The Golden Daughter

Chapters

1 - Clean Slate
2 - Damaged Goods
3 - The Hardest Lesson
4 - Compromise
5 - Birth of a Monster
6 - Birth of a Changeling

1 - Clean Slate

The Golden Daughter
By~ LiamNeighson

Submitted to EQD on 7/31/13 for Flash Fiction Event #5 - Love Me, Love My Hive http://www.equestriadaily.com/2013/07/flash-fiction-event-5-love-me-love-my.html

~~~

Chrysalis was thrown to the wet clay ground of the cave. Her muzzle collided with the slippery surface as she slid along it before stopping against the wall. Her eyes blinked out of sync as she tried to focus after the blow struck her. She made to stand up and wipe the wetness from her face, that she suspected wasn’t water, but was stopped. A heavy weight descended on her abdomen, pinning her to the cave floor. She felt her tough black chitin flexing to support it and protect her.

The darkness of the cave was pocked with several luminescent fungi but the brightest light came from the viridian eyes now boring into Chrysalis’ own. “One pony? I give you an entire week to harvest love and all you come back with is the meager fare that only one pony can provide.” The weight let off almost imperceptibly as the speaker emphasized their next words. “And it was a stallion, at that.”

Chrysalis whimpered in fear as the weight pressed down on her harder. She resisted the urge to extend her diaphanous wings and begin fluttering them in a desperate attempt to flee. She knew that unfolding them from her sides would only be an invitation to damage them, again.

Most importantly, she knew that there was no escape from her mother.

“You disappoint me, Chrysalis. I thought that your calm guile and patience would have been put to better use. But, again, you leave my hopes to rot in the darkness as you fail once more.” The speaker pressed down harder into the body of the young changeling. “Your share of the harvest will be reduced. Hopefully the void of hunger will motivate you to meet my expectations, and maybe, exceed them, as Aurelia does.”

Chrysalis felt the rugged texture of her mother’s hoof press down remorselessly on her abdomen. The pain caused her composure to crack and she whimpered in agony. She closed her eyes shut firmly and tried to hide her pained expression behind her threadbare mane. Her fangs met her foreleg as she raised a hoof to her muzzle to stifle her pained voice.

Chrysalis knew that showing weakness to her mother would only bring more pain.

The weight was removed and Chrysalis felt like she was being pulled from a furnace of suffering, but the dull throbbing hurt remained. She exhaled the breath she had been holding and relaxed her muscles cautiously. She fought to breathe calmly and make herself presentable as she looked up to her mother in fear once more.

The Queen of the Changelings looked to her daughter and grimaced. “You waste your gifts and your potential. If I sought this type of bounty, I would have sent a drone. If you ever want to rule, you will learn to gorge yourself. A Queen does not take any less than what she deserves...” With a quick motion, the long and rent horn of The Queen rushed forth and met the uneven one of young Chrysalis. “Everything.” She hissed as the green glow traveled from her horn to her daughters.

Chrysalis screamed in agony as the love energy that sustained her was forcefully siphoned from her.

The love that Chrysalis had harvested from the young earth pony stallion in the small village was not as meager as The Queen had thought. In fact, it was nearly as much as the love harvested by Aurelia from three mares. Chrysalis had always been talented at finding the most promising marks and extracting them wholly. Quality over quantity, was what the young changeling had always said. The Queen frowned at the thought and pressed on, she will have to learn to never settle for one over the other, she reasoned.

With a furrowed brow and a greater burst of energy, The Queen dove deep into the well of stored love energy her daughter held and pulled it to herself. She left only a small fraction of what the young royal changeling had harvested, more than enough to sustain her and give her time to hunt tomorrow. But it would leave her wanting for the night.

Chrysalis fell back and curled into a ball. She felt hunger that no food or drink could sate. She felt a chill that no fire or blanket could ward off. She felt alone and unloved.

The Queen stood tall and looked down at the young royal changeling and her sunken eyes. It was the third challenge in a row that Chrysalis had finished in second place. Her emaciated form was showing from the malnourishment, but to a changeling, there was no greater motivation.

“And with that, we move on to the last disappointment.” The Queen moved from her second daughter and flashed a brief look to her eldest. She checked for a reaction, but found none on the blank visage of Aurelia.

Aurelia, the first-born ‘Golden Daughter’, as royal changelings were known amongst drones, stood dispassionately in the entrance to the cave. She watched her two younger sisters be disciplined once more. The Queen had taught them that only one of the Golden Daughters could supersede her to rule the hive and that their trials would determine who that would be.

Every challenge was a new lesson.

A whimpering sound made itself clear in the dark cave lit by the blue luminous fungi and moss. The youngest daughter knew she had finished last.

“Nympha, my dear sweet Nympha,” The Queen cooed, “I was so proud when you bested your sisters on the first challenge; you were so adept at imitating the foals.” The Queen moved to her youngest daughter and forcefully lifted her face with a hoof then gently caressed the black as night chitin of her cheeks. She noticed the wetness of tears immediately as the little fangs of the youngest Golden Daughter began to quiver. “Yet, today, you bring me nothing. Barely enough to even feed yourself.”

“But, mommy, I made so many friends at the schoolhouse today, and they all gave me hugs and nuzzles and—” A swift impact from a hoof full of holes to the muzzle of the youngest daughter stopped her words at the source.

“I am not your mother when you have the stench of friendship on you! That love is not what a royal changeling harvests!” The Queen screamed into the sobbing face of the youngest royal changeling. “When you disappear from the lives of those gullible ponies and they realize you are not present tomorrow, how much will they miss you?” The Queen continued her lecture without pause as she lifted the small Golden Daughter with both forelegs and made her look into her large glowing viridian eyes.

The smaller aquamarine eyes of Nympha were squinted as the hooves of The Queen squeezed her head and forced her to make eye contact. She did not speak as her throat locked up in choking sobs.

“They will forget you in moments. The brief emptiness that those cattle felt at your absence will be refilled with the wellspring of love that they create with each other. The mysterious little filly who became their best friend in a week, and then vanished, will be like a fading dream. The love that you took from them was shallow and replaceable.” The Queen shook her youngest daughter hard and the little wings on her back came out reflexively to flutter and stabilize herself. With a savage sweeping motion, The Queen pressed her daughter back and grated her against the coarse rock wall of the cavern.

Nympha shrieked in unmitigated despair as her delicate wings were shredded against the jagged earthen wall. The sky blue transparent chitin scales that made up the tips of her fore and hindwings fell to the wet clay ground around her. In seconds it was over. The fragile appendages were in tatters and only a significant dose of love would be able to help them regrow to their full strength again. The veins running through them burned in a dull hurt as they bled thin rivulets of ichor.

The Queen knew the youngest would be starving tonight and that she could not extract any love from her without risking a premature death. But physical pain and harsh words would be just as effective a teaching aid.

“The laws of nature teach us that for each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For each meal of love you harvest from a pony, they will feel empty and alone, and you will feel full and loved. There can be no other balance, we must take what we need to survive.”

The Queen pulled Nympha away from the wall and then fluttered her own wings to lift herself and the youngest Golden Daughter into the center of the cavern.

Aurelia continued to watch from the doorway motionlessly. Her eyes narrowed in discomfort as she saw her youngest sister whimpering and bleeding from her most delicate appendages. Her jaw grit hard and her wings extended vertically to quiver in agitation. She took morbid comfort in knowing that it was not her this time.

Chrysalis had no more tears left to give as she watched little Nympha struggle. She was lying on the ground and nursing her bleeding muzzle as the fresh sensation of being drained was still numbing her senses. She dreaded watching her little sister be abused so thoroughly but she knew it was because her mother, The Queen, had been the youngest of her own Golden Sisters. She always demanded the most from them when they were weakest.

“Let this be a lesson to all of you! There are many types of love, but only one type of love that a royal changeling should harvest, the love of romantic desire. The love of familiarity is barely enough to even sustain a single drone. By mocking the appearance of an acquaintance and carrying on a conversation, a drone can infiltrate and spy for a period of time but soon they will go hungry and die. The love of friendship can sustain a drone indefinitely but it requires care and careful mimicry that few of the weak-minded males can achieve. Only with regular nourishment, delivered by their queen, can a hive truly grow and thrive. And only by harvesting the love of romantic desire can you transform the most precious love that those ponies take for granted and use it to rule.”

The Queen dropped Nympha to the cave floor unceremoniously. “Aurelia managed to seduce and take love from three mares this week. They all woke up in empty beds, looking for their new lover and found nothing. The devouring sorrow that will consume them for days is matched only by the glorious feast that we will be sharing with the hive tonight. The weak male drones, my children, who serve you unswervingly, will not go hungry because of our strength, and more larva will be born because of your elder sister’s aptitude.” The Queen shot one last glance to her youngest daughters and glided to the entrance where Aurelia stood still. She raised a hoof to part the deep lavender mane from the bright violet eyes of her eldest daughter. She smiled in pride at Aurelia.

Aurelia bowed low to The Queen. “Thank you, mother.”

The Queen nodded her approval and bid her to rise. She turned to look at her other daughters in the dimly lit room. “Love is power. And until you learn to take every ounce of it, you will have it taken from you. I will not leave the future of this hive to a pupa that can hardly feed herself, let alone an army of drones.”

With a brief touch of horns, The Queen transferred some of the love energy taken from Chrysalis to Aurelia. She smiled to the eldest daughter, and Aurelia returned it in kind. “Tonight, Aurelia and I will feed the hive, and you will go hungry. I expect better from you tomorrow.”

With a nod to a pair of helmeted drones outside, The Queen and Aurelia departed into the long tunnel that would lead to the great chamber. The feeding ceremony would begin soon. As the sounds of their departure faded, the guards flanking the entrance lit their horns and began to close the waxy, green privacy curtain closed across the entrance. The yellow light from the hallway was dimmed by the opaque barrier that fell across the doorway piece by piece.

Chrysalis rose and walked slowly to her sister Nympha who still lay in the center of the room. The dim light of the glowing mushrooms reflected off of the iridescent elytra on the small changeling’s back. The slightly tattered wings were twitching and attempting to fold back down along the thick chitin where they would be protected from further damage.

Nympha heard her older sister approaching and looked with her aquamarine eyes to the emerald ones above her. “I’m sorry, Chrysi, I tried my best today. I tried my best...” Nympha trailed off as she began to whimper once more.

Chrysalis knelt behind her little sister and wrapped her as gently as she could in an embrace. She began to inspect the damage to the wings. “Shh, shh, Nympha. I know you did your best. Harvesting love is hard work, and you’re still young, and learning. We will do better tomorrow.” Chrysalis gently stroked her younger sister and held her close in the darkness.

Nympha sniffled a few times and pulled the larger hole-filled hooves of her sister close to her chest with her smaller ones. “It’s not fair. Why do we have to work so hard for love when ponies don’t have to? It’s like they just make it for each other, from nothing, like magic. It’s not fair.” Nympha lowered her face and hid her tears behind her short blue mane.

Chrysalis used her magic to carefully pluck a few of the shards of chitin dangling from the damaged wings by threads. She gently rubbed the wings with her magic in a soothing motion and folded them back where they would rest comfortably. She knew the familiar hurt all too well. Aurelia hardly ever finished last when they went out on harvesting challenges. The eldest Golden Daughter had experience and maturity that Chrysalis and Nympha could not match.

Nympha broke the silence once more, “Do you think mother is right?”

Chrysalis cocked her head in confusion and looked to her sister before saying, “Mother is always right, Nympha.” as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Nympha frowned before saying, “Well, I know she’s right, but, it’s just that... Maybe she’s missing something... I just... Don’t you ever think there might be another type of love?”

The question struck Chrysalis like a mallet to a drum. “You mean something besides kinship, friendship, and romance?” Chrysalis asked.

Nympha nodded.

Chrysalis sighed and looked away with a distant expression, “I’ve been searching for a stronger love my whole life. Something that won’t be burned up like firewood. A true renewable energy source for us all. But every passion I’ve shared with another has been fleeting.”

Nympha pulled her older sister down to her and nuzzled her. “I know you’ll find it someday, Chryssi. Every night I finish last, I’m glad that you stay with me. I always feel better just knowing that you’ll find a way to take care of us all. I’m so glad that you are my big sister. I hope you become the next Queen.”

Chrysalis smiled and held Nympha until the youngest Golden Daughter fell asleep. She watched the little changeling fret and mumble in her sleep as the soreness and hunger ate her away. With a slow and deliberate motion, Chrysalis lowered her horn and transferred all of the love she had harvested to Nympha. The youngest sister sighed in contentment as fitful sleep turned into soft slumber.

Chrysalis felt the unrelenting ache begin gnawing at her from within and the need for love kept her drifting in and out of sleep all night. But, in her mind, it was worth it to protect her younger sister. She knew that someday she would find a love powerful enough to protect them all, or she would die trying.

2 - Damaged Goods

Chrysalis awoke slowly but did not open her eyes. She felt warm and comfortable. A much different sensation from the crushing pain that rolled over her like a wave when she slammed into the ground at the entrance to the Badlands. She couldn’t recall ever feeling quite so content.

Then the hunger hit her. She was abysmally low on love. She could not remember a time she felt so hungry as the emptiness tore at her. Chrysalis knew she would need to find a pony to capture and harvest love from. Or, if worst came to worst, do it the old fashioned way and find one to imitate and then harvest from their lover. But as she realized how wounded she was after the battle and how remote the Badlands were, the fear began to set in.

Chrysalis tested her reserves of magic. She didn’t know how much energy from Shining Armor she still had. Most had been expended in the battle with Celestia and even more was delivered to her swarm as they invaded the Equestrian Capitol, Canterlot.

My swarm.

Chrysalis opened her eyes in a panic and cast the spell to call out to her swarm with magic. The shock she felt at hearing nothing in response to her call was only exceeded by the shock at seeing where she was. She was lying in a bed, a very comfortable and warm bed. And she was inside a room, it had wooden walls, wooden furniture, and a wood-burning stove. It was... cozy, for lack of a better term.

Most importantly, it wasn’t a dungeon.

“This must be a... cabin. Such a strange word for a wooden house.” Chrysalis spoke to herself quietly as she looked to the room from the side of the bed she rest on.

A voice rose up to meet her ears. “Yeah, well it’s been your home for the last two days, and it’ll be for a while longer ‘til ya heal up.”

Chrysalis looked over the edge of the bed and gasped as she saw a dark grey pegasus laying there with a pillow under his head and a quilt covering his body. He smiled up at her.

Chrysalis gasped and fired a mind-control spell at him.

~~~

Smokejumper arched an eyebrow in confusion as the strange creature he had rescued began squinting and groaning in frustration. She was looking down at him and pointing her scraggly horn at him, concentrating with all of her might, and then opening her eyes to pant and stare at him. She huffed in frustration before continuing to make strange pained expressions and wave her horn at him.

“You, uh, y’alright? Ya seem to be havin’ some trouble there.” Smokejumper scratched at his deep brown mane and made to rise from the floor but a hoof fell from the bed and pressed down on his shoulder, stopping him.

“No! You will feed me!” the creature shouted as it continued to struggle with some invisible force.

The tip of its gnarled black horn began to emit tiny green sparks and Smokejumper realized that it must be attempting to cast some sort of magic.

“Woah, now! No need to get hostile, if you’re hungry I got some stew sittin’ in the pot, just give me a second to get it.”

Smokejumper shrugged the weak black hoof of the creature aside and rose to all fours. He looked down at the emaciated thing in the bed as it tried to roll to its back and look at him before yelping in pain. It began to test all of its limbs to find they were weak and aching.

Smokejumper frowned at the site of the pitiful thing and turned to head to the stove. “Ya might want to relax. Those fancy wings have seen better days. I’m afraid you won’t be leavin’ the ground any time soon. Not until they heal up.”

The creature furled its brow in confusion before turning to look back at its severely damaged wings. Then it held a hoof to the side of its head and pulled some of the long blue hair to look at it. With rising panic and widening eyes it began to breathe quickly and inspect her hooves. They were still just as mangled and hole filled as she remembered. She fought to remove the linens and inspect the damage to her form.

Smokejumper ignored the sounds of shuffling from the bed as he used his muzzle to bite down on the knitted handle guard and lifted the iron top off of the simmering pot. With deft motions from his hooves he manipulated a ladle to pour a healthy serving of vegetable stew into a bowl.

The creature looked to the pony with a curious but calculating expression. It flicked its ears side to side and ran a tongue along its fangs absent-mindedly. As if coming to some sort of conclusion, it sank back further under the covers and ceased attempting to leave them.

Smokejumper looked over to the creature in his bed after placing the top back on the pot. It seemed to have relaxed and was fixing him with a flat and emotionless stare, but the sunken eyes and narrow waist told him all he needed to know. This creature, no matter how strange or ill-tempered, was hungry.

“I will never understand how some ponies manage without magic.” It spoke for the first time.

Smokejumper laughed at the strange voice as he walked over to the bedside. He was balancing the soup bowl on one hoof carefully as he said, “Heh, well I suppose with practice comes proficiency. At least that’s what my pa always said.” He held the soup on his extended foreleg to the strange creature.

With a calculated gaze between the soup and the pony, the creature came to a conclusion and grasped the soup with both of its hooves. It did not motion to eat any of it but it did smell at the steam rising from it suspiciously. It sneered briefly as a grumbling sound came from its abdomen beneath the sheets.

Smokejumper frowned at the sight. “I know it don’t look like much, but it’s the best you’re gonna find ‘round here.”

The creature continued to stare at the stallion as if calculating something. The croaking and gurgling sounds from the body of the creature continued intermittently. She made no motion to consume the food given to her.

Smokejumper sat on the side of his bed and used a hoof to drag the covers back over the relaxed body of the creature to keep it warm. He began to tuck in the warm quilt that covered her. “I tried my best to bandage those holes in her legs but they don’t seem to be bleedin’ or healin’ any more than when I found ya. The worst were some scrapes and cracks here and there. Ya were oozin’ a bit of, um, green stuff, but that’s all patched up now.” He looked at the creature as it began to analyze him silently. Smokejumper sighed and looked up from his work fussing over the bedding. “Look, it’s still dark out an’ I know you mares need your beauty sleep, so I’ll leave ya to it. Just let me know if you need anythin’.” Smokejumper moved over to the wood burning stove and opened it to toss another log in.

“How did you find me?” It asked as an a pained scowl crossed its features briefly.

Smokejumper’s ears perked up and he turned to look to the creature. He cleared his throat and a bright gleam came to his eye. He prepared to do his favorite thing, tell a story. “Well, I was sittin’ out on my lookout tower doin’ a bit of writin’ when I saw a big hail of objects come flyin’ over the mountain range. The biggest one landed closest to here at the edge of the forest and just in the Badlands, so I made a short flight down to see what it was. Er, what you were, that is to say.” He paused and closed the iron door to the stove as the log began to catch. He smiled over at the creature awkwardly. “Uh, and if ya don’t mind me askin’, what is that exactly? You I mean, um, what are you?”

Smokejumper looked to the creature with genuine curiosity written all over his face. He wasn’t afraid, just sincerely worried about how best to help the strange female in his bed. He realized she was probably frightened and that he should bridge the gap first, “My name’s Smokejumper, I’m a fire watcher.” He pointed to his flank where there was an image of dark smoke blowing in the wind. “Well, that is, I meant to say, that’s my job. I’m actually just a pegasus pony.” He smiled bashfully at the female creature.

A moment of silence passed and the creature seemed to grimace in pain briefly. Smokejumper sighed as he realized he may not get much more out of it until it was in better condition. He went back to adjusting the logs in the stove.

The creature had a gleam of mischief in its eye and smirked briefly. It began to tilt the bowl of stew towards its mouth and then spilled it all over its neck, muzzle, and withers. “Ah!”, it yelped in surprise. It paused as it started to shiver and groan in pain. The empty soup bowl falling from its grasp and rolling off the side of the bed.

Smokejumper turned to see the creature struggling and took in the scene in an instant. He grabbed a small towel, hurried over, and leaned above the female. He began to dab at the hot stew on her black, hard skin. He still didn’t know what she was, not exactly, but it looked enough like a pony for him to care for it. He would hate to think that after nearly two whole days of first aid that his patient would get worse.

The creature continued to shiver and moan in distress.

“What is it?” he said, “What’s happenin’? Talk to me!” Smokejumper began feeling her forehead and checking her pulse. He was doing everything he knew to control shock but still she seemed to be shivering.

“S-so c-cold.” She managed to whisper out as she convulsed in the beddings.

Smokejumper didn’t know what could have brought on the symptoms so suddenly. It seemed like hypothermia setting in but he had kept the cabin warm. Yet, the creature seemed to be cool to the touch. He didn’t know if she was cold-blooded naturally or not, but if she felt cold he would warm her up. Smokejumper furled his brow in determination and tossed the damp towel aside. With a swift motion, he lifted the covers and crawled in next to her and wrapped her in a hug. He fluffed his large grey wings and used them to cover her cool black insect-like hide. His foreleg reached down and grabbed the quilt from the floor and raised it up onto the bed, draping it over them both. He sighed as he felt the trembling creature in his embrace begin to slowly warm up from his body heat.

She opened her eyes and her fanged muzzle stopped chattering. She smiled at the stallion and he smiled at her.

“Let’s just stay this way for a bit until you warm up. It’s how they taught me to treat hypothermia. I’m sorry I didn’t realize how cold ya were whe—”

Smokejumper was interrupted by a set of lips being thrust forward into his. His trainwreck of a consciousness could only process one thought, fangs. He opened his mouth to yell in surprise and then felt a forked tongue begin exploring it. When the initial shock of being open mouth kissed faded, he tried to struggle and break out of the tight embrace he had pulled himself into with the stranger, only to find that her legs had wrapped around his and were holding fast.

Somehow, the weakened creature was getting stronger.

The kiss grew sloppy and rough as Smokejumper struggled to push away and get out of the bed but only ended up getting more and more tangled in the sheets. He managed to free a foreleg and pushed away at the fanged muzzle that was pressing into his face. It separated briefly before diving back in, but now the target was his neck.

Smokejumper felt a warmth filling his face as the strange creature nibbled at his flesh.

The stallion yelped as the fangs pricked his sensitive skin. He ceased struggling as the sensation made him forget what was happening for a moment. When the hooves tightened back around him he regained his senses and began to shove the female creature off of him with renewed vigor. He squirmed against her as she pushed back bodily and turned him onto his back. She leaned over him and rested her weight on his pelvis and began to hiss into his neck as she continued to lick at it.

Smokejumper realized with abundant clarity just what the creature had in mind and he made up his own mind right then to break one of the most important promises he made to his pa. Never hit a filly.

The right hook sailed across the temple of the creature and she shrieked in pain.

Smokejumper leapt from under her and untangled himself from the linens. He flapped his wings hard and flew to the door. He grabbed his axe with his forehooves - clumsily - the tool held defensively in front of him.

“That was- you are- I don’t-” He sputtered as the confusion and anger he felt at being so thoroughly violated waged war with another part of him. The part that enjoyed it and raised its flag proudly between his hind legs. “Unacceptable! That’s what that was, downright inappropriate!”

The creature only laughed. It extended its long tongue to lap up a bit of the stew that was still on her chin. It parted some of the deep blue hair behind an ear and gave a sensuous look to the stallion and his better half. “Thanks for the appetizer, if you ever want to get to the main course, you’ll know where to find me.” She winked at him and continued to lick at the holes in her hooves as she wiped up the stew from her chest. “And you can call me Chrysalis.”

Smokejumper blushed profusely at the sight and bolted out of the cabin into the darkness. His mind still struggling to come to terms with what had just happened.

He didn’t know what she was, but he knew she was dangerous. He took wing and flew to the tall tower by his home on the mountaintop. The giant wooden structure had a clear line of sight over everything from Dodge City to the far north and all of the forest travelling east of there down to the Haysead Swamps to the west. The snow-capped mountain range that marked the dividing line between Equestria and the Badlands stretched to the horizon in every other direction. Only the mesas and other stone formations of the Badlands themselves broke up the panoramic view of the Macintosh Hills.

Smokejumper looked down to the cabin and saw through the window that the fanged thing in his bed was going back to sleep with what appeared to be a smile on her face. Smokejumper absentmindedly rubbed at his sensitive neck where the sharp points had grazed him. He began to piece together a theory on what she really was.

Smokejumper flapped his wings in frustration and regarded his growing problem. Being a firewatcher was a lonely job. There was no running water, no fancy electricity or steam power. Everything that Smokejumper needed, he got for himself. He hadn’t seen or spoken to anypony in six months, but he knew how to survive. He could take care of any problem that came up, and he could take care of himself.

So he did.

3 - The Hardest Lesson

Aurelia nodded to the two guards standing watch in front of the dimly glowing room. “Open it, but take your time. It is a dungeon, after all.” The helmeted drones nodded and began the work of undoing the organic waxy curtain that blocked the other two royal sisters inside.

While The Queen would never refer to the room as a ‘dungeon’ out of respect for herself, Aurelia had no qualms with dirtying her own tongue with the distasteful word. If there was one thing her mother refused to do, it was get dirty. The changeling queen had a predictable habit and behavior. She held herself in high regard and considered harvesting love to be like tasting fine wine. She would only chase after older, married mares, who came from wealth and power, mature mares who were neglected by their husbands and sexually frustrated. She would appear to them as a young, muscular stallion, a tall, dark, and handsome type that would spin a tale of mystery.

Her modus operandi was predictable and scientific. She would approach the mares at large social gatherings that featured wealthy and powerful ponies. Operas, gambling houses, garden parties, museums, theatres, and expensive restaurants were her favorite hunting grounds. She would tell them about how she was travelling and visiting the town, but that she couldn’t stay long. And if the mare gave even the slightest sign of interest to her flirtations she would pursue them viciously, by planting the seed of intrigue, and then rapidly ignoring them. She would seemingly finding another, more attractive, younger mare to give attention to. By the end of the night, the true target would have given the seed every ounce of doubt and jealousy it would need to bloom into unbridled passion. Only then would The Queen return to offer up a dance or a moonlit walk.

In the end, it always ended with a passionate night, and a cold bed in the morning. The Queen would have a full belly and the mare would have a broken heart.

Aurelia knew better, however. There was always a more efficient way of harvesting.

The idea that love was something that had to be aged in the ‘oaken cask’ of a marriage to become ‘potent’ or more powerful was old-fashioned. For centuries, changelings had been targeting ponies that were powerful, rich, and influential. The idea that only married ponies who were deeply in love were the best sources of food was a crippling mindset. Hundreds of changeling drones starved as queen after queen was outed by lovers who were immediately tipped off to the differences in behavior that their replaced spouses displayed. Hives collapsed, and the race as a whole nearly went extinct.

The Queen, her mother, had grown out of this time of hardship. The next evolution was, naturally, to only target spouses that were unhappy with the marriage. And this most often meant older females who had husbands off chasing young tails. The harvesting missions would be shorter and provide a less stable source of energy but the amount of resources was nearly endless. By sacrificing prolonged imitation and identity theft with short trysts of manipulation and betrayal, the love began to flow steadily once more, and the risk of being identified as a changeling was reduced. After all, feeling like you had love stolen from you after cheating on a spouse was not an unexpected reaction.

Aurelia was proud to be pioneering the latest and greatest form of love harvesting. In her experience, the pony didn’t have to be in a relationship, married, rich, powerful, or popular. The ponies she targeted only had to be lonely enough to be desperate for romance. When she showed up and offered to sweep them off their hooves in a weekend of unbridled passion and carefree lovemaking, they opened their hearts to her. She was like an oasis in a desert to her victims and they all drank deeply. Aurelia would feast until she felt like bursting.

She tried her best to not get stuck into any one particular ‘style’ of harvesting. She experimented with stallions and mares, in both combinations. But when given the choice, she would always pursue the sapphic relationship. Mares who preferred the female form seemed to be the most desperate and open emotionally. They had the urge to merge, so to speak. The extremely short relationships she would have with them would give the most efficient payout. Not to imply that stallions weren’t an option for her, far from it. Given a little more time, stallions could pay out as much as mares. They were simpler in their desires; They would always give little true love in the beginning, only lust, especially the colt-cuddlers. But if one had the patience, the payoff would be equal in the mid-length relationship as the male naturally became dependent, protective, and trusting. Both genders could love equally, but for quick gains, finding a lonely filly who needed someone to listen was always the easiest safe to crack.

What was that delicious pony joke again? Aurelia thought to herself, Ah yes, ‘What does a fillyfooler bring on a second date? A U-pull’. The eldest royal changeling giggled to herself as she recounted the numerous fillies that asked her to move in after one night of passion. Of course she would agree, the burst of love she got after it was the perfect dessert to every ‘late night seven-course meal’. She licked her lips as she imagined the exquisite stab of betrayal that must have met their hearts when they awoke to an empty bed.

It made her hungry just thinking about it.

Aurelia was stirred from her thoughts as the drone guards nodded to her and cleared the final strands of the barrier from the entrance. She strode in with purpose and found her two younger sisters sitting in the darkness together as they watched her enter.

She grinned at the painful expressions that were barely hidden behind their masks of defiance. “Mother is going to give us our next challenge, a month in the wild, harvesting love for the hive. We’ll be getting a swarm of our own.”

Aurelia smiled viciously as she looked at her sisters’ slack-jawed expressions. She knew it would be no contest and that her place at her mothers side would be assured. She had won every challenge that involved gathering love. The only challenges that Chrysalis ever beat her at was theft, manipulation, and betrayal. And little Nympha only ever won at mimicry, camouflage, and deception. All of which were simply foolish exercises in practicing a changelings natural gift for transformation and trickery, something that every drone could do. But harvesting love was the duty of The Queen.

Aurelia was the best harvester of all of the Golden Daughters, she knew it, and her sisters knew it.

“If I were you, I would take the opportunity to flee. Start your own hive with the drones given to you and eek out your existence away from here. You will never be able to provide for the hive like I can. Mother told me last night that there is only room for one of us on the throne.” She bared her fangs viciously and hissed at her sisters. “The final challenge is approaching.”

Aurelia turned on her hooves and strode down the hallway towards the great chamber.

Chrysalis and Nympha rose and walked through the entrance to the room they had spent many nights in together. Life was always easy for a royal changeling, compared to a drone. Their time together as pupa was filled with nourishment and contentment. They never hungered and they wanted for nothing. The Golden Daughters were treated like princesses from the day their mother laid them in their special birthing chambers. After Nympha underwent her imago and tested her wings for the first time, The Queen began their training.

‘The Challenges’ as she referred to them were all practical exercises in honing their natural talents and gifts to fulfill their sole task, harvesting love for the hive to help it grow. Because all drones were male, the Golden Daughters were the only changelings capable of laying eggs. Strong doses of love were required to nurture eggs in their cells and through their larval stages. But drones were weak and lived for only a few weeks, never more than three months. So while it was possible for drones to forage for themselves and survive, the hive as a whole would collapse without a queen to get the sustenance necessary to reproduce at the rate needed.

Chrysalis and Nympha walked down the hallway slowly. They had no desire to catch up to their eldest sister. But it didn’t stop them from reacting to the news.

Nympha looked up to Chrysalis and smiled, “Are you excited? I’ve never had so many drones to order around before. I think it’s going to be fun! I can show them all which ponies to copy and how to improve their disguises!” The young royal changeling flitted her blue wings and hovered above the ground.

Chrysalis walked forward calmly, doing her best to not show how weak she was after feeding her younger sister once more. She smirked down at Nympha and smiled genuinely. “I’m more worried about winning, Nympha. You seem to forget that I have finished second in every single challenge. I’ve never had the opportunity to take part in the feeding ceremonies.”

Nympha fell to the rocky floor and cast her eyes away from her sister in shame. She had finished in first place twice, once on the first challenge where they first tested their mimicry and again on the challenge to practice lying. “I’m sorry, Chryssi, I wish you could have seen it when it first happened for me. It’s so beautiful.”

The two youngest royal sisters emerged from their tunnel into the great chamber. A thin rocky ledge extended out from the entrance to make a landing area of sorts. But all along the walls in every direction was the hexagonal lattice of birthing cells. Many were filled with drones resting. The hive was a twenty four hour operation and they worked in shifts. Others were capped off with the waxy opaque green building material and young larvae and eggs could be seen glowing inside. Drone after drone flew in every direction and crawled in systemic patterns along the cells to disperse love to each and every growing changeling they could.

The duo of female changelings extended their wings and flew down to the lower part of the chamber. A geometric pattern of six rocky bridges extended from the main storage rooms into the central chamber. The two changeling princesses landed as one and relaxed their wings.

High along the uppermost reaches of the cavern, stalactites reached down and were covered in rows of hexagonal cells that stretched between them in avenues of vertical housing. The changeling hive was buzzing with activity and no space was wasted as each drone served its purpose without hesitance. The entire scene was illuminated by threads of vibrant glowing moss hanging from the tips of the stalactites into the grand chamber. The cool greens, blues, and purples of the lambent fungi painted a lagoon of light onto the central stone platform in the bottom of the room.

The two royal changelings puffed out their chests, raised their wings vertically and held their chins high. They remembered the first lesson from their mother, A Queen never shows weakness before her swarm.

Chrysalis and Nympha strode side by side through the magnificent grand chamber. The sheer scale of the room was difficult to take in from their position so low to the ground now, but the omnipresent hum of changeling activity was enough to assure them that everything was alive and well.

Aurelia stood in the center of the large stone gathering area next to her mother. The Queen and the eldest daughter watched the younger sisters approach slowly but with purpose. They held their posture perfectly and their vertically slitted eyes narrowed to exude only one idea, power.

Nympha and Chrysalis both bowed low to their mother, The Queen.

The matriarch of the changeling hive rose to the air on large diaphanous wings. She turned once and shot a burst of magic to call the entirety of the swarm down to them. “Hear me, my swarm! Today, one hundred and fifty of you will be selected to accompany the Golden Daughters on their greatest challenge yet!” There was a susurration of awe as excitement filled every drone. The chittering and cackling of normal playful banter between the males was stopped abruptly as the opportunity to accompany a potential future queen on her first swarming presented itself.

The Queen giggled. “Now that I have your attention, we will be choosing the worthy ones in the typical changeling fashion, a contest, of sorts. You will use your skills for camouflage and mimicry to hide in the great chamber. Your display of skill will be paramount in whether you will be selected. If you are approached by one of the Golden Daughters you are to obey her commands, to the word.”

After a pause for dramatic effect, The Queen raised her hooves high and slammed them to the stone below her. “Conceal yourselves!”

The entire swarm swirled in frantic excitement. The drones dove to and fro to hide and impress the royals. A cacophony of chittering, screeching, hissing, buzzing, and scratching assaulted the ears of the royal changelings.

Only one sound could be heard over it all, the sound of The Queen cackling maniacally as she rotated slowly in the air and held her hooves out to the swarm whirling about the royal females in activity.

Then, with a sudden decrescendo, the noise of the hive fell to silence. The cold caverns seemed to become a vacuum of sound as the royal changelings each could hear their own breathing in the grand chamber. Chrysalis felt her breath catch as she gulped audibly in the eerie silence. She could almost hear her own heartbeat.

“Isn’t it magnificent?” The Queen asked as she landed and strode to where the three Golden Daughters stood in awe, searching every dark corner of the normally bustling large chamber and finding nothing but stillness and silence.

The Queen laughed quietly once more and said, “The rules of this contest, for them, are simple, and for you they are almost laughably so.” With a bright green glow, the horn of The Queen shot to the floor of the rock and drew three black lines extending radially from the center, marking three perfect 120 degree sections of the central platform.

“Your personal swarm will consist of the first fifty drones to land on your respective platforms.” With a harsh shove, The Queen moved each daughter to their designated thirds. “Once a drone lands on your platform, you may not exchange it for another, so choose wisely. As soon as fifty land on your platform you will leave and begin heading to Hollow Shades. Do not tarry.” The Queen smirked at the confident look on Aurelia, the downcast look on Nympha, and the ponderous look on Chrysalis.

“Use every skill I have taught you, daughters. In thirty days time, whomever returns - with the most drones alive - to this chamber, will win.” The Queen gave a final glance to each of her daughters before saying, “Begin.”

Aurelia hardened her features and gave a deep bow, “I will not fail mother, I will win this challenge, just as surely as I will be the first to leave this chamber. I will make you proud.” With a sweep of her wings she ascended high into the air and began to search for the best drones she could find to build up her swarm.

Nympha and Chrysalis remained silent and motionless. The youngest knew in resignation that she would finish last, because she was the weakest flyer. Chrysalis continued to look to the ground around her, the gears turning in her head were almost audible in the deathly silence of the large cavern. Her eyes widened and brightened at an exciting epiphany.

“Mother,” Chrysalis said audaciously.

The Queen looked to her second daughter with narrowed eyes.

Chrysalis took a calming breath and continued, “Would it be considered cheating if one of the drones I selected were to accidentally pick the wrong section of the platform?”

The Queen leaned her head back and laughed long and loud. She turned down and moved in to nuzzle Chrysalis affectionately, “Oh, my dear, cunning, Chrysalis, this is why I have such high hopes for you. The way of the changeling is to cheat, steal, and betray.” She leaned back and winked at her daughter with a wide grin of elation. “Make me proud. Take every advantage you can.”

Chrysalis felt a swelling of pride fill her that dulled her hunger momentarily.

Standing back to the center of the platform and turning her calm viridian gaze up to the shadows above, The Queen watched Aurelia flit about with her deep purple wings. She savored every moment of watching the eldest daughter be predictable and go for the least subtle means to the end. Teaching lateral thinking to the bright and ambitious girl had been her greatest challenge. She knew Aurelia was a fantastic harvester, but only because she was a single-minded and mercilessly efficient thinker, almost blindly so.

Chrysalis felt a wave of relief fall over her and she turned to pull Nympha into a huddle. The smaller changeling was pouting at – once again – being placed in a challenge of physical prowess, knowing her smaller and weaker form would be her downfall.

“Nympha, you’re the best at hiding and disguising yourself, you always were, you can find the best hidden drones, correct?” Chrysalis whispered.

Nympha looked up into the emerald eyes of her protective older sister and said, “Well, of course, I always win at hide and seek with the drones. Some of them are terrible at hiding, I can see a lot of them even from here.” Nympha rose to point with a hoof at several sets of glowing blue eyes peering from their cells in the highest parts of the great chamber.

Chrysalis followed to where Nympha was indicating, squinting to make out the tiny points of light in the distance, then nodded enthusiastically. “That’s perfect Nympha, because we don’t want to find the drones that are best at hiding. Not yet at least.”

Nympha looked confused. “But if we want a good swarm we need good drones, right? I don’t want drones that are going to get caught by ponies!”

Chrysalis held a hoof to her lips and made a shushing motion. Two drones landed on the platform that Aurelia’s army would belong to. She pulled Nympha closer and whispered softly, “We don’t want Aurelia to hear us. The rules have a loophole, if we can find the worst drones and tell them to land on her side, then we will have all the time to gather the best for ours!”

Nympha blinked in understanding and felt a giggle rising up in her and she raised a hole-filled hoof to cover her mouth and stifle her happy chortles. “Heehee! That’s so smart, Chrissy! Let’s go get them now, I can see the worst ones hiding up at the top. I bet they thought being far away in the dark would be good to hide them but they don’t even close their eyes. What a bunch of silly horns!”

Chrysalis hugged her little sister and then looked to her damaged wings again. “You won’t be able to fly fast enough. I’ll go and tell them where to land, you just stay here where it’s bright and point me where to go and which ones to pick.”

Nympha nodded and hummed an obedient, “Mmhm!” before scanning all around the cavern with her keen eye for detail.

Chrysalis soared high up into the cavern with a burst of speed from her large wings and headed straight for the foolish drones in the highest reaches. Several of them noticed her direct approach and began to hide even more, a few even closed their eyes, wisely.

Chrysalis tapped three on the shoulders who were simply huddled in the back of their cells and told them to land on Aurelia’s section of the platform.

They obeyed her without question and landed on the stone surface.

Nympha pointed to another pair of drones who were scuffling with each other to squeeze into a crack in the cave wall and Chrysalis flew to them rapidly.

The Queen smiled as more and more of the simple-minded drones landed on the platform of the eldest daughter.

~~~

Aurelia looked down from where she was carefully sifting through the glowing fungus. She had been focusing solely on the delicate work of finding the best camouflaged drones to make the most adept swarm possible, but had only found five that met her criteria. She had passed over a dozen who had been too stupid to even close their eyes or stop moving. She heard quite a commotion below and couldn’t ignore it any longer

What she saw left her flabbergasted. Her platform was nearly covered in five neat rows of drones, almost eight columns wide.

Aurelia keened with anger and pulled a purple lock of her mane out in frustration before folding in her wings, casting a spell, and diving down to the central platform. She landed with a purple blast and the crater she left smoldered with her impact.

“Mother! These drones are landing on the wrong side! That is my side, not theirs! Tell them to stop!”

The Queen regally strode to be face to face with Aurelia. Her viridian eyes burned with unfiltered emotion. The eldest daughter immediately held her tongue and winced as she realized what she had just done.

“You dare to command me?” The Queen spoke murderously as she stopped in front of her eldest daughter.

Aurelia averted her eyes and fell into a deep bow. “Forgive me, My Queen, I forgot my pl—” A hot rod of pure torment shot through Aurelia’s foreleg. “Aaauuughhh!” She yelled until her lungs emptied and looked to the black serrated appendage impaling her hoof.

The foreleg of The Queen had transformed into a long sharp point. The razor sharp spike was curved and serrated like the claw of a mantis. The thin black tip buried itself into the stone below and had been precise enough to go through one of the holes in Aurelia’s hoof. But it was just wide enough to split the thinnest edge. The Queen twisted her new appendage and let the barbs and uneven edges widen the wound.

Aurelia fought down tears and any other outward sign of weakness as her mother mutilated her hoof. She did not speak or utter any sound other than the gasps and deep breaths she took. She squeezed her eyes shut and grimaced as she felt the outer layer of her chitin splitting and widening the hole in her hoof. The thinnest edge of that particular gap was nearly ripped off completely.

The Queen smiled as her eldest daughter looked up to her with violet eyes that were regretful. With a quick flick of her foreleg, the changed appendage pulled itself from the stone and scraped outward from the wound in the hoof. The thin barrier on the side of the hoof came with it and a thick line of ichor painted a trail across the stone floor.

Aurelia grimaced and whimpered as the part of her was cast away and her hoof began to bleed from the now completely missing part of it. That particular hoof was no longer just pocked with holes, it was split. The jagged curving shadow it formed on the ichor covered stone below was haunting. Aurelia wondered if that was how her mother’s had become so shredded.

“You forget your place, Aurelia. Your overconfidence and ambition has blinded you to the most subtle path to victory. As a changeling, it is not enough that you succeed, your enemies must also fail. The rules of the challenge were vague, and Chrysalis and Nympha took that advantage for themselves. But nature has no rule other than the survival of the fittest. If you are unable to do everything you can to survive, than another will simply take your place.” The Queen dismissed her eldest daughter with a spat of distaste. She turned and looked behind her at the five even rows of changeling drones. Ten columns wide.

“Your swarm is prepared, Aurelia. Head to Hollow Shades and redeem yourself. Do not return to me until you have drained the town with your swarm and taken every advantage you can. The only rule, is to win.”

Aurelia stood shakily to three hooves. She placed a brief amount of weight on her wounded forehoof to give the proper appearance of a deep bow to her mother and then took to the air. The fifty drones followed her, bumping into each other and cackling in annoyance as they moved as an unorganized mass of black silhouettes.

Before she disappeared down the wide upper corridor leading to the outside, she cast a hateful glance to her sister, Chrysalis. The violet eyes glowing in the darkness narrowed and squinted before a loud hiss came from their direction.

Chrysalis hovered in the air high in the chamber watching as the last of the worst drones she and Nympha could find were trailing out after their new temporary queen. She turned to look down at Nympha who appeared to be nauseous. The small royal changeling was still staring at the ichor smeared ground near her and the shard of black chitin taken from Aurelia.

Chrysalis descended rapidly to alight next to Nympha. She gave her a quick embrace and then leaned her forehead against the smaller one. “It’s ok, Nympha, we can choose our drones together now, and we can choose the best ones. We don’t need to worry about Aurelia.”

Nympha closed her mouth after realizing it had been open in shock since she watched her eldest sister be mutilated. “I... We did that to her.” Nympha began to sniffle as she fought hard to not come to tears in front of The Queen.

Chrysalis held Nympha close and shushed her.

The Queen watched the display dispassionately but analyzed the interaction with care. When Chrysalis looked over Nympha’s shoulder to her mother, she saw the malicious smirk of approval begin to form. Chrysalis frowned and averted her eyes, turning her back, and Nympha’s back, to The Queen.

“It wasn’t our fault, Nympha. Aurelia brought that upon herself.”

Nympha coughed the tightness in her throat away and squeezed her eyes to think of something other than her sister yelling in agony. “Why can’t she just help us? We help each other, and we get better. You taught me how to find the best ponies to feed on. And I taught you how to mimic better. Why can’t we all just work together?”

Chrysalis feared the answer to that question every time she finished a challenge second. She knew that every hive only ever had one queen, but she didn’t know what happened to the rest. Was it possible that the Golden Daughters that were not selected simply left to form their own hives? She hoped so.

“We’ll get through this together, Nympha. We’re sisters, and we’re a team.”

Nympha nodded in agreement, then she whispered, “When you become Queen, you’ll protect me then too, right? You won’t hurt me like mom does to Aurelia?”

Chrysalis smiled and nodded.

Nympha hugged her big sister once more briefly, and then she rose to look for her drones.

Chrysalis stood to watch her little sister fly into the darkness with weakened wings and saw out of the corner of her eye that The Queen was silently applauding.

4 - Compromise

Smokejumper entered the cabin at the crack of dawn.

He gently eased open the wooden front door and peered through the narrow slit with one bright blue eye. The large mass of the female predator was lying on the bed. The regular intervals that the sheets rose and fell told him that she was still resting. He poked his head in further and nudged the door open a bit more with the handle of his axe. There was a loud creak as the door widened enough for him to fit his torso through.

Smokejumper paused and held the axe in his muzzle with wide eyes. He was halfway in the room and wasn’t at all prepared to defend himself if the wild monster tried to pounce on him. He held his breath and saw the sheets and linens begin to shuffle a bit, but they stopped moving and became still once more. The creature continued to gently breathe in slumber.

Smokejumper rolled his eyes and let out the breath he had been holding.

As he entered the room he noticed the wood-burning stove was burning low now and that the pot of stew that he would be finishing for breakfast was surely lukewarm at best. He tip-hoofed his way across the wooden boards of the one-room cabin, being careful to avoid each squeaky one as he did. He stopped in front of the stove and slowly eased the door open, lifting it from the iron hinges so they would not squeak. He moved to the side by the bed where the log pile was and began to inch a log off the top with a hoof. With delicate motions he wrapped a hoof around it and slid it into the open stove. He breathed awkwardly around the handle of the axe in his mouth as he concentrated on the dexterity needed to stand on his hind legs while holding the stove door open and moving a log.

A sharp pain like a bee sting struck Smokejumper on his rump. His muzzle opened wide and he squeaked in the most stallion-esque way possible. The axe fell from his jaws to clatter on the wooden floor between the logs and the stove.

Chrysalis giggled and held a hoof to her muzzle. “Oh, my. I didn’t know you were quite so vocal, Smokejumper.”

The pegasus whirled on the creature and bared his teeth defensively. “You stay right there, monster! I won’t be lettin’ my guard down around no vampony again!” He rose to his wings and began to hover just above the room on his hind legs. He held his forehooves up defensively and fluttered back and forth like a boxer.

Chrysalis tisked at the display of aggression and lit her horn. “Ah, ah, ah, we can’t have you getting all worked up so early in the morning. I have a busy day scheduled for us, after all.” With a flick of her glowing horn, Chrysalis brought the axe floating into the air and held it in front of Smokejumper.

The stallion paled at the sight and turned to quickly dash from his cabin.

Chrysalis grabbed the deep brown tail of the fleeing pegasus and yanked him back inside. Using the minimal amount of magical reserves she had collected from her assault the night before, she forced the stallion onto the bed and pinned him down.

Try as Smokejumper may, he was unable to break free from the larger and suddenly more powerful creature on him. “Do your worst vampony! I ain’t scared, and I ain’t goin’ down without a fight!” He flapped his wings defiantly and twisted against the pillow and sheets below him.

Chrysalis laughed as she held the stallion down on the soft mattress. “Oh, that’s a good one. I haven’t been called that in ages. But, since you’re being so candid with me, I think I will be candid with you.” Chrysalis leaned forward and brushed her cheek slowly against the stallion below her. Her forked tongue extended to lick up his neck and along the edge of his ear. She whispered, “I’m not a vampony.”

Smokejumper stiffened at the sensation in more ways than one. He silently cursed himself for his unfortunate response but pressed on. “You got fangs, and you want to bite my neck. Why else would you want to suck my blood? Vampony, that’s why!” He began to struggle once more, attempting to use his wings to roll himself side to side and come out from under the pinning hold.

Chrysalis rolled her eyes and sniffed at the unwashed fur of the stallion below her. He was absolutely festering in restrained desire. “Oh, my little pony, you’re so very wrong. You’ll never guess so I’ll just tell you,” She leaned close to his ear and breathed directly into the furry flap as it twitched. “I’m a changeling. And there’s only one thing I suck.” She licked her fanged lips lewdly.

Smokejumper didn’t notice the gesture as he searched through his vast knowledge of strange and fictional creatures. He had never heard of a changeling before. He assumed by word association that they must change into something. But what that was he couldn’t fathom. “Well, then why do you keep kissin’ me and goin’ after my neck like in those bad vampony stories?” The stallion ceased struggling and looked to the changeling with a genuine look of curiosity. He was still breathing heavily as his rising chest let the adrenaline run its course. He realized that if she really wanted him dead, he would be. The axe that was now resting just out of his reach was enough evidence of that.

~~~

Chrysalis frowned at the stallion and considered the situation.

He was either exceptionally dim-witted, inexperienced, or trusting. With a brief amendment, she concluded that he was probably a mix of all three.

She was always admonished for playing with her food as a young changeling by her mother, but sometimes it was just too hard to resist. After she had developed the harvesting pod spell at Hollow Shades, she really had no reason to hunt and gather love like in the old days. Changelings could go on the offensive and take love forcefully. At least that was the plan in Canterlot, first the Capitol and then the Equestrian Nation.

And yet, here was a pony who didn’t know what she was, but saw exactly what she looked like, a monster. He saved her from the edge of death, gave her food and shelter, and even wanted to know more about her. All while she was in her hideous natural form. Chrysalis felt an odd airy sensation as she forcefully pinned the food source beneath her. It was... liberating to be feeding off of something that knew her true face.

“Changelings don’t eat the way ponies do.” She dropped the bombshell and waited to see what the result was.

Smokejumper only looked up at her with a curious expression. “So, you don’t eat ponies? Not even part of them?”

Chrysalis smirked briefly and gave an amused grin as she shook her head, no.

This information and conversation didn’t sit right with Smokejumper. “Then what do you eat? Aren’t you hungry?” He kept looking over at the axe resting against the stove as if considering his null chances of escape again.

Chrysalis finished scanning the face of the stallion below her for treachery and said, “Smokejumper is too long of a name. It’s two words put together. Shorten it.”

The stallion balked in confusion as his question was ignored and the serious face of the female changeling above him commanded him to provide a nickname. He hadn’t used a nickname since flight camp and back then he was always known as ‘Jumper’ because he had trouble getting off the ground.

“Uh, well, my friends just call me Smoke.” He cleared his throat and put on his best poker face, as he fabricated his simple lie. “Yep, that’s my nickname, Smoke.”

Chrysalis raised a single eyebrow. “Very well then, Jumper.”

Smokejumper opened his mouth to protest but it was met with another one. Chrysalis pressed her muzzle roughly into the stallion’s below her. She kissed him passionately, almost angrily as she enjoyed her long overdue breakfast. She broke away from the stallion and licked at her lips. Chrysalis could feel the slow trickle of love flowing from the stallion to her like a dam that was just waiting to burst.

Jumper looked up at her speechlessly as he began to blush hard and breathe deep.

Chrysalis smiled, “I am hungry, Jumper, I’m ravenous. So, now, I think I’ll show you how a changeling feeds.”

~~~

Jumper was delicious.

As much as Chrysalis was tempted to simply mind control him, throw him in a pod, and drain him dry, she knew that she was still too weak for the complex magic. The stallion knew where they were and with a bit more harvesting, Chrysalis knew she could have enough energy to begin the search for her swarm. If she survived the blast, it was possible that some of her drones did as well. She would be saved the work required to lay new drone eggs and build a hive with her own four hooves.

If any of them are still alive, she amended realistically.

But Chrysalis was distracted from the fate of her swarm as the sight before her stirred a strange feeling deep within. She could not recall any time in her long life that a pony had seen her in her true form and not been revolted. It was a strange experience to taste love straight from the source without having to maintain an illusion spell. It was refreshing, sweeter, more honest if the word could even be applied to sustenance.

The unfiltered love that Chrysalis felt as she kissed Smokejumper until he finally gave in and kissed her back pulled her under like a strong riptibe. She was so wrapped up in savoring the appetizer that she practically forgot to breathe. When she came up for air and looked down to the blushing stallion and felt him growing hard beneath her she felt...

Sated?

The thought didn’t feel right to her. Chrysalis immediately stood and rose to walk out of the cabin and brood.

Smokejumper was dumbstruck and laying on the bed partially covered by sheets and a pitched tent.

Surprised, embarrassed, confused, these were words that would more closely describe what Chrysalis was feeling now. It was ineffable, none of it made sense. Love was meant to be taken, but here was a stallion who was practically giving it to her, and of his own free will too. And she had stopped.

Well, perhaps not ‘giving it to me’ as literally as I had originally wanted, Chrysalis thought as she looked across the early morning vista, holding a hoof to her cheek to gnaw on the inside in nervousness. Why had I stopped? I had him melting in my hooves and I pushed him away.

The mist hanging above the Haysead Swamps and the forests to the west were slowly dissipating in the sunlight from the east. The view would be considered gorgeous, breathtaking, sublime, or any other lexicon of poetic adjectives. But the changeling queen could only stare into the distance and look inward.

Chrysalis went over the foreplay she censured only moments before in reverse. She traced the origin of the discomforting sensation she felt back to its root. In her mind’s eye she was getting back into the bed, she was applying pressure to his body with her own. She closed her eyes. She felt his hooves wrap back around her withers and part her blue threadbare mane. Smokejumper was nervously reaching to feel the sensitive spot where her wings met her elytra, as only a pegasus would by instinct. She was leaning down and kissing him, hungrily but not roughly. He was kissing her back. Her forked tongue didn’t invade or ambush, it danced and played. Her head turned and her fangs opened wide as their kiss continued.

Chrysalis opened her eyes.

Smokejumper’s hooves slowly moved away from her withers and fell back to the bed. He became apprehensive once more. His eyes opened and a look of confusion replaced the calm and elated look before. Eventually, that all faded into fear and shock as Chrysalis was indelicately forcing her muzzle into his. Chrysalis raised her head and smirked down at the frightened stallion below her. She was preparing to harvest her breakfast. She was famished.

The memory paused.

Chrysalis knew what the turning point was. As she sat on the porch of the cabin and looked out across the wilderness of southern Equestria, Chrysalis realized she wasn’t hungry.

When she had closed her eyes, it was because Smokejumper had closed his. It had felt right that she do the same. He knew what she was, she was showing him what she did, and he decided to do what no other pony had ever done. He had trusted her, and she wasn’t lying to him. Chrysalis was showing her true skin, her true voice, her true thoughts, her true desire.

I was being honest and he loved me.

~~~

Chrysalis looked to the stallion as he glistened in the midday sun. His coat was practically damp with perspiration and the high altitude drafts pushed his sweaty mane, just so. His muscles were engorged with blood from the hard work he had been performing and the cords of thick muscle along his neck rolled across each other with each swing of the axe he held in his mouth. He dragged his hooves across the dirt below him and pulled himself into a powerful and balanced stance. Every muscle in his body, from hock to jowl, tensed in a perfect series of synchronized movements as the iron wedge was swung over his head and down onto the chopping block.

With a resounding crack the cord of timber was evenly split in half.

Chrysalis shivered in delight.

Smokejumper lifted another thick log onto the large stump and wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead that threatened to fall into his eyes.

“Ah, ah, ah! Bad, Jumper, do not use your fore leg, use your wings. You are a pegasus, after all.”

Smokejumper frowned and spit the axe from his mouth. He turned to look at the source of the admonishment.

“I ain’t some kind of dog for you to order around, you know!” Smokejumper was panting from exertion. He had been chopping wood for the better part of an hour now. He had made a stack along the side of the cabin to last him clear through the next month, easily.

Chrysalis looked at the stallion from her comfortable spot on the picnic blanket in the shade. She was languidly splayed out on the checkered pattern and carrying a slight blush on her face as she watched the stallion work. With an annoyed sigh she removed the straw from her mouth and levitated the glass of ice cold lemonade impatiently.

“If you’re tired of chopping wood, there’s always more lemons to squeeze. And we’re running out of ice if you want to fly to the peak and get some more snow. So what’s it going to be?” She grinned lasciviously as the stallion groaned at the alternative suggestions.

With a deliberately slow and exaggerated motion, Smokejumper extended a wing and carefully brought his longest primary feather across his brow to wipe at the sweat. The large and dark grey feather gathered up each little bead of moisture and tickled his muzzle as it passed by. He had his eyes held half-closed and relaxed as he looked to Chrysalis for approval.

She was watching him expectantly.

Smokejumper suppressed another outward display of impatience and instead played his part. With a slow sigh he extended his wing back and wiped the wet primary against his flank to pull the moisture off. Rubbing the delicate feather back and forth across his hips more thoroughly than would ever be required.

Chrysalis drained her lemonade as she enjoyed the show. Oh, yes, mama likes.

Smokejumper frowned as he watched the transfixed Chrysalis make loud slurping noises with her straw as she tried to drink the last drops of lemonade from her glass. “Is it lunchtime yet?” He asked with a bit of a whine.

Chrysalis was snapped back to her senses and took note of the position of the sun in the sky. She looked to her empty drink and regretted once more that the sweet concoction could only tease her palate. Not that she wanted for sustenance. With a brief nod to the stallion she smiled and indicated a very undeniable, yes.

‘Lunchtime’, as Smokejumper had so casually referred to it, was when Chrysalis fed for the second time each day. She always woke Jumper up with ‘breakfast’, then ogled him as he performed his chores before they shared ‘lunch’. ‘Dinner’ always came when the sun had fallen and Smokejumper tired of writing, his other hobby besides his duty of watching for fires. And when the mood called for it, Chrysalis would serve ‘dessert’, which so far had been nightly. But even a queen can be peckish at times, and Chrysalis liked to refer to these surprise pangs of hunger as ‘snacks’.

Chrysalis was known to be quite the eater.

Smokejumper could only wonder where all the nourishment was going, because it certainly was not her hips.

As the stallion made his way over the checkered blanket and looked down to Chrysalis he smirked. Chrysalis sighed as the stallion forced her to make the first move. She raised her long black neck and brought her lips to his. She felt the floodgates open and the romantic love filled her faster than anything she had ever felt before.

Smokejumper wondered how so much could have changed in only two days.

~~~

As Jumper tucked himself in next to Chrysalis he rolled to face her. Chrysalis smiled mirthfully at the little pony as he rolled and fidgeted to lie face to face with her, folding his legs in tight. They quickly discovered that the small bed in the cabin was most comfortable with her as the big spoon.

Jumper couldn’t believe it had only been a week since Chrysalis had literally crashed into his life.

“Chrysalis, you’d tell me if you ever wanted to leave, right?” he asked nervously.

Chrysalis broke composure for a moment and looked away from his honest blue eyes. She still didn’t know what was different about the stallion. All she knew was that he was special. He was like some bizarre cosmic coincidence. A pony caring enough to save a dying monster, curious enough to to understand them, and compassionate enough to love them.

She hadn’t felt hungry in days. She hadn’t changed her form in as much time. She was so saturated with love that even her wings and mane were looking healthier.

“Jumper,” she said, the pet name no longer a source of friction for them, “I think it’s time I told you about me, and about my crown.”

Jumper looked up to the four-pronged ornament on Chrysalis’ head. “Is that what that is? I always figured it was a weird growth. I wasn’t gonna say anythin’.”

Chrysalis nipped him playfully on the ear and nuzzled him as he blushed and laughed at her retaliatory gesture. ‘Dessert’ had already come and gone but a little ‘midnight snack’ was never out of the question.

“Just because it’s a part of me, doesn’t mean it was always there. It means I am The Queen of a changeling hive.” She said with careful pacing, ensuring that the final words made it to their intended destination intact.

Jumper frowned and blinked away a bit of confusion, “So, I guess that means you gotta return to your king at some point, huh?” He shrank into himself a bit and looked to his hooves as he began to tap them together in trepidation.

Chrysalis laughed and pulled the downcast stallion closer to her chest. The green bands around her abdomen rubbed up against his barrel and her diaphanous wings extended down to embrace is feathery wings. “Silly pony, there is no king, or prince. The swarm is made up of many male drones, and one female Queen to rule them. You can’t have one without the other.”

Jumper held Chrysalis close and looked deep into her eyes, “Then where are your drones?”

5 - Birth of a Monster

“Where are your drones?!”

It was pandemonium. The entire village of Hollow Shades had conjured up torches, pitchforks, and wooden stakes. The mob of ponies from the insular and isolated settlement were standing outside of the cave where Nympha had chosen to develop her small hive and threatening to enter. They all shouted angrily and the din of their savagery was resounding throughout the small earthen hollow.

They had all been lead to the secret ‘vampony’ enclave by the strange mare who came to the town nearly three weeks prior. A mare who claimed to know exactly where the townsponies had been disappearing to, Aurora, the vampony hunter.

Aurelia lifted Nympha higher in the air and brought her face within inches of her own.

She hissed again, “Where are your drones?”

Nympha mustered all the courage she had and spit into the eyes of her older sister.

Aurelia dropped her youngest sister and was completely jolted by the gesture. Nympha was a coward, a failure, a weak changeling who hid in the shadows to lie in wait and ambush. She was a liar, and hid the truth as well as she hid herself.

Aurelia regained her wits as a burst of magic flicked the spittle from her face that contorted in rage.

Nympha continued to look on with a smug look of satisfaction. She hissed in defiance as Aurelia shook with hatred.

“You’ll never be Queen. Chrysalis is already taking our remaining drones to strike at your hive. You have no chance.” Nympha crawled backward from her older sister and curled into herself defensively, she shot one more acidic glare at her older sister and said, “You lose.”

Aurelia snapped. She dove at the young changeling. The surprise and fear in the smaller Golden Daughters’ eyes were washed away by the savage swipes of two black and gnarled hooves. The littlest royal changeling raised her tiny forelegs to defend her face but the deep violet magic from Aurelia’s horn held them back. Like metronome strikes, or the ringing of a clock tower at noon, the dark fore legs of Aurelia met with the face of Nympha. Like shadows in the darkness, they blurred past, only the sickening crunch of chitin on chitin and the smearing of ichor left any trace of their passage.

Aurelia paused to catch her breath and looked down as she gasped for air. The unconscious form of her sister was lying in a small heap below her. Her dark body framed by the barely glowing ichor that bled from the lacerations all over her face and muzzle. Her aquamarine eyes were half open, the blue glow the only sign of life in the dark cave to anyone who didn’t have enhanced vision. One of her fangs had broken clean off.

Aurelia looked to her hooves and noticed the ichor staining them. The wounded hoof that her sisters had caused her to receive via her mother was bleeding once more as the scab opened up.

Aurelia shouted in rage and spit upon her littlest sister. She made no effort to check if she was even alive.

With a bright violet flash she transformed once more into the cloaked unicorn known only as Aurora. She adjusted the large hat on her head and picked up her garlic rope and large wooden stake.

She prepared to ascend from the cave and address the mob. She would tell them the lie that they wanted to hear. She would guide them to do her bidding as she had for the last three weeks as she outed drone after drone from her sisters’ swarms.

The vamponies had relocated to another cave, there were many more than expected.

Aurelia didn’t care if every single drone in her hive perished. They were all replaceable. If she could guide the mob to murder what was left of her sisters’ swarms and escape with even a single drone of her own, she would consider it a victory.

~~~

Chrysalis lead a creeping wall of black shapes through the northern end of the forest outside of Hollow Shades. The moment she had arrived, she knew that it would be safest if she and Nympha chose different caves to house their swarms. Fifty drones were noisy, no matter how skilled at camouflage and mimicry.

Nympha had found a cave along the slopes of the Foal Mountain, just south of the village. And Chrysalis had found a large subterranean cave to the west where the train tracks met the forest. Chrysalis knew for certain that her temporary hive was still concealed from the searching eyes of Aurelia. The unskilled changelings the eldest Golden Daughter was saddled with had been bumbling about the town and making a mess of things the moment she arrived. Chrysalis and Nympha had laughed at the frustrations that they knew Aurelia must be feeling.

But that was before ponies started dying.

Aurelia had played her cards face up, she was all in on the table and playing for keeps. She appeared in the town as ‘Aurora’ the vampony hunter and spun a twisted tale of terror. The Hollow Shades had come under attack from a creature with a black heart that sucked the very life from your veins. Chrysalis had to admit that the lie was beautiful. It kept the villagers on their hooves and stealing love was becoming more and more difficult. That was of course until Chrysalis had a breakthrough.

Chrysalis had made the brief mistake of being followed by her beau one day. The colt she was courting and stealing love from had followed her to her cave. Without thinking of any other alternative, Chrysalis knocked him unconscious and had her drones place him into a stasis pod where he would slumber peacefully. And then fate delivered her a wonderful and serendipitous gift. Chrysalis still felt love from the stallion as he slumbered, because he dreamt of her. And judging by his physical reaction to some of the dreams, the romantic themes were quite intense. Chrysalis often took time to whisper sweet nothings to the slumbering colt, his smiles and blushes were enough to let her know that they got through.

In a matter of days, Chrysalis had all of her drones snatching up their marks and trapping them in the hive. The population of the town dwindled from the losses and Chrysalis had little ‘love batteries’ – as she liked to call them – to keep her swarm fed so she could focus on helping Nympha.

But Aurelia had become merciless. She actively sought out changelings amidst the populace and murdered them in the streets. She would drive wooden stakes through the hearts of the drones and display them for all to see.

By the third week, Chrysalis and Nympha had pulled back their drones into their caves to prevent them from falling at the hooves of ‘Aurora’. The mass exodus was the biggest mistake they could make however, as it lead their sister straight to Nympha’s doorstep.

With careful espionage and counterintelligence, Nympha had been able to find the location of Aurelia’s hive two nights before. And in a desperate counter-attack, the remaining 72 drones that Nympha and Chrysalis had brought were following their de facto queen into war.

Chrysalis held up a hoof to signal a stop and let out a short burst of magical energy to tell her swarm that they had arrived.

The mission was simple, kill every changeling that was loyal to Aurelia.

The dark and ominous entrance to the abandoned mineshaft in the side of the northern peak seemed to swallow the moonlight. But every changeling had their slitted pupils fully dilated to see into the cavern and spot the two guards hanging from the ceiling in watch.

With a quick snap of her wings, Chrysalis signaled the swarm to begin the assault. The quiet hum of over one hundred wings beating in the dark was the only warning the guards had before they fell.

Aurelia’s hive was invaded.

~~~

The mob of ponies arrived at the cave clear across the town and were still shouting and hooting in anger. Hollow Shades was primarily an earth pony village, and hardly more than 800 ponies could call it home. But in the last three weeks, over 30 ponies had gone missing, some with foals of their own. And worse, over a dozen ponies had been killed, even a little colt.

The vampony hunter who called herself Aurora had rallied the town. Her fearlessness in the face of terror had spurred them on and stallions and mares alike followed her into the night to hunt down the murderous monsters.

“We come for you, vamponies! The light is our ally!” Aurora shook the torch high above her head with her violet magic and charged into the darkness. The mob behind her roared in righteous fury and followed after her, their torches and wooden stakes clutched tightly in their muzzles.

~~~

Chrysalis and her army were locked into a melee the likes of which she had never seen. The three micro-swarms, or what was left of the original hundred and fifty, were all clawing and scraping at each other in the darkness. Severed wings fluttered about and stray bursts of magic caught friend and foe alike in the crossfire. With a loud warning, Chrysalis had called to cutoff the casting of magic and then with a second order she commanded her swarm to change their appearance to that of a white changeling. The strong contrast would help them to identify each other in battle, even if it made them more obvious in the darkness of the cave.

Chrysalis was confident that the superior numbers would make up for the slight advantage she gave to her sisters’ swarm.

But just as the battle was coming to a close and the weak and cowardly drones of Aurelia were surrendering one by one, a horrifying sound echoed through the chamber.

“Die, foul demons and beasts!” The large wooden stake being levitated in the violet glow of magic that seemingly came from the unicorn known as ‘Aurora’ was embedded into the white body of a drone.

The male changeling looked surprised for an instant, his bright white iris on his light blue sclera shrinking to pinpricks. He hovered in the air briefly but his eyes rolled back into his head and his form shifted from white to black as he tumbled to the ground in a heap. He was dead before he hit the floor of the cave.

Aurora levitated the stake from the corpse of the drone and turned to the mob behind her to say, “Let none survive!”

Any semblance of order in the dark subterranean cavern was lost as changeling fought changeling, pony fought ‘vampony’ and sister fought sister.

~~~

The Queen was lying on the central dais in the grand chamber by herself.

The hive was quiet as every last drone had been sent out to harvest. With a calming breath she closed her eyes and began to relive her most satisfying conquests. The meals that left her gorged and almost encumbered with how filling they were.

She was shaken from her thoughts as the sound of slow wing beats reached her sensitive ears.

The Queen looked up to the highest reaches of the great chamber and saw the slow figure eight motions of her daughter’s clearly wounded wings helping her to glide into the chamber. She spiraled laboriously around the high stalactites and eventually slid in to a rough landing on the platform to look at her mother. She maintained her balance and stood steadily on four hooves.

“I have returned, mother.”

The Queen nodded her acknowledgement of the comment and said, “There is no reward for arriving first, Aurelia. The contest began at noon and will end at noon. And unless I am mistaken, your swarm seems to be absent.” The tone was haughty and laced with disappointment.

Aurelia grit her teeth as she watched the old nag she would be replacing speak to her condescendingly. The taste of power she felt at the head of a swarm of her own left her impatient. She was tired of being treated as ‘next in line’ for the crown. She had personally taken the life of both of her sisters and would not hesitate to take the life of her own mother if the opportunity presented itself.

I wonder if the swarm would follow me if I simply told them to cuddle her to death. A fitting way to die for a Queen that was so comforting to her own daughters. She thought wryly.

The Queen watched her daughter begin to smirk and laugh to herself. “If there is something you wish to tell me, Aurelia, now is the time.” She said impatiently.

Aurelia laughed a bit more, the frustration and anger at not having absolute control was a beautiful thing to see on the face of her mother. “I think you have it all wrong, mother,” She put extra emphasis on the word, “Chrysalis and Nympha won’t be returning. Not even their drones will be returning. Victory at any cost, isn’t that what you said?”

The Queen knit her brow in anger. While she could appreciate the ascension of a new Queen through the ultimate betrayal, as she had done, it was still wasteful to carelessly throw away a hundred and fifty drones. The Queen had managed to fool her own sister’s swarms into following her through mimicry before ordering them to kill the ‘imposters’. It was a much more elegant and poetic victory. The Queen had a flair for the dramatic.

“How delightfully simple, Aurelia. I cannot express in words how thrilled I am to see that through the destruction of your sisters you have learned nothing from them about the art of subtlety and manipulation.”

The Queen rose to her hooves and walked forward to the eldest daughter. She began to think of the most proper form of punishment her headstrong daughter deserved.

But both royal changelings froze as the sound of two sets of wings met their ears.

As one, they turned to look up into the darkness of the grand chamber and saw the emerald eyes of Chrysalis and the light blue eyes of a drone as they descended side by side into the chamber. They both appeared to be of good health and full of love.

Chrysalis landed softly in front of her mother and flashed Aurelia a wicked grin.

“My, my, Aurelia, did you lose your swarm on the way back home?”

Aurelia was aghast, she had seen the mob of ponies descend upon her sister with her own two eyes. The torches and pitchforks would have made short work of her. “Impossible,” she said after verifying that the being in front of her was not a disguise. “I saw you die at the hooves of those ponies.”

The Queen had her ears perk up at that bit of information. “Why would ponies ever have reason to attack a royal changeling?”

Chrysalis stepped forward before Aurelia could answer, “Aurelia thought it would be wise to engage the townsponies under a false identity and lead a three week long crusade against the ‘vamponies’ that were plagueing the village. She exposed the hives of both herself and Nympha, and then murdered our sister with her own two hooves.” Chrysalis kept her eyes forward and looked to her mother with a frown that brook no argument. “I was lucky to survive with the one drone I had left in my own hive as a reserve. The enraged mob would have killed me as well if it were not for my drones distracting them with a clever duplicate while I made my escape.”

The Queen listened to the story and nodded thoughtfully. She chose her next words carefully, “The ponies fear our appearance. It has always been this way. For them to seek to destroy us and hunt us down as monsters of their own volition is only natural. It is why we are gifted at mimicry and camouflage. We seek love and hunt for it. The gathering of this abundant resource has led to mistrust. The ponies feel betrayed by us and condemn our nature. So we deceive, we manipulate, we steal. We do what we must because we deserve to live. We are just in our actions. We only do what is right, and fair, and natural!”

The Queen caught her breath and composed herself. She turned to face Aurelia directly, “If what you say is true, than Aurelia willingly revealed us to our food source, and risked our way of life. She has brought our shadows into the light and betrayed the true nature of a changeling.”

Aurelia screamed as her worst nightmare came to life before her very eyes. She was losing to her younger sister. The manipulative and quiet changeling that depended on the trust of another to gain an advantage. “You don’t deserve this, Chrysalis! I am the best daughter, I deserve to be Queen. The hive belongs to me!”

Chrysalis looked at the battered and exhausted royal changeling before her. Aurelia had been love-deprived as she took up the mantle of ‘Aurora’. Her desire for revenge and victory spelled her defeat in a war of attrition that culminated in this moment as Chrysalis and her lone drone stood victorious.

The Queen looked to her two eldest daughters and spoke slowly. “There can be only Queen. For your failure to learn and adapt, as well as your brazen endangerment of our way of life, Aurelia, it will be Chrysalis.” The Queen looked to Chrysalis expectantly. She knew that a final confrontation would have to happen. The Golden Daughters were always too powerful to share a hive.

Aurelia felt her insides freeze like they were dropped into the waters of the frozen north. Her lower lip bled as she bit down and felt her fangs cutting into the soft flesh. She lit her horn and transformed her forelegs into the bladed talons that her mother had to wound her only a month before.

With blinding speed and deadly precision, Aurelia slashed into the throat of The Queen.

Both black appendages crossed and the serrated edges tore through the rough black chitin as they severed every vital organ connecting the unsuspecting brain of The Queen from the body that was too old to react in time to protect either half.

The head of The Queen tumbled and rolled to a halt in front of the drone who looked at it with utter confusion. His eyes began to shift back and forth between the dying viridian eyes of his mother as the light slowly faded from them.

Aurelia charged her horn and forced herself to sprout the four pronged crown that marked her as the leader of the hive. She laughed and looked down to her ichor stained forelegs.

“Ah, yes! I bet you didn’t see that coming did you, mother. Yes, mother, you probably thought I would kill the persistent Chrysalis and claim the throne through a slow and boring succession, right, mother?” Each ‘mother’ was spoken with vile as Aurelia leaned over the decapitated body of the elder royal changeling.

Before she could get too caught up in her victory, Aurelia turned to regard her true nemesis.

Chrysalis had her own forelegs transformed into a similar pair of blades held defensively before her. She looked terrified, confused, and heartbroken. “You monster, she didn’t deserve that. She only wanted what was best for us.”

Aurelia threw her head back and laughed. She raised her bladed forelegs in an aggressive stance, one held high above her head pointing down and another held vertically in front of her eyes bisecting the violet gaze she narrowed at the last thing standing between her and her destiny. She began to hover and circle her last remaining sister in calm circles. “You are truly lost if you think that abusive creature had anything but selfishness in her heart. Did you never think, after every challenge as you were locked away and tortured for your inadequacies, that maybe the tormenter was doing it for her own sick satisfaction?” Aurelia hissed and glared into the emerald eyes of Chrysalis.

The small drone was still staring at the severed head of The Queen.

Chrysalis began to steady her stance and lock eyes with the now crowned head of her eldest sister. “You’re wrong! A true Queen leads her hive without fear, she was teaching us to be strong, to survive!”

Aurelia growled low and analyzed her sisters stance. “If you think that’s true, we should put it to the test.”

Without warning, Aurelia charged.

The two pairs of bladed forelegs clashed with a hard and low thunk that reverberated through the empty grand chamber. The two sisters stared each other down. Emerald eyes winced painfully as the body they belonged to was pushed down into stone. Violet eyes burned hatefully as the body they belonged to pushed with every last ounce of strength it had left to drive down into the changeling below it.

The two sisters found their strength evenly matched and with a quick adjustment, the left foreleg of Aurelia slid from the crossed forelegs of Chrysalis to sweep high and strike her. The serrated edge struck home and the horn of Chrysalis was chipped by the black appendage.

Chrysalis yelped in pain and fell backwards.

Aurelia pressed the advantage and slammed downward with her right transformed foreleg. The bladed hoof came vertically from the top and battered the changed forelegs of Chrysalis. The sharpened edges of the murderous limb sank into the black chitin of Chrysalis, each sawing motion bringing away more and more of the transformed hooves of the royal changelings. The ichor covered fragments of black chitin fell away in clumps.

The blows came hard, right, left, right. Chrysalis could only panic as the two transformed limbs she held above her defensively were shredded under the assault from above. She fell to her back and Aurelia dropped to the stone platform. The violet wings extended vertically and shimmered in the multicolored hues of the glowing cavern walls. Chrysalis seemed to be frozen as she looked up to her older sister above her.

Chrysalis thought, even amidst the pain, that the sight was beautiful in its savagery.

Then she felt her forelegs being pried apart to her sides by a violet glow of magic.

Aurelia leaned in close so that only her eyes filled the vision of her younger sister. She put the full weight of her upper body onto her transformed forelegs and placed them on each side of her sisters neck like shears. She breathed heavily from the exertion and felt her body fighting to find more fuel to continue as her reserves of love were nearly depleted.

Aurelia swallowed down some spit as she spoke to her sister, “You were brave to come back here, Chrysalis, but you never were going to win. Mother knew it, I knew it, and even precious little Nympha knew it.” She licked her lips in satisfaction as the mention of the smallest Golden Daughter brought a cringe of pain to Chrysalis. “Say ‘Hi’ to her for me, won’t you, sis?” Aurelia prepared to close her bladed legs on her sister’s neck and sever her mind from her body.

“Say ‘Hi’ yourself.”

Two small black and acute bladed forelegs sank into Aurelia’s neck from above. The fine points drove easily into the long black neck and emerged out the front. They neatly severed the artery on the left side as the periodic spurts of ichor indicated.

Aurelia threw herself back and turned in the air. The blades from Nympha twisted out of her flesh, the right one slipping out cleanly but the left tearing through the side of her neck. The ichor flowed freely and fast as her heart rate sped up in desperation.

Nympha fell backwards onto the ground and tried to slide away in fear. She was on her side and pushing with all four hooves in panic. Aurelia held a regular hoof to her mortal wound and tried to stymie the blood loss. With her right arm still in its macabre blade, she walked forward on her two hind legs with her frantic wing beats to support her.

“You, you coward!” With one final savage swing, Aurelia desperately lunged forward and managed to bring the tip of her transformed foreleg across the abdomen of Nympha. The little changeling had her belly split open from her top right shoulder to her bottom left hind leg.

Nympha’s cries of woe were overshadowed by the howl of undiluted rage and anguish behind Aurelia.

Two black blades burst from Aurelia’s stomach and held her suspended. Chrysalis was floating in the air behind her older sister and glowering with fresh tears coating her face. The violet wings of Aurelia stopped flapping and she fell forward. Chrysalis kept her weaponized limbs in the body of her traitorous sister as she joined her on the ground in a low crouch. She pressed a hind hoof down on the hind leg of Aurelia to keep her in place as she began to slump forward from blood loss.

Chrysalis leaned forward to whisper into her sister’s ear. “Say ‘Hi’ to mother for me.”

With a barbaric twist, Chrysalis lifted her forelegs up and pulled the bladed tips through her sister’s body up from her belly, through her heart, and out the right side of her neck.

The nearly unrecognizable corpse of the eldest Golden Daughter fell into a pile of ichor, chitin, violet hair and wings.

Chrysalis didn’t waste any time to look at the scene around her as her adrenaline levels began to drop. She rushed over to the mortally wounded supine form of Nympha.

Nympha opened her eyes and looked to Chrysalis as she was cradled in the now normal changeling hooves that she remembered. She tried to look down to inspect the damage that Aurelia had wrought upon her form but her chin was tilted up to look into the Emerald eyes of her big sister, her nice big sister.

“Chryssi, I did a good job being the drone didn’t I?”

Chrysalis could only nod silently as her lip trembled and the steady tears ran down her face.

“I guess it’s over then, huh. No more challenges, no more nights hungry, no more wondering when it’s going to end.” Nympha shivered as she lost feeling in her legs.

Chrysalis held her little sister tighter and smiled, “I’m so sorry Nympha, I tried my best.”

Nympha smiled at her sister and her eyes grew weak. She looked lazily at the morose face above her. “You’ll be a great Queen, Chryssi. And you’ll be a great mother too. Just... just promise me you won’t be like them.” Nympha lowered her eyes to look at The Queen and Aurelia.

Chrysalis swallowed a lump in her throat and nodded. “I promise, Nympha, I promise I’ll be the best Queen ever.”

Nympha smiled and closed her eyes, “I know you will, because you’re the best sister ever.”

Chrysalis sat there for hours. She lost track of time and felt hollower than the empty cave she sat in, surrounded by the remains of the three things she cared about more than anything else. When the drones returned and all sat in calm silence waiting for her to speak she waited longer. When her sorrow had passed and she couldn’t bear to starve any more, she rose to her hooves and transformed her form to include the crown of The Queen.

When she spoke, there was silence, every drone awaited her word without thought.

She supposed that was what it was like to be Queen.

6 - Birth of a Changeling

Smokejumper woke to the weight of his love rising from their bed. “Mmrrnn, Chryssi, come back to bed.” He reached a hoof forward lamely and stroked at the warm impression that was left in the large mattress. The soft sounds of hoofsteps leading away from the bed were followed by the squeak of a door gently opening. Smokejumper shivered at the cold mountain air that rushed in to sap the heat from his exposed fur.

Chrysalis stood on the wooden porch of the cabin she shared with Smokejumper and looked out into the darkened forest below her.

It was the same view that had greeted her every night for the last two months.

She raised her horn high and a brief flicker of bright green magic started at the tip, washed across the base and silently radiated out from her into the ether beyond.

Just like every night for the last two months, no sound greeted her. She was alone.

My swarm is gone. I am a Queen without a hive.

Chrysalis felt a warm and comforting wing wrap around her back. She looked down to her side to see Smokejumper smiling up at her. “Jumper, why do you live out here alone?” She asked as the question bubbled to her consciousness and ceased to sink back down.

The pegasus sighed and looked into the distance. “Well, I s’pose I just wanted to get away from it all. Ponies always expect you to be something special whenever they see you. They think a cutie mark is equivalent to job trainin’ and they immediately pidgeon hole ya into your career before you even get a say in what you want to do with your life.” Smokejumper sighed as he enjoyed the feel of the cool black chitin of his lover on his fur.

A large and fully healed diaphanous wing extended to hold the stallion in return. “Is that why you write?” Chrysalis asked him.

Smokejumper thought hard for a few moments and looked out to the forest as he did every day. It wasn’t on fire today and it probably wouldn’t be on fire tomorrow. “Nah, that ain’t why. I don’t write to make money or make it my special talent. I don’t write for anyone but myself. My job may be looking for fires, my special talent may be fighting them, but my passion is lighting the fire in each and every one of us.” Smokejumper smiled at his description.

I should write that one down. He thought.

Chrysalis remained silent and looked out at the starry vista and the moon shining bright above to illuminate the treetops.

Smokejumper continued, “I think that everyone, pony or changeling, wants to tell a story. And sometimes, hearin’ the story of another is a great way to learn what kind of story you wanna tell. It changes what we value, what we fear, what we desire, heck it even changes who we are sometimes.” Smokejumper nudged Chrysalis playfully as her distant gaze grew sad.

Chrysalis looked down to her hooves, the holes in them were being filled in slowly, the strong doses of love she was receiving every day were performing miracles to her physical appearance. She didn’t feel like so much of a monster anymore.

“Why do you come out here every night, Chryssi? What are you lookin’ for? What story do you want to tell?”

Chrysalis sighed as she prepared to reveal another great secret she had been keeping from her stallion. “I’m looking for my children.”

Jumper let out a low, “Oooohh boy, now she tells me.” Which earned him a swift swat on the foreleg and a glare of disapproval from his love.

“That’s hardly what I meant. As the Queen I was the only one to give birth to the drones of my swarm and, simply put, I’m their mother and they are my children.” She frowned at the description and let the feeling of not seeing her children in two months really settle in. She knew that drones wouldn’t live more than three or so months anyway, and on their own it was impossible that they would survive for such a long time. All of that not taking into special consideration a thousand kilometer catapult through the air culminating with a body crushing landing in the Badlands.

Smokejumper asked her, “Remember that story you told me, about your sisters?”

Chrysalis winced.

Smokejumper pressed on, “I always wondered why you needed drones to begin with. I mean, if ya didn’t have ‘em then all the love you got would just be for yourselves right? You and your sisters?”

Chrysalis nodded, she had never thought what being a changeling would be like without drones, without her minions. Would she even be a Queen without them? Was she even a Queen now?

Smokejumper looked ahead and continued talking, thinking aloud, “It doesn’t make much sense to me. If every changeling could have been raised like you were, as a Golden Daughter, why weren’t they? Why make a whole type of changelings who were weak and dependent?”

Chrysalis knew that the difference was simple. All changelings were born in eggs, and nurtured with love. Those that were malnourished became drones, those that were nourished - lavishly - become Queens. There was no other class, it was simply the way things worked.

Chrysalis said, “Do you think I am a poor mother because I starve my children?”

Smokejumper nuzzled under her and said, “I don’t know what kind of mother you are Chrysalis, but to be truthful, I wouldn’t mind findin’ out.”

Chrysalis backed away from the stallion as the meaning to his words hit her with full force. “You can’t be serious, you do realize that would be biologically impossible.”

Smokejumper sighed. “Well, how do you do it? You told me yourself you don’t want to go out and make another hive again because it would mean harvesting love on your lonesome. So that means you can do it right? Like bees or something, right?”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes at the comparison to the tiny insects that harvested pollen. She hated admitting any similarity to the bumbling yellow creatures. “Yes, like bees. I have a store of genetic material inside me which I use for laying fertilized eggs.” She said with careful emphasis to avoid mentioning how she got the material. It was a rather embarrassing episode from her early grief ridden days as the Queen she didn’t want to recount. “So, yes, I could make more drones but they would not be ours.”

Smokejumper smiled at her and fiddled with his own forehooves. “Well, they wouldn’t necessarily have to be drones right?”

Chrysalis blinked in understanding, “You’re asking me to make a Golden Daughter?”

“Well, yes. I know you feel like you need to be a Queen and have an army of drones and go taking over Equestria, an’ all. But from what I’ve seen, you don’t. I think that what you need more than anything else, is to be a mother, a real mother.”

Chrysalis looked to the stallion with a blank look on her face. She failed to see how giving birth to thousand of sons and raising each of them to be strong from the sweat of her own brow to build an army that rivaled a nation was anything short of being a spectacular mother.

Smokejumper caught her look of plain disappointment. He knew it meant he said something simple, again.

“Chryssi, what I mean is that this whole time you told me about Aurelia and Nympha. It just sounded to me like you missed out on the best type of love there is.”

Chrysalis rolled her eyes and cast a skeptical look at her lover, “There is no other type of love: kinship, friendship, romance. Three types, no more, no less. I’ve searched my entire life for something more powerful and the closest I came was a powerful unicorn marrying a princess of love. And even that was most likely because they had been friends for years prior.” Chrysalis huffed and blew a strand of her long blue hair from her face.

“That’s just it!” Smokejumper said certainly, “They were on the cusp of turning their romantic love into the strongest type of love, self-sacrificing love. It’s the unconditional love that ties families together through the worst of times.”

Chrysalis leaned down and rested her head on the deep brown mane of the pegasus. “You’re adorable, Jumper, but I think you should leave the definitions of ‘love’ to the expert.” She pecked him on the cheek and began to nuzzle him.

“I bet if you were a mother, a real mother, you would know what I mean. I challenge you to have a daughter and raise her better than your mother raised you.”

Chrysalis felt like a sharp spike of ice had just entered her heart.

My mother. She thought.

Smokejumper felt his determination flagging as he watched Chrysalis begin to go rigid in one of her bouts of remembrance. It reminded him of the first time he kissed her back.

Chrysalis was lost in her thoughts once more as she considered the future. A Queen would have to be superseded eventually. No matter how grand the hive or how numerous the swarm, a Queen would always pass and the mantle would be taken up by another. A Golden Daughter always had to be born. Even in the event that a Queen perished in her harvesting, the drones knew enough to immediately begin saturating eggs with love to birth a new Golden Daughter.

So why didn’t Chrysalis want to be a mother? Was it really so important to have a large swarm or a grand hive?

She thought back to Nympha. She promised to be a better Queen than Aurelia and their mother. And all those two ever wanted was power: power through love, power through deception, power through betrayal. It was all a game to them, a self-serving challenge of conquest where all the pieces were pawns.

After meeting Smokejumper, Chrysalis realized that there was something special about winning a heart with honesty, trust, and affection. The genuine, unfiltered, and unrefined love that filled her to the point of overflowing daily was greater than any feeding ceremony in the grandest hive with the biggest swarm.

Chrysalis was loved, and she loved back.

Chrysalis didn’t want to be alone.

Turning to Smokejumper she said quietly, “She’ll need your love, I can’t raise her alone, literally.”

Smokejumper laughed and nuzzled his love.

~~~

Chrysalis was lying in bed. The freshly laid egg was sitting in a natural cell she had made for it. A changeling version of a ‘crib’ is how she had explained it to Smokejumper.

The stallion was looking at his adopted daughter in her black egg.

“So, uh, yeah, you were right. I definitely didn’t want to see that.”

Chrysalis swatted the pegasus and frowned. “I wouldn’t have let you leave anyway, it was simply a test to see if you were stallion enough to watch your love give birth. Besides, it wasn’t as bad as the last three thousand or so times.” She smirked devilishly and enjoyed the look of discomfort on his face.

“Well, I guess I’m gonna have to give enough love for both of you now, huh?” he asked.

Chrysalis nodded thoughtfully and said, “You already give more than enough for a hive.” She leaned forward and kissed the stallion passionately and soaked up the love that he sent her freely. When she broke away she lowered her horn to the egg and gently touched the tip to the soft black shell. The bright green glow of her magic traveled the length of the her horn and encapsulated the newborn egg, charging it with the first of many bursts of love energy that would nurture it into a strong, healthy, and fully grown royal changeling.

After the larval stage, the pupa would secrete a fluid to protect it. The cell it was placed in as an egg and fed in as a larva would be capped by the naturally golden substance forming a golden cocoon. This was where the Golden Daughters got their namesake. The reflective and regal sight of the golden shimmer in any hive was enough to draw attention to the importance of it. Every drone that could donate a bit of their daily harvest of love to the developing royal changeling would. It wasn’t long until the developed changeling emerged, and from then it was a few short days before their imago, when the wings developed completely.

Smokejumper coughed politely as Chrysalis was lost in thought tending to her egg in its special crib. “So, uh, how long until I have something I can hug?”

Chrysalis laughed and gently passed the egg to Smokejumper. “She can absorb your love I think, if you want to give her some.”

He thought about how much he wanted Chrysalis to be happy. And he thought about how much the thing he was holding made him happy. He imagined the amount of work it would take to build a new bedroom addition to the cabin. He fantasized over the happy times he could have teaching her to fly. Teaching her to read and write would be one of his greatest joys. And seeing her grow into the strong and confident changeling that her mother was only brought a smile to his face.

“It’s working.” Chrysalis said with awe. Another type of love, she thought.

Smokejumper smiled. “You know, usually the parents of a pony name their foal after it’s born. It’s a bit of a superstition that the name of the pony sets their destiny for the rest of their lives.”

Chrysalis sighed and stroked the egg with her hoof as they slid closer together in the bed with their child between them. “I don’t want to force anything on her. I have no expectations, only the hope that she’ll be happier than me, and be a better Queen than me.”

Smokejumper was silent for a moment before saying, “Nympha.”

Chrysalis looked to him with wide eyes as she seemed startled.

“That sounds like something she would say. I think you’re going to make her happy.” Smokejumper relaxed and leaned into his pillow and relaxed. “Well, I guess I have a lot of additions to make to the cabin over the next few months.”

Chrysalis snickered and held a hoof to her muzzle. “Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that part.”

Smokejumper looked past the egg at Chrysalis, confused. “What part?”

Chrysalis leaned over the crib with the egg, making sure it remained steady on the mattress. She laid herself across Smokejumper as he rested on his back. She leaned to nuzzle him and said, “She’s going to hatch in a week, and be flying in three.”

Smokejumper felt his heart leap in his chest. Adrenaline was flooding his system. It was a short time to accept becoming a father. “Sweet Celestia! I’ve gotta get ready! I need to get more timber and build a wa—” He was interrupted in his favorite way. Chrysalis pressed her muzzle against his and kissed him passionately.

Chrysalis savored the flavor of love that flowed to her like a stream in spring. It was as delicious as always. It was genuine, pure, and honest. She had never felt more content and carefree.

“Relax, Jumper, there will be plenty of time for that later. For now, I think it’s time for some ‘lunch’.”

Chrysalis beamed and leaned down to enjoy her love.

Author's Note

Submitted to EQD on 7/31/13 for Flash Fiction Event #5 - Love Me, Love My Hive

Wow, so this one really was a huge challenge for me. I didn't know how to make Chrysalis happy and not have her take over part of Equestria or win at the invasion. And at the same time I didn't want to make her a complete villain, which she is so canonically. So naturally I fell into my bad habit of taking a character, mixing them up with an OC and having them reconnect with a family. I hate to say that this is becoming a rather dry formula for me but in so many ways it really is the best way to explore a character's back story. Because everyone came from somewhere right? I hope the next flash fic event is a little bit shorter in duration because the long ones tempt me to world-build too much. I spent an unhealthy amount of time learning about bees and butterflies in doing some prep work for this story and it probably shows in the obvious and awkward paragraphs of exposition describing things like 'elytra', 'cocoons', and 'pupa'.

This story was full of a lot of firsts for me. I have never tried writing anything close to the amount of flirtation and saucy actions included above. This is also one of the first serious fight scenes I have ever written.

Some things I want to say. I really am not happy with how I wrote Smokejumper, I just didn't have the time to make this guy seem like anything more than a bumbling idiot who just happens to be nice. I'm going to polish up some dialogue with him and Chryssi later, but for now I knew I just had to cut a lot of scenes that distracted from the most important story which was why Chrysalis became a villain in the first place, and then turn those emotions and drives into something that fuels a positive goal (being a great mother) rather than a negative goal (being a queen who wants to conquer Equestria).

I know a lot of the story feels rushed, because it's written on a week long time limit. But hopefully if you have taken the time to read it you will let me know what you think in the comments below. I am by no means a professional writer or even an experienced one and every ounce of constructive criticism helps.

I read every comment.