SkunkyArt | owlcoholik — Astoria's Powers

The reason Chrysalis looks how she looks and why she’s so powerful is because she is infected with a strange kinda magical parasite, a mysterious force. Not much is known about the creature other than it needs a host and feeds on whatever energy force is the most readily available to that host. It’s also a creature that is made up of both physical and magical matter so it doesn’t really function as a typical parasitic organism. The creature is a cross between that and a possessive spirit. I’m thinking of calling them Toxoplasmids or at least that’s what the working name is gonna be for this post. No one knows where they came from but they’re definitely not creatures from the physical realm. One theory shows that they were created by Equestria’s resident trickster god during one of his periods of particularly little empathy for mortal suffering. Legend has it, one of the toxoplasmids he created granted semi-sentience/self sufficiency (as well as a taste for jewels rather than the energy forces that make up the mortal world)

The toxoplasmid that Chrysalis carries has an indefinite lifespan, and is the only one known of its kind. It was given to a changeling leader generations ago and when each host becomes unsuitable it chooses the strongest young changeling to become its new host.

The toxoplasmid can leave Chrysalis and survive, but Chrysalis’s body has been intertwined with the creature so deeply and for so long that she cannot survive without it. There’s no way for an outside force to remove it (Chrysalis would never get rid of it herself) without killing her.

Astoria was meant to be the toxoplasmid’s new host, after Chrysalis lost her control over the hive it made her seek out a prodigy, someone powerful enough to succeed her. That’s what led her to make a truce with Luna and Celestia that one of them share a child with her to solidify their union, and Luna eventually agreed provided that they co-parent the child together.

However, Astoria’s birth changed a lot of things. Because he was conceived through very powerful magic. The process caused the toxoplasmid to spawn its “child” so to speak. When the toxoplasmid learned of this its entire instinct changed from pursuing its own survival at all costs to protecting its spawn, which in turn caused Chrysalis to genuinely love her child and made her willing to quell her homicidal power hunger and direct all homicidal urges towards perceived threats to her child (aka anyone who doesn’t treat her child like the being of ultimate power and potential he is)

Astoria’s toxoplasmid isn’t like Chrysalis’s. Because both beings have always been part of each other from birth, they are an extension of each other, rather than one being an invader in the other’s body. The toxoplasmid’s presence has caused some interesting side effects regarding his development. This is why Astoria is strange in ways neither of his parents share. Also, like Chrysalis, if the toxoplasmid was ever removed Astoria would die because his body has grown around it and he can’t survive without it.