Service

Chapters

A Brief Introduction
The Spawning Pool
The Hive
The Bad Place
The Awakening

A Brief Introduction

For me to tell you the chronicle of my life, I must start at the beginning.

To elaborate on how I got to the point I am now at, in what you would call Life, and I would call Service, you must understand. You must understand that I am unlike anything that has ever existed in the past two or three thousand years. I am new, yet I am old. I am a changeling. Like my brothers and sisters, I serve my beloved Queen. Yet I... I am different.

None of my born with me siblings were born like me. But there were other like me in the past, the ones like me that were in Service to the Queen those two or three thousand years ago. We are together in the difference. That is that they were different from their brothers and sisters then the same way I am different from my brothers and sisters now. My Queen made us different back in the before times. She did not make us better, we have weakness, but unlike the remaining siblings, we did not have the Link.

WE do not share in the Link. The Link is what lets my brothers “speak” to each other, it connects them all in some way. The brothers and sisters around me have no real voice. Yet they communicate perfectly, through the Link. This Link also allow my Queen to issue orders and commands without a word. It ties all of her children together.

The books of the Bad Place call it the Hivemind. But I should not speak of that place, or of what it says to me. My Queen has given me an order.

But before I can carry her order out, I must make you understand.

This is the story of my Service, what you want to call Life.

The Spawning Pool

My first moments of freedom were hastily taken away. As I was almost immediately thrown into a deep pool of liquid. This place, I would learn to be the Spawning Pool. This is where my brothers and sisters were to gestate while in our pupa forms.

When tossed into the pool, my base instinct told me to panic. With my nubs still ingrown you could imagine my confusion and terror. To finally escape the wall, only to be drowned. I held my breath as long as I could and struggled in vain to push to the surface. I saw that my siblings did not struggle against the pool. And eventually, I had to inhale the liquid around me.

Quickly it filled my lungs and I accepted my fate. Only to find that whatever liquid the pool was would let me live. That is say that the substance did not drown me, I still do not understand why or how such a thing could happen. Yet it did. I soon found myself paralyzed, unable to move and overcome with a powerful urge to sleep. My eyes were heavy and body was stiff. I quickly drifted into slumber.

When I awoke for the first time after I was cast into the pool, I found myself wrapped in some kind of clear-ish cast. It wrapped my entire body. Holding me still. My cocoon was under construction. As soon as I realized that, I had somehow also attained a… better more mature way of thinking. Somehow I knew that I was cocooning, and I also knew that my understanding had changed, and that my mind had changed.

That worried me at first but I was not awake long enough to panic. As I found myself overcome with that urge to sleep yet again. I repeated this several times. It repeated for another unknown period of time. The mental battles of questioning why I was, while fighting a terrible and powerful want to sleep. My hunger growling at me to eat... Awakening only to find a thicker cast and an utter lack of answers to why I had so little control of my fate thus far. As well as growing pains in my deepest gut.

However, as time went on the sleeping dwindled into shorter periods. And so did my time awake become longer and more clear.

Unfortunately my gestating took longer than my siblings, another missed sign of my difference. I awoke one day to my brothers and sisters breaking free from their cocoons. I tried to break free from my cocoon, but was unable. Try as I might, will power alone could not set me free. Instead, I waited.

More time passed by, I was forced to wait and sleep alone in the pool. I believe it was truly long time that I sat in the pool alone. It was hard to tell with how much I slept. My hunger was painful. The Spawning Pool could not keep me.

But on one day, I finally broke free from my cocoon, and was able to swim to freedom. That day I left the spawning pool.

And became part of the Colony.

The Hive

Finally free of my pupal stage, and free from the pool and the wall. I could look to the Hive in all its greatness. However I did feel… odd. I found that all of my brothers and sisters were a… all about the same size, yet I was massive in comparison. I stood nearly twice as tall as my brothers and sisters. Despite my size, none of my siblings seemed to notice me. Oddly enough every day, when the Feeders would salivate edible love to the Hive, they would allow me to eat. Unfortunately, despite them feeding me as much as I could eat, my hunger never faded. I still craved something unknown.

Back to the leaving pupahood. Still dripping with the Spawning Pool’s fluids I assumed that I would be given orders. None were ever given to me. Without a directive, I began to ask about. Suddenly realizing I was now capable of speech. Sadly, none of siblings seemed to share in my ability to speak. The usually just hissed at me. This… exclusion saddened me deeply. I was without a swarm. And had no place. Determined, I decided to watch my siblings, and join them in their activities and duties. Without being given a place to work, I took it on myself to find work.

Everyday I would find a group of my smaller siblings, and join them. Aiding them however I could. Yet in no place did I ever feel… placed. I never felt like I belonged. I never felt as if I was doing what I should. I blamed myself for being different. For being larger, and thusly taking longer to develop and missing my assignment.

Day to day I worked. One day, I would go with the Builders. We would devour parts of the hive that were old and falling apart, as well as a wax substance Waxers would create. And regurgitate a new and harder fluid in it's place. Using that paste, we would rebuild any structure. Be that a dying pillar, or jammed door. We rebuilt the fallen. Yet this was not my place. My regurgitation would never match the same color or density as my siblings. So often my siblings would eat my failure and regurgitate the proper substance. I tried several times to be a good Builder. But it was not my place. I had the same problem as a Waxer, my wax was never as strong or as thick as I needed it to be. And so my siblings would devour my failure, and regurgitate out success. A Waxer was not my place either.

