Court was in session.
It was promising to be a rather eventful one, really.
The chamber where the annual meeting of the hives was a massive dome, large enough for a Ursa Major to lair in, was constructed of black chitin and weathered mortar; there were innumerable rows of seats all along the sides of the dome, enough to fit two thousand bodies comfortably inside. Changelings of every kind sat were in attendance; the queens of minor hives and their cohorts, the traitors and exiles of hives dead and gone, unlanded princesses desperate to swear themselves to whoever would support them, and sellswords willing to make deals with those willing to seek their skills, all without a lick of any sort of trust for anyone else around them.
Antenna was glad she wasn't up there, in the skittering masses. She was down below, in the central chamber where the real powers in the room were. While she was far weaker then everyone else down in the pit, she was in little danger, because her queen would not wish to put her in harm's way.
There were eight great stone pedestals in the center of the room; one stood above them all, the smooth black stone gilded and gem-studded. The other seven were similar in size but were made of rougher, less ornate stone, and were arrayed around the central chamber in a circle-shape, with a healthy amount of space between everyone.
There were four queens in the central pit; Antenna was standing next to her queen, the High Queen, in fact, wearing nothing but a brown wool robe and bearing a stylus and a slab of soft gel. As the court scribe of High Queen Celaenia, her job was simple; to record everything of importance that was said or done during the proceedings of court. Antenna appreciated her job; she was one of five changelings in the hive who knew how to write, which she was very proud of. She had been Celaenia's scribe for four lunar years now, and she was content in her work.
Antenna, however, understood that this wasn't a normal day. Usually, courtly meetings between the hives were relatively dull affairs; a murder here and a skirmish there, the occasional exchange of resources, nothing especially important of note. All the current Great Queens were here, however, which already marked it as important. Usually, it was rare if even two of the Great ones to even bother to show up, and Celaenia rarely attended such meetings herself. The fact that every single changeling queen of importance was gathered under a single roof, along with all the assorted gentry, was enough to make this a historical occasion.
Antenna had her stylus ready, and soon, after Celaenia raised her hoof, to quiet the gathered masses, she prepared to begin writing. The sudden silence made her feel slightly startled, in a distant sense.
Queen Celaenia, waiting for the gathered thousands to quiet, looked gorgeous and morbid, like she had for many generations. She was not an especially intimidating figure; her mane was a pale purple with fine white stripes, and her eyes were the same lavender shade. She wore little jewelry, other than a few silver bangles balanced on her legs, and her face looked relatively innocuous; while beautiful, it held little emotion, as if the chitin on her face was growing stiff. Her mane was of medium length, and rested apon her head was the top of a great changeling skull, ivory-black, gilded with gold and inscribed with silver, and bearing a great sharp horn that resembled a terrible knife.
Celaenia, besides wearing the skull of the racial deity of the changelings as a crown, was also covered with spiders; this was her trademark, one she had made clear over many years of rule. Little white spiders nested in her crown, crawled in her hair, and made webs inside the holes on her legs. It was sometimes rumored that she had no control over them, and that she had long went mad; Antenna knew that, if this was the case, then her madness was hidden very well.
"I suppose we are all know why we are here, yes?" Celaenia asked the gathered queens, her voice, even and calm, reverberating throughout the room. Antenna was vaguely aware that there was some sort of magic spell involved to make everyone in the pit audible for everyone else, but she was no mage, and simply accepted that Celaenia's soft voice sounded like it was coming from every direction.
The first Great Queen to reply to Celaenia's supposed question was Sibine; she stood at the pedestal directly to the side of Celaenia, and wore a dour expression on her face. Her stout torso and short-cut blue mane testified to her fighting abilities, and the fact that she was wearing more armor than her guards said wonders about her personality. Sibine was, however, one of the only queens to regularly attend these meetings. Antenna knew that, while she was often curt and often seemed short in temper, she had a sort of loyalty to Celaenia, and that Celaenia appreciated her support.
"One of Acherontia's brats took over Canterlot." Sibine sighed, quite plainly. She glared at the fellow queen she named, who seemed nonplussed by the accusation.
