tree, so that was no good.

How in her own name could she possibly find them?

“Your Highness,” said a soldier drone, pointing to a slightly smaller ugly tree. “Perhaps over there?”

“Yes, of course!” said Chrysalis, skittering to the tree and pouncing on the boxes at its base. She ripped the fibrous membrane from one of them, revealing that whoever owned it was a tremendous nerd. “A book?” she retched, tossing it away. “Do they think to kill us with knowledge?”

“They may yet be useful, your Highness,” said one of her drones, picking up the book. “A tome much like this once gave me a papercut, and it hurt quite terribly.”

“Truly?” she asked, tearing the membrane from the other boxes... Books, the lot of them. “Well, take them away. We’ll read them, or something.”

As her drones left to dump the books on the battle-sleigh, Chrysalis decided to stick around and investigate further. She paused to stare at the fuzzy green mold that had been hung about the room, the shiny fragile baubles that had been hooked to every possible surface. Quite stupid, but also quite fascinating. Honestly, this entire ‘Hearth’s Warming Eve’ tradition intrigued her. If this were truly the preparation for an invasion, what was the point of all this meaningless decoration? This pointless ritual? Wouldn’t a real invasion just invade and get it over with?

Were the ponies truly so primitive and stupid, or was there a deeper meaning to their celebration of the warpath? Perhaps—and this was merely her own idle speculation—ponies gave each other these weapons as symbols of... something else?

Reflexively, she licked her lips. She could just barely remember the taste of fresh, freely-given love, but something in the air around her reminded her of it. Ah, for the days when she could steal love from some willing sap, rather than a tortured prisoner. Maybe ‘Hearth’s Warming Eve’ wasn’t so bad, after all...?

She shrugged. That was enough introspection for one night. Time to steal the rest of it. Summoning her magic, she hefted the tree up in the air, giving it a good shake to remove the shiny baubles from it. It was only pragmatic, as she didn’t need useless ornaments weighing down the battle-sleigh. Slightly less pragmatic was the noise made by a dozen shiny baubles shattering against the floor.

Her tiny, malformed heart froze as a soft pitter-patter came down the stairs. Had she woken somepony? Would they raise the alarm? Would this entire plan fall apart at the finish line, just because of some stupid drone and definitely not her?

Impossible!

There, on the stairwell, stood a tiny dragon. She knew this tiny dragon, though. He was the hapless assistant of that accursed Twilight Sparkle: Spoke! Or whatever his name was. Was this her house, then? Chrysalis horfed a little slime from her disgust sacs. Of all the rotten luck! She checked to make sure her disguise was still up. Time now to put it to the test.

“Santa...?” asked Spire, rubbing his eyes. “Are you... stealing our Hearth’s Warming Tree?”

Chrysalis stopped for a moment. “Why, yes, obviously,” she told him. A good opening move. Ponies valued honesty. “Because...” Okay, follow-up. Now she could lie her wings off. “Because... Hm. Give me a moment, I’m thinking.”

“But I spent all day picking that tree out with Twilight!” said Spicy. “Why, Santa? Why?”

She stroked her beard, racking her brains for the perfect lie. Something that would convince this tiny dragon that it was absolutely, positively necessary to steal this ugly tree... Aha! Her eyes lit up. Perfect. This one would have convinced her own mother.

“Because, you see, my dear dragon,” she told him, in her most persuasive tones, “this tree bears obvious defects. You can see from its sickly color that it isn’t competitive with other trees of its sort, and it must be culled from the hive before its offspring can contaminate the gene pool.”

“Oh,” said Spick-and-span, with a yawn. “I... guess that makes sense?”

“Yes,” said Chrysalis. “Of course it does. Now be a good little dragon and go back up to bed, or I shall leave you no weapons tonight.”

“Oh!” said Spork grinning like a mad-dragon. “Did you actually get me the Manly Man’s Sure-to-Impress Battleaxe I asked you for this year? Did you really, Santa?”

“Probably.” Chrysalis shrugged. Whatever a battleaxe was. “At least, I did if you’ll go to bed now.”

The dragon squealed in delight and raced back up the stairs, leaving Chrysalis securely in possession of Twilight Sparkle’s tree. She laughed silently and proceeded with dragging the tree outside. It was almost too easy, really. Like stealing love from a pony.

