Over the next two days Queen Chrysalis longed to visit the central love well and almost drain it dry to temporarily heal herself, but she restrained herself from doing so and only increased the amount of love she was taking in by a small amount. She needed a really good Royal Banquet after all, partly because it was good manners when a fellow royal changeling came to visit, and partly because it was Queen Miasma who was coming to see her. Miasma! Why the buck did it have to be Miasma out of all the known royal Changelings in Equestria? If she finds out or even seriously suspects what has happened to me, she will take great pleasure in making me look weak and telling the nobles of my own Hive what has happened, so that they will mutiny and overthrow me. She and I have never had much of a liking for each other to say the least.
Just an hour before Queen Miasma showed up, all manner of fine love soups were prepared, along with dishes of crystalized love. There was plenty of the changeling staple diet of pony love of course, but there was also the love of griffins, minotaurs, zebra and reindeer. The different forms of love not only had different tastes but different textures as well. Most love tasted sweet, but there was also bittersweet love, tough love (that was very chewy and could easily damage fangs if the changeling was not careful) patriotic love (that made the changeling that ate it feel very nationalistic and that when made into a soup was the colour of the flag of the country in which it was ) and several other kinds of love, many of which were only eaten at a time like this. Unlike the Changeling equivalent of Hearthswarming at which all lings could feast until all three of their stomachs were full, the most rare forms of love were only for the higher ranking changelings from both Hives, although there was enough pony love for everyling . Armoured guards with halberds kept the other Changelings away from the love before Queen Miasma arrived, with ten of her own guards and a few of her government ministers.
Queen Miasma wore no finery except a golden circlet studded with pearls and worn over her chitin crown, but her chitin exoskeleton gleamed and was so clean that Queen Chrysalis could see herself reflected in it. Her violet eyes seemed to shine with health. "Queen Chrysalis, thank you so much for allowing this royal visit. You look wonderful-but a little bit overdressed? One wonders why you don't show off your chitin?"
"I am at a formal occasion, and at a formal occasion dignity and nobility are important. You and I just have different ways of looking good, that's all. I choose to do it with the royal regalia. Let's eat and get down to business, shall we?" After a lot of feasting and come talk about boundaries and other such things, Queen Miasma got up and said loudly "Queen Chrysalis, can you do this?"
There was a burst of purple fire and an alicorn stood there, and then another burst revealed a great griffin, before Queen Miasma took on her normal shape again.
"Well....not whilst I'm wearing my royal regalia I can't. It'll set it alight, and a silk robe lined with black and white ermine costs a lot of love tokens. And this one is centuries old. I'm a queen and I should look like one." Queen Chrysalis stuck her nose up in the air.
"I'm a Queen too and I'm almost naked. There is no shame in Equestria in being naked and most lings, ponies and other races are naked all the time. Take your royal robes off in front of us and show us how mighty you are."
Not only Queen Miasma's changelings but also many of her own brood started calling for her to strip and show Miasma that she was every bit as healthy and magical as she was. Bastard! If I refuse I will look weak in front of my own Hive and whispers will start about me. But if I do what she says and uncover myself, the whole Hive will see how horrible and withered I look and might well dethrone me right now.
"I will do as you say, but first a visit to the toilet beckons." As soon as she was out of sight of Queen Miasma and her own drones, she carefully peeled off her royal robes. The spell that she had earlier cast to keep the awful itching at bay by automatically scratching her skin was still working well, but at a cost. Her carapace was deeply scratched almost to the point of being broken in several places and was a horrible greyish white. Summoning up her magic, she let a blast of green fire loose, changing her appearance to that of herself. Her old self, with black glossy polished chitin that shone in the dim green light of the changeling goop that lit most of the tunnels. She walked back into the feasting hall to the cheers of her drones, happy to see that everything was well with their beloved Queen. Like Queen Miasma had done, she ignited her changing magic twice more, taking on the shape of an alicorn and then a great royal griffin to prove her strength to her Hive. On the surface everything was as it should be, but inside she felt faint as the cordyceps worked faster on her weakened system, her entrails feeling as if they were twisting painfully. Being at a banquet with all kinds of rare love present, she helped herself to some fiery Griffin love that some drone had laboured for over a great deal of time to bring back to the hive.