I never tried to be a Broodmother for the larvae, my hatred of the wall made me stray away from that place. For fear that I would destroy the wall, and either a generation of my siblings would die or I would die trying to break down that wall. I did however, two or three times, carry my larvae brothers and sisters to the Spawning Pool to gestate. I prided myself on using my size to carry five or six of my siblings at a time while my siblings could only carry two or three. Sadly, I did not feel that was my duty either.

I never got the chance to be a Feeder. Nor would I have taken it. They got to visit the great almighty Queen Chrysalis personally... sometimes. They would be gifted the love she gathered for us, and thusly the Feeders would salivate a pink fluid that all of us ate. Well.. they did not get to visit her all of the time. Usually they would simply go to the pods that held her love for us. Drink it. And give it back to us. I both desperately wanted their job, but shamefully feared being discovered as useless. A giant changeling, with no prime directive! They would kill me and toss me away. If my Queen ever saw me, she would cry with shame, at the failure of one of her children.

I could not be seen by my Queen. So I could not serve her directly. There was no place for me in the Hive.

However.

One day I found a hole, on one of my attempts to belong with the Builders. Taken by curiosity, I followed it to the Old Lands, a bad place for us changelings. You see, my brothers and sisters, all of us live in one giant place. The Hive. Yet outside this Hive, there was a kingdom of stone. The world continues on forever. Large structures unlike anything I had ever seen. Like square giant boxes they sat. Eaten by the weather that the Hive sheltered me from. Written in a black effluvial grime read the words. BAD PLACE RETURN TO HIVE. I realized all at once again. Firstly, I could somehow read a language I had never been taught. Second. I could look beyond the warning. Beyond my own actions. Beyond the order and see that my ability to read and speak were greatly abnormal. My size was abnormal. These thoughts, even the mere idea that I was thinking them. Scared me back into the safety of the Hive. I vowed to never return to that place after that. As it would go, my Queen had different plans for me.

One day after that, just like any other. I tried to be something I knew I was not. We, more the actual Builders, were devouring a wall. Horridly, the wall fell early. Smashing both me and a sister of mine. My carapace was hardly scratched. I pushed up and threw the wall off of my body with ease. My sister did not fare nearly as well.

Squashed, her insides became outsides. Her compact eyeballs popped. Her head was smashed in on itself in a gory green stew of blood and brain. Her body was smashed, unable to take the weight of the wall, her carapace cracked open. Her various organs and viscera squeezed out of those cracks. Smashed as terribly as she was. Her body was completely and utter crushed.

Never before had I seen a more appetizing meal.

I threw myself over her in a second. Using my forehooves and mouth, I ripped apart and threw away as much of the carapace as I could. Before completely losing control and wildly gorging on the gore of my sister. Stuffing my maw, which I now knew was significantly larger and sported many more sharp and barbed teeth. I tore into the gore, feasting. For the first time in my life the horrible and painful hunger finally stopped. Yet I had eaten the gore of my own sister. Despite my joy and satisfaction I had no choice but to banish myself. I fled immediately.

Into the Bad Place.

The Bad Place

After my shameful outburst of cannibalism, I had banished myself. More out of the sheer terror of my disappointing my Queen then anything. In the Bad Place, my world was cold and no one came to feed me, and I never felt any more separated from the swarm in my life. I had no one and nothing. Yet my body had felt amazing. Full of meat, I was invigorated. For the first time in my life I felt healthy and full of energy, an awful contrast to how I felt.

I ran deep into the Bad Place. I ran for as long as my body would let me. Finally my body began to grow sore and weak, I took refuge in a old stone box, gripped entirely in the green vines and leaves of trees. Roots pushed through the stone flooring, making the floor uneven and rocky. The building was full of scrolls and tomes, they lined the walls. Many had fallen to the floor, and all had been beaten by nature. Some of the tomes melted on my touch. The burst of energy quickly faded, I swiftly became too tired to investigate much more, I had to rest. I found a nook in the corner, and laid down to rest.

My slumber came fast, as I soon fell into a great sleep. The light in the sky was falling behind the world, yet when I awoke it was once again high over me. I was not concerned with how much I had slept, only that I had no place to call my own. No swarm, no Hive, no love… no Queen. I would have wept over the loss of my Queen, but the wrath of nature wanted to punish me. Nature sent her monsters after me.

I heard a growl, deep and low.

An instant later, a great beast pounced on me! But my instincts were keen, and I managed to push the beast off and away, but got back on its paws quickly. It paced slowly around me. The beast was a monstrous being, large claws and a face full of fangs. It had a bright orange fur with black stripes across it’s back. Fortunately, my carapace had sliced into the beast, as I saw it was bleeding. My mind and body knew, if it bleeds, then I can kill it. It paced me, growing angrily.

