Love, not War

Burning Ash chuckled at Isaac’s mortified face, and he pressed a button. Queen Mimica’s face appeared on screen, and she did not look happy.

“Burning Ash?! What are you doing in your ship, when I ordered you to stay on the Hiveship? And why do you dare to contact me at such a time?!” she half-shouted, surprising all of them.

“I, uh… just wanted to let you know that I have your daughter safe,” Burning Ash nervously replied, sounding terrified at seeing his queen lose her cool.

For a moment, Queen Mimica was openmouthed in astonishment, as Chrysalis and Isaac nervously waved at her from behind Burning Ash’s seat. “C-Chrysalis, you’re okay? Oh, thank the Elders…” Queen Mimica said, before collapsing into sobs. Isaac anxiously tugged at the collar of his shirt, still unnerved by seeing the normally poker-faced queen so emotional.

“M-Mom… Chrysalis muttered, embarrassed.

Finally, after some minutes, Queen Mimica had calmed down. “Daughter… your motives were noble… but please don’t ever do that to me again,” she addressed Chrysalis, who glared at her.

“I’ll do what I want, Mom. I didn’t see any of you going back for him!” she rebutted.

Queen Mimica guiltily looked away, while Isaac raised an eyebrow at Chrysalis – while she had a point, her mother was being rather polite about the whole thing. “Isaac… I’m sorry I didn’t try to rescue you. I got a bit panicked, and I hope you can forgive me,” Mimica pleaded.

Isaac politely nodded. “Understandable,” he simply replied.

Queen Mimica smiled, but this quickly turned into a grimace as she glanced up. “Burning Ash, you may wish to turn off the viewpoint,” she ordered, and Burning Ash glanced at her, confused.

“But why – oh, holy Hive,” he exclaimed. Isaac stared out the viewpoint, and just before Burning Ash slammed his hoof down on the console and turned the screen black, he caught a glimpse of Earth, the entire planet engulfed in a wave of fiery white. “Ehehe… nothing to see, there, just a bit of… space debris…” the changeling mumbled. Chrysalis made no comment, and Isaac elected to remain silent. Maybe he’d seen something different. Maybe everyone else was still alive. Maybe…

They traveled the rest of the way in silence again, Queen Mimica having signed off and returned to the ‘Hiveship’. Without so much as a word, Isaac got out of Burning Ash’s ship, and immediately strode down the corridor. He had to check. He had to.

Of course, Burning Ash and Chrysalis immediately caught up with him, asking questions on why he hadn’t said anything the whole trip and what he was doing walking around on his own and many other things. At a glance from him they fell silent: They, too, had caught on. “Isaac… maybe it’s better if you don’t see,” Chrysalis uncertainly said. Isaac ignored her, finding a suitable window and heading over. He stared out at Earth. It didn’t look any different, to his surprise – still green and blue, still pretty from this far out in space. But he had a nagging feeling, no, more than that. He dreaded what he was about to see. But Isaac had to know. He had to...

“Does anyone have a telescope?” he asked, a few passing changelings overhearing him.

Chrysalis swallowed nervously. “N-no…” she hesitantly answered.

Isaac turned to stare at her. “Where is it,” he stated flatly.

It was less of a question and more of a demand, and he could tell Chrysalis was taking at as such. “I – I – uh…” she stammered, shaking slightly as she attempted to respond. When nothing came, she looked at Burning Ash pleadingly, who looked to the floor.

“Okay, mate,” he answered, not daring to look at Isaac. “But promise me… Just promise me you won’t hold it against us.”

He reached a hoof up to the window and tapped it a few times, the transparent view suddenly and drastically zooming in to a section of Earth – some city, in the middle of the U.S.A. Isaac stared at a top-down view of a few skyscrapers. There were plenty of cars in the streets, and for a brief, fleeting moment, Isaac thought he saw them moving. But then he realized that they were merely continuing due to momentum, bumping into other cars, buildings, trees, and everything else before coming to a halt, their engines still idling. The streets were empty, devoid of all people, pets, and even birds. The bio-bomb had done its work well: There was no more animal life on Earth.

