Derpy had not been to the Hive for many years. When last she had seen the imposing cave mouth, she had been streaming out from it along with a hundred thousand more of her changeling kin, their eyes turned as one to the towering spires of Canterlot. Now she had returned, not as part of some unanimous whole, but as a separate being. Her mismatched eyes were windows into a heart and soul possessed of her own ideas, her own thoughts and feelings. It was not home that she was being dragged into, but a crushing cavern of despair and hopelessness.
Her escorts tugged on the ropes, silently urging Derpy to flap her wings just the tiniest bit faster. She obeyed, fearing the blows that would come if she fought the ropes. In her mind, there was hope, hope that after the queen had finished with her, she would be outcast. Derpy held onto this dream desperately, because if she were outcast, she might see Dinky again. If she fought them every step of the way, though, that dream was as good as ash.
The darkness of the Hive’s caves swallowed Derpy and the two changelings up, and the grey pegasus could feel the presence of other changelings. All around her, the cacophony of thoughts that made up the Hive buzzed and chattered, but she heard nothing. Such was the price of individuality.
“So, this is the renegade?”
The chatter of the Hive was suddenly silenced, and some long-dormant part of Derpy’s psyche compelled her to bow her head. From the darkness there appeared Chrysalis, queen of the changelings, the puppet master whose will was the command of an entire race.
“You’ve been quite the troublesome one, haven’t you?” Chrysalis buzzed around Derpy, poking and prodding her as though expecting the disguise to fade at her touch. “You abandoned the Swarm at the height of our invasion of Canterlot, and somehow escaped Shining Armor’s barrier. You’ve infiltrated pony society so deeply that it took us three years to find you. You have gorged yourself on their love, and without a drop of blood on your hooves.”
The monarch chuckled, and the sound was echoed by the guards. “Hooves. That is the name you stole, isn’t it? And you didn’t just take the name. My spies saw everything.”
“Sure took them a while,” Derpy couldn’t help but snap. There was a tug on one of her ropes, but thankfully Chrysalis only laughed harder.
“Such insolence in the face of your queen. Or do you believe that just because the ponies have accepted you, that you are free of us?” Derpy fell silent, and turned her head away from the Queen. “Oh, that is rich. You thought you could defect? You may wear feathers and flesh, but we both know what color your blood is. You’re mine until the day you die.”
“And how far away is that?” Derpy was losing hope fast, and the crushing darkness only served to convince her that the light of day was gone from her.
“Clever girl,” Chrysalis chuckled. “I’m almost tempted to let you live. You would make a magnificent court jester. But I think not.” The queen slithered an order to the guards, and they began to pull Derpy along once more. “The Swarm has gathered. You will repent, and then you will lead the charge on Ponyville.”
“And if I don’t repent?” Derpy did nothing to fight the ropes. Escape would be impossible.
“The Swarm delights in public executions.” With that said, Chrysalis went on ahead of her prisoner, chuckling quietly to herself. Derpy, meanwhile, began to ponder which path she should take. Would it be better to die as herself, or live to spill the blood of her friends?
The decision was made in an instant.
At last, the ropes were cut. Derpy was shoved roughly up a rock outcropping, until she stood at the precipice from which Chrysalis had announced the invasion all those years ago. She looked out into the vastness of the cavern, and could see hundreds of thousands of blue compound eyes staring back at her. The entire Swarm was looking right at her, not even blinking as they concentrated.
The worst part, to Derpy’s mind, was that none of them knew why they were looking at her. They had received the telepathic order from Chrysalis to pay attention to the new arrival, and so they did. Some part of their feeble minds was asking why they weren’t eating this strange pony, but that was overruled by the queen’s order.
“Show them what you really are, soldier.” Chrysalis stood just off to the side, practically invisible to the eyes of her subjects. She smiled at Derpy, and motioned for her to get on with it.
For the first time in what felt like forever, green fire engulfed Derpy. She stared straight ahead, not wanting to watch her identity burn away. She could still feel the magic, though, and squirmed as her steel-grey flesh was burned off to reveal chitin. Her beautiful wings, bruised from so many delivery mishaps, were torn to a crisp until there was nothing but two tattered excuses for wings. The ‘derp’ for which she was named was gone from Derpy’s eyes, replaced by an empty blue stare. Gone was the wall-eyed pony; in her place stood just another changeling.
“Very good,” Chrysalis purred. “Now, tell them the truth.”
“Will they hear me?” Derpy asked, concerned for her former family. “Or is this just for dramatic effect?”
Chrysalis smiled a deceptively soft smile. “On this special occasion, I have given the Swarm over to itself. They will hear with their own ears and see with their own eyes what you are. I just hope their poor little minds can take the strain.”
Derpy took a few hesitant steps forward, then flapped her wings once or twice. The Swarm looked different somehow, and Derpy almost rejoiced when a few changelings looked away for a second. Now was her moment. She would be heard.
The green fire swept over Derpy once more, restoring her to the pegasus she saw herself as. Before Chrysalis could speak out or the Swarm pounce, she began to speak.
