"Okay… what about this one?" Queen Twilight tapped a hoof on the page. With a soft glow of her horn she drew out the complex symbol in the air as she sounded it out. "Vah… Lahk. Varahk? Varrac!"
Chrysalis smiled. "Perhaps…" She sleepily craned her neck to study her most recent clutch of eggs. A sticky green resin held the precious charges in place, dangling from a nearby rocky overhang. As the wind funneled through the natural arch, they gently swung, rocked as a baby in a crib.
With a puff of her cheeks she blew a gust of glittering pinkish light in their direction. The love energy swirled around the eggs like an octopus ink, clouding the air in a warm soupy fog before it was absorbed into the tiny grey orbs. The as-yet-unborn gobbling up the nourishment from their mother. Chrysalis gave a sleepy yawn and began to slowly drift to laying on her side,. She wondered if they, too would have violet eyes like their little lavender pony other-mother.
"Chryssi?" Twilight gave her wife a gentle prodding with her wingtip. "Honeybug?"
"MRZussaffm…" Chrysalis's eyes struggled open.
Twilight gave an pleading grin at the pitifully adorable sight of the little larvae nuzzled around her bughorse bride as they tucked into the translucent tresses of her cobweb-mane. "Chryssi…?"
Chrysalis chittered to one of the larvae and gave her an affectionate nip, removing a flake of molting chitin. "I'm sorry, beloved. I'm just-" she yawned again . "You know your pony naming conventions are so unnecessary to our changelings. They're hatched knowing their designations through the hive-mind."
Twilight pouted with a pleading smile as she leafed through the pages of the incredibly ancient book. "I know it's a point of cultural confusion between our races, beetlebum. That's why I'm trying to incorporate more of your culture and try some names more familiar to your people and your people's history- while at the same time educating myself on the Ancient Equish language and history." She held the book aloft in her magic with a prideful flourish, still carefully keeping her place in its pages. "THUS, we are using one of your old journals from the pre-Sucrosian Period!"
Chrysalis sighed and gave a playful roll of her eyes in surrender. She had to chuckle. When Twilight was like this, she truly couldn't deny her little wife anything. She watched with interest as Twilight opened her old journal. Two of their larvae quickly skittered from the navy waves of her wife's mane to climb on the millenia-old manuscript. Excited to help their ponymother, they chittered happily, holding the page in place with their forelimbs.
"So…. Varrac?" Twilight asked with a bright, curious smile.
"Well, she was good with snakes."
Twilight looked from the ancient book to one of the tiny changeling larvae cuddled into her crest of alicorn chest-fluff. "Are you a 'Varrac'? Are you going to be good with snakes?"
The tiny face lit up like a Hearthswarming bonfire at her ponymother's excited smile. She hissed out her tiny forked tongue and wiggled her little caterpillar-like rump of a tail segment. Twilight fawned with motherly pride and nosed at the tiny changeling babe. "I'll bet you will be. Of course you will. You look just like a Varrac."
Chrysalis adored moments like these, lazy afternoons together with her wife, watching her excitement and pride as she learned new things. Pouring over old volumes of any sort, Twilight came to life in a whole other way. Knowledge was her passion.
"Let's see here… What about… This one, V….Vaaa….Varghan?"
Chrysalis peered over the tome. "Vabam. As I recall she …was good with secrets…. good at telling them anyways."
Twilight crinkled her nose at that thought. Looking to one of the larvae she shook her head. "That doesn't sound like you, does it?" The tiny changeling babe tilted her head. returning her ponymother's smile and shake of the head. "No. You're not a Vabam. That's an honest little face if I've ever seen one. Hmmmm…."
She continued pouring over the swirling, magical symbols. With Chrysalis tutelage she was learning the art of reading them but still, the practice was FAR more complicated than any language she'd ever encountered. Deciphering the symbols was as much mental wrestling as it was arcane finesse, even compared to the darkest and most ancient of pony magics. "Okay, what about… Sssssurgat? No. I remember you said something once about that one. She liked to pick locks or…. Oo! Suluth! What about that one, Chryssi?"
After a few moments of silence Twilight looked up from the page. "Chrysalis?"
She chuckled. Chrysalis had dozed off. Their tiny charges, nestled secure in the tucked chitinous hooves of their armored queen-mother, mirrored her gentle snoring.
"Oh well." Twilight sighed. With a curling of the enchanted waves of her mane she drew the larvae gathered around her into her crest of chest floof. "I guess that can be enough for today."
The alicorn queen softly shut the tome. With a mother's love, she gently carried her little buggy babes with her as she sidled over to the slumbering bughorse. After a few moments of ooching she eventually found her way into the creche of her wife's limbs and In the enchanted air of sweet summer breeze the royal family drifted off together.