Acherontia herself was a stately and ancient individual, quite possibly the oldest changeling in the room. Her territory, grim and sparse Trotslyvania, was isolated from the touch of other hives and was, ultimately, her domain. She stood tall and regal, even beyond the typical queen, and her pink-grey mane was once said to be a deep purple; the only sign of this was her eyes and belly, both a lively purple that was very nearly black. Light cracks on her skin, around her eyes and mouth, testified to just how utterly old she was. While her hive was easily the smallest among the Great queens and age had long caused her marshal abilities to fade, no one has ever seen a changeling die of age, and she was not alive today because she was weak.
To Sibine's question, she smiled lightly, causing the worn lines on her face to become even more noticeable. Acherontia was known to smile often; this was not seen as a comforting quality.
"Everyone knows that, Sibine." Acherontia replied casually, her shockingly light voice carrying little of the weight that would be appropriate for the topic. If anything, she sounded a little bored.
Sibine made a face; the two guards who flanked her, both wearing armor suited for their positions, shifted into a more active posture, as if preparing to take flight.
Celaenia casually raised a hoof; Sibine's guards immediately returned to their previous positions. Antenna thought that, overall, this was going rather well. There wasn't any obvious casualties amongst the audience, and the queens all seemed mostly united in their abject hatred of something.
While Sibine and Acherontia were content in having a glaring contest, with one party actually glaring and the other giving the more angry participant a small grin, one of the other high queens decided to speak up.
Antenna actually had to take some time to remember the name of the queen who spoke up; it was Mymaridae. She was a rather small queen, skinny and frail, and she had no guards with her, an uncommon thing in court. The color of her hair, a silvery color that wasn't white but very close to it, was shared by her eyes; it was a rather unsettling effect, truly, given her obvious frailty and weakness. Mymaridae's hive was reclusive; no one knew where it was, even, and she only showed up when the Celaenia herself sent a message. Some suspected buffalo territory, or some forgotten city. No one knew, though.
Mymaridae, besides being frail, quiet, and young, had also been reportedly tracked down and killed at least five times by now; there was even a decapitation involved, and Antenna saw the head when it was presented to the court, last spring. The pale-haired queen always showed up again for events like this, however, and Antenna had a healthy fear of changelings that keep coming back after they die. She had a healthy fear of everyone in the room, of course, but when Mymaridae started speaking, her voice light and wavering slightly, Antenna immediately started recording what she said.
"What of the alicorns?"
Celaenia actually answered her directly; while doing so, she unfolded a small letter on her podium, and glanced at it briefly.
"All four of the existent alicorns now rule from the capital of the Crystal Empire."
There was a bit of a fuss when this was heard by all the little nobles; the frozen north was hostile enough, and with Equestria destabilized, there wasn't exactly a lot of free love around for the average queen with a dozen hatchlings to feed.
Mymaridae seemed to accept that, but, to Antenna's surprise, she actually said something else.
"Is there any particular reason as to why the alicorns have yet to destroy her?" she asked, almost sounding polite.
Acherontia grinned; Sibine frowned.
Celaenia just gestured to her right, and Antenna quickly grasped her stylus, because her queen's general stepped up to speak.
The former Queen Chrysalis had seen better days; her attack on Canterlot cost her most of her hive, and quartered the total amount of changelings in existence. While she was by far the queen with the most militaristic skill in several generations, she arrived to Tir Na Bog a month after the invasion with a shattered leg and a missing eye. Normally, this would qualify for an immediate culling; Celaenia, in her mercy, allowed her to live, on the condition that she stepped down from her spot in the council in exchange for being appointed to the commander of her military.
Antenna knew that the queen, who was formerly the most powerful amongst the council, hated Celaenia and wished her nothing but a lonely death. However, she wasn't stupid. Celaenia's primary method for controlling her rebellious high commander was by only allowing the healers to work on the former queen after she completed tasks for her; it was a proper method, in Antenna's mind.
Chrysalis was wearing a fine iron helm, and bore a eyepatch over her left eye; even though it has been more than a year, her left front leg was still visibly weak and required a brace. Ultimately, she was an intimidating figure, the tallest changeling in the room, discounting Acherontia.
"Celestia requires her Elements of Harmony to fight her foes safely." Chrysalis rasped darkly, apparently regarding the frailer queen's question ridiculous, "Every time she has tried to fight directly in the last several years, she has lost. Only five of the Elements were present at the Galla, and they absconded from Canterlot when it became apparent that many of the attendees at the Gala were dominated by a changeling queen."
