The other hatchlings and I walked down a long hallway. The Changeling Hive was composed of hundreds of cave like hallways stretching around the main centre part of the hive, they were mostly filled with working drones making their way to unknown locations… Or so it looked from a standard point of view.
I closed my eyes and entered the Hive Mind. My entire mind was filled with thoughts and emotions. I felt the drones around me; one was struggling to move several eggs across to the hatching grounds. I could feel his legs ache as if they were my own… Only a seeing the hive from this view could you see it as anything more than a few caves and caverns filled with some insects.
“Come, my little changeling” a soft voice went through my head. I opened my eyes to see the Queen Chrysalis, waiting for me impatiently with the rest of the hatchlings. I was so immersed in the Hive mind that I stopped walking with them.
I ran to catch up with them and we continued.
“Do not do that again my child. I’d rather we get to training as soon as possible” The Queen said sternly, but not angrily. The queen was taking us to the training room because she liked to personally train the latest set of drones chosen to be Spies.
“Sorry, my queen” I replied
“And this goes for all of you” She turned to me and the other hatchlings “When you are living with the ponies, collecting love and making sure they never find us, stopping in the middle of the street to fully connect to the hive will set suspicions in the pony’s minds.”
“Yes, my queen.” We all said in unison. She smiled and we continued again.
After a long while I thought of something. It felt important so I decided to ask. If anyone would know the answer, it was Queen Chrysalis, mother to us all.
My wings started to buzz and I was slowly and smoothly lifted off the ground. I flew up to eye level with the Queen and hovered next to her.
“My-My Queen?” I asked nervously.
“Yes, my little changeling?” She said without looking at me.
I took a deep breath and exhaled. “What happens if we are caught?”
The Queen sighed to the question which felt so simple to her.
“Run, little changeling… run as far as possible” She said.
“But what if we can’t?” I wasn’t fully grown or experienced, but I was smart.
The Queen turned to look at me, her green eyes connecting with my curious blue ones. After a while she smiled. “Listen carefully now and let me explain it to you all.”
The times seemed endless as I sat in my cell… They had found me… They had found me, put me in this Dark cell leaving me cold and hungry… but those were small things to me right now. They took my freedom, my magic, but the only thing I really cared about was this… They took my hive.
My hive was gone from my mind. Disconnected. Scared. Alone.
My Cell consisted of four dark walls, a metal door, and a barred window. A pile of hay was in one corner of the room for sleep and a bucked on the other for defecation which I couldn’t even do.
I don’t even have the organs to do that. I feed off love, you can’t poop that.
All my knowledge was learned through The Hivemind. If anyone in the hive knew it, I could too by reading through their memories. And now that it was gone…I don’t feel like myself…
I took a deep breath and slowly regained myself.
It’s okay… It’s okay. You’re strong and can find a way out of this by yourself.
After five long minutes my fear had dissolved.
If you are found, you are in grave danger, my child. To the ponies, we are monsters.
I stood up from my cell and examined myself. I was relatively uninjured despite a few bruises. I had a metal belt strapped and locked around my wings, pressing them tightly to my carapace; there was no possible way of flying out of here. The ‘Magic Inhibitor’ was still locked around my horn.
Again I tried to use my magic. Without the hive guiding me I was almost unable to cast the small transformation spell. If I was connected to the hive it would have only taken a second…but not now. I pictured the pony in my head and concentrated on it. Mare, Pegasus, small, white fur, short mane and tail, both are cyan.after a few second of pure focus I felt my size begin to change, the form slowly taking shape as a green flame… but almost immediately the Magic Inhibiter took effect and the spell was broken and an electric shock went down from my horn into my carapace, making me collapse to the floor…
“Lets… not try that again…” I said to myself. I slowly got to my feet and thought again.
Maybe I can explore this cell a bit more.
I examined the exits.
The small barred window looking out across the vast city of Canterlot. It was big enough for an average sized changeling drone to fit through. I tried to pulling and pushing at the bars, wouldn’t even budge.
I was about to see if I could pick the lock on these when I heard hoof steps from down the hall. They stopped at my cell and a key was shoved into the lock. The sound of the key turning felt like a funeral bell chiming its way into my skull.
The door opened.
