Do you know what I hate? I hate being alone… being alone is a changeling’s worst fear. To be cut off from the hive. To be unable to call for help. To be me right now…

I opened my eyes to see I was back in my own cell… Alone. I guess they gave up on interrogating me after I passed out. For that I was thankful.

My body ached all over. Forcing myself to sit up, I turned my gaze to the small barred window. From what I could see, the sun was setting.

Had they really been interrogating me for so long? Or had I been passed all this time? Either way, I’m glad it’s over. Though I bet they’re going to try again tomorrow… and the day after that… and the day after that… and the day after that…

This horrible sense of aloneness seemed to have no end… I feared that no matter how much resistance I give, I’ll eventually crack. To be forced to betray your own Hive? It’s unthinkable… It’s wrong!

Once again I began to panic about the coming future. I felt myself slowly become more and more afraid.

I needed to get my mind off this or I’ll go insane. Suddenly, an idea popped into my head.

Slowly and painfully getting to my feet I went to one of the bare walls of my cell and used my hoof to mark a straight line on the wall. This was a thing prisoners did to keep a perception of time. I learned that through one of those movie-theatres things that portray stories for the pony’s entertainment. At first I never saw the point in them, just distractions from me gathering love. But as I became more required to go there, Taking a mare or being taken by some colt on a date there to gather love. After a while I found pony Books, Movies, Plays, and Games, to be quite entertaining.

Still feeling the aching pain of the torture I went to the other side of the room and lay my head I limped to a corner of the cell and I laid there. Hoping the pain would subside when I woke. If I could I wouldn’t wake up at all… Anything to end this torment… this aloneness. As I laid there staring at the mark I had put on the wall I imagined how many marks would be there before all this ended… if it ended…

As I drifted into an uncomfortable sleep, I decided to reflect on the things I did in the past. What else was there to do in a life with no future… but recollect?

“My Queen, why do the ponies hate us?” I mentally asked as I stood on my left hind leg while Taking the form of a different pony every five seconds. I had spent a few months of training in the hive and my skills were already getting better.

In this training session it was just me. The rest of the young changelings from before had left to for the sleeping chambers; however the queen told me to stay and work on my balance until I got it right. In the hive there was no room for imperfection. She was very stern when it came to perfection. Once again thanks to the Hive Mind, The Queen didn’t need to actually be in the room to view how I was doing. She could easily be doing other productive things at the same time.

“Out of all the thousands of changeling in this hive, you are by far the most curious”

“Sorry, my Queen” I said, not losing my balance, I didn’t want to disappoint her further.

The Queen was silent for a few moments… then I felt her perk up.

“That’s it! Curious. That is what I will call you”

“Yes, my Que-Wait what!?”

The surprise of the Queens last statement caused me to lose my balance and topple over onto the hard stone floor. The Queen Noticed and teleported to the room right in front of me looking slightly angry.

“I’m sorry, my Queen” I said “But I just thought you… you named me…”

After a while the Queens angry expression dissipated.

“That I did, my little changeling”

“But… Aren’t drones not supposed to have names?” The Hive had discarded names after it was becoming more difficult to name everyone. Instead we tell who a Changeling is by certain emotions and memories they give off.

“No, they’re not. That does not mean I do not care for them, I love all my changelings but I do name the drones that stand out to me. You should be honoured, Curious.”

Dumbfounded by my new title I couldn’t think of anything to say so instead I decided to bow in respect to the Queen.

“As for your other question, why do the ponies hate us?” The queen went silent and I stood up from my bowing position as she thought. “I don’t know, my changeling. It is a question that I have been pondering for centuries. Why they truly hate us… Why we don’t live in harmony together. I can tell you how it started but first let me ask you a question. Do you know why I never talk about my mother?”

I could feel the entire changeling hive focusing on me and the queen, their curious minds like bees to honey. I could see the queen ignoring the sensation of the entire hive looking at me and her… mentally of course. I just shook my head.

