Just outside the Canterlot Grand Theatre, everypony is bustling underneath the night sky. Pegasi, unicorns, and Earth Ponies are all gathered in front of the massive building with tickets in hoof, anxiously waiting for the doors to open. Among the large mass of ponies, stand seven friends huddled up as best they can so as to not bump into the others.

One of the friends, a cyan coloured pony with a rainbow mane and tail, cries out, “This is ridiculous! What’s so important about some boring play?”

“Rainbow Dash,” another friend snaps, agitated by the rude nature of her friend, “this play is an adaptation of one of the oldest folk stories from across the seas. Some of the top performers, musicians, playwrights, and directors have been preparing for this moment in ages, one of them being a supposed descendant of a character in the story.”

“Twilight, I know that, I read the synopsis ten times while waiting here. I still don’t get how anypony would find other ponies roleplaying as thrilling.”

Another friend, a white mare in a red silk dress, replies, “You clearly have no respect for the arts Rainbow.”

“I do Rarity.” Rarity raises her eyebrow in disbelief, being reasonably skeptical of her claims.

“You do?”

“Well, certain arts…”

“Will you girls quit quarreling about back there?” the fourth friend barks at the head of the group, staring at the rotating doors in front of her between the broad shoulders of the big-wig ponies in front of her. “You’re all lucky that Princess Celestia gave us these tickets to join Twilight for this, considering the last time we were invited to a big ol’ fancy shmancy get-together. We wouldn’t have gotten caught in this waiting crowd if yous weren’t all late.”

“The doors are going to open soon Applejack!” a pink mare cheers and screams into the orange pony’s ear in front of her, “I can feel it!” The mare rubs her now deafened ear with her hoof before turning towards the hyped pony.

“Pinkie Pie, we still have another minute or two. And tone down your excitement when we get in. Plays are supposed to be quiet.”

“Oops… sorry,”

As the others continue to argue, the sixth and seventh friends of the group, a yellow pegasus and a purple baby dragon, are examining the brochure given to them by their Princess Celestia, giving great details on the play’s synopsis, background, the cast, and little hints of trivia. A puzzled look becomes imprinted on the dragons face as his looks at the front page showing the title in a fancy golden text.

“’The Tragedy of Queen Chrysalis’…” he mumbles to himself. The mare next to him softly asks in response to the mumble,

“Is there a problem Spike?”

“I don’t know. Why is there a super famous play based off of one of our biggest enemies? Wouldn’t ponies dislike something portraying a villain in such a sympathetic way?”

“From what I can tell, Queen Chrysalis wasn’t always a villain. She was made into what we know as her through a series of events.”

“Hey Fluttershy,”

“Yes?”

“What are your thoughts on Chrysalis?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I just want to see if anypony else thinks that this play we’re going to see is kinda weird, like it’s praising a villain or something.”

“Well, she is a bully, I can’t look over that, but I am willing to see what she was like before she was mean.”

“I see…” Spike then looks over to the other five friends, still talking with each other. He raises a claw and slowly taps Rainbow Dash on the shoulder.

“What?” She replies with a subtle hint of her aggravation still in her voice.

“What are your thoughts on Queen Chrysalis, since we’re seeing a play about her… tragedy?”

“Me? I think she’s just another cliché villain we come across time to time. Nothing more, nothing less,”

“A pony like you would think so narrowly of others,” Applejack barks.

“You’re defending Queen Chrysalis?”

“No I’m not, she’s still a villain. But she’s still a pony like everypony else.”

“Like everypony else?”

“A bizarre one, but a pony nonetheless,”

“Oh, I have something to say!” Pinkie Pie calls out from the opposite side of the group, “I think she was once an everyday pony, but then the government took her because she had a special blood type in her and they needed it for a super soldier army, so they launched her to a space colony for the blood to be extracted, only for it to turn out that a large alien had taken over the space colony, so she then launched herself back towards our planet and was mutated by the space radiation, turning her into Queen Chrysalis!” Upon finishing her ramble, the others look at her with total confusion.