Two white unicorn guards stepped in. I quickly scrambled back into the far wall and gave a hiss that would put any snake to shame. The guards didn’t move or react to this, they only stood there. Then another pony entered the cell. He was still a guard, and a unicorn, but his armour was different, it was purple and lined with gold.
We both stared each other… I glared intimidatingly at him, hiding the true fear I was feeling… He remained expressionless. After a second he nodded to the two guards, they nodded back and started towards me.
Never try to fight one of those snivelling guards my child. We were made to hide. The ponies see us as nothing than monsters… leaches feeding their backs… and they won’t hesitate step on us.
Suddenly, like instincts to survive, I lashed out my hoof without knowing it. It connected with one the guard’s eyes. The guard jumped back in pain. His eye was bright red from the blow. I remained as still as a statue, my back against the wall.
I watched as the guard regained himself and looked at the commander. He nodded and the other guard approached me. His horn lit up with a gold light and suddenly a golden aura surrounded me. I struggled all I could but all the magic did was tighten its grasp on me. I was pinned to the wall with great force, I could barely breathe.
The commander nodded again, still that expressionless look plastered on his face. The guard who I had hit walked up to me and raised his hoof. I gulped and braced myself for the worst.
The powerful punch connected with my stomach. All the air flew out of my lungs, and then the guard who held me in his magical grip tightened his grip around my neck preventing me to breathe. My vision became hazy as another punch came to my stomach.
This is it… You’re going to going to die down here in the dark place, away from the hive and your body is going to be tossed into a furnace without a second thought. Or maybe they’re going to cut you open and study your insides; you are the first changeling to properly be captured after all. Or maybe-
“That’s enough” said a low condescending voice.
Suddenly I was dropped to the floor and I gulped in air… beautiful air. I lay on the floor. Defeated.
“Grab him, and if it resists again, kill him” Came the voice again which I think belonged to the commander…
The two guards walked towards me. I didn’t resist this time. They picked me up, each one holding one of my four-hooves in their magic, letting my hind legs drag against the floor.
With the commander leading the way, they carried me out of my cell and into a small hall.
How nice of them.
I had my head down, but I had my eyes looking around scanning for escape routes. The hallways were torch-lit; the walls were made of concrete that had long withered away.
My head lowered and my body went limp, too weak to go on any further after the beating.
They mostly took me down more dark hallways. But I made sure to make a mental note of everywhere we went. Eventually we came to a much larger hallway which was well-lit and kept cleaner.
Ponies passed us from all sides, more guards, a few servants, all of them stared at me warily.
Are they really that scared?
Eventually the commander stopped at a door and walked inside, the guards carrying me quickly followed.
The room was dark and windowless. I was placed and chained to a chair by my ankles in the centre of the room. I think I heard the guards leave and I was left in darkness…
Okay, okay. If there were any time to panic…now would be the time. Oh Queen Chrysalis… Mother… Help me.
I called out mentally and even physically a few times, but I knew no one would hear me… Oh how I wish I could hear the comforting thoughts of all my family, All 1748 of them.
I heard a small whimper leave my lips… If only I could cry… but drones can’t cry… No! Giving in like this means they’ve won. If I give up then they’ll have the location of my family within the hour… Well…
I raised my head and stared into the darkness.
I won’t give them the satisfaction.
After a few long minutes I heard a voice.
“You will speak when spoken to and answer all questions you are asked” came a voice. It was the same voice from before, though I couldn’t see him in the darkness, I knew it was the commanding guard that brought me here.
Who did he think he was trying to order me around?
“Am I understood?” Came the voice again.
“Go buck yourself” I told him. It was an insult that I picked up on while I was living with among the ponies as one of them… or so they thought… I didn’t have much time to think about it as a surge of electricity ran through my carapace and into the rest of my body.
When the pain ceased the commander spoke again.
“You will tell me everything you know about the changelings or more pain will come.”
To this I remained silent and the darkness returned just that for a while until the commander spoke again at last.
“What is the location of Chrysalis?”
“Again like I said… Go buck yourself” I said, my willpower holding steady. “You won’t break me…but you can try though if it makes you feel like you’re in control.”
A pony grabbed me by my jaw and said "You will tell us what we need to know, monster, or you will be "
To this more electrical shocks followed and more questions. The shocks got worse after a while. I remained silent the entire time. After the tenth shock my body finally gave in to the pain, and I passed out.
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 
