Twilight groaned as her and Tranquil approached the territory of the Everfree Hive. "I wish I didn't have to be here." Twilight said.
"Still thinking about what Red Fang said?" Tranquil asked.
"I just can't believe Celestia would do something like that."
"Hmm, sending a small army to eradicate the bat-ponies under the pretense of them aiding Nightmare Moon, after sending her sister to the moon, sorry but I can't clarify weather that would be true or not. I was called back to the Tree of Harmony when Sombra betrayed his element one hundred years before that."
"I've been meaning to ask. Since you were created by the Tree of Harmony, does that make it like your parent?"
"No. I was created by it as a kind of self-thinking mobile body and as its protector. The Tree of Harmony is technically female and as her protector I'm able to wield all six of the elements at their full power should the need ever arise."
Before Twilight or Tranquil could say another word, everything went black.

Tranquil and Twilight woke up in cocoons on a low ceiling.
Tranquil re-positioned herself from being upside down to being right side up and relaxed.
"The Princess will be here soon, please get comfortable." a changeling drone said as he came in, then left.
Twilight looked angrily at Tranquil, who just shrugged the look off as she closed her eyes.
After an hour or so, a changeling came in that looked different from the rest. She had the same black carapace as the drone that had come in, a blue saddle like carapace on her back that covered the same area as Chrysalis' did, complete with the parts that went around her waist, a pale green mane and tail with bright green stripes that mostly hung down on her right side and looked to be made of a membrane like material with holes in them, her eyes were oval-like and slitted colored a light blue color, on her head was a crown that looked similar to Chrysalis'. "I'm Princess Shadow Mind." Shadow Mind said as she cut the cocoons down and broke them open.
"Been a while since I was in one of those, I'm Tranquil Wind and this is Princess Twilight Sparkle." Tranquil said.
"Nice to meet you Shadow Mind." Twilight said.
"Wait, Tranquil Wind, as in the guardian of the spirits of the Elements of Harmony?"
"I take it that Chrysy has spoken of me."
"Yea, she's in the throne room, I think you can find your way." Shadow Mind was happy that Tranquil was here.
"Yep." Tranquil said before teleporting away.
"Okay, so what now?" Twilight asked.
"Hold still, this might feel strange." Shadow Mind said before placing her front hooves on Twilight's back and focusing her magic into twilight.
Green flames lit up around Twilight and slowly crept up her hooves, turning them into black changeling hooves, complete with the holes. The flames continued to her waist, where a saddle carapace, the same color as her coat, began to form, while still covering her body in a black carapace. The flames finished creating the saddle carapace, which matched in general appearance to Shadow Mind's own saddle carapace then started on her tail and mane. As the flames passed over Twilight's tail and mane, they became membrane like, turned completely sapphire blue, and gained several holes. The flames soon finished her body, mane, and tail. The flame then spread down the length of her wings, turning them into thinner versions of Chrysalis' though they were white and matched in appearance to Shadow Mind's wings which were light blue. Next the flames changed Twilight's eyes to match those of a changeling princess or changeling queen and gave her fangs. Finally, the flames briefly engulfed her crown and turned it into one a changeling princess would wear. Twilight swayed a bit after the magic that had been forced into her dissipated before shaking the feeling away.
"How do you feel?" Shadow Mind asked
"Alienated from my own body." Twilight stated plainly.
"Good, then there were no side-effects other than what I've theorized."
"Side-effects?"
"Well to put it simply, I wasn't entirely sure if you would be effected deeper than intended or not. Other than that, if my theory is correct then the only real side-effects from this should consist of some emotional numbness, and possibly a preference to be around positive emotions, both would be temporary of course."
"Let's just get to the peace talks, hopefully I wont here another story about Celestia's darker side."
"Very well, and you shouldn't, unless you consider teasing my mom as dark."