“I completely lost you after ‘the’.”

“Oh, then allow me to restart-”

“No need for that Pinkie Pie darling!” Rarity quickly interrupts, fearing that her brain will melt if she were to listen to Pinkie’s lecture again. “As for me, I wouldn’t really focus much on Chrysalis all that much. I’d much rather see the culture and the arts portrayed in the show. It’s not like her past will cause any changes to what we see as Chrysalis now.”

“Hey Twilight, what about you?”

“Me?” the purple alicorn stammers. She knew that she and her friends would be seated in a reserved row right next to the royal box where Celestia and the other princesses. So when the play was over, Twilight and her friends could simply walk to the princesses and talk to them in a matter of seconds. If Twilight were to say anything crass or vulgar to her friends now, they could accidently tell the princesses and ruin Twilight’s polite reputation. “I’m… neutral to say the least.”

“Okay…” Spike replies with a confused look on his face, trying to see what Twilight was truly thinking.

“Oh look, the ribbon’s about to be cut!” The friends and everypony else immediately turn their attention off of their peers and towards the front of the theatre, where a long red ribbon is stretched across the doors. A royal guard, dressed in his golden armour, walks out of the building with a pair of scissors in his levitation and pries them open over the ribbon. The ponies silently watch as the blades slowly join together and cut the fine cloth.

When the silver scissors finally slice the ribbon in two, the pieces of silk quickly drift onto the sidewalk. Everypony then immediately crowds the revolving doors to enter, with the volume of the commotion spiking to triple from what it was before when they were waiting. Amazingly however, despite the chaos outside the large building, the seven friends manage to reach the doors and enter the main foyer. Inside, magnificent portraits of royalty, landscapes, and mythological creatures are hung against the velvet and gold walls. A massive gold and crystal chandelier hangs from the center of the ceiling with its hundreds of candles illuminating the entire room.

The friends try to see as much artwork as they can before being shoved into turning in their tickets at the front desk, going upstairs to the balcony overviewing the entire room, and exiting from the foyer by various guards and patrons. The seven then quickly walk through a maze of different chambers and hallways before finally reaching the main amphitheater with an entire wave of motley coloured ponies behind them. They snap their heads to the side and locate their seats in the middle of the room, right next to a wall obscuring their view of the royal box that hides behind it.

Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Spike sidle down the row and to the red plush chairs that awaited them. Upon sitting down, each give a sigh of relief and close their eyes, now that the chaos had finally ended.

“Ah, that was too much…” Spike groans.

“I know, but at least we’re one of the first here. So quiet now after hearing nothing but shouting for an hour,” Twilight opens her eyelids slightly, only to then pry wide open as now she can get a good look at the enormous chamber before her. “Whoa…”

Twilight’s eyes beam as they examine every fine detail of the room. The walls were covered with the same fabric she saw in the foyer; with mini-chandeliers hung alone the walls providing a soft light that filled the theatre. The curved ceiling several stories above Twilight’s head was a massive painting of the night sky that stretched to every corner of the ceiling. “It’s a fresco…”

“A what?” Rainbow Dash asks, peeking one eye open at Twilight and seeing her upward gaze.

“On the ceiling Dash, a gigantic watercolor painting on plaster, showing the night sky. It’s so accurate as well. How did the ponies hundreds of years ago even make this?” Dash’s eyes open fully as she cocks her head up to see what her friend was praising, only to drop her jaw upon seeing it.

“That’s so cool...” As the blue pegasus continued to gaze at the art, Twilight snaps her attention off of the paining and continues to examine the rest of the area, noticing the rows of once bare seats rapidly filling up with ponies.

“Enjoying the view?” A familiar voice whispers from behind Twilight’s head. She swiftly turns her seated body around to see who was talking. It was the white alicorn of the sun herself, Princess Celestia. Her fur, mane, and tail were finely groomed and her golden shoes, crown, and chestplate, all recently polished.

“Yes Princess, it’s beautiful. Sorry I was a bit late, my friends and I were a little late to enter early.”