My body acted instinctually. I pushed hard on my carapace, causing my body to projectile shards of jagged exoskeleton. The pieces I fired from my body resembled the bits of broken foggy shards that sat on the floor of the stone boxes. Many of the boxes had the shards in broken panels in their walls. Poor structure material. Returning, I fired my shards out, two hitting my target, and one missing. The first landed in the striped beast’s shoulder, sliding deep into the monster’s flesh. The second missed, hitting a shelf that held many tombs, causing them to fall to the ground. Third landed directly in one of the beast’s glassy eyes, it slid deep into the creatures head, causing it to fall defeated. This all happened instantly, and in the rush of the moment, I did not see how the beast had pulled one of my front legs clean off.

I did not bleed nor did I feel any pain. My limb simply fell off, limply it sat on the floor between me and the beast. The beast was gone, the shard burrowed deep in it’s face. The fierce beast was frozen in that snarling face. It now lay motionless bleeding onto the floor. Hungry once more, I took to devouring the beast, which I did without stopping, or selecting. That is to say, I ate the entire beast, in my reverie, even bone crunched in my maw. The only things that remained were the three shards I had somehow launched from my body.

In the swiftness of the battle, I did not see the them. But at sometime after, possibly a great deal of time after my battle, I saw several reflective pieces of those wall panels on the floor. Looking to my foggy reflection, it was here that I saw myself for the first time.

I was large. And very unlike my brothers. My eyes were like the beast’s I had just slain. Reflective eyes with odd slits in them. My carapace was not smooth with a few points, but jagged and sharp. I was covered in spikes and barbs. My horn was bladed, like the blade of a spear. Even my wings differed me. My brothers had small wings. My wings were massive and hid under a shield of armor that slid up when I wanted them to.

My brothers and sisters can be compared to insects like bees or ants. But I could not. If they were ants, then I was a lowly beetle. They all lived and worked together in perfect harmony in service of their Queen. I was big, brooding and covered in jagged spikes, no Queen would ever take me.

Now fully awake, and with a sorrowful sigh I decided to gander at the fallen tomes. I spent much of my time looking at the old tomes that did not melt away are turn to dust at my touch. Particularly, one tome had stolen my focus. Noticing immediately a drawing of one of my siblings. An open tome, not unlike the many that lay on the ground with it. Somehow with it the depiction of my kind was held, I had my attention taken quickly. “Common Hive Worker” was written under the picture. I wondered how I could read at all. I understood only the words from this tome, the mystery confused me, so I ignored those mysterious to read the tome with more attention. This tome informed me of the Hivemind that allowed my sibling to speak. The tome went on and spoke much of my siblings, unfortunately, much of the words had been lost. The words simply faded away into the page.

Looking to the tome, I found no picture of my Queen or anything that might tell me what I am. Looking to the many other tombs that laid about, the most I was ever able to find was a picture of a creature not totally not unlike myself. The image was faded, But I could clearly see a horn like my own, as well as the forewing that I possessed. Clearly, the Bad Place had knowledge that I did not have. It was possible. That if I searched long enough… then maybe I could find the answers to my questions. Maybe I could find a way to serve my beautiful Queen.

The Awakening

The moment of my very first awakening was extremely confusing and terrifying. I found myself blind. Unable to see more than just colorless blurs faintly shifting and moving beyond me. The horror of existence hit me like a wall. My body was… small. I only had small nubs where I would eventually grow limbs. At the time, I had no idea that I was in my larval stage. My brothers and sisters were all attached to small combs in the wall of our home. What I would learn to be the Hive. My brothers and sisters of my generation all hung on this wall, placed inside small combs to hide and protect us.

Eventually, despite my efforts to free myself, I gave in. Unable to move or do much of anything with my nubs all I could do was sit about and do nothing. I distinctly remember, waiting and holding my eye's closed for days at a time, opening them to see how much more they had developed and how much more I could see. Twice a day, one of my brothers or sisters would fly up to me, and exude a pink paste I would learn to be “love” in it’s edible form. As it turns out, I was rather high up on the larval wall. Not that my still-developing eyeballs could tell, nor my new infant mind could understand the concept of depth and height.

I would however, learn to hate my place in the wall, as my tiny enclosed space quickly grew too small for my body. The very first sign that I was different from my brothers and sisters, once again, my young mind was too fresh to understand that. Day after day, I pushed at my space's walls, hoping that I could break free. I would pray that my Queen would free me from my crushing torment, even before I knew about my Queen herself. Truly she is the greatest mother if I can call to her even without knowing who exactly she was. The idea and love for my Queen must be imprinted on my brain itself.

That was my life for a short while, being fed, but never becoming full. And striving to free myself. That was all I was and could do. I would like to stress the fact that in the entire time I was encased on that wall in my larval form, I was never fed to a degree that would sate my ever hunger. In other words I was always hungry… and I do mean that in the most stressed of ways. I was always hungry.

Fortunately, this was the shortest form and period of my life.

After an amount of time unknown to me, one of my brothers freed me from my prison! He pulled me from the wall. My size made him struggle with that, but still he pulled me free! My hatred for that wall is still great, but it is no place for me ever again. This event marks the end of my larval stage and begins my entering my pupa stage.