Antenna wrote that all down, dutifully and with great care.
Mymaridae nodded her head, however, and replied to the general's words.
"How did Acherontia's progeny managed to attend the Grand Galloping Galla?" she asked, "I was under the impression that the security was too great to risk any infiltration. You once said so yourself a decade ago, if I remember correctly."
Chrysalis glared at the weak little queen with abject hatred in her eyes.
"Do you know absolutely nothing about why you are here?" she said, rolling her eye dismissively.
Celaenia, as apposed to disciplining her general, looked at Mymaridae questioningly, as if she was wondering if the two weakest queens on the council were going to try and kill each other. She seemed relatively open to the concept, to say nothing of Sibine's apparent eagerness at what was possibly going to be a duel between cripples.
Mymaridae, giving Chrysalis a look of sickingly genuine kindness, shook her head.
"Oh, not really."
She paused, and Chrysalis snorted.
"However, given your state, I would imagine that information is all you are good for. If you cannot provide it, than I don't see why anyone would allow your continued existence."
Antenna opted to just write all of that down in tiny print, and not put down Chrysalis's reply, which consisted of a hiss.
Celaenia, apparently bored with watching the two weakest queens on the floor bickering at each other, spoke towards Acherontia in a tone that suggested that she wasn't in the mood for a floor show.
"I have a letter from your spawn, Acherontia." she said, holding up the small letter that rested in front of her with her magic, causing her grim helm to light up in strange shades of pink, "Before I read it, however, I think we are all owed some context."
Acherontia, to Antenna's general horror, seemed utterly content in treating her queen's question like it was trivial.
"I treated Carapace like any other of my chosen children." the old queen said with a smile, causing a couple of changelings in the great crowd to wince and mumble and a few of the queens in the circle to blink a few times.
Sibine, for one thing, looked completely and utterly baffled.
"The greatest threat to our species is named Carapace?" she said, voicing the question that was in the minds of many in the room with some amount of enthusiastic confusion, "Were there already too many Antennas around for you to keep track of that day?"
The little scribe winced at the comment, knowing that her name was among the most common for a changeling; at least she had a name, anyway. She liked her name.
Her queen, however, did not seem too concerned by one of her subjects nearly calling another senile, and seemed as if she wasn't pleased by the answer she got.
"I do not tolerate liars, Acherontia."
Antenna felt like she wanted to run and hide when her queen said that, because usually when her queen was serious a changeling was going to die.
Most of the queens in the room looked at the eldest among them with varying combinations of confusion and suspicion; Sabine was by far the one who appeared the most willing to just get up and start killing, while Mymaridae just sat there and looked like she wanted to hear Acherontia's reply, staring at the elder queen with a blank look on her face.
Acherontia, for her part, sounded at least mildly concerned when she replied.
"I do not understand." she replied, making Antenna note that she left out the customary 'your highness', "I did not tell a lie."
Celaenia replied swiftly.
"Yes, you did. There is no way you could have raised her as you normally raise your children, for if that was the case, Carapace would be dead."
After the tense arguments that had occurred earlier, the near-joke made quite a few changelings laugh, and for a few good minutes, court stopped and the chamber was filled with the sound of good cheer.
Acherontia herself, apparently, thought it was funny, and tried to muffle her own laughter; Sabine didn't bother to do so, and had to take a few moments to right herself on her pedestal, to keep herself from falling off it. Mymaridae looked like she was trying to cover her mouth, but Celaenia was laughing at her own joke, just a tiny bit. Even Chrysalis, to Antenna's general amusement, let out a throaty chuckle.
Antenna thought it was nice, to see everyone united in laughter, all because of a few hundred dead royal nymphs. It was heartwarming, really.
Regardless, Antenna immediately wrote down the first actual sentence she heard when the laughter died down; it came from Acherontia, who sounded rather pleased with herself.
"To answer you truthfully, Carapace was a curious nymph, and perhaps I enabled her. She was, ultimately, shy and timid around her siblings, and somehow never managed to figure out that she was supposed to kill some of them."
While Celaenia seemed to accept that, Sibine vaguely looked like she wanted to strangle the elder queen, giving her a look of mild disgust and raising an armored leg off the ground.
"Why didn't you kill her when she didn't show the initiative to live?"
