The nursery of the Changelng hive resonated with a scream of horror.
The surrounding insects reacted with a buzzing noise loud enough to shake a city. Some rushed for the nursery, others for the Queen. They were set into a kind of emergency mode, the back of their mind somewhat hive-driven and displaying the expected reaction to a supposed crisis. The first Changeling to enter the Queen's chambers did so loudly, bursting through the decayed entrance.
Chrysalis looked over from where she lay on a bed of moss. "What is it?" She asked boredly.
The Changeling was out of breath and searching for words. "Scream..."He panted. "From the nursery...something...wrong!"
Chrysalis sat up, suddenly alert. "A birthing gone wrong?" She asked. Her Changelings hardly ever had errors in producing children. She slid out of bed and set out on a brisk pace towards the nursery. "Find some water,"-she ordered her tired subject.-"and bring it to the nursery. The mother could be injured." The Changeling nodded and trotted off, his wings burning.
It did not take long at all for Chrysalis to reach the nursery. The Changelings outside immediately gave her a wide berth. She ducked her head down to a Changeling worker at the entrance and asked her, "What's happening?"
The worker bowed in respect before reporting. "One of the mothers-the wife of Coldblood, I think-is frantic over her baby. She keeps asking what's wrong with his eyes and has scared off some of the children." Chrysalis took it all in silently and, when the worker was done, forced her way through the entrance.
Inside the small room sat a Changeling couple, another female worker and a male drone. The drone had his forelegs wrapped around his wife while she panicked over the lump beneath her. "What's wrong with his eyes?" She sobbed. "What happened to him?" Chrysalis brushed her hoof along the worker's shoulder, causing her to look up in surprise. "Y-your Majesty?" She whispered. Chrysalis paid no heed to the shaky greeting and cut to the chase.
"What is this about your child's eyes?" She damanded.
"They...they-" The Changeling's shoulders heaved. "-they're not blue!"
"Not...blue?" Chrysalis blinked. Pushing past the mother, she leaned down and took in the newborn's appearance. A small and curious face peeked back at her. The holes in the baby's legs were small but many, and the overall anatomy, as always, resembled a cross between a pony and an insect. However, one unnoticeable detail was, in fact, the eyes. Chrysalis could only describe them with one word:
They were red.
A small gasp came from Chrysalis, then a worried smile. She knew why his eyes were colored how they were, but she did not know what others would think of this gem. She sighed inwardly. For now, she thought. I should keep his mother calm. She should know before...it happens.
Said mother was still frantic. "Is-is he..."-Her body shook.-"Is he malformed? Is this bad?"
"My dear subject," Chrysalis murmured. She looked up and smiled at the mother. "Red eyes are a rarity among Changelings, and they are a good thing."
The mother recoiled. "A-a good thing?!"
"Yes." Chrysalis' smile grew. "Red eyes signify that this youngling does not need to live off of love. His large stores have already washed over them."
The mother shook with relief. "Oh, thank the gods!" She cried out. Her body slowly began to go slack as she relaxed, but perked up again when Chrysalis reached out and rested a gentle hoof on her shoulder. "Your Majesty?"
"I must warn you, however," Chrysalis began with a strange and sudden heaviness in her voice. Her smile had vanished. "There are two major downsides to this."
"Downsides?" The father asked. Their queen nodded gravely.
"Fisrt, the red eyes will make him an oddity," she said. "Others will most likely either steer clear of him or will try to make him miserable. And secondly-and I'm sorry to tell you this..." Chrysalis sighed. "Your child is extracting all of your love from you in order to properly jump-start his own. Both you of you will either die within the next hour, or the second you give him a name. Naming him binds and transfers your love to him." She had to add in the last part. "It seems ironic that a Changeling of infinite love has to kill his parents for it to work, and I wish no one had to die, but..." Chrysalis grimaced. "It's either you or the baby, and I can't let the baby die."
Silence washed over the room. Both of the Changeling's parents stared. Chrysalis looked away.
Then, "As long as our son's okay." Queen Chrysalis looked back. The mother had pulled her newborn closer. "We always had a feeling out first birth would be strange. I guess we were right." She ran her hoof along her son. "May I share some words with my baby?"
"No one is stopping you," Chrysalis replied.
The mother seemed to change. She relaxed against her husband as he stood quietly over her, pulled her son yet closer, and to Chrysalis, became the spitting image of serenity. Both of the couple were clearly ready to die. It amazed Chrysalis, really, how fast they had accepted their fate.
"No matter what happens," she murmured to her child, still snuggling her quiet husband. "I always want you to have the heart..." She smiled softly. "of a nymph." The final word slid from her throat. A calm breath escaped her mate.
Immediately, the Changeling's parents both died.
Chrysalis looked down at their bodies with a twinge of sadness. Two brilliant lives thrown away for a new one. She had heard stories of those two quite a lot, about how they had demolished their way through life and had lived laughing. Now, it seemed, they had died loving. Chrysalis held all of her subjects in her heart, and these two were no different. Granted that their death was certainly inevitable, Chrysalis would occasionally look over her subjects and feel a sorrow that soon all of them would be go-
A small mewling, coming from beneath the bodies of the two Changelings, interrupted Chrysalis' epiphany. She brushed aside the dead drones, revealing their wailing child. Upon the death of his parents, the newborn had gone from curious to scared. He squirmed in fear, trying in vain to distance the queen from him. He whimpered the second their eyes locked. He did not know that there was nowhere to go, or that his ruler's plans were quite far from harming him.
Chrysalis felt a twinge of pity for the baby. Something inside her told that his red eyes, a gift that was to be treasured, would be the cause of a shaky future for him. He would need someone to love him and give him what he needed if he were to live a real life. A sudden determination washed over her, and she picked the baby up in her mouth.Whatever happens, Chrysalis thought. I will be the friend you won't have. We will bond, young Changeling, and I hope to find myself a worthwhile life within you. But even if you led a bad life, you and your gift are far too precious to lose. I will protect you, even with my life. As the baby swung from Chrysalis' mouth, his ears unsealed, and the first sentence he'd ever hear reached them.
"Welcome to the hive, Nymph."
He didn't know what the words meant; his newborn brain deciphered them as gibberish, but to Chrysalis, it marked the potential start of something new. She pushed her way out of the nursery and carried the Changeling to the main chamber of her hive.
