I think that no race under the sun has more thoughts—or less understanding—on the subject of love than the changelings. It's like the story about the two young, foolish fish and the old, wise fish. The two young fish are swimming along when the old fish smiles and nods to them and says “Morning boys! Water's lovely today, isn't it?” The young fish respond with a polite smile and nod and continue on their way. A bit of time later, one turns to look at the other and says “What in the world is water?”
I think changelings and love are the same way. We depend on it every day of our lives, eating as much as we can get our hooves on. Trying not to starve. But do we really know what it is?
Does a person feel love? Certainly. That inner feeling of affection, of feeling happy the moment someone's face comes to your mind, is what my people eat. It is sweet and delicious beyond comparison, more delicious than anything else I've ever tasted..
But is that feeling love?
I give you an example.
It has been said that there is no room for love in the heart of Queen Chrysalis. Though the turn of phrase may come from the queen herself, I see it as wildly inaccurate. My queen would in fact be full of love, would feel, I think more love than anyone else in the world, if she were not the first to donate all that she has to the hive's stockpile every moon.
Thus, can we say that my Queen has no love, because she feels no affection? Because she's given away her every hope to feel love? Or is the act of giving away what she has—what she so desperately wants—to meet the needs of her people, love?
Is love what you feel? Is it what you do? Or is it some combination of the two?
I won't say much more on the subject. You don't want to listen to me philosophize all day. You came here to hear a story, and a story I will tell you. I must confess, much of this information comes second-hand. I can only guess as to what motivated the queen to act the way she did, and though Flash Sentry explained to me his thoughts and motivations later I cannot empirically prove that he was honest with me about them. But I am quite certain that the details of my tale, the events themselves, are correct. I witnessed them with my own eyes.
“My name is Flash Sentry,” said the orange coated, blue maned stallion in his regal, golden armor. “And I'm here to speak with your queen.”
One of the guards stationed at the entry to the tunnels scoffed.
“And just what makes you think we're going to let you through to see her?”
“Me and my companions are a diplomatic unit. We've been sent to find out what we can do to smooth things over with the changeling empire after the recent invasion.”
“Well armed for a diplomatic mission,” another guard said. It was true. Aside from Flash Sentry, there was one other pegasus, two earth ponies and two unicorns, all wearing armor and carrying spears—sheathed in metal cases at their flanks, but ready to be drawn at any time.
“Rather poorly armed for an invasion force, don't you think?” I said. I was the second “pegasus” in the group, the one who'd gotten yelled at by Flash Sentry for wandering off by himself, if only for a minute, the one they still didn't know—or so I hoped—was one of ours.
I was letting our guard know that, be my new “friends” intentions peaceful or not, they didn't pose a significant threat to the queendom.
He got the message.
“Right. I must assume you'll understand the need to have a group of guards accompany you, to make sure you don't harm our queen or any of here citizens while you're inside.”
“We don't intend to. However, I must assume you'll understand that if the six of us do not return alive and unharmed to Canterlot within the next couple of days, a rescue mission will come after us,” Flash countered. “And don't assume you can fool us with your transforming tricks. A new unicorn spell has been developed to detect changelings in disguise, like your stallion here who still thinks I think he's one of mine.” He gestured towards me with his head.
Perhaps if I'd spoken up sooner I could have convinced him that he was mistaken. But for too long of a pause, I was too frightened to speak.
“Captain, I... I don't know what you mean,” I said. “I am Lucky Starkiller.”
“We didn't need any spell to expose you when you came back, saluted Steel Nerves instead of me and answered to that stupid name,” Flash said. Then he stared straight in my eyes and gave me a glare like I've never seen before in my life. “Now. I don't know what you've done to Soaring Heights. But he's been one of my best friends since before the academy, and if he doesn't go home alive when this is over, neither do you. Understand?”
I nodded, slowly. It was an interesting start to the relationship that would follow. “Yes, Flash and I are dear friends. I'll never forget the first time he laid a threat against my life.”
Perhaps it is surprising that a trained military agent would become so unnerved by his cover being blown. But this had never happened to me before. On all my previous operations, I've impersonated civilians in the middle of cities—ponies going about their day to day lives. No one expects their loved ones to be replaced by an impostor, so when they start acting out of sorts, it's not the sort of conclusion they jump to. It's more “Darling, have you been sleeping well, lately? Are you stressed out for your upcoming exam?” That sort of thing.
But these soldiers were expecting changelings, so of course they had ways of identifying each other—and probably more that Flash hadn't revealed to us.
Or perhaps there is no excuse. Perhaps I'm simply not a very good soldier.
“Yes, sir,” I said quietly.
Changelings glared and hissed at us as we wandered the tunnels, towards the queen's chambers, the glow of moss and torches on the walls lighting our way. Flash Sentry and his squadron stared straight ahead, ignoring them. I wondered if the fear of death truly meant nothing to them compared to the importance of their mission, if they were confident that rescue would come for them in time should all go poorly, or if they were simply good at putting on a brave face.
