Chapters The Making of a Changeling Queen
In the very centre of the Hive, guarded around the clock by Changeling patrols that ceaselessly patrolled the craggy corridors, lay a very special changeling egg. Whilst most eggs were simply glued to a convenient pillar in the Hive's communal birthing chamber, with a number written under it so that it's parents could tell their egg apart from the others, and hatched within weeks, this egg had slowly grown over nine months on a cushion of royal jelly. Great care had been made to feed the growing egg with a rich mixture of different types of love.
To changelings, love had taste . Pony love, the love that was greatly preferred by the vast majority of changelings, tasted as sweet as chocolate but without any of chocolate's long term damage to teeth and fangs. And it was by far the easiest type of love to gather as well. The kidnapping and replacement of ponies was rarely needed, as many ponies simply gave off small amounts of the sweet love as they walked along. All changelings needed to do was take the shape of a pony and walk through a crowded street with their emotion sacs open, and there was enough not only to sate their own hunger but to bring back to the Hive as well.
Griffin love was different. It tasted fiery, like ginger, a taste that some changelings disliked. It was also far harder to gather. Unlike ponies, griffins did not leak love as they walked. The only ways to gather griffin love, were either to take griffin shape and seduce a griffin or capture and replace one. Griffins were hard to seduce; it could take months of careful courtship to successfully earn the love of a griffin. And overpowering one was not easy; griffins had deadly claws and lion paws quite capable of ripping through chitin and tearing a carapace apart. This and the taste of their love meant that most changelings left them alone.
Buffalo love was chewy and tasted like beef jerky. Whilst it was a more popular taste then that of the griffins, it was almost as hard to get. Buffalos were clannish, and their love was for the family and tribe alone. They were rarely alone, and their hooves could crack a carapace, whilst their hairy skin was hard to pierce with fangs. Seducing one by taking the shape of a random buffalo was also quite hard, because of their tribal system and the fact that lone buffalo tended to be in exile from their tribe because of some crime. Most buffalo did not want a criminal as their boyfriend or girlfriend.
Zebra love tasted like boiled sweets and was the second easiest kind of love to gather, although not quite as much of it was shed as that of ponies. The fact that they spoke in rhyme made it quite hard to infiltrate zebra society, unless the changeling had been taught bardic level rhyming first, meant that training was needed first just so the changeling could speak like they did. As such, zebra love was rarely consumed by the average changeling outside the great celebration days of the year. Most changelings thought of it as quite a delicacy due to it's rarity.
Minotaur love tasted like well-cooked sausages and again was quite hard to get. With their horns, hands and fists, and the tools and weapons that they could make and use, only griffins were harder to bring down by force. Despite the nice taste, few changelings found the meal worth the fight that they would have first. Seducing them by taking the shape of a random minotaur was easier then the complex courtship of a griffin, however; all the same, minotaur love did not often end up on the diet of most changelings all that often.
The egg was not alone in it's secure chamber-the chamber was lit up by the soft green glow of ten cocoons containing two ponies, two griffins, two zebra, two buffalo and two minotaurs that had been kidnapped with great care. Only by being bathed constantly in all five forms of love for a long period, would a changeling egg hatch a royal changeling from it instead of an average changeling. Every day a trusted changeling guard had checked it to make sure it was parasite-free. Now that it was very close to hatching, it's mother, Queen Nephila, came with her guards and attendants to see her royal baby hatch.
The Queen was old....her light green wings had become see-through and could no longer carry her as far or as fast as they used to. And her carapace was grey and somewhat brittle with age. She smiled as the shell tore open, revealing the little changeling foal inside, which started to cry as soon as the air hit it. "Hello, my little Chrysalis," the Queen said. "No maggot-stage for you, you are fully-formed as a royal princess should be." Her horn lit up and carried the little foal to her, and she wiped it clean of egg-white and placed it gently on the ground where it stopped crying.. "Time for your birth-test, little one." In a short burst of green flame she took the shape of a huge and fearsome-looking griffin, and there was a similar burst of flame from the ground. Where the new-born changeling foal had been, there sat a griffin chick. The Queen next took the shape of an alicorn, and the chick automatically took the shape of a pony foal. Finally the Queen and the new-born changeling princess both regained their true shapes. "Excellent," the Queen said. "Your automatic self-defence routine works as it should. Not that any attackers would ever penetrate this Hive to get to you." Chrysalis giggled when her mother stroked her still-soft carapace with a hoof.
Soon enough her mother had her carried up to her new bedroom and placed in a cot with plenty of pillows and toys. "Good night, little Chrysalis. Right now, there is so little that you can do, but in the few decades that are left to me I am going to turn you into a worthy Queen to rule this Hive when I am gone."