It was a fair question, if worded a little aggressively. If a royal nymph didn't seem to be especially competitive, it was generally assumed that there was something defective about it, and a defective nymph could eventually lead to a defective hive.
Acherontia shrugged her shoulders, as if she was expecting the retort.
"She was intelligent, and never asked me for anything. She came from a rather rebellious clutch, and I did not personally believe she was going to make it outside the hive, and so I left her be. Carapace did not foster any rivalries with her sisters, and they were, ultimately, dismissive of her. When the strongest of them attempted to kill me, Carapace was entirely ignorant of the plot. I would think that she never even thought of usurping me. In fact, when the rest of her sisters attempted to flee with a breeding drone, she left with a satchel of books."
The old queen paused, and frowned lightly.
"Admittedly, Carapace is the only one of her clutch who is alive today, and given that she has managed to take over Canterlot, it seems I made a mistake."
The reactions from the other queens, Antenna noted, were appropriate; Sibine groaned in disbelief, Mymaridae looked at Acherontia with mild confusion, and Chrysalis looked at her elder like she had just said the stupidest thing in the history of changelingkind.
Celaenia, on the other hoof, actually looked like she appreciated the old queens words, and when she began to speak, she nodded slightly towards her.
"Well, with the idea that she is mad in mind, her address towards myself makes far more sense."
Without another word, Celaenia lifted the note off her pedestal, and began to read; Antenna poised her writing utensil, in turn.
"Celaenia, daughter of Larinia, slayer of Mabarida, daughter-killer, kinslayer, corpse-wearer, murderer, queen of crones and the sneakiest whore that has ever crawled in the light of the sun, I am Carapace, daughter of Acherontia, and I am the ruler of Canterlot. My hive consists of three-thousand bodies, with half again as many thralls, and I am offering you peace. Canterlot's armories are full, and my drones are strong.
I have no desire to attack you're worthless domain, nor do I seek conflict with you and your foolish supporters. In return for recognizing me as a equal, I will allow the conclave of queens to continue, as I understand that they would not wish to instate the reforms I have in mind. I will be expecting a emissary from you shortly."
Celaenia finished reading the letter with the same cheerful, breezy tone she had when she started reading it.
The immediate silence was enough to be considered a noise onto itself.
Antenna was dreadfully terrified; she wrote down the entire speech, but was afraid that at least one of the lines was extra-treasonous, and she would be drowned in amber or fed to spiders or something especially creative. She didn't want to be made into jewelry.
When one of the queens spoke up, it was a surprise.
"Well, this is just great." Chrysalis said, giving Acherontia a bitter, disapproving glare, "I suppose you are going to say that you had nothing to do with this?"
Acherontia, for her part, only looked a little proud when she replied to the general, nodding her head just a tad.
"If a mother was guilty of her daughters crime, than everyone in this room would be guilty for something."
Celaenia apparently thought that was funny; Antenna didn't think that was funny at all, but then again, she wasn't a queen, just a scribe.
"Perhaps, but I believe we have greater issues to discuss. Such as the possibility of war."
War. Antenna shivered lightly as she wrote that down; she didn't even like the sound of it.
"I can bring forth two hundred and fifty solders to fight immediately." Sibine said, sounding appropriately proud of herself, "Another fifty could be raised within a week, given the time."
Celaenia, after a few moments of thought, shrugged, and pointed a hoof over towards Acherontia.
"I can supply one hundred armed drones towards this effort." the old queen replied, smilingly lightly, as if that number was not unacceptably small.
"I will supply no solders."
Mymaridae said that like she wasn't the queen with the most precarious position in the room; she sounded like she was sure she was right, and that everyone else was wrong. Mymaridae was weak and her main political opponent had iron-coated legs and could cave her head in with a good stomp, and no one would stop her.
Really, Sibine looked like she was just going to up and try to cull Mymaridae right there, while Chrysalis and Acherontia shared what resembled a brief moment of empathy, given that the both of them were likely to get bits of Mymaridae on them if fighting was to occur.
Just when Antenna was prepared to put a side note down, clarifying that Mymaridae died immediately after saying something uncharacteristically rebellious, with the approval of High Queen Celaenia, High Queen Celaenia shook her head, and raised a hoof.
"Enough of this!" she commanded.