Isaac slumped to the floor, falling to his knees as though about to pray a sermon worthy of the Flagellants. He was the last human alive, the very last one standing. The lone survivor of the apocalypse. Chrysalis put a hoof on his shoulder, attempting to comfort him. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. To anyone else, this might have been a comforting gesture. To Isaac, it was one more reminder of what he had lost, one more thing that he had once regarded as distinctly human in nature. He brushed the hoof off, and got to his feet, Chrysalis giving him a shocked and hurt stare. She can deal with it, the prick, Isaac viciously thought, though his face never betrayed his feelings. Thinking she can empathize with me… Has she watched her own species die? He began to move, though he was unsure where he was going. Maybe he could find an airlock or something, finish the job his species started. Or maybe he’d just collapse on the floor and lose track of time for a while. Isaac really had no preference. A choked sob made its way out his throat just as he rounded the corner, and he caught the two changelings' guilty expressions.

Changelings quickly vanished from his view, those few that had to cross his path giving him an apologetic look and a wide berth. Perhaps they thought he blamed them for the fate of his species. Isaac didn’t know whether they were right or not, when it came to that. He didn’t know who to blame. The stupid governments for overreacting, the changelings for showing up in the first place, himself for failing to save anybody… oh, God. His parents. They’d been waiting for him to come back, to say that everything was alright… Isaac sat down, and buried his face in his hands, heaving racking sobs that made his whole body shake like a tree in a strong wind. It had finally hit him, fully and truly: Everyone else, everyone he’d ever met, every human he’d ever loved and hated and befriended and fought, was dead.

It was hours, or it seemed like hours, before he sat up again. Upon doing so, he immediately noticed where he had ended up: The blocked-off corridor, where his leg had been trapped. Looking around, Isaac spotted the chunk of ship that had pinned him to the floor, and was tempted to attack it just to take out his temper. His rational side won out, though, successfully convincing him that he’d only get hurt for no good reason. Isaac sat down by the odd thing, staring up at the ceiling with such an unblinking intensity that he thought he might actually win the staring contest with the light panel he was gazing at. He felt strangely numb, as though he’d been exsanguinated of everything save his mind and body.

Another unknown amount of time passed, and Isaac finally blinked and looked away, feeling as though he had lost some contest. No changelings had come for him in the time he’d been here, down a deserted corridor in a spaceship. Isaac gave a half-amused chuckle that sounded more like a cough. He was in a spaceship, with fictional aliens from another dimension. If someone had told him two days ago that this was his future, he’d have laughed himself silly. But here he was, the last human alive, off to do… something. What was he even doing? Isaac didn’t know, and he was pretty sure the changelings didn’t either. Was there anything for him to do, now that humanity was dead? Well… he could just go back down to Earth and go crazy. Loot stores, break things, all the stuff he was never legally allowed to do was now open to him. Isaac had almost convinced himself that this would be fun, when he remembered the drawback to being the last human alive: Nobody but him would bear witness to all the fun he would have. Him and the changelings, that is…

Isaac traipsed into the main throne room a few minutes later, red circles under his eyes and looking exhausted.

“Oh, there you are. Feeling better?” Queen Mimica asked. Isaac gave no response, merely giving her a dull, half-lidded stare.

“…Oh, Isaac,” Queen Mimica sighed. “If there was any way I could undo this, bring them all back, I’d do so in a heartbeat, you know I would. Sadly, I cannot.”

Once again, Isaac remained silent. He knew someone who could help. She’d had experience in time travel, after all. But going anywhere near the one sentient being who might stand a chance of undoing all this would mean he’d be in proximity of… Her. Just the thought of it made Isaac’s skin crawl. But did he have any other option? Wait... The one who’d gotten him out, all those years back. He was a time traveler as well. But Isaac had no idea how to contact or find him, not without directly asking Her, at any rate – a move that was liable to simply result in a repetition of what he’d endured all those years ago.

Isaac zoned back into the conversation to find that Burning Ash had shown up, and was saying something. “Isaac… you there, mate?” Ash asked, hovering in front of him and waving a forehoof in front of his face.

“Yeah… spaced out a bit. What’s up?” Isaac replied tonelessly.

“Well, here’s the thing… now that you’re the last human in existence, we wanted to ask you if it was okay to colonize Earth. You know, make places for changelings to live, and so on?” Burning Ash hesitantly continued, not meeting his eye. Isaac raised an eyebrow. They were asking his permission? Then again, he supposed he’d be the only one able to give it.

“Sure, whatever, go ahead,” he answered, and Queen Mimica smartly nodded. She trotted over to a nearby console, and tapped a few buttons before clearing her throat. Once again, her sybilline hissing filled the spacious chambers, and Isaac was sure it was echoing in the rooms and corridors of the ship as well. Almost immediately, huge amounts of changelings began leaving in the direction of the hangar, once again giving Isaac a wide berth.