Griffin love was notoriously hot and spicy to the point that some changelings didn't like consuming it, but to Queen Chrysalis's weakened palate it tasted fine. She feasted on every bit of love within the reach of her hooves, and gradually felt better and concentrate on Queen Miasma, who was talking about how sensible Hive Territory Boundaries made good neighbours. There was so much love being consumed, that although it could not kill the cordyceps deep within her, it could temporarily reverse it's effects and slow it's growth. If she could feast like this every night, the cordyceps would not be an issue. The problem was, that with an entire Hive to provide for, even a Queen could not banquet as if it were Hearthswarming Day every night. Far more love would be consumed then could be brought in by the infiltrators, even if they started taking prisoners too. Within weeks the Hive would go hungry, and then would become starving, and a starving Hive might even turn on and depose it's Queen.
But what if she could conquer a land that was so full of love that there would be enough for both her to feast and her drones? The lands of the Dragons were out of the question. It would take most of her Hive to defeat and cocoon even one dragon, and whilst normally disunited, they would put an end to her Hive with fire and talon if they thought of it as a threat to them. Then there were the Griffin clans within Gryffindor, but they were highly militaristic and their talons and beaks could pierce changeling chitin with surprising ease. It was said that in emergencies there were no civilian griffins apart from the unfledged chicks and that every griffin would fly to the attack if their towns were in danger. And they would be nearly as vengeful as the dragons when they found out who was responsible. Besides, many changelings could not stomach the sheer spiciness of Griffin love. Yakyakistan was the next country she considered attacking, but it was so far away, and to avoid freezing and dying her drones would have to grow thick fur and burn plenty of love for warmth, leaving them weak by the time they got there. And yaks were also fierce fighters.
Seaponies were out of reach, the buffalo tribes were too few to feast on endlessly, and the zebra were preyed upon by other Hives who were jealous of their monopoly and firmly kept out any large numbers of foreign changelings. The odd infiltrator could escape their notice, but an outright invasion would not go unchallenged. What about Equestria? Most ponies neither owned weapons nor knew combat magic, and apart from a few border regiments who would not be able to react in time, the Royal Guards were little more then police ponies who almost never used their spears in anger. There had been no major wars in centuries between Equestria and other nations, and it's former special forces, the Wonderbolts, were now just a bunch of formation flyers. The mighty alicorns would be a problem, but there were only three of them. The Element Bearers were also a real menace, but not if the elements could be separated
By the time she said goodbye to Queen Miasma and her entourage, her mind was buzzing with top secret invasion plans. Princess Cadence would need to be kidnapped and stashed somewhere since bonds and gags and even the average changeling cocoon could not hold an alicorn for very long. The Elements would need to be at least located, so that a regiment of her drones could seal off access to them. Over the next month, she planned with her generals, sent in her finest infiltrators to Canterlot, ordered her other infiltrators to bring in as much love as possible, and feasted as much she needed to, greatly draining her Hive's central love well in the process, to the point that when they left for the invasion, she and the needs of her drones and grubs between them had drained it dry. If the invasion was the success that she thought it would be, then neither she nor her Hive would ever be short of love ever again; but if it failed there would be no love to come back to, and her disease would claim her quickly, whilst her Hive would starve. This day would surely be a day to remember, one way or the other.
Chapter One-Pretending that I'm Doing Fine
Winter was coming.
The nights in the Badlands were always rather chilly not matter what the season was, since apart from a few mosses, lichen and fungi nothing grew there to hold in the heat at night. But now the days were slowly becoming cool as well. Deep within the black castle that housed the Chrysalis Hive, Queen Chrysalis had summoned her trusted Doctor, Ninshubar. "What appears to be the problem, your Majesty? As your royal doctor, I need you to drop any concealment spells so I can see what is wrong with you."
"It started a couple of weeks ago with an itch. I scratched it with a hoof and it didn't go away, so I cast a spell designed to scratch an itch whenever it needs to be scratched and for a while that was the end of the problem. And then I felt pretty sore and looked at the sore area and not only was there a small crack in my carapace, but there was a white stripe growing over the crack. I covered it up with a quick change, as it would not do for me to look weak, and went about as normal, but as time went on I felt tired and breathless and my horn started to ache, and when I dropped the concealment spell in the privacy of my royal quarters I was horrified enough to call you in."