“It’s okay, as long as you made it. Want to join me in my booth, or do you want to be here with your friends?”

“I’ll stay here.”

“I see, but if you need me, you’ll know where to find me.” The large mare then turns towards the large golden wall. Her horn glows a golden hue as the wall slides into the building, revealing the royal booth with Princess Luna, Princess Cadence, and Shining Armour sitting at its gigantic jeweled thrones of seats. Celestia walks into the booth and closes the wall behind her like it was before.

“Oh wait, I forgot to ask her what it was like when this place was being built!”

“Attention,” a stallion’s deep voice booms from the entrance where the girls came from, “the show will begin in one minute, silence your horns, tuck your wings, and take care of any private matters at this moment.” As soon as he had finished, the voices of other staff members echo from the many other doorways scattered around the seating area. One by one, the candles from each of the wall chandeliers dies down as the entire room gets progressively darker. The voices of the audience die down as well, with only a few, mainly being her friends, whispering as the last few candles go out,

“The show’s about to start.”

“Somepony’s tugging on my dress.”

“That’s just you.”

“Quiet down.”

“I’m so excited.”

“It’s so dark.”

“Shhh!”

Pitch darkness encapsulates the room; a minor stir erupts amongst the audience, but slowly goes away. After several seconds of darkness, a sling beam of light is casted from the back of the theatre and onto the wooden front of the stage, illuminating the golden-brown planks. A tall, skinny Earth Pony, dressed in a black tuxedo, steps into the light. The young stallion’s light green fur and uncombed orange-yellow mane saturate brightly as he clears his voices and looks at the fairly visible members of the audience.

He speaks, “Ladies, gentleponies, foals of all ages, my name is Jack Epee Cystic, and I just want to put this out there right now. Being in this very room, with all of you watching right now, dedicating your time to watch this story that had been in my family for generations, has really touched my heart. I’ve heard a lot of the Changeling invasion that had happened in this country, and I saw the opportunity arise. The opportunity to tell you how those creatures truly came to be, a knowledge that only my family knew for hundreds of years. I only have one sister. I have no brothers, nor cousins, nor any distant relatives of my generation. And if I and my sister were to pass on with no descendants, I’d want the world to know of my families’ story. Others may have heard of the story, I’ve heard that there are a couple of famous renditions of it. But none were ever as true as the pure truth, our truth. So with the money I could gather, I have arranged a team of directors, playwrights, musicians, performers, and many other members of staff, all fans of the story, to help me in showing all of you one of the greatest plays here tonight. I shall be playing as Prince Seirbigh Cystic IV, my, admittedly foalish ancestor that began the story by recounting his time as a prince. But he shall not be the focus of our story, we have instead focused our story on the poor, fair life that was taken away and transformed into a monster, Princess Crystal Charm, Queen Chrysalis. Ladies, gentleponies, I give you, ‘The Tragedy of Queen Chrysalis’…”

The single spotlight fades away, bringing forth the absolute darkness that was there before. A series of wooden taps pierce the silence, the conductor has struck his baton against the wooden stand where his music sheets lie. A hundred violins spring to life in the darkness, creating an ambience throughout the theatre. A series of large beams of light emerge from the top of the walls and shine onto the stage, illuminating the entire area and the red curtain with gold trimmings at the back of the stage. The curtains open, showing a painted backdrop of a beautifully clear sky and a shallow wave of water rushes from the curtain that held it back. The water quickly covers the entire stage, but doesn’t flow off, being held back by magic. A large quantity of sand then poured from behind the top of the curtain and into the water below, forming a small beach on the stage. The friends are quickly entranced by the presentation, only to be pulled in further as the rest of the orchestra, hidden between the front rows and the stage, displays its entire array of instruments. Trumpets, tubas, trombones, violins, cellos, vocalists, tambourines, drums, flutes, harps, chimes, and many more, all together producing a grand symphony of lighthearted music to the audience.

A young mare’s voice speaks above the music and narrates,

“A long time ago…”