“Long ago, back to the three pony tribes had just settled in Equestria, little did they know that Equestria already held occupants to a race, the changelings. We lived happily in our land, feeding off of animals with small amounts of love. It was quite a peaceful existence but then we began to hear stories of a brutal winter creeping its way down from the North… This… created problems for us. The cold did not affect us like other races since our bodies were a lot more durable to cold and dank places. However, the creatures we fed off of to stay alive weren’t so fortunate. With lack of food the changelings started to die out… My mother, the first queen of Equestria, did the only thing she could. Using our unfertilised eggs as a form of stasis pod, she sent the entire hive, including myself, into Hibernation for a few years. Long enough for the Winter to end. When we awoke from our slumber, we found that the Winter was over… and that three tribes had happily settled down on our lands without even taking any notice of us. My mother was furious, the moment she saw them she immediately plan an attack that would drive them out of our lands and never come back. then we saw how much love the ponies bared, it was like a fine banquet had laid itself out before us.
“Back then I…” The Queen seemed to falter at this part. She walked over to the other side of the room, trying to work up the courage to say the next words. It was odd to see the ‘all powerful queen Chrysalis’ like that, it was like when a child sees their parent cry for the first time, though that was reality. It reminded the entire hive that though we call her queen… we are still her children. After a while the queen turned to face me “I was weak back then! Merely a foal! I convinced my mother to try and be diplomatic with them. We could unite races together,- become part of a vast civilization… It took some convincing but my mother eventually agreed… We didn’t make it that far. Not even a day after we made ourselves known to them, all three tribes marched on our hive. They set fire to the hive and smoked us out like rats so they could slaughter us out in the open. My mother died in the main chambers protecting me. After I escaped I was on my own, I had to fend for myself until I was old enough to produce fertilised eggs. I think you’re all smart enough to guess the rest”

Very few female changelings are born. There was about one in a one hundred thousand chance, and the males are almost non-existent. They were the only changelings that could lay eggs to support a hive, which is why they are crowned queen and the highest importance. As for drones, we weren’t male or female, we were simply drones.

The Queen turned to me, expecting another question but I had none.

“Your mother must have loved you very much, my Queen” I said.

“Do you think she protected me out of love!?” she yelled angrily, making me scuttle into a corner in fear and I could feel the hive do the same. The Queen continued.

“She hated me! She saw nothing in me but a disappointment! Now look at me, I’m queen of an entire hive! I bested her by far! Sure I’ve had some slipups like the when the cave supports failed and the hive almost collapsed… a-and the loves supplies have almost gone dry again… w-which I can fix I… I just need to focus a bit on collecting love, there’s always an idiot Stallion with lots of love the Spies can go after.” I currently was in the corner of the room with my hooves over my eyes. I felt like informing her that we didn’t currently have any spies, but it was probably a bad time, that was also why I and the few others were personally picked to be the new spies of the hive, so we could hide in the pony’s everyday life as if we were their new neighbour, or as their coltfriend et cetera.

Eventually her rambling rant ceased and I felt her all seeing eyes eventually find me hiding from her rage. Suddenly something started to pull me forward. I opened my eyes to see a green aura forming around me and pulling me towards the Queen. I didn’t resist, it would be worse if I did. It then pulled me into the air so I was eye to eye with the Queen.

“THAT, dear changeling, is the best answer I have for you. It’s better if they think us monsters and stay away from us than they think us as a nuisance and try to… eradicate us. I will not risk my hive for some snivelling peace treaty… Now, I have a question for you, curious…”

I gulped… Whatever the question was, nothing good could come of it. The almighty Queen Chrysalis, mother to us all, didn’t just ask questions unless there was a matter of interest or importance to her, and since I was stuck in her magical grasp and unable to escape, my future wasn’t looking too good.

“What does it mean to be a good queen?”

Baffled by the question I thought long and hard about it. I wasn’t even sure if this was a wrong or right question. Or what the Queen would do if I did get it wrong. Thanks to the Hive Mind I had a basic knowledge of monarchy systems, Pony and Changeling but I never really thought about what made a good queen for myself personally. In the end I decided to let my imagination do the talking and fantasized the perfect queen.

“W-Well… A good queen should be a ruler that does what is best for her subjects. She must be willing to put aside wars and councils to tend to her subjects and do what is best for them. She must be a warrior, so she can protect her subjects if need be. She must be a shadow to hide her hive from the light. And as much as her subjects need her, so does she need them to help her with the work and to remind her that she is the centre puzzle piece of a great civilization…” I finished and the queen was silent…

Author's Note

Psst. Hey, this fic isn't dead.

Yeah... It has been a while since I put out a new chapter for this. Honestly, I considered this a side-story to write whenever I had writers block with other things. But now I decided another chapter was way overdue so here you go. I hope there isn't any too much grammar in this, there's bound to be some. Either way I hope you enjoyed this.

Leave a comment and tell me what you think, I appreciate it!

P.S Sorry if you guys see two authors notes. I can see two (One of which I wrote earlier basically saying the same thing). I really don't know why that is