with Chrysalis and Tranquil
"So, Twilight's the new element of magic." Chrysalis said after getting off Tranquil. Like the others before her, Chrysalis had tackled Tranquil almost the second she recognized her.
"Yea and seeing as you recognized my color scheme and cutie mark, I take it you had to deal with her once in the past." Tranquil said.
"Yea, a few years ago, I tried invading Canterlot because my hive was starving, she managed to see past my disguise and then her brother and his wife, the one I was disguised as since it was their wedding, blasted me and my warriors and infiltrators out of Canterlot with a love spell."
Tranquil began giggling at that. "You were defeated by the must nutritious source of food for your race?"
"Hey!... we feed off emotions because they hold an inner power and love is the strongest of those."
"Actually friendship is the strongest because it can only be felt by a group, not just one or two ponies, and is literally the embodiment of Harmony."
"What ever. Why are you even here?"
"A guardian can't just go and see one of their former elements after being gone a thousand years?"
"When it come to you... no."
"Well I can't say, and you know you can't get it out of me."
Chrysalis hissed, it was true, one couldn't get some kinds of information out of Tranquil if they held her life in their hooves, literally. "Fine." she hissed in a language that sounded like buzzing.
"Oh come on Chrysy, it's not like I'm standing over your daughter with a dagger." Tranquil's sarcastic edge was obvious even though she had spoke in the same language as Chrysalis had.

With Twilight and Shadow Mind.
"So, you think I can ask you a few questions about changelings and changeling hives?" Twilight asked after finishing the actual peace negotiations.
"Sure." Shadow Mind said.
"Okay, first of all, why the insect terminology even though it's clear that changelings are more pony than insect?"
"Oh that's just a little joke we changelings like using. For instance, a drone is a male changeling while nymph is the term we use for females."
"Okay, so what about that?" Twilight motioned to a changeling nymph that was standing on a wall, sticking to it perfectly.
"Passive magic, kind of like how earth ponies passively aid in plant growth, or how pegasi passively walk on clouds. It's also one of the reason why unicorns and alicorns are forbidden to use changeling magic, I don't know all the details though."
"What about feeding off love?"
"Actually we feed off all emotions, which is why I wanted to be on peaceful terms with your kingdom before I take over when mom dies, if she dies anytime soon that is. The Friendship Rainbow Kingdom is full of friendship which is more nutritious than love. To answer your question though, it's both a passive and active form of changeling magic. we can actively cast the spell to take in large amounts of an emotion or we can absorb it passively."
"Okay. So, if changelings are similar to ponies as much as they seem to be then do you have jobs for each one?"
"Yes. Workers help build or repair the hive, infiltrators take on pony forms and hide within pony society to collect love, collectors enter the places where infiltrators are and collect the love that the infiltrators have gathered before bringing it back to the hive, nursers are assigned to families and help take care of the hatch-lings and teach them, and warriors are the military and guard forces."
"So changelings lay eggs?"
"Yes we do, changelings can mate and reproduce in a similar way to ponies, though the hatch-lings are at least four times as mischievous as a pony's foal."
"Okay. I've heard rumors that changelings are emotionless, is that true?"
"Yes and no."
"huh?"
"Yes it's true for Insect Hives, but no it's not true for Free Hives like this one."
"Insect and free hives?"
"When a changeling starts a hive, weather they're a changeling that broke off from their original hive or a changeling princess that left their hive, they choose weather they want to start off with an Insect or Free Hive. Insect Hives consist of mindless drones and nymphs who obey their queen and only have enough intelligence to keep a good disguise, this kind can be changed to a Free Hive if the queen wishes so. Free Hives consist of drones and nymphs who have at least a descent amount of free will, individuality, and can think mostly freely. Free Hives can vary depending on the amount of each of these, but the highest they can go is when the changelings just have to obey their queen, but are free to object if they wish so. A Free Hive can't be turned into an Insect Hive because of the individuality that the changelings have in a Free Hive."
"Changelings can leave their hive?"
"Yes. In a Free Hive, a changeling can ask to leave the hive and if the queen excepts then the changeling is severed from the hive-mind and free to do what they want, though most changelings that are severed from the hive-mind have some trouble adjusting."
"So changelings have a hive-mind?"
"It's more of a telepathic link that serves for communication purposes, but hive-mind was the closest insect term to such a thing."
"Do changelings turn ponies into changelings?"