“I'm sorry, but I don't want to be a changeling.” Everypony froze at that, and Derpy pressed on while the iron was hot. “That’s not my business. I don't want to crush or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, from the unicorn to the pegasus, and from the earth pony to the alicorn.” There was a sussuration of discontent among the Swarm.
“They all want to help one another, ponies are like that. They live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. They don't want to hate and despise one another. In their world there is room for everyone, and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful.” Derpy stopped for a moment to take stock of her audience. Chrysalis was frozen as if in shock, and the Swarm was staring in rapt attention. It was the perfect moment to drop the bomb. “But we have lost the way.”
There was a series of incoherent shouts from the Swarm. They had all been raised to see changeling society as Paradise, tarnished only by the scarcity of love. To claim that their way of life was anything less than perfect was tantamount to blasphemy. And still Derpy pressed on.
“Greed has poisoned our souls - has barricaded our world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have the speed of the wind but we have shut ourselves in: sorcery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than transformation, we need constancy; More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.”
The Swarm was filled with whispers. These alien words, much as they were opposed to the teachings of their beloved queen, echoed sentiments that lay dormant in every changeling’s mind. They had known for a long time that something was terribly wrong with their world, and now one of their own was speaking out in defiance.
The wall-eyed pony continued to speak, all traces of fear gone from her heart. “But do not despair, my brothers and sisters. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of a monarch who fears the way of equestrian progress: the hatred for ponies will pass, and dictators die. The power that was taken from the people, will return to the people, and so long as we are willing to die liberty will never perish...”
Now, at last, Derpy was going too far. Chrysalis snarled, a guttural, bloodthirsty noise, and lunged at the insurgent. Derpy’s words died in her throat, and she closed her eyes in peace. The seeds of rebellion were sown, and her actions could not be undone. She was ready.
But the death that she was ready for did not come. Derpy opened her eyes in surprise, and gasped in shock at the sight before her. The changeling guards were holding their queen down, and as Derpy watched, one of them lost his throat to the monarch. As he fell to the ground gasping for breath, he took the form of a pony, and met Derpy’s gaze. There was a pleading in his eyes, a hunger for more words. And in the last moment of his life, he was loved.
Derpy turned back to her audience, now buzzing and throbbing and clamoring for more. It was not enough to sow seeds. It was harvest time.
“Soldiers,” she shouted, “don't give yourselves to brutes!” Chrysalis cursed her name in the ancient tongue of changelings, but Derpy did not falter. “Hear me and know, your queen, whom you love so dearly, despises you and makes slaves of you all!” The caverns echoed with cries of assent; the changelings had always known the truth, deep within their hearts, and now at last they heard it. “She regiments your lives, tells you what to do, what to think and what to feel, she drills you, diets you, treats you as cattle, uses you as cannon fodder!”
“Silence, worm!” Chrysalis threw off another guard, but ten more shot out of the Swarm to replace him. Derpy’s heart soared with pride and love, and the keening cries of hungry mouths rose up to meet her.
“Don't give yourselves to this unnatural mare, this monstrous mare! With a monstrous mind and a monstrous heart! You are not monsters! You are not cattle! You are ponies.”
All fell silent at those words. The one misery that every changeling had accepted, had never resented, was their nature as monsters. They had known their place in the world, and been content to leech love from the shadows. They had not expected this revolutionary, standing in open defiance of the queen, to suggest that they had hope of being anything more.
Derpy understood their confusion all too well, and her next words were spoken with great kindness and reassurance. “You have the love of ponykind in your hearts. You don't hate - only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural.” As one, the Swarm turned to look at Chrysalis, and one word echoed throughout the chamber; ‘unloved’. The sudden outpouring of hatred was like poison to Chrysalis, and she writhed in agony beneath her guards.
“Soldiers,” Derpy shouted again, “don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty! In the seventeenth letter of Clover the Clever it is written, ‘the power of friendship is within all things’. It is not in one pony, nor a race of them, but in all things that live. The power of friendship is in you, the people. You the people have the power, the power to conjure magic, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. ”
The Swarm shouted again, but it was a shout of happiness, of glorious rejoicing. And there was more still to be said.
“Then in the name of freedom let us use that power - let us all unite! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give changelings a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, a brute has risen to power, but she lies.” Derpy gestured at Chrysalis, and the Swarm cried for blood.
“She does not fulfill her promise, and she never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free ourselves of this wretched cave, to do away with the barriers of race, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where magic and progress will lead to the happiness of all creatures. Soldiers,” she cried one last time, “in the name of freedom, let us all unite!”
The Swarm rose up. The smooth black of their chitin erupted into green flame, and creatures of every stripe took their place. Derpy ducked out of the way as the Swarm crashed down on their former monarch, and tried to hide a smile at the screams of pain that rose up from the bottom of the throng. It was over in moments.
“How long has it been since you last saw sunlight?” Derpy asked one changeling, who had taken the form of a svelte stallion.
“Too long to remember,” he answered, in a surprisingly good imitation of a Manehattan accent. Derpy smiled wide, and gestured in the direction of the cave mouth.
“Then I’d say you’re about due a few rays.”
Author's Note
I feel it is only right to give you a link to the real speech.
