Wow. He had actually fallen asleep. At least it wasn’t so much passing out like when he last remembered being flung across the sky and the whiplash and sudden change in altitude made him pass out before he even landed in the forest. He could make a safe bet thinking that the Queen thought he was dead. She was always watching, unless she got disconnected, like he was, and that much he was glad for. He silently praised the ancients and at that decided opening his eyes was a good idea… He could also go back to sleep. But nah he was good, he needed to see just what he was laying against anyways.

At that mental interaction with himself he decided to roll onto his stomach, immediately the blanket on him rolling off and he felt wood under his hooves. He opened his eyes and looked around to see himself in a hut of sorts, mask, potions, salves, herbs, spices, even a few decorative or magically charged gems hanging about on shelves or literally hanging on the walls or off of the ceiling. Hm, nice. He decided, nodding in approval to himself. He only then took notice of the cold wet glob of, something, on his back where the hole in his carapace is and grimaced slightly at the feeling. Gross, but he wasn’t going to wash it off any time soon, if it was a poison he’d surely be dead by now so no threat to his being there.

He continued to look around and when he turned around to look at his back he spotted the window behind him, the brief flash of an escape plan made its way through his head but he thankfully ignored it. His ears flicked in the direction of a curtain moving to the side and he saw the zebra mare from earlier, oh, she was the medic. That definitely made him a lucky bug. He simply opted for silently watching her move about her home and curiously tilted his head.

She noticed his gaze and mentally nodded to herself as she went about making breakfast for both her and her new guest. As of now he was harmless, and she doubted with his disposition that he would willingly harm her anyways, besides, she knew once his horn was healed she was a good emotional meal, but until that time she’d willingly cater to the other in her abode, if he were to attack it’d be very foolish on his part.

He cleared his throat lightly and noticed that it was a bit clearer than it was yesterday. He opted now was as good as a time as any to speak. “Thank you for bringing me here miss…” He allowed the conversation to taper off, ending it in a silent question.

She caught on quickly. “Zecora is my name, and yours is?” She looked at the changling with a small amount of amusement, watching to see how he would react or what’d he do with the information.

He paused at the asking of his name and remembered he forgot to make one for himself earlier. “I’m not sure yet, I’m still trying to think of one since I’ve been separated from the hive-mind. I wanna say Leafy but that just seems annoying, I want something plant related or something old and cool sounding yet hard to pronounce or hard to spell. Something memorable… You got anything shaman?”

That. Had thrown her in for quite the loop. She did not expect the changling to be so… Forward with things, and the salve she had on his back didn’t reveal any harmful intent from him with what she had added to it so as of now she was satisfied. She tilted her head and closed her eyes in thought, nodding a bit before opening them. “Hm… Servonix. It’s exotic, and has the X in the name your kind are so intent on putting in. How’s that?”

He chittered to himself happily, mulling it over before giving a nod. “Perfect! And uh, usually the drones are given such names with the X in it; sadly mostly things bug related. Infiltrators like myself usually use pony names but I like the name you’ve come up with, tradition with an exotic spin on it, perhaps it’s slightly zebra related I assume?” He grinned, not caring if his fangs were showing, he was excited again, and giddy once more. Certainly an odd fellow among the vile rumors of his kind.

“That assumption is correct... “ She tilted her head curiously, ears slightly twitching back. The burning curiosity would surely eat her unless she sated it now, she bargained with herself as she slowly shook her head before going back to collecting the various ingredients she needed to cook the two of you breakfast. “Let us try not to miss breakfast, your stomach, although chitinous still needs sustenance.”

“Alright, I can tell you’d rather ask questions though. But later, and I might answer them.” His grin only managed to widen when he noticed the slight pause in her steps at his words but he actually snickered a bit when she ignored him and went on with making breakfast. He decided a thank you was in order, he wasn’t going to free-loading foal for as long as he could help it… Yeah no he was likely going to let her play nurse, maybe just a tiny bit. He still decided to be nice though.

“Thank you again for the hospitality, to be perfectly honest I was expecting to wake up in a hospital or not wake up at all, but that’s what I get for kind of dozing off on your back… I didn’t weigh that much, right?” His ears perked in question and concern for the other, mostly cause he didn’t want to owe her more than he already did.

“Mess you mostly made but what you weigh did not concern. Though it would be unwise to let your lack of weight go unnoticed, I have concerns that you may be malnourished.”

“To be perfectly honest I have no clue what the heck I’m supposed to weigh, there weren’t exactly any healthy changlings in the hive with just who ran it.” He grumbled lightly, ears swiveling to press against his head while he huffed.

They both let a semi-silence permeate the room for quite a bit before Servonix jumped a bit at suddenly having food shoved towards him, he couldn’t care less about the fact it was pretty hot and still steaming as he took it and shoveled it down rather quickly, surprising the both of them that he hadn’t puked it all up with just how fast he ate it, or more so inhaled it.

“Thank you! I can just taste hints of actual food.” He grinned, tail flicking as he shuffled a bit excitedly, mentally snickering at his own joke.

Zecora, to say in the least, was shocked, glancing between him and the emptied plate she had piled quite the height on. Once his joke registered though she actually nearly snorted, but that could be seen as rude so she settled for an amused chuckle of sort and smiled, it only growing strained a bit when she heard hooves clopping down the path towards her hut.

“Visitors I have some, but to you I wish not they subscum, hide, quickly please.”

Servonix heard the hooves and when Zecora issued out her order he nodded, hesitating to get up due to his back and hoof but the knocking on her door had him slowly but surprisingly painlessly shuffling away to back of the hut and very quickly under a blanket, he heard Zecora put away the plate he had eaten off of before hearing her door open, hesitantly he peeked his eyes out from under the blanket to watch. He saw an older mare, reddish-pink coat, with three flowers with smiling faces on them. Okay, that was let down, then again… Who knows how long he had been out after the attack, it could’ve been anyone, even that pastel colored bunch that helped stop the invasion that he saw flailing about Canterlot from above. Word spread fast for his kind, he did in fact get to see what transpired through the link of the hive-mind like everyone else had before him and most likely others as well, were cut off… He was thankful it wasn’t one of the pastels so he simply went back under the blanket and listened, the conversation however stayed by the door, he huffed lightly.

Author's Note

Still need an editor, the way I upload these is writing them directly after another chapter's out so I can keep going with the roll on this. Thing may not be consistent and my mind scatters bits everywhere but I'm trying to keep this going despite work being a pain lately. ^^

Hope you guys are enjoying reading this though, still a first-timer so go a bit easy please.