Queen Chrysalis merely grunts when Doug opens the door for her, striding imperiously into the auditorium. Everycreature appears to be where they were when she left. The griffons staring murderous daggers, the yak’s bland apathy, and the minotaur’s irrepressible cheer all remain unchanged. The red dragon sits pacified, arms grumpily crossed across his chest, but there is no hostility she can detect. Unlike the Storm King.

Raikou reclines in his chair next to Tempest Shadow, impassively watching the changeling walk to Celestia and the stage. The broken-horned unicorn has her ever-present look of mild disdain, harboring animosity directed at the alicorns. But the Storm King? Inwardly he shifts between abject loathing and guarded respect, like he bent the bar of emotions into a ponyshoe and dances between the two extremes.

It is rare, extremely so, for her to find a creature in such a state. It might even be some sort of magic item, crafted to throw off her senses by overloading her receptors. She wouldn’t put it past him, they did have a bit of a history together. And the whole of Klugetown holds a bit of that grudge, an anti-changeling bent about them, likely only made worse by her subsequent actions.

Doug peels off to rejoin the ponies, sitting next to Luna and the vacancy left by Celestia. The cobalt alicorn merely sighs, accepting the hand across her with a muted grumble. Yet it doesn’t take long for her to acquiesce to his gentle ministrations, affording him a cool but not cold smile before her gaze returns to her Sister.

If Celestia is bothered by potentially being on the chopping block she doesn’t show it, nestling in ponyloaf. Her warm smile broadens as she spots Doug and Chrysalis approaching, and eventually Chrysalis’ unhurried steps bring her to the white alicorn’s side. The auditorium has gone silent, only Rainbow Dash’s bored groans breaking the apprehensive atmosphere.

Celestia regards her with a slight incline of her head and whispered words. “It is good to see you.” The corners of her mouth pull a little higher. “We were worried about you.”

“About me?” Chrysalis asks, taken aback. She expected something closer to ‘we were worried about your return’. Is she that predictable, or does Celestia actually harbor that much confidence?

“Indeed.” Celestia glances at Alira. “May I return?” She stands as the Saddle Arabian mare nods, a swift trot taking Celestia to Doug’s side. His arm reaches behind, wrapping not around her withers but under her slightly raised wing so his hand might massage her still-svelte belly. She inches closer, pressing against him, and the happy human nearly disappears behind her flowing mane.

Alira turns to Chrysalis, formally addressing her. “Delegate Gruff had finished with his remarks, and you were replying to him. Was there anything else you wish to say?”

“I wish to say a lot more,” Chrysalis grunts out as she peels her eyes away from the affectionate sight. “But enough has been said. For now.”

“Very well. Then we shall hear from…” Alira glances down at her notes on the podium. “Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.”

All eyes turn as the pink alicorn gives her husband a tender nuzzle. “Thank you, Alira,” Cadance says chipperly as she bounds to the stage.

Chrysalis finds herself backing up from the exuberant energy. She has to stifle the old, rapacious part of her that wishes to partake, the hoarder always looking to the future. She doesn’t need to devour love, but she still can, which makes it all the worse if she can’t blame any lapse on that primal instinct.

Cadance’s gaze sweeps across the room, briefly locking on every creature before moving to the next. Each can feel the warmth of her smile, though the reactions range from the ponies perking up and watching intently to the griffons’ sulks and scowls. Chrysalis finds herself drawn in, following that warmth like the wafting scent of a pie on the Apple’s windowsill. As soon as she recognizes this she stops, chastising herself for her lack of control.

“Though,” Cadance stalls, tapping a gold-shod hoof against the floor, “I find ‘Princess Mi Amore Cadenza’ to be a bit too formal. Good for weddings, but not much else.” She winks at Shining Armor, then Chrysalis, but it’s a tad forced in the second case. “I much prefer Cadance, or Princess Cadance if you insist and your name is Twilight. Which reminds me.”

The pink alicorn, bucking all decorum through the window like Applejack with a bale of hay, skips from two hooves to the other in their cherished foalhood dance. “Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake! Clap your hooves and do a little shake!”

A blushing Twilight Sparkle mirrors the actions, and when the two drop to their barrels and cover their eyes she teleports forward. A grinning pair meet hoof to hoof before shaking their rumps and pressing cutie marks against each other. The two share a fond nuzzle before a joyous Twilight canters back to her seat. She rolls her eyes at her brother with his hoof stuffed in his mouth, who can’t stop staring at Cadance and rocking back and forth.

“Or,” Cadance continues, giving her husband a sultry shake of her flanks, which only gets him to choke up harder, “if you want to be formal, the Princess of Love.” Her sweeping gaze returns to the rest of the audience. “Now, one might ask. What is love? It is a topic that has spawned more books, more poems, more sleepless nights than any other.”

