We are not the same as your kind.
That is not a generalization, we are fundamentally different than ponies, or things like ponies, or even from dragons. Truly, we are closer to the Windigos than anything else in Equestria. We feed on what they feed on, the emotions of ponies; but the Windigos were foals, only focusing on one emotion of the spectrum; and one that was doomed to either fade in time, or destroy the source that spawned it.
No, we are not the same as them; just because we prefer to feed on love does not mean is the only thing we feed upon. We can feed off Friendship, Affection, Appreciation, I have even sampled Happiness; positive emotions are a much more abundant food source and more stable than hatred.
Yes, I referred to myself and not the hive as a whole. We have individuality, we have personality, there is more to us than just the mind of the queen guiding our every move as though we are an extension of her. We are organized, that is true, it sometimes appears as though we move with one mind, but ponies can do the same thing with enough training. And we have been raised since birth to move and swarm with efficiency; how could we not excel at it?
Yes, we are raised to fight; we have to be raised to fight. Our disguises will not always be enough to hide us from ponies who grow suspicious, we need to be able to defend ourselves and our hive. We are many, that is true, but ponies are many as well; bring enough of them to Canterlot, and it would be as if we had returned, most likely with greater numbers. It is only because we are all so similar that it appears as though we are without individuality.
I am aware of the contradiction; I have spent the last few moments talking about how similar we are to ponies, yet I started by saying that we are not similar. Fine, I will acknowledge there is a certain measure of similarity between our kinds, but that does not make us close to what they are.
You will hear others, ones who are stupid, talk about how we were mistreated, how the princesses kicked out things that they could have helped. They do not understand the differences that lie between us. I will not lie, we still live among ponies; we have for so long that even we no longer remember where we come from. Her Majesty may know, but we do not ask; she has more important things to worry about than our petty questions. However, the simple fact is, we drain ponies of something that they hold valuable in a way that leaves them physically affected.
It is not that we enjoy it... usually, it is something that we simply must do. While we can still taste some of the foods that Ponies and other things eat, we do not gain sustenance from them; we must devour the emotions of what is around us to live.
Do not take us for a plague! We have lived alongside ponies for too long for us to merely be overgrown paraspites. We may drain ponies, but we do not kill unless we have to; it is pointless to destroy a food source after all. We can even live among them long term without any danger to them; I've even heard of some Changlings expressing affection for some of the ponies that they feed off of. Yes, as shocking as it is, we can feel our own emotions; no, we can not feed off of our own emotions. Some have tried, in an effort to stop hurting the ones they've come to appreciate, it did not end well for them.
I am aware that our queen is cruel; all of us are. I make no excuse for her, I will not say that she does not have one, but I do not know if there is one; but she has never taken out her cruelty on us, only on non-Changlings. Maybe she just hates that which is not us, maybe she once held affection for something that was not one of us and suffered for it some way; as I said, I do not know the reason she enjoys the suffering that she causes, if there is one. I only know that to us, she has always been fair and just.
No, that is not the norm, but it is close. Though not as bad as her, many of us only view ponies as a source of emotions to feed upon, with some of us emulating our queen and enjoying the suffering that we can sometimes cause them. The ones I mentioned that feel affection for a pony are the very small exception to a very widespread rule. And before you question, I am not one of them. I do not hold any hatred for ponies in my being, nor do I feel affection for any one pony; I am merely accepting that you are something different than me and that is unchangeable.
The simple truth is that we are predators, though what we hunt is emotion instead of another animal. Ponies are, for lack of a better term for it, are our prey; there is no other way to really phrase it, it is the relationship between our two species and there is no amount of magic in the world to change that.
That is what makes us so different. We are predator, you are prey; that is why all who claim we were treated unfairly are stupid. What those two ponies did to us was simply prey defending from a predator; it is as natural as what we do to capture you to feed. As you can see by my presence here, it did not destroy us, we are still around Equestria and will continue to feed as we always have done. We just will not attempt another take over like what we foalishly decided to do in Canterlot; it was not a smart move and even the queen is admitting it now. She is also fuming over the fact that she was defeated by the very thing that she was feeding upon, seeking for some sort of spell that she could somehow use to emulate the strength of the spell that beat her.
Some of those ones that feel affection for ponies have said that it isn't a spell that the alicorn performed on the unicorn, that it was the love itself that let them do that. I can not say I understand their meaning, but I can say that- having fed on love many times- I have felt how strong it can it can be between two ponies. So there may be something to their words.