By the time the last one had exited, muttering something under its breath, the throne room of the ship was deserted except for Isaac, Queen Mimica, and surprisingly, Chrysalis. She had been off in a corner, and now she turned to her mother indignantly. “Mom, I was in the middle of a conversation!” she complained, but a glare from her mother caused her to fall silent.

“You know as well as I do the importance of colonizing the planet quickly, Chrysalis. Humans left many useful resources on their planet, and the least we could do is not let such things go to waste,” Queen Mimica admonished, and Isaac flinched. They were talking about humans in the past tense. Not exactly a surprise, but it was still a shock to him – he felt like they were discussing an ancient civilization, instead of a culture which had killed itself mere hours ago.

Chrysalis grumbled, but took the point, then turned to Isaac. She had been about to say something, but her annoyed expression died as soon as she was looking at him. What? Was there something on his face? Isaac quickly became aware that he was still glaring, and shifted his features into something more neutral.

“Hi,” he greeted.

“…Hello,” Chrysalis returned the greeting, biting her lip. “So…” Chrysalis trailed off. “Would you like to see my room?” she asked.

Isaac shrugged – it was something to do, at least. “Sure,” he replied, and Chrysalis led him down a series of corridors to her own room.

To Isaac’s surprise, it was not the room he’d seen her in, the first time they met. It was sparsely decorated, with a large, cocoon-like structure filled with green slime in the corner. A small tiara was lying on the floor next to it, as was a book. Curious, Isaac picked up the book, and smiled slightly as he read the cover.

“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” he read aloud. “Where’d you get this?”

Chrysalis shifted slightly. “Uh… I may have snuck down to Earth while all the diplomatic negotiations were going on… It’s not stealing if it’s for interspecies cultural relations, right?” she asked, giving him a pleading look.

“Nobody’s around to judge, so sure,” Isaac laughed, relieved that he was still able to joke around. “Have you read it yet?” he asked, and Chrysalis shook her head.

Isaac took a seat by the wall, and opened the book, motioning for her to sit beside him. “I used to read these aloud with friends. We’d have a lot of fun doing the silliest voices we could for each character,” Isaac explained.

Chrysalis smiled. “I can do a lot of voices,” she answered, in a perfectly stereotypical Scottish accent.

Isaac laughed, surprised by the gruff tone to her voice, and Chrysalis joined in the laughter. Once they had calmed down, Isaac returned to the book. “Okay, okay,” he chortled, slowly calming down. “Chapter One: The Boy Who Lived. Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much…”

When Isaac next looked up, it felt as though hours had passed. He was never sure how much time had elapsed on this spaceship, as changelings didn’t seem to see the need for clocks, and there was no other way he knew of to measure time in space. Chrysalis, meanwhile, was still giggling about a joke he had made earlier. Mentally shrugging, he returned to the book, to read the last sentence.

“I’m going to have a lot of fun with Dudley this summer,” Isaac proclaimed in a laid-back surfer voice, and Chrysalis giggled louder.

Isaac closed the book, and turned to Chrysalis. “You know, that’s a seven-part series,” he informed her, and Chrysalis’ face lit up as though Isaac had just announced there would be ten Christmases tomorrow.

“Can we get them all?” she squeaked delightedly, and Isaac smiled.

“Sure. I can introduce you to a few other fiction series, too. That is, if you want,” he added, and Chrysalis rapidly nodded.

It was at this point that Queen Mimica chose to poke her head around the door, smiling the moment she spotted Isaac’s happy grin. “Having fun, you two?” she asked cheerfully, and Isaac nodded, carefully nudging the book out of sight.

“Just talking,” he answered. “Say, is Earth safe to go back to?” Isaac asked, trying to make the question sound more casual than it really was.

Unfortunately, Mimica seemed to pick up on what he was trying to get at. “Well… yes, it should be safe. Just to be sure, though, I’ve sent a few scouts down there ahead of the colonizing drones, to test radiation levels and such. Wouldn’t want my daughter’s first date to end in the hospital,” Queen Mimica remarked offhandedly.

Chrysalis blushed emerald green, and squeaked “Mum!”, to which Queen Mimica laughed.

