Forgotten Children

Silence pervaded the Hive. No changeling dared to be the first to speak. Chrysalis stayed in her broken nursery for a long time. Her guards posted themselves back at their regular positions. The youngest cared for their sisters and took the dead to the funeral pyres. The only sound was a quiet shuffling as a changeling scurried about. That, and a faint clanging sound from the depths as their first and only prisoner hammered himself against his bars in protest.

“LET ME OUT!” He slammed his armored shoulder into the bars of his cell door for the hundredth time, hearing them clatter and seeing them shake slightly, but they were far too reinforced to be broken.

He had regained consciousness shortly after being dragged to his cell, and finding that he was now forcibly caged, gained new strength in his anger. “Come fight me again, you brainwashed coward fucks!” He backed up against a stone wall and kicked it, but the stone down here did not crack. It was obviously built to contain just about anything. He kicked again, and winced as he felt something crack.

Sitting, he inspected himself in the dim light. A faint reddish glow emanated from somewhere down the hallway outside his cell. It was not enough for a thorough inspection, so he used his horn to cast a dim green glow around. Not wanting to waste too much energy, he inspected himself quickly.

His right rear leg was seeping green from a small puncture halfway between his hoof and knee. He felt over himself, searching the undersides of his shell and over his back, and found a small amount of tar that had not washed away. Using his magic, he pressed it into his leg, smoothing it out around the edges. He kept compression on it for several minutes, and seeing it was no longer bleeding, let his magical glow fade.

Sitting back against the wall, he found it to be oddly warm and damp. Nothing in this information help him in his predicament, of course, but noting small details could often prove useful later. He sighed deeply and stretched carefully to see what else he may have broken. Nothing seemed to be anything more than sore, so he relaxed.

“Oh, what a great and fine fucking mess this is,” he said aloud to no-one in particular. “Living meat and hair in my teeth, oh no! I’m sooo far above that. Lets go see Mom, I said. I bet she’ll help me, I said. Did I think that was a bad idea? No! And why you ask? Because I’m fucking stupid.”

“I doubt this.” The caged changeling swiveled in the direction of the voice. Chrysalis walked very slowly into partial view, with just her head and part of her neck visible to him. “You have made some mistakes, but I don’t believe that you are in any way stupid.”

“You.” The words came from his mouth through bared teeth. He straightened and satirically said, “Oh, have to come to tempt me into fucking you again? I a bit of make-up sex? Oh just think of how hot it will be; me standing over you and everyone watching, why, as I hit your spot and plunge my-”

“I came to say I’m sorry.”

He stopped short. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am.” Chrysalis came further into view and sat in front of his cage. “Its been a very lonely, very hard time for me since your father died. I’ve been alone in my struggle to care for your sisters and I’ve made some very bad mistakes myself in trying to cope. Sometimes I think I’ve gone mad…other times…I’m not so sure.

“But I can’t solely blame myself. You have injured and killed your own kind. Your own family. You have proven yourself a traitor and I can’t abide by that.”

“So what then? You come down here, say you’re sorry and by the way, its off to the killing fields with you?” He waved her away with a hoof. “You tried to rape me, and when I said no you got angry. Oh, this is so totally my fault that I asked nicely to leave, you wouldn’t allow it, assaulted me, and then deem me a traitor for protecting my own life. What a disappointment I must be to you.”

“Why are you so mean to me?” Chrysalis sniffled, her eyes watering. “What have I done to you that’s so bad? You treat me with such disrespect and malice… Why don’t you love me the way I love you?”

He sighed and stood up, walking over to her. “Look. I don’t question that you love me. But what I question is how you think others should love you. This is not the love that I’m used to seeing. This is the first time I’ve ever been around you or my sisters, and it seems more like a cult than an family. You see…” he paused as he looked at her. She looked hurt. Emotionally so. “Do none of your children do this? Am I the first to question you?”

Chrysalis nodded but remained silent.

“See, this is what I’m talking about.” He tapped the bars. “I can see why no-one has done so if this is how you treat dissenters. In this secluded environment, you are the only source of knowledge and comfort and shelter and food they have ever known. Of course your daughters are going to love you unconditionally. I did not spend my formative years here and hence, I do not.

“As I told you, grew up in the wild. I don’t love you unconditionally because up until this point you’ve given me so little but asked so much. In the wild you have to prove your worth to get anything back. Sometimes not even then. Those damned equines are quite giving but their unbridled enthusiasm sickens me. Maybe I’m jaded. Maybe I’m crazy. But honestly as the years have passed I care less and less.