Sibine, annoyed but intelligent, stood down; Chrysalis let out a throaty chuckle at the other queen's indignation, while Mymaridae just smiled at the armored queen with some fondness.
"Mymaridae, dear, could you state you're reason for not wishing to participate?"
The High Queen's words were spoken calmly, without anger, and to Antenna's mild confusion, a bit of humor. Antenna didn't see any humor in betrayal, really.
"Well," the frail queen started, sounding just a little smug, "This Carapace has control of Canterlot, regardless of how large her hive is. We have no knowledge of what Celestia may have stored within the mountain, to say nothing of her more private belongings, and we have no information regarding the location of the Demiurge."
Antenna didn't know that was, but neither did a lot of the changelings up above, on the stands, so she didn't feel especially stupid when her queen decided to clarify what Mymaridae was referring too.
"Discord's involvement in anything is a major upset for any sort of plan, certainly. Mymaridae, given that you are the only one here that managed to realize that one of the Ogdoad is allied with Celestia, I'll have you decide the game plan for approaching this."
Celaenia said that with a casualness that made it seem like she was talking about, say, a team-building exercise.
Antenna, really, thought that the reactions from the other queens were fascinating; Chrysalis looked at the weak queen like she was some sort of idiot-savant, while Sibine and Acherontia looked at Mymaridae with loathing and amusement, respectively.
"Well, I would imagine that we should simply send in someone easily replaceable, placate her, and wait."
Antenna, for the first time that day, and possibly her life, didn't write something down. She was too shocked; to hear something like that from a queen, it was unthinkable.
Most of her equals looked as disgruntled as Antenna was; Sibine was looking like she had simply accepted that she was going to have to kill Mymaridae within a few minutes and was trying to pick whether she was going to crush her throat or break her back, while Celaenia looked like her good mood was gone and that she was going to add another corpse to her closet. Even Acherontia was frowning, which was a rare sight on the normally affable elder queen.
The only one who seemed perfectly fine with the weak queen's words was, in fact, the cripple.
"That could work." Chrysalis said, without any humor or sarcasm.
Acherontia and Sibine both looked at the cripple queen like she had suddenly grown another head and mooed; Celaenia just stared at her general with a expression of mild annoyance.
"Would you mind telling me why sitting on your fat haunches and watching the world burn is in our interests, general?"
Chrysalis scowled.
"Canterlot's guards are weak, but their armor is far above our own, and Carapace has probably realized that. Besides," she paused, "Celestia isn't stupid. The only reason why the brat hasn't been destroyed is that the population is still under her thrall, and the castle has enough food to last the whole city a year. If Celestia strikes before winter, then she would do it with all her might. If she waits for winter, then she would be starving her own ponies, but would destroy the hive. Either way, the alicorns win."
Mymaridae spoke up immediately after Chrysalis finished, sounding exceptionally pleased at how things were going for her.
"If we give Carapace equality, or a position within the council, Equestria will strike against us, in full. If Carapace wished to attack us, we would certainty win, but it would be destructive. Furthermore, the alicorns might believe they could destroy us, once and for all. We must interact with Carapace, but only to assure her passivity towards our own hives."
Celaenia glared at Mymaridae, but seemed less pleased by her analysis than the queen herself.
"Do you want to be the one to talk to her, given that you've put so much thought into this?"
Mymaridae was quick to shake her head, but at least she bowed a little before she spoke.
"As I said before, someone easily replaceable should be sent."
The queens all seemed to mutually agree with that statement; Sibine even thought that was a little funny, actually.
"Someone replaceable. Well, then, Chrysalis?"
Celaenia grinned at her general, who was giving the High Queen a look that could have curdled milk.
"I would think it would be in bad taste." Chrysalis replied, sounding so forcefully polite that it actually came out sounding a little spiteful.
Celaenia, apparently in a good mood now, took a moment to look up at the crowd above; she did that occasionally, pandering to the gathered masses for the sake of it. She made a show of looking at some of the more prominent minor queens, but eventually just looked down, at her left.
Antenna, rather concerned at the lack of talking, decided to look up from her tablet, and found that her queen was looking at her. Celaenia's wide, bright smile complimented her violet eyes, which were filled with a kind of universal love, for herself.
"Ah, you'd be good." Celaenia said, her skull throwing spidery shadows over her face.
Antenna began to scream, internally.
