In the middle of a sun-scorched desert southwest of Canterlot and near nothing else, a black, seething mass had settled in the sand.
At the moment, the mass had allowed sand to cover most of it's body. Two pale blue eyes were just above the sand level, as well as a curved gray horn, two similarly colored ears, a navy shell and a folded pair of blue-green, translucent wings.
This was Ice.
She was an average Changeling, about fourteen hands at the shoulder, with pale blue eyes, paler pupils and a dark gray coat. She had three pale gray bands on each of her sides, and a dark blue shell on her back. From each shiny shoulder came a single, teal wing, a fragile limb built cell by single cell as she grew. She had two fangs hidden under her lip, a short curved horn, and a pair of twisted little ears. Her mane was gray and stiff, as was her tail. Her legs were marked with ten holes; two in each front leg, three in both of her hind. She was, all in all, quite normal. She was also buried in sand, and quite fed up with how stinking hot it was.
She closed her eyes and snorted in annoyance. Her ears pinned back as she heard a familiar buzz overhead, accompanied by a louder drone as a certain Changeling dropped out of formation. Rolling her eyes, Ice flicked her wings up beside her head.
The other Changeling skidded to a clumsy stop, wings continuing to flap as she plowed into the ground. Sand was launched up into Ice's wing, and she flapped it once to clear it off.
The other Changeling was a slightly darker gray, with a mane meticulously - and kind of ridiculously - styled to be curly. She flapped her wings once more, as if making sure she could still control them, and folded them up over her back.
"Ice?"
The buried Changeling lifted her chin, clearing the sand from her mouth. "Yes?"
The other Changeling tilted her head, looking her comrade over. "What are you doing?"
"Is it not obvious, Cinnamon? I'm sulking."
"In the sand?"
Ice paused, looking around at the type of terrain she was very much lying in. "Yes."
Cinnamon sat down, looking at her friend curiously. "Why?"
"Because the Hive is loud."
"The Hive is also colder."
Ice moaned, putting her chin back down on the sand. "Shut up."
"Look, you can just get up before anyone notices, and- no, stop! You know I hate it when you do that!" Cinnamon got to her hooves, yelling down at the rapidly-disappearing Changeling.
Ice stopped vibrating her wings, the sand she moved having consumed all of her back and nearly all of her head. Muzzle a slim black rectangle, she simply stated, "no."
And in a quick buzz of wings, she vanished under the sand.
Cinnamon scraped her hoof on the sand, tail flicking as she tried to figure out what to do. "Ice? Please come back out."
"No," was the muffled response from under the sand.
Both felt their ears burning with phantom fire, causing them both to chirp in surprise. The Hive Mind suddenly bustled with activity.
"See? There's a Hive meeting. You have to come."
Ice sighed, pushing out of the sand with an annoyed grumble. She flicked an ear to banish the Queen's summons, and reluctantly followed Cinnamon towards the hive.
In the middle of a sun-scorched desert due south of Canterlot and near nothing else, a black, seething mass had settled in the sand. This one was much larger than a single Changeling, and was more of a tense lump on the sand than a relaxed bump.
And tense described the former lump pretty well.
Ice was sitting back on her haunches, shuffling her front hooves awkwardly as Changeling bodies pressed in on all sides. Including above and, she guessed since they were on a ledge, below. Changelings crawled up and down the walls, chittering out loud and in the Hive Mind, and filled the airspace around. Ice felt her ears pin back as it got harder and harder to breathe, the noise filling up every possible inch of her lungs-
Cinnamon's calming wing draped across her back just as five armored Changelings stomped their hooves, silencing the whole auditorium with a single move. Ice relaxed as the noise level dropped, slumping comfortably against her friend.
The crowd cleared a path as a sudden arrow of bright green flame shot down from the ceiling, hitting the ground with a hiss and a swirl of crackling magic. The flames dimmed into a tall gray Alicorn, with a crooked horn and sleek green wings.
"My subjects!" Queen Chrysalis called out, tail swiping out the last of the flames. "We are growing low on supplies to last us much longer on our own. I have consulted with my guards and the high court and have decided that a full-out attack on Canterlot will secure us enough love to last for another few years."
"Is she crazy?" Ice muttered, glancing around. The rest of the Hive seemed completely fixated on the Queen, barely moving a muscle.
"The main subject of our attack will be the capture and subsequent replacement of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. By doing this, we will work on diminishing Prince Shining Armor's magical ability and slowly replace the Guard forces with our own warriors."
"She is crazy," Ice decided.
"The bulletin boards outside the prison cocoons will have each of your jobs in this mission. No Changeling will go bored!" Queen Chrysalis waved her horn with a flourish of green fire. "We begin preparing tomorrow! Any Changeling with substantial memory of Mi Amore Cadenza shall report directly to my chambers!"
She vanished.
"Am I the only one who thinks this is a really, really bad idea?"
After about four weeks and a lot of armor polishing, it turned out that she was the only one who thought it was a bad idea. This also meant that she was the only one outside of Canterlot when the supposed attack took place, as she figured that if there had been no explosion by nightfall it meant they had probably won and it was safe to go back. She did value her life, even if valuing her life meant choosing a slow, painful death through starvation than a quick one smushed against some wall in the middle of Happy Pony Rainbow City, or whatever the heck they had decided to call it this time.
At the exact moment of the explosion, she had been sitting at the edge of a small pond that was halfway between Happy Rainbow City and Smaller Happy Rainbow Town, but a bit further to the left than the exact distance would have stated. She was also suspiciously poking a fish she had managed to swipe up onto the bank.
"It's not Happy Rainbow City," she muttered to herself. "They aren't that dumb."
Then there was a lot of pink and glitter and wind, and she was pushed just far enough forward by the distant magical pulse that she fell in the pond, along with the fish.
She sat up, spitting greenish water, and looked towards the mountain city. "By Princess Celestia's furry flank, they're all dead."
Conveniently, a fellow Changeling fell out of the sky and dug a spectacular trench with his body directly through the pond before halting rather suddenly at the base of the tree on the other side. And another one landed nearby. And she was pretty sure she heard faint screaming followed by branches breaking deeper in the forest.
"It's raining men," Ice quipped, getting to her hooves. She trotted up to the nearest victim, dripping stagnant ponds water and algae. "Heil Chrysalis, comrade!"
"Heil your flank," the other Changeling responded. "Misguided she-devil with brain cells she can count on one hoof."
"Bitter, bitter." Ice casually stepped over him, broke a larger branch down from the tree, and used it as a wedge to remove his face from the bark. "I assume the plan didn't go very well, huh?"
"Would I be here if it didn't?"
"Good point." She took a few steps back as he sat up, wincing and rubbing the spot where his horn used to be.
"These grow back, right?"
Ice shrugged.