With a flash of bright green fire the Queen dropped her concealment spell, and the doctor stepped back in horror. When not looking after the Queen he worked in general practise and had seen cracked carapaces from accident or malice, ripped wings, malnutrition from a severe love shortage and various other things, but this was serious. Deadly serious. The horn, head and upper neck of the Queen was fine, but her carapace was covered in cracks and white fungus and looked like something from an old tomb.
"You have cordyceps, the worst and most deadly disease that can effect a changeling. And at the moment at least, there is no cure for it. Within a short time, most magic including the ability to change will be stripped from you and you will be in constant pain. Within a few days, it will start to affect your brain and you will lose control of your emotions and your ability to feed, which is when it will grow from your head and release so many spores that the whole Hive will be in danger of catching the infection, and your life will be over very quickly. Noling will be able to get near your body without the danger of being infected, unless they wear protective clothing."
"But this can't happen to me! I'm a Queen of one of the largest Hives in the world. How did I get this disease anyway? And how do you cure me? I demand that you cure me now." Many changelings would have burst into tears by now, but not Queen Chrysalis.
"There are two ways that a ling can come down with cordyceps. First is if they are stabbed by an infected weapon that has been exposed to it, or through an infected needle or blood transfusion from an infected ling. I know you have not needed any blood transfusions or injected any drugs, and your guards protect you well. So you must have got it through...I hesitate to say this, but I must-unsafe sex with another changeling. The thing about cordyceps is that it normally lies dormant in the body for up to ten years, and a very few lings are never infected as their immune system prevents it. Only then is the ling infected. A test was developed a few years ago for it, but as there is no cure yet, very few changelings want to take such a test."
"Surely there must be some way to cure it or at least to slow it's spread?"
"Love can slow it down, but you would need truly vast quantities of love to in effect cure it. It's like a hole in a bath-you would have to keep the water running constantly to keep the bath full, and it's the same thing with the love. Even if you were to absorb almost the entire Hive's love reserves, it would only keep you healed for less then a year. I advise you to make your will , tell those close to you, and before the fungus sprouts from your head, to leave the Hive and fly as far away as you can. "
"You are dismissed, doctor. And if a word of this leaks out, it will count as High Treason for trying to undermine the monarchy and predicting the death of the Queen."
When he had gone Queen Chrysalis tried to recast her disguise, but only a few sparks of green fire flew, and she still looked the same horror that she did before.
*****
That evening the Queen summoned her changelings and stepped out in front of them, wearing the fine clothes that she had last worn at her coronation decades ago. She wore a robe of the finest scarlet silk lined with black and white ermine fur, with slits for her wings and tail, multiple bangles of fur-lined gold on her legs, fine shoes on her feet, a jewel encrusted band of silver around her chitin crown, and even a silver chamfrain upon her face, and carried in her royal magic the traditional heavy changeling wa-sceptre of ebony topped with gold and sard that a Changeling Queen carried at her coronation.
"Attention, everyling. I have decided that as your Queen I should display my royal dignity, and therefore I will be dressing like this for the foreseeable future. Royalty should not go around naked like the common ling." The large smile, almost a rictus grin, that was on her face trembled a little. The bright green magic that held the wa-sceptre seemed to falter a little, and the Queen quickly handed the wa-sceptre to her nearest aide. "I'm making you the Keeper of the Wa-Sceptre. It's not that I couldn't carry it around all day if I wanted to, it's just that I have other things to do-and servants to carry things for me. For now, I will be carried around on a shield the way I was at my coronation to emphasize my royal status. And for the next two days until the royal visit of Queen Miasma everyling will be on half rations."
An audible groan went up from the crowd.
"That is so that the royal feast to celebrate the Royal Visit of Queen Miasma will be even bigger and better," Queen Chrysalis told them, and they managed a cheer.
When in the privacy of her royal quarters the Queen took off her royal jewellery and peeled off the silk, her body was bleeding and covered with fungus. The spell that kept the itch at bay had worked, but had deeply scratched her carapace in doing so, yet she felt very little pain, just relief from the itch. If Queen Miasma or my subjects were to find out what is wrong, it would be a political disaster and I could easily be overthrown. But what is a changeling Queen but a Great Pretender? Surely I, Queen Chrysalis, Ruler of the largest known Hive, can find a way out of this rather then becoming fungus food?