The battle-sleigh was packed to bursting by the time she returned, filled with apples and ornaments and IOUs from some Diamond Tiara cretin. She tossed Twilight Sparkle’s tree up at the very top of the pile, and released the requisite pheromones to call her army to her.

“Acceptably done!” she told her eager minions, once they’d all gathered round. “Celebratory pats for all once we return!” Which was met with much silent cheering and low-volume whoops for joy.

She looked again to the battle-sleigh, which was impossibly full of loot at this point. A mountain of goods that seemed fit to tip over at any given moment. It was ludicrously unlikely that she could get it out of here the same way she’d brought it in, but Chrysalis was cleverer than the average changeling—easily—and she’d already thought of a solution.

“Everyling, gather round!” she ordered. “It’s time for an airlift!”

It would certainly have been a sight to see, if anyone in Ponyville had been awake to see it. The entire changeling army swarming to airlift a fully-packed battle-sleigh back to the hive. The buzzing was immense, and grated terribly on her nerves, but she bore her burden gracefully, just as her army was bearing several tons of loot on sheer wingpower.

At the halfway point back to the hive, Chrysalis decided she could call the whole thing a success. And not a moment too soon, even. From the look of the sky, that accursed Celestia would be raising the sun any moment now, and the ponies would surely wake to discover that Hearth’s Warming Eve had been stolen out from under their noses.

It occurred to Chrysalis that it would be positively magnificent to watch the aftershock of her nefarious deeds. So much so that she couldn’t resist. “You all go on,” she told the army. “I have to stay and see this.”

Quick as a flash, she flew back, until she was hovering just on the outskirts of Ponyville. She rubbed her hooves together, anticipating the show. The ponies would wake to discover their weapons missing, and pretty much all the rest of their possessions to boot. They would realize the folly of their invasion plans, and their entire pointless existence relative to that of the changeling hive, and thereupon they would cry. Total surrender to the hive was also a faint possibility, but she wasn’t quite sure if that one was realistic.

She grinned wider than ever as she spotted the ponies leaving their houses, gathering in a circle at the barren town square. Any moment now, she would hear their tears of agony and despair and abject inferiority. She opened her listening holes wider, hoping to catch the very first sobs. Why, if only she had something to snack on.

But... wait. No. That noise they were making. It didn’t sound like crying. Rather, it sounded like quite the opposite. It sounded like... like... like singing!

“The fire of friendship burns in our hearts,
as long as it burns we cannot drift apart!
Though quarrels arise, their numbers are few...”

“But, but, but...” Chrysalis stammered. “No!” How? How could they still be celebrating Hearth’s Warming Eve when their invasion had totally failed? She turned to demand answers from an unexpecting drone, but there wasn’t one to be found. “How?” she demanded of herself instead. “It came without weapons! It came without strife! It came without the material goods necessary for their whole way of life!”

Then, as a flaming pink heart formed above the ring of singing ponies, it dawned on Chrysalis: What if Hearth’s Warming Eve wasn’t thought up for war? What if Hearth’s Warming Eve meant just a little bit more...?

It was so touching a moment that Chrysalis felt her heart grow three whole sizes that day. She responded by venting the excess love from her dorsal spiracles, and the cardiomegaly subsided in short order. “Well,” she murmured, “that was pretty close.”

She decided to fly off before the tremendous love-font could actually kill her, but regardless, she had discovered the true meaning of Hearth’s Warming Eve. She’d seen now that it wasn’t about materialistic needs or armed conflict, but about love, pure and simple. This made it an excellent food source for the starving changeling hive, and she would absolutely return to exploit that next year.

This year, though... This year, she would merely have to be content with the material wealth of every pony in Ponyville. Ah well. She couldn’t win all the time. This year’s victory belonged to Equestria. Well played, Ponyville. Well played.

She returned to a hive padded with luscious shag carpeting and filled near to bursting with Daring Do action figures. Though Chrysalis had been defeated this year, there was no reason she couldn’t lose with grace. A drone dressed in crudely-fashioned book armor brought her reading material, a fresh love-slurry, and an antique lamp with which to read.

She gave him a light pat on the head and started catching up on her reading. “Merry Hearth’s Warming Eve,” she murmured, the smile creeping slowly across her face. “And may the next one be even merrier.”