She points at Twilight. “Is love the affection we share with our kin? The love of a dam for her filly, a teacher for her student? Expressed through small and meaningful gifts, encouraging and inspiring words, and soft and gentle nuzzles? Perhaps. But there is a deeper kind of love.”

Cadance locates a few of the males in the audience: Gruff, the Storm King, and Iron Grip, her focus dancing between the three until she has their full attention. She spins so her luscious pink, purple and gold tail faces them, glancing back across spread wings with a heated moan. Her forelegs sink lower as her rump raises, tail flicking almost enough to expose herself, but not quite.

“Mm, that’s what you are thinking about, right?” She licks her lips as Iron Grip and the Storm King chuckle and nod, while Gruff just stares at her. And just as quickly her flirtatious display is over, standing straight and striding from one end of the stage to the other. “But sex is not love! It may be a biological imperative, it may be a deep form of intimacy, it may be a truly wonderful experience-”

Cadance stops, dead in her tracks, to take a deep breath. Her eyes close, her head lifts, and wings spread from her sides, evoking in everycreature’s mind the joy she shared that night with Shining Armor. She stands there, she and everycreature else, reveling in the smell of his musk, the weight on her back, the fullness and completeness she felt that special night.

She recovers slowly, shaking her head to dispel the images from her own and everycreature’s mind. “It may be all those things. But it is not the deepest form of love. For I am not the Princess of Love because I slept with somestallion. I am not the Princess of Sex, much as my husband might disagree.”

Laughter peppers the audience as Shining Armor concedes the point with a forced smile, nodding along with his mare.

Cadance turns, acknowledging the changeling with a point of her hoof. “And Queen Chrysalis did not transform into the resplendent form you see before you because it was the first time she mated with a stallion, nor the tenth, nor the ten thousandth!”

Chrysalis preens at the compliment, her emerald wings fluttering as she flips one of her cobalt braids. That may be the number of young she has born over the years, but it is nowhere close to the number of times she has mated with stallions or mares, to say nothing of other species.

Cadance continues, her words intensely stressed and passionate. “I became an alicorn, I ascended and became the Princess of Love, when I confronted the evil sorceress Prismia who used a powerful necklace to drain my fellow ponies of their love. When I, a simple pegasus from a backwoods earth pony village, put my life on the line in the defense of my people.”

A twinkle shines in Cadance’s eye. “Some might say it was the powerful magic, the love stored in that necklace and released when I broke it, that allowed me to ascend. I hardly think I am unique in that regard, for how many of us know creatures who have done the same? Though I certainly wouldn’t recommend breaking powerful magical artifacts with the hopes of duplicating that event, and I am glad I do not need to worry about a certain three youngsters following in my hoofsteps. Hopefully.” She casts a foreboding eye at the Apple herd. “You don’t know of any, do you?”

Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash exchange breathy sighs of relief as they shake their heads, Applejack going so far as to pull her hat off her head and wipe some imaginary sweat off her brow.

Doug just has to speak up. “Well, there’s that cutie mark wall at Starlight’s village, and Trixie has-”

He cuts off with a strangled ‘urk’ as a cornflower blue aura surrounds his mouth, courtesy of Rarity, while Rainbow Dash swoops around to put him in a headlock. Applejack whips out her lasso, looking ready to hogtie and sit on him.

“Partner,” his lead mare cautions with a deadly glint, “we don’t need to be givin’ those three any ideas, no ma’am.”

Doug unhappily grunts, especially as Rainbow Dash leans her weight on him. Only for the pegasus to squawk in alarm as he gets a hand under her barrel and tickles her sensitive belly. Cadance chuckles before turning back to the rest of the auditorium, Doug and Rainbow Dash quieting down and paying close attention.

“Some of you might see a parallel between Prismia and my herdsister.” Cadance indicates Chrysalis with a slight nod of her head. “But while I was initially… cautious of her intentions? Perhaps even distrustful? I am glad to say that I was proven wrong. Because Queen Chrysalis did not transform when she partook of our love. She and the rest of her brood transformed when they gave love! They demonstrated their love when they put their lives on the line for not just us Princesses but for everymare, everystallion, everypony in Equestria!”

Her voice raises again, filling the auditorium with ease. “For that is the true essence of Love! Sacrifice!” Her voice booms, “For greater love hath no mare than this, that she lay down her life for her friends!”

She lets the following silence linger.

She points a hoof, starting at Gruff before sweeping to the rest of the auditorium. “Earlier this morning, you all saw my husband put his life on the line defending his mare! And as the changelings have done no less for us, I promise you this. You will see no less from everystallion and everymare in the defense of their herd and their Friends!”

She scans the audience once more, searching for dissent and finding none. She nods, swiftly trots back to her exultant husband and leaves a stunned Chrysalis on the stage.

Next Chapter: Ch. 20 - Survival Instincts, Part Six Estimated time remaining: 29 Hours, 9 Minutes