The Golden Daughter

“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.