“You want to live in a pretty little world and be the underworld’s Celestia? Rule as you see fit and let no dissenters oppose you? You go right ahead. I do not want to be a part of it. So fuck you, fuck your Hive, let me go and I swear to you you’ll never see me again.”

Chrysalis shook her head no. “You have much anger in you and the more we talk the more I begin to understand why. You have lived a life that I would never wish upon any of my children and it has poisoned your heart. I did say that I can’t abide by traitors but you are the one who said anything about doing away with you. I fully intend to let you leave on the condition that you never return,” she narrowed her eyes and continued, “But in exchange for that, I require something from you.”

“And what you want, I am unwilling to give.” He held himself tall. “I do not claim to have any ‘morality’ the way most would describe it but impregnating my own mother, for whom I currently do not have any feelings for, is not pleasing to think about.”

“Have you not felt the pleasure from another warm body, my son?” Chrysalis inquired. “It can be quite exquisite.” She licked her lips and winked at him.

“Oh, I’m not so naive that I’ve never had sex. Many mares, colts, and griffons have lain in my bed over time. Most willingly. Some not. But again, fucking family seems like something one ought not to do.”

“See, this is a peculiar problem we ageless beings face,” she retorted from beyond his cell. “The short-lived species of this world can have many generations pass in just one of our lifetimes and eventually one will forget how he or she is related to another and so it becomes acceptable. Just because there are more generations in between the equines does not mean that they’re not fucking their relatives. We’re just more open about doing so.”

Noise from the hallway in the direction of the light source turned their attention away from each other and down the hall. Chrysalis backed up quickly and started to disappear into the shadows. “Think about what I said child. We will talk again…”

As she disappeared from his view fully, from the opposite direction came two armored changeling guards. They moved slowly, and as they approached his cell he could see that they sported wicked grins of malice. He backed up and sat against the furthest wall to feign as if he had been there for quite some time.

“Hey, traitor!” they yelled before even reaching his cell. “Fuckface! Come out here, lets have a little look at you. I’m sure no one will care if you wind up dead! Chrysalis obviously wants you for something but I bet your insides will stay hot for at least an hour after we rip them out of you!” They rounded appeared in the corner of his vision but he remained still, looking at the floor.

“Hey! We’re talking to you, you worthless cunt!” The other banged her spear against the bars.

“Hey, that’s a fitting name for this one,” said the first guard. “Worthless! He doesn’t have a name so lets give him one! Hey Worthless, we’re going to go upstairs and tell everyone that that’s what you want to be called. That cool with you?” She sneered as she talked. “Oh, also, we brought you something to eat.”

The second guard tossed something limp into his cell, where it landed in the middle of the floor. A foul stench immediately hit him, but he remained still.

“We found this dead rat in the caves. We remember you said something about eating meat. So we thought, ‘Hey, bet our little Worthless is getting hungry,’ so we picked it up and brought it here for you.”

Slowly, he rolled his head around to look at them. Looking back at them with his own toothy smile and vacant gaze, he said, “Oh, that does look enticing. But my, what is that on your face? Why don’t you just come a little closer?” He moved slowly, pulling himself along with just his front hooves. He opened his mouth and spittle fell to the floor.

The guards looked at each other, and back at the form crawling toward them on the smooth stone floor. “It looks so wonderously soft…mmm, delicious…” He licked his lips again and let his forked tongue roll out. As he passed by the rotting rat, he deftly moved over it and pulled it along with his hind hooves.

“This one ain’t right,” said one guard to the other. “No wonder he went ballistic. Lets just get out of here.”

“No, no, don’t leave...you can’t leave.” He stopped a short distance from the bars, outside the reach of their spears. “Please don’t leave...your face looks so good. Mmm, just think of how squishy your eyes would be. Pop ‘em in my mouth and enjoy that wonderful jelly rolling around on my tongue. Ooh, and the juicy inside…” He trailed off and looked past them, apparently lost in some memory.

“You’re fuckin’ crazy. Enjoy your rat, Worthless.” The guards went to leave, giving one last scowl as they turned away. Quickly, their captive picked up the dead rat and threw its corpse against the bars. Putrid liquid flew from the rat on impact, causing the guards to recoil. They looked on in confusion and anger as their prisoner rolled about on the floor, laughing maniacally.

In the shadows, Chrysalis shook her head and retreated back to her chambers to think.