Mirror's Image

Chapter 9

Chrysalis was laying on her bed, her eyes closed as she concentrated. Her horn glowed and her magic grabbed onto the jewelry box underneath her bed.

The queen rolled over in her bed and waited as the case lazily floated towards her.

With a dull 'thud' the case was dropped onto the soft sheets of her bed.

"I haven't opened this box in years and now I've opened it twice in twenty-four hours," she said to herself as she fumbled with the sloppily applied locking charms. Usually she'd have put more effort into them but she hadn't had the time yet to properly reseal the box.

This time it only took her three minutes to break the enchantments. The satisfying 'click' of the lock was the only thing heard in her room, besides her own steady breathing. There were no other Changelings around at this time, as Chrysalis had, once again, forcibly thrown them out.

She was a bit more careful with the contents this time, as she didn't dump all of it onto her sheets.

"A picture of me and that traitor," Chrysalis listed as she levitated the picture out of the box. She had no frame around at the moment, so she'd just chucked it in like that. A few other items floated out after the picture. "Mother's wedding ring, dad's pocket watch... ah, there you are."

She grasped the three tiny boxes with her magic and drew them from the jewelry box. She quickly placed the other items back and put the box aside.

The three containers were about the size of ring boxes and were all colored differently: grey, brown and purple.

She opened the grey one. Inside the padded box laid a single green shard, with an odd silvery shine to it. It was the last part left of her first daughter's egg.

Princess Crescent Star. Chrysalis had named her so, after the sickle-shaped cut in one of her little wings.

Chrysalis had loved her daughter so much when she was born. Despite her own mother's warnings, she had kept her daughter with her. This turned out to be a mistake. Crescent was insatiable. Chrysalis had given her enough love to feed the whole hive and it still wasn't enough.

Each and every day she was forced to watch as Crescent grew weaker and weaker. They had quickly burned through their reserves and Chrysalis was left to watch all of her children starve. It was too late to plant her daughter with a foster family and her other children were starting to die, the casualities quickly rising in numbers.

In the end, Chrysalis had to make a choice. One that she still regretted to this day.

She closed the box and swapped it with the brown one.

Chrysalis opened it and pulled out a second green shard. This one had an shimmering shine to it, which danced in the light that the crystals provided.

Princess Iridescence, aptly named, was the complete opposite of her departed sister. This time around, Chrysalis was prepared. In the days after her second daughter had hatched, she had searched for the perfect family.

She found it in Ponyville. This family had unknowingly lost their young child to SIDS and Chrysalis had switched the children before anypony noticed.

Chrysalis sighed. She had felt so horrible afterwards, having taken the still child from their parents and replacing it with her own. But it was a necessary evil, she figured. And she had spared the mother, father and brother the grief of finding their child like that.

And at first it seemed like she had found the perfect family. The mother and father were loving and the brother was protective of his little sister. And then there was the fact that the family was as rich as the sea was deep. That helped too.