The Golden Daughter

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

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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.