The Making of a Changeling Queen
Princess Chrysalis finished her breakfast of mushrooms, buffalo love-soup and pony love-soup and went to class. I really like Mr Opaque, he's my favourite teacher and so kind and patient to me. Of course, part of that is because of my royal status, but he's a nice changeling anyway. When she came in, Mr Opaque said "Let's see how well you can change...pony, griffin, minotaur, zebra, buffalo, as fast as you can do so without mistakes." When she had done that, he told her "Very good, very good indeed. Many changelings at your age leave out small details, such as the cutie mark or the primary feathers, that would get them caught if they did such a thing in the field, but not you."
"Sir, why cannot I go out into the outside world and explore? I want to meet real ponies and griffins and befriend them. I want to have real friends and not just suckers-up and toadies who are only with me because of my royal status. I want a coltfriend who will give me sweet love because of my personality and not because I'm a princess of the Hive Nephila. Genuinely earned love is the most tasty love after all. When I was a little filly the Hive was comforting to me; I knew that I was safe at all times. Now it feels suffocating...from the public halls and corridors to the birthing chambers, from the central love well to the royal quarters, this Hive can't be more then a couple of miles wide. I've spent more then fifteen years in this place. I've never felt rain or snow on my face, never seen sunlight and basked in it's rays, never encountered a non-changeling who is not encased in a cocoon for feeding. I've heard so many stories of the outside...of the great cities of Canterlot, Manehatten, Gryffindor and many more, and the smaller more friendly places like Ponyville and yet I'm never allowed even to fly through the Badlands. Maybe I should just...change shape into that of a commoner and sneak out of here?" She smiled at the thought of doing just that.
Mr Opaque shook his head. "No, no, NO! If something happened to you, if you were kidnapped by rival changelings or got hopelessly lost or fell victim to some dangerous animal out there, the Queen would be furious and would never forgive me. You are the only heir to Queen Nephila and this Hive's greatest treasure. You have to be kept safe and secure. I'm sure that if you asked your mother nicely on your sixteenth birthday, your mother would let you out with a squadron of bodyguards."
"But I don't want to go out with a bodyguard squadron, I want to do what a changeling is meant to do and go incognito whilst I'm still small enough to change into all sorts of shapes. I want to go out and explore and get real friends and experience real first-hand love-fresh love, not condensed love soup. Love that I have to earn. I want a coltfriend and I want my freedom. Sometimes I feel that I'm stuck in a very comfortable prison."
Queen Nephila entered the room. "Chrysalis, it's for your own good. You are my only heir...if I was to have more then one royal princess daughter one of two things would happen. Either the Swarm would be split as the daughter or daughters who were not chosen to succeed me flew off to found their own Hives, weakening it badly in the process. Or, much worse, you and any other daughters would murder each other until only one remained. I love you far too much to risk having that happen to you. I can't risk having you either getting killed or kidnapped. Ours is not the only Hive in the world after all, and you would make a great bargaining chip in the hooves of a rival Queen. Tomorrow on your sixteenth birthday you can go outside for a short flight with ten soldiers to guard you, and see what the outside is like. But you cannot just sneak off alone and go on an adventure, I need you here."
"Mother, another thing...if there really is so much love to be found in Equestria, why are the lower orders of the Hive so hungry? They may be poor but they are still our subjects. Why not go on a giant love raid, cocoon as many ponies as we can, drag them back here and there would be food for as all, enough for the Hive to feast on a regular basis? Why must we creep around in the shadows?"
"Because that is the Changeling Way," Queen Nephila replied. "If I was to do what you suggested and, for example, use almost the entire Hive to launch a giant love raid on Canterlot, in the short term it might be very successful and we could gorge for months on the cocooned ponies. But when we needed to do it again, new spells would have been made to see through our disguises and all the other races would be on the lookout for us. Not only would all our agents in other countries risk being discovered, but so would our sources of love. Ponies rarely need kidnapping as one can gather up enough love by hanging around them with one's emotion sacs open. If we do what you suggest, that love will be replaced by fear and hatred, which are poisonous to changelings. And whenever we need new love we will have to kidnap and cocoon for it, instead of only cocooning rarely when there is a need for it. For a short term binge you would bring starvation on our Hive and the other Hives, whose Queens would join together to remove our Hive from the map. Whilst I still rule this Hive, there will be no love raids and we will stick to the Changeling Way."
Chrysalis sighed. "Yes, Mother, you are right on this issue. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow...I'm going to get to go Outside!"
*****
"You know what her Majesty said...that is forbidden to you. If anything bad happened to you, we would get the blame for it."
With a nod and a deep sigh Chrysalis agreed and flew back to the Hive where her mother awaited her, happy that at last she had been able to go outside, and embraced and kissed her. "Thank you, Mother, it was so enjoyable to go out there in the open air."
"As long as you take your bodyguards with you, you can go outside whenever you want, as long as you stay out of trouble and within the borders of our territory," the Queen replied.
The Making of a Changeling Queen
The years rolled by, and Chrysalis grew and blossomed into a full Changeling Queen, even being allowed to travel abroad a few times in disguise before her size made that impossible. Whilst she could still take the shape of an alicorn, this was perilous as the real alicorns would soon get to hear about it. But as she grew, her mother seemed to almost shrivel and wither away no matter how much love she was fed. Her chitin became totally grey and brittle. Her wings that had carried her around with ease for centuries started to fail, first only being good for short flights, then for short hops, and then finally failing to lift her altogether. The holes in each of her legs seemed to grow until there were more holes then leg, and even her admittedly very rarely used shape changing abilities started to fail, although her mind still remained sane and sharp. When her mother lost the ability to walk, Chrysalis had several cocoons of captured ponies and others moved into her room, to keep her fed with constant love. Her mother beckoned her over. "Chrysalis, my darling daughter, I'm dying, and all the love in Equestria cannot keep me going for very long. I had you when I had only a few decades left to live, so that you would not get frustrated with being unable to rule the Hive when you were fully grown and trained to rule."
Chrysalis planted a kiss on her mother's forehead. "But I don't want to rule the Hive without you, Mother What will I do without you?"
"Be a good Queen when I am gone. Please don't cremate my body, bury me in the Royal Tomb, that's in the deepest tunnel in the Hive, with a few grave goods for my use in the afterlife. Don't try too hard to be popular, but don't annoy everyling either. Don't have a royal daughter too early in case she tries to overthrow you, and above all, stick to the Changeling Way like I have done. Now go, I need some sleep. Please come back in a few hours with some love for me."
Chrysalis left the royal bedroom, and called one of her most trusted drones over to her. "I know this goes against the Way of the Changelings, but I want you to fly to Equestria had somehow meet with one or both of the Royal Diarchy that control the Sun and Moon. Surely Celestia and Luna will help my mother if they are asked nicely. I would go myself but I feel that I have to stay with my mother, in case...her health gets any worse." The changeling bowed to her, spread it's wings and left the Hive. A day later it came back, with a wound in it's side where a thrown spear had cracked the chitin.
"What happened, and why are you alone?" Chrysalis demanded.
"I got into Canterlot Castle easily enough, by taking the shape of a castle guard, and asked to speak to the captain, who went by the name of Shining Armour. He grudgingly agreed to see me when I told him how important it was, but as soon as I showed who I really was, he shouted for help and very nearly speared me to death. I tried to tell him that I was friendly and had been sent by you, but he wouldn't hear a word of it, and I only just escaped, dodging the patrol he sent out after me by hiding behind a nearby cloud and changing my shape into a random pegasus."
"Go and get bandaged, I will see how my mother is doing."
When she entered her mother's room with some tasty pony-love soup, she found her mother lying on her bed and looking at her with glassy eyes. "I brought you some pony love soup, your favourite." There was no reply. "Mother, are you allright?" She gave her mother a shake and as she did so the crown of black chitin that sprouted many centuries ago from her mother's head crumbled into dust, and she felt a new crown sprout from her own head. The symbol of rulership....that only grew when the old Queen died.
"Mother? Don't die, I need you!" She touched her mother's body and it was cold, and felt for a heartbeat only to find that not one of her mother's three hearts was beating.
The deep sadness she felt was go great that it was involuntarily broadcast over the hive mind system that Queens used in emergencies or at important times to communicate with the Hives that they ruled. From the lookout towers at the very top of the Hive to the deepest inhabited tunnels, every changeling bowed their head and knew that they had a new Queen. Then she sent a message out over it. "You now have a new Queen, Queen Chrysalis, as your old Queen, my mother, is dead.. Had I never loved so kindly, had I never loved so blindly, I would never be broken hearted. May her afterlife be filled with true love. She might have lived longer still, if my attempt to get help from the Diarchy of Equestria had not been so rudely turned down. I will have my vengeance, and for you, when Canterlot is ours you will feast as if every day was Hearts and Hooves Day."
Soon enough Queen Nephila was kissed on the forehead one last time and then placed in a tomb with a few grave goods. A changeling scimitar, a small bowl of pony love, and a ball of glowing green webbing were all that were placed with her in her tomb, and as the tomb was sealed up. Queen Chrysalis turned her mind towards the biggest love raid ever planned. the conquest of Canterlot.