“I’m only joking!” she assuaged, and Isaac held back a snicker at Chrysalis’ petulant expression. “Isaac, dear, would you mind coming with me for a moment?” Queen Mimica asked suddenly, a strange expression on her face. Isaac, unsure what she wanted, stretched and got to his feet. “Sure, I guess,” he answered, waving goodbye to Chrysalis as Mimica ushered him into the corridor.

“So, I see you and my daughter are getting along well,” Mimica began as they made their way to her throne room.

“Yeah…” Isaac trailed off as the implications of her statement hit him.

Did she think they were really dating? …Were they? It was far too early, Isaac thought, for anything like that. He was still coping with the loss of his species, did he really want to think about romance mere hours after that? Isaac turned to look at Mimica, a small smile adorning her face.

“Anyway, that is not what I wished to discuss. Burning Ash claims you told him that your race was completely non-magical, and I wished to ascertain whether this was the case. Will you allow me to perform a spell to check? All it does is return a number comparing your magical ability to mine, and the process is not harmful or invasive whatsoever.” Isaac shrugged – she didn’t sound like she was lying, at any rate.

“Sure,” he answered, and Queen Mimica smiled wider as she lit her oddly-shaped horn, the teal-blue aura enveloping Isaac’s entire body. The changeling queen’s smile quickly faltered, her face screwing up in concentration.

“Odd… this usually doesn’t take this much power,” Mimica grunted as she fought to keep the spell running.

Finally, a swirling ball of magic detached itself from the mass surrounding Isaac’s body, reconfiguring itself into the shape of a number - none Isaac recognized, so he assumed it was changeling language.

“Zero…” Queen Mimica whispered. Without another word, she dashed off, leaving Isaac alone in the corridor. As the magic around him dissipated into the atmosphere, Isaac took a moment to wonder what had just happened.

He didn’t have long to wait, however, as Queen Mimica came sprinting down the corridor, somehow still graceful despite her speed. Following close behind was a team of changelings, outfitted in green, hardened slime that somehow covered their whole body while still allowing them to move.

“Isaac, these are my top scientists. Liquid Crystal, this is our resident human, Isaac,” Queen Mimica introduced, and the lead scientist stepped forward.

Isaac assumed this was Liquid Crystal, and his assumption was confirmed when the changeling held out a hoof to shake. “A pleasure to meet you, Isaac,” Liquid Crystal greeted, his voice sounding surprisingly soft.

“Nice to meet you as well,” Isaac returned formally.

“Isaac, will you allow Liquid Crystal to repeat the spell I used on you?” Queen Mimica asked, and Isaac nodded.

Liquid Crystal lit his smaller, curved horn, and Isaac was once again enveloped in a glow, this time of a more greenish hue. The other changelings lit their horns, and the glow around Isaac grew stronger. It was only a few seconds this time before the swirling ball of magic detached and formed another “zero” – Isaac suspected this was due to the additional changelings lending their magical strength. As the zero dissipated once again into nothing, Isaac noticed the changelings muttering and hissing to one another. Finally, one turned to Mimica, and hissed something to her, to which she replied with some sharp hissing of her own.

Liquid Crystal turned to Isaac. “Well, this is a good day for thaumaturgy. Or, perhaps, a bad day, depending on your perspective.”

Amused, Isaac raised an eyebrow, and Liquid Crystal continued. “You see, when a changeling feeds on a subject, we rely on two things: Their emotion, and their magic. Long ago, we worked out the equations for how much love we absorb based on both of these variables, and what we found was that the magic term… was in the denominator of the equation,” Liquid Crystal informed him.

Isaac attempted to process this. So, if they tried to feed off of him, and he had zero magic, they’d be… “Dividing by zero,” Isaac realized aloud.

“Precisely. If a changeling were to attempt to feed off of you, they would find that you would never run out of love to give them – essentially, infinite food,” Liquid Crystal excitedly continued.

“Wait, wait. If I have infinite emotion or whatever, wouldn’t the changeling just blow up or get overloaded when they tried to feed?” Isaac asked. Liquid Crystal grinned, and shook his head.

“The rate of absorption is determined by your emotional state at the time – the more intense, the faster it is. Your magic has nothing to do with that, so any changeling can safely feed off of you.”

Isaac nodded – they’d probably gotten that from the derivative of their feeding equation. Made sense – to him, at least.

Queen Mimica smiled down at him. “Isaac, I know we shouldn’t be asking things of you. You owe us nothing, and in fact we are in your debt. But… Will you consent to be our source of food?”