I'm a Changeling?!

Chapters

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
Weird Stone
Love Lessons

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Chauffeur awoke from the inky blackness he was once consumed in with a sluggish start. A hurting, throbbing pain was the first thing he felt, coming from his head, and when he lifted it all that met his opening eyes was darkness they were not yet used to. He noticed his body felt quite odd as well. Not that kind of sore feeling you get from being sick, but similar. Different, too.

"I-is anybody there?" he called out to the void surrounding him, weakly.

"Shh... it's okay," a voice, clearly female, light as a feather and soothingly gentle, came through the darkness. "You're safe. Just lie down. You've been through quite a bit, you know."

"Who're... you?" Chauffeur inquired, his curiosity longing to be sated, if only to give him reassurance that all was well.

"Oh, uh... my name's Lacewing," she replied. "I've really been wanting to know what your name is, too. You've been out for quite a while."

"Sure, it's... oh, my head..." he tried to reply before moaning from the pain he felt. He could still remember all of his unfortunate life, but the invasion of Canterlot, where a huge swarm of changelings invaded like a plague of horrible, giant locusts on what he was told was the day an alicorn princess named Cadence was to be married, was still very much a blur. "My name's Chauffeur," he finally breathed.

"Sha... fur? 'Chafer'? Like... a chafer beetle?" queried Lacewing in a positive voice. "That's a nice name."

"No, it's Chauffeur. I work as a carriage driver. Well, 'worked', anyway..." Chauffeur explained in a sigh as his eyesight finally began to finish adjusting to the low light in what looked to be a medium-sized, smooth-walled, tunnel-like chamber. Like what his body felt like, his vision seemed very... off, for lack of a better word. Taking a gander at his surroundings, he could see it truly was a short tunnel of sorts. The sheetless berth-bed he lied upon, sticking from the rock wall, was stony and rough upon further notice, but smooth and somewhat comfortable. Another like it loomed above his body like a bunk bed, also budding from the wall. His eyes were soon inevitably drawn to where the voice of his caretaker originated from, and his jaw hung agape in shock at just what befell his sight.

What stood in front of him was a changeling. The type of love-devouring creature all ponies feared. She was around his own size, covered in a dark carapace, and looked no different than the thousands of other ones he witnessed at the invasion. Her eyes glowing rather intimidatingly in the dark, Chauffeur reacted accordingly.

"Ahhh... AHHHHH!" he began to scream, backing up on his bed as much as he could until his back hit against the cool, stone wall. Before his shouting had the chance to alert anyone, Lacewing put on a worried face and shot her hole-filled hoof onto his mouth, muffling his cry into a dull whimper.

"Do you want to wake the entire hive?!" she rasped. "Shush it! You should be thankful that I chose to save your life!"

A good few minutes passed by before Chauffeur had visibly calmed down enough for Lacