Things are coming along quite nicely now, we're roughly ¾ of the way to completion.
This won't be as long as the previous few, but I felt like more wasn't needed for it.
Well, let's not delay then.
Begin!
I'm Here
Chrissy Pov
"Again."
My horn lit up, the deadly green glow all but shouting its deadly intent as I tilted my head back before thrusting it forward with all my might.
…only for the spell to fizzle and die as it left my horn.
"For fucks sake!" I hissed, sitting on my rump a little too hard as I quickly rubbed my sore bottom. "Are you sure I can't just keep doing it my way. Your way of using magic is fucking complicated."
The long dead Changeling Queen, otherwise known as Naerx merely grinned at my pouting and shook her head, giving me an eye roll for good measure.
"I've already told you, Chrysalis," she began, ignoring my hiss and smirking as she used my old name. "The way you use love is all well and good. But if you want to gain absolute control of your connection, if you want to completely merge love with magic then you need to concentrate on what I'm telling you."
"I'm trying!" I replied, well aware of how childish I sounded. "I've just been doing it my way for centuries. You can't expect me to change it in a few months."
"I can and I am," she refuted, smiling. "Richard is beginning to learn how to use it my way, and so shall you. It must be done if you want to gain the ultimate edge over Celestia."
"I've already proven far more powerful than that idiot," I grumbled, crossing my hooves. "The last time we faced off, I knocked her the fuck out."
"And she will be expecting that when you face her again," she continued, regarding my petulance with a bland look. "You forget, she was my enemy long before you were an idea. I fought her for years, I know what she's capable of. She will outmanoeuvre you the next time you fight if you fight the same way. Throwing your magic like a blunt object worked once, it will not work a second time against her. She is far too crafty for that."
"You're giving her too much credit."
"And you're not," she replied, her tone stern. "She may not have shown great aptitude towards her dealings with Richard, but I firmly believe that her lust and heart clouded her judgement. When facing you, she will have no such impairment and you must be ready. You must be better, you will not win again now matter how much power you put behind your spells."
I opened my mouth only to close it and sigh, rubbing my head.
"I'm still annoyed that you're teaching him magic so soon after his…incident."
"You mean his death?"
I hissed quite audibly, the ferocity within it surprising even myself. Naerx however was unperturbed, merely raising an eyebrow…or what one could consider an eyebrow on a Changeling.
"You need to trust me with him, Chrysalis," she said softly. "I care for him too. I would not risk his health if learning how to use his magic was so dangerous."
"He can only barely connect it to his love," I began. "I'm truly happy that he's able to learn at all now. But he can only do so because of something Luna did. I don't trust it, and I'm surprised that you do."
Naerx's smile widened somewhat, a rather pleased expression working its way onto her face. I wasn't surprised at this mind you.
It wasn't everyday you were told that your greatest enemy was dead.
"I don't believe that it was solely Luna that affected Richards grasp on his magic," she said calmly. "There was something else in there with him, I could feel it. And I believe that whatever it was helped him somehow, changed him perhaps. Has he said anymore to you?"
I shook my head. "No, not really. Besides telling us that he somehow killed Luna, he's been distant lately. He smiles through the lessons but when I feel for his emotions, he pulls away."
She looked at me, concerned. "Have you not prodded as to why?"
"I want to," I admitted, looking at the entrance to my throne room longingly. "But I don't want to push him. He's been…he's felt really off, really sad. The intention before Luna stole him into her realm was for him to meet his sister, maybe he did. If so then he's likely grieving, I don't want him to run from me if I push too hard."
"A good Queen is there for her King," Naerx said softly, shaking her head. "Let's forget the lesson today. Go to him."
I opened my mouth. "But-"
"No buts," she interrupted. "I'm not a fool, Chrysalis. I can sense how desperate you are. Go to him…he needs you."
I hesitated for all of a moment…but nodded and quickly left the room.
She wasn't wrong, I was desperate to be with him again. To hold him to me and tell him that I was there, that all would be okay. It had been a few days since he awoke, but it had been a few days of him flinching and jumping at every noise he heard.
A few days of him refusing to tell me anything, no matter how carefully I asked.
A few days of him refusing to sleep near me, if sleep at all.
And like I said to Naerx, I didn't want to push him away from me. If he needed time to come to terms with what happened before he talked to me then so be it. I wouldn't cling to him when all he might want was space.
But I couldn't hold to that rule anymore. A few hours without him were a torment, a few days were hell.
'I need to know what's wrong. I've held my tongue, I've held myself back. But I can't do it anymore, I need to know that he's okay.'
The day Richard had woken up had been wonderful and disturbing all at once.
When I had cast a sleeping spell and prepared to join him, nothing in all the world could have masked my horror at finding myself unable to do so.
That was until I sensed magic not my own. Not that of the great hive mind, nor that of Naerx.
But of Luna, a magic I had felt before when she tried to kill me during mine and Richards escape from their palace. The darkness in it couldn't be mimicked by any other, it had to be her. Naerx furiously confirming it only added to this, and to my dread.
"What's going on?" I cried, my horn spluttering out as my magic refused to cooperate.
There was a magic here not my own. I could sense it…it felt familiar, dangerous.
It felt like…
"It's not you," Naerx said, looking at Richard, eyes ablaze as recognition flared behind her eyes. "This is Luna's magic! She has a hold on him!"
"Get him out!"
"I'm trying!"
As it turned out, neither of our magic was a match for her power over dreams.
And so he had stayed asleep for days, not moving, not speaking.
Except for a few tears that I wiped away, a frown on his face, a whisper of a name that I could not hear. I felt useless, unable to save him, unable to force my way to him, force my way through magic that I had previously smashed into pieces.
But as Naerx had said. Brute force would be unlikely to work against her, or her sister again.
So I wiped away his tears and kept him close. I practiced my magic furiously, thinking over and over on ways to use it to try and save him, to wake him up. Until Naerx had stopped me and told me that we would once again start learning how to use magic her way, something I had stopped trying for a little while.
Mostly due to my own failure, but also due to not wanting Richard to see me as weak.
An old thing I thought I'd outgrown…but I suppose my pride is still intact.
And so I continued trying, using her methods, her old training in the ways of using Changeling magic. It was…hard, her way of using love so finely tuned, merged within her magic was something I had little concept of.
For me, using love to power my magic was as simple as grasping a chunk and throwing it into it.
But for her, she took only the smallest piece of stored love and for want of a better phrase, threaded it through. Like threading a string through a needle.
"You waste love by simply throwing a lump of it into your magic," she had chided. "You need take only a fraction and gently push it in."
As I said, it was hard. Progress was still ongoing, but with Richard occasionally taking part it wasn't so bad.
The bad came when he all but ran from me once it was over.
It was a few minutes later that I realized too late that I could've simply used our connection to find him, but by then I had finally found him in one of the abandoned rooms of my children.
He wasn't really doing anything per say, just sitting atop a bed that had long since gone cold.
As I entered he looked at me, but then turned back to staring at the wall.
I could feel nothing from him. No emotion, no love, nothing…
He was still keeping me out, keeping his emotions locked. I couldn't feel a thing from him and it was more than worrying.
It was scary.
I crept closer, stopping only for a moment.
"Richard?"
He looked at me once more and gave me a half smile, but returned his gaze to the wall again and said nothing.
"Baby what's wrong?" I asked, probing carefully. I didn't want him to walk away.
"Nothing hun," he muttered, the lack of emotion honestly frightening me.
I bit my lip and slowly made my way over, Richard not moving as I climbed atop the bed, just a mere breath away.
But I didn't want him to jump up and leave, I had to figure out what was going on.
"Richard," I continued, making sure my tone was as soft as I could make it. "I feel like you've been avoiding me. What's wrong?"
He said nothing and just sighed tiredly.
Looking at him, I didn't need to feel his emotions to know just how tired he was. His whole body language was screaming it.
"Talk to me," I urged, reaching slowly and gently wrapping my hooves around his chest. "Please."
He had more than enough wiggle room to shove me away, I didn't even try to hold him to me. But as I placed my head atop his left shoulder and kissed it, he made no move to do so.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly, staring straight ahead.
"What for?" I asked softly.
"Avoiding you," he replied, hesitating for a moment before looking back at me. I held back a surprised gasp as I finally got a good look at his eyes.
They were draconic, green and glowing with magic. There was not an ounce of his normal blue left.
"Your eyes," I whispered.
He frowned for a moment, but then a mere second later his eyes became blue again.
"Sorry," he muttered, turning away from me. "They've been doing that lately."
"Since the dream?"
He scoffed and for a moment I feared he'd push me away. But then instead he leaned a little more into me, something I was quick to help with as I nuzzled his cheek lovingly.
"It wasn't a dream," he said quietly, his body becoming steadily more tense. "It was more like a nightmare. I was trapped, she was there. I couldn't move a muscle and all the while she kept coming closer."
He stopped talking for a moment.
"I called out for you, you know," he continued. "I didn't think it'd work, but I hoped maybe our connection could do something, wake me up perhaps."
"I'm sorry Richie," I said sadly. "I tried to wake you up, but her control over that realm was beyond me. I…I was useless."
"No more than me," he chuckled bitterly. "One of the Ponies that had trapped me in Equestria was right there in front of me and I was powerless to do a thing about her. Emily ended up being the one who…"
"Emily?" I echoed, perking up slightly at the name. "You did meet her then?"
He paused for a moment before slowly nodding. "She saved me."
"Luna was going to hurt you?"
He paused again. "Not hurt no, she was going to…well I didn't really think about it at the time, not too much anyway. There was too much going on at the time."
Anger grew in the pit of my stomach, rising, growing in strength.
"What did that disgusting Pony try to do?" I hissed, already fearing his answer.
"You know what she tried to do," he muttered. "She failed though, Emily saved me like I said. She was there again, standing right in front of me. We…we spoke and then…well, she's gone now."
I forced my anger down, it would serve no purpose at this point in time.
"Killing Luna was almost an afterthought compared to talking to her again," he continued, looking at something I couldn't see.
"How did you kill her?"
He shrugged and shook his head. "I don't really know. Emily pulled Luna's mind…soul, something out of her body and I crushed whatever it was beneath my foot."
I narrowed my eyes. "Emily pulled her soul out from her body? That's…impossible. A memory has no such power."
"She didn't feel like a mere memory," he replied. "I don't know how to explain it but she felt like more. The way she spoke to me, the way she looked and moved. It felt more real than I did in that realm."
"Naerx and I did sense something else in there with you," I muttered.
"It doesn't matter anymore," he mumbled, looking down. "It's done now. I'm fine."
"Then why are you avoiding me?" I asked gently.
He didn't say anything for a bit, his emotions still unreadable despite my feelers trying to sense them.
"Because I don't know if she really is dead," he admitted quietly. "I don't know if I'm really awake, or if Luna is making this up to try and trick me somehow."
"W-What?"
Richard shimmied out of my hooves and stood up, turning around and looking at me fully for the first time that day.
He looked exhausted.
"I suppose if that is the case then telling you my suspicions is rather thick of me," he continued, chuckling dryly. "You could just be Luna in disguise and I wouldn't know. Hell, maybe she got who Emily was from my brain and used that to try and trick me too. I don't know."
"You said she felt like more than a mere memory."
"Maybe I'm being tricked to feel that way," he replied, body clearly weary as it shook for a moment. "I don't know. I don't know anything right now. I don't know if I'm awake and all this is real, or if you're Luna playing around with my brain and everything Emily and I talked about was a load of shite."
He looked down and mumbled. "I can't even sleep anymore. I feel like if I do then I'll never wake up again."
"Richard…"
I looked at him, at the bags under his eyes, the fear within them. I looked at him start to tense as I stayed silent, his whole body screaming that he was about to run away from me.
I looked at him and felt my heart break.
"I'm so sorry," I whispered, tears beginning to trickle down my face as he watched, frozen. "I thought you were grieving and wanted space so I didn't push for an answer. I dragged you into those lessons and never noticed how afraid you were. I tried to use my feelers to understand how you felt when I should have just looked. I'm so…I'm a horrible mate."
Before I could begin to feel sorry for myself, I shook my head furiously.
"No, this isn't about me," I said firmly, looking up tearfully at my visibly confused mate. "Richard, love. This is real, I am real. Please tell me what I can do to make you believe that."
He didn't move an inch nor say a word, not for a few moments at least. He simply looked at me, his emotions hidden, his tired eyes blinking far more than usual.
"I don't know," he finally said. "If I tell you and you're her, you'll just say it to try and convince me."
"Then don't speak," I said, patting the bed I was on. "Come here."
He hesitated, but slowly came back and sat down next to me on the bed, watching me carefully as I moved away from him and lied down on my stomach.
"Now here," I whispered softly, patting beside me.
Richard's eyes narrowed, but as he met mine they softened slightly, his reluctance diminishing as he complied and came closer and lied beside me.
Quickly but carefully, I moved his head on the side of my stomach, mouth twitching with amusement at his utterly befuddled expression.
"Listen," I urged, leaning and nuzzling the top of his head. "Can you hear it?"
He frowned, evidently still confused. But after a few seconds passed, his confusion lifted and he nodded slowly.
"Your heart," he said.
I shook my head. "Your heart, Richie. It's yours and yours alone."
He frowned. "How does this prove that-"
"You're awake and this is real?" I gently cut in. "Because for all her power, I will never believe that the mare had any concept of what it's like to love another."
"But-"
"You can hear it, but you can't feel it because your cutting me off," I continued, tone still soft, still as soothing as I could make it. "You need to let me back in, Richard. I'm not Luna, nothing here has anything to do with that mare. I understand why you're holding it back, but I swear that you don't need to anymore. I'm not going to hurt you, I'm not Luna. I'm Chrissy, I'm your mate for life. And for as long as I draw breath, I will protect and love you with all I am."
He didn't say anything back, not really. He just looked up at me, his desperate hope that I was me all too clear to see.
"You protected and loved me when I became feral," I said, smiling as I looked at him with adoration. "I could have hurt you badly back then, but you didn't care. You stayed with me, you kept me close. You loved me. Let me prove that I'm me, let me prove that I love you. Please…"
He gave up, I felt it as I felt his hold on his emotions dissipate completely. I felt the abundance of love he had for me, but also the fear that maybe I wasn't me. That it was all still a trick and he had let the imposter win.
It all came out in a flood of emotion and I took it all, I breathed it all in and accepted everything he felt.
"There we go Richie," I soothed, tilting my head as I gazed at him lovingly. "It's me, you don't need to hold back. Not with me, not ever with me."
The sheer level of exhaustion washed from him onto me, through my feelers and into my very soul.
"You're so tired honey," I whispered softly, my heart aching as his eyes closed briefly, only to open again with evident force.
"I don't want to sleep," he whispered back, voice barely audible. "If this is real, then I don't want to sleep."
"It's real Richie," I assured, nuzzling him affectionately. "I swear on my soul that this is real."
A small smile appeared on his face. "Good…"
"But you need to close your eyes," I urged, keeping my muzzle against him, my breath mingling with his.
He caught on quickly, but not quick enough as his eyes began to close.
"Pheromones…" he mumbled.
"I'm sorry baby," I said quietly, kissing his cheek. "You need to sleep."
The pheromones I was breathing against him weren't supposed to make him drowsy, just relaxed. But with him already at the breaking point of exhaustion, it was all he needed to give him that little push.
"Ch…Chr…"
"Shhh…"
His last little struggle to stay awake broke my heart, but in the end his eyes finally closed and he lost the battle to stay awake.
I shimmied around and pulled him so that his face was buried against my chest, wrapping my hooves around him as I gently began to give him love. It sunk beneath his skin and into him, warming him with all I felt and had to give.
He had been neglecting his needs.
He needed it, needed me.
But that was okay, because I wasn't going anywhere.
"I'm here."
You'll likely have noticed that the little blog bits I've uploaded weren't in this chapter, and for good reason.
Simply put, this chapter wouldn't feel like THIS chapter if I added those bits in. So I'll save them for the next one. It's not all bad though, you get an extra chappy out of it.
Cya, stay snuggly! :D