"Only if the pony and a small group of changelings are a part of a personal hive-mind, which is something a lot of changelings that leave the hive set up to communicate with their friends, and they wish to start a hive, then the pony can choose to either be severed from the hive-mind or turned into a changeling to be part of the hive. A hive can't have a pony connected to the hive-mind."
"So a changeling can just connect anypony to a personal hive-mind?"
"Of course not. The pony and any changelings that wish to be part of a personal hive-mind have to be willing to be connected before the changeling can do so. Changelings also can connect to other changeling's hive-minds if all members of both hive-minds are willing and have no darker intentions for accepting."
"Okay. What if a hive queen dies and they don't have an heir?"
"Then the changelings choose the ling with the most leadership skills and best intentions for the hive."
"Ling?"
"You ponies have terms like anypony or nopony, we changelings have similar terms like anyling or noling."
"Okay. How does one identify a changeling's hive, or former hive?"
"They have to have knowledge of all changeling hives to do so, I'm required to have that knowledge as a hive princess. A changeling hive is identified by their wing, saddle carapace, carapace, mane, tail, eye, and sometimes fang colors. These can't be changed unless the changeling is altered by the queen after she creates a new hive. Hives also have a hive symbol, mom's hive symbol is a red heart with changeling queen wings behind it and it's what I use as my cutie mark when disguised in my main disguise."
"Alter?"
"As you've no doubt noticed, my mom's colors don't completely match up to the other changelings of the hive like my own do. When a changeling starts a hive, if the new hive's queen is a normal changeling then they take on a queen like form, similar to mine. Either way though, when a changeling starts a hive for the first time, they must change the color scheme of the members of their hive to not match any existing hive. By doing this, the queen makes her hive an official hive and must send infiltrators as messengers to allow other hives to know. Once a changeling queen has created the color scheme of their new hive, they use a small spell to bind the coloration to the DNA of all members of the hive, including themselves. This means that when an heir is born, they have the colorization of the new hive, like I do."
"Okay, may I ask what a saddle carapace is?"
"This." Shadow Mind motioned to the saddle carapace on her back and then the one on Twilight's back and the one on a drones back. "The saddle carapace is a part of the changelings. It's also what is used to turn ponies into changelings."
"Okay, what's with the magic aura your kind has?"
"It's just changeling magic, it's always green and always seems mostly stable."
"Okay, I think that covers everything, so when me and Tranquil leave, can you drop this spell, it still feels strange?"
"Sorry, it's a temporary spell with only enough charge for about three hours, it's been two and a half hours. I can't reverse the spell, that's actually another reason it's forbidden. You can't revers a changeling disguise spell unless you can drain a spell of the magic it's using or block it from pulling in magic since, unlike changelings, ponies don't have the natural ability to reverse it."
"So I'm stuck like this until the spell runs out of charge?"
"Basically."
"I need an explanation."
"For changelings, we just activate the spell and we can hold it indefinitely. Ponies on the other hoof, aren't built to use it. If a pony uses the disguise spell then it is fueled by the pony's emotional magic which would normally be bad. A side effect to using changeling magic is that you instantly start using the passive side of it, which would include instinctive disguising, wall walking, emotion feeding, and even the changeling language, though that's just instinctive information that most changelings know."
"Changelings have their own language?"
"Yea, it consists of buzzing at different pitches and some other things, I never really bothered to figure the rest of it out."
"Could you give an example?"
"Sure thing." Shadow buzzed whatever she said next.
"Huh?"
"Hehe, I said that you should be going."
"Okay." Twilight left after that.

"So did you learn anything interesting?" Tranquil asked on their way back to the kingdom.
"A lot about changelings and a little about their magic." Twilight said, the spell hadn't worn off just yet, but she was managing to keep in the air with her changeling wings.
"Then I take it you learned about the side effects of using changeling magic."
"Yea, though doesn't that mean they apply to you?"
"Technically I'm a changeling, just as I'm technically a unicorn, Pegasus, and alicorn. I don't lose the natural magic of the race I become when it changes, it just goes dormant, but passive effects stay."
"Okay, so now we need to go to the caves under the kingdom and meet some unicorn named Midnight Heart, who practices forbidden magic, though I think I can understand why they'd want peace with my kingdom."
"Our kingdom."
"Huh?"
"I'm part of the Tree of Harmony, the Seed of Harmony is what created the castle that turned Ponyville into The Friendship Rainbow Kingdom, so it's mine and your friends' kingdom as well."
"Oh, that makes sense."

Author's Note

This chapter partly served to give information about my changeling head cannon.