The queen lay across her throne, dangling her hind legs over one of the chair's arms, her back leaning against the other, a glass of freshly cooled and stirred love hovering in a beautiful, green aura next to her face.
She took a sip from the glass and smiled at Flash and his men.
“I must say, your princess' feelings for her subject are the sweetest I've tasted in a long time.” She waved the glass at them, in case it wasn't clear enough what she was talking about. “Almost reminds me of myself.” Another sip. “So! What can I do for you boys?”
“Where here to smooth over relations between the Equestrian Empire and the Changeling Hive. After the fiasco at the royal wedding, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna thought it would be prudent to send a diplomatic squadron to see what it would take to enable our two civilizations to resume the friendly relationship we once possessed.”
“'Friendly?'” my queen scoffed. “Do your princesses apply the word 'friend' to everyone who holds back the urge to strangle them? Rather cheapens the term, doesn't it?”
Flash said nothing.
My queen drained the glass, then climbed out of her throne and marched up to Flash.
“I suppose you'll want to know what brought on the attack,” she said. Flash was again frustratingly silent. Nevertheless, my queen kept her cool and continued on. “Do you have any idea what it's like to have no love to feed on but our love for each other? Never getting to enjoy or experience our own love because as soon as we feel it, it all has to go to the community stores to feed the hive? Yes, our plan would have dulled life for the ponies. They never would have loved as deeply or as fully after we were through with them. But we would have finally been able to experience life! Finally been able to have love left over for ourselves! My people are starving, young pony! And you continue to selfishly hold on to the love you have, sparing none for my subjects! What else were we to do?”
Flash put a hoof to his chin and pondered the question for a moment.
“Yes,” he said at last, “I can see how that put you in a difficult situation.” He was silent again for a moment. “Your troops have taken one of my stallions captive. I know that I would be more than willing to donate to your love supplies in exchange for his safe release. Upon our return to Canterlot we'll explain your situation to the princesses. I am not authorized to make any specific promises on their behalf, but I can promise you that whatever help they can offer to your people will be rendered.”
The rest of his team affirmed that they, too would be willing to donate before going back to meet with their princesses.
Queen Chrysalis scoffed at the promise of further aid from Canterlot.
“You won't do any such thing. But if you offer my subjects sustenance, I'd be a fool to refuse. Follow me to the harvesting room.”
Though the roughly crafted, stone chamber that was the harvesting room was full of translucent, green chrysalides, only one of them was occupied by a pony. The rest were full of meditating changelings, thinking as hard as they could about all the beings who mattered to them, trying to feel all the love they could to save their hive from starvation.
The queen gestured towards the hole in the middle of the floor, through which one could see the reservoirs. It was a small hole, but through it one could see the massive vats of the churning, green energy that was the refined love. They were nearly empty. Even with everychangeling giving all they could, there wasn't enough to go around. This, my friends, was back when the famine was in full swing.
“You really are starving, aren't you?” Flash asked, his sympathy clear.
“What do you know about suffering?” the queen growled.
“Not so much as you, maybe. But not so little as you might think. Let him out first,” Flash pointed his muzzle towards Soaring Heights. “You'll be harvesting from us one at a time. I'm sure you can understand my reservations about putting my entire team out of commission at one time.”
My queen passed the orders on to one of her personal guards, who slashed open the side of the chrysalis with his horn. Soaring Heights fell out, awakening with a start and gasping for air. One of the unicorns—Steel Nerves, I think Flash had called him—put a hoof on his friend's back and spoke to him in quiet tones, explaining the situation and trying to keep him calm.
Queen Chrysalis turned to Flash.
“Who's first?”
“I am.”
“Get in.” She gestured towards the pod Soaring Heights had just been taken out of.
Flash turned to Steel.
“If anything goes wrong, you're in charge.”
He stepped into the pod. The guard who had released Soaring placed his horn in the gap, and with a flash of magic, sealed it.
Flash' eyes closed slowly under the influence of the pod, and he drifted to sleep.
Within the pod, he let his thoughts linger over a purple unicorn mare he knew back in Canterlot. She'd moved away, two years ago, but he still thought about her from time to time. They hadn't actually spoken, ever, but he knew some about her, and liked what he knew.
Outside, the pod began pulsing, slowly, draining a trickle of green liquid down from him into the reservoirs. It appears, as Flash and I later concluded, that a crush on a cute mare does not constitute true love. It may lead to it, over time, but is not the same thing.
A minute passed.
He let his thoughts pass over to Soaring Heights. The friend who'd been at his side for every test he'd passed in the Solar Guard Academy, and every test he'd failed. The friend he'd helped move more than once until he found just the right apartment, and unfortunately a few times after that. The friend who's best stallion he'd been at the most important wedding of the year, because how big of a deal is a royal wedding compared to the marriage of somepony you actually know?
The trickle should have diminished, even tapered off by that point, but it didn't. Even Soaring, lying on the ground, staring with dispassionate eyes at his friend and commander, had barely been giving us a few drops when we released him.
Instead, the trickle began to flow faster. Thicker streams of light coursed out of him. The pulsing picked up pace as well.
The five ponies watching the scene didn't quite understand what they were seeing, I believe, but a room full of changelings cast nervous glances around themselves and started backing away slowly.
His thoughts drifted to his parents—to how they'd dealt with scraped knees and black eyes (ones he'd gotten and ones he'd delivered.) To the time his father had warned him that the teacup was hot and not to drop it—Flash had picked it up, dropped it straight to the floor. His father had cracked a joke, swept up what was left of the cup, and gotten Flash a knew one, made of plastic this time. To the time his mother had taught him how to polish and shine his armor—she was the one who's hoofsteps he had followed into the Solar Guard.
Then to each of his siblings, to fights where he thought he'd never want to speak to any of them ever again, to begrudging apologies the next morning, to playing together in the back yard later that day.
My queen looked down into the reservoirs, then back up at the shaking pod. Whether or not there was danger here, she couldn't tell, but the reservoirs were more full than she'd seen them in a long time.
Flash' eyes snapped open. He put his forehooves to the side of the pod, and tore it open, sticking his head out.
“I'm sorry,” he said, “is that enough? I can go back in if you like.”
I'd never seen anything like this. Any pony or any changeling who spent more than a few minutes in a pod came out week, groggy and disoriented, like Soaring Heights had. And yet Flash looked stronger and more alert than he had going in. He had to have been stronger than he went in, if he was able to tear his way out of the pod unassisted.
“You...” My queen was stunned. “You just... I...”
Flash nodded.
“I was hoping it would work like that.” He stepped out. “Turns out there might be one difference between changelings and ponies, other than the obvious. When a changeling gives her love away, it's gone, and she has to recover to get it back. But you see, My Lady, you've always assumed that to be the same for ponies. And for you, it always has been.
“Don't you understand, Queen Chrysalis? When you try to take a pony's love by force, you barely get enough to sustain yourself.” He walked over to Soaring Heights, lying on the floor, still watching the proceedings blankly. “It gets week and broken, and takes a long time to come back.” Then, in a low voice that he probably only intended Soaring to hear, added, “But it will come back. I promise.” He looked back at my queen. “However, when a pony offers up her (or his, of course) love willingly, it gets stronger, deeper, and replenishes itself. You can have all you need, if you can convince the ponies to give it willingly. How much more will get you by for now?”
Tears came to my queen's eyes as she stared down at the vats, overflowing with the ponies' feelings. When the other four ponies had been through, there was food enough for the colony for a year, maybe more. None would starve. None would die of starvation. And by the time this was gone, we could establish a treaty with Equestria where volunteers could come by and freely give of their love, with no ill effects...
My queen did not stop crying for the rest of the day. I believe these may have been tears of regret, for the changeling and pony lives that had been lost, meaninglessly, that would be alive today if only she had known. But I hope that they were also tears of joy. The joy of knowing that the future was bright. That our trials were at an end. That our salvation was coming.
Even from Canterlot.
Author's Note
I want to make it clear that the implication here is not that Flash Sentry is like OMG TEH MOST LOVING PWNIE EVAR! If I didn't make it clear enough for you in the story itself that he was simply the first that the changelings gave a chance to love them without any use of deception, force or cruelty, and then only because they were too starving to think of anything else.
Also, I'd like to point out that Soaring Heights is not the same character as Soarin', the wonderbolt. Just a similar name.
Here are some of my original thoughts that lead up to this story, if you're interested in some stream of consciousness rambling.
You might notice that none of what follows could really be considered an outline. I love having a complete outline to help me get moving again when I'm stuck, but I've long discovered that the secret to writing (whether it means to write a complete story without burning out, to write well, to write coherently, whatever) is: Do what works for you. I used to worry about things like: How much time a day should I write? How many sentences is a paragraph? How may pages should a chapter be? How many drafts should I go through? Now I don't. I write an outline sometimes, sometimes I keep it in my head. Sometimes I write it and never look at it again. Sometimes I give up halfway through a story and move on to a project I find more interesting.
So, those other random thoughts I was promising you:
Why is Chrysalis happy? The ponies hate the changelings(You may notice I didn't wind up using that)—changelings dull the joy and love they feel. Why not feed on each other? They can't? No, that's too simple. They don't want to? Why not? They don't want to dull each other to their emotions.
Queen Chrysalis gives up her happiness to feed her people. They can produce, by themselves, enough love to keep themselves alive, but not enough to keep strong and flourish. They have to eat all of the positive emotions their civilization produces, keeping them alive but miserable. That's why they want to prey on the ponies.
It would take only a portion of the love that the ponies posses to help the changelings, but in the past ponies haven't wanted to help. What neither of them realize, ponies or changelings, is that unlike the changelings, a pony's love gets stronger as they give it away—as long as they do so willingly.
Does realizing this make Queen Chrysalis happy? Yes, I think that's what it is. She sees it happen first hand.
Ends with Flash and his crew donating to the hive's stockpile. Thinks about his parents and siblings. Starts by thinking about Twilight, but realizes that one's first crush doesn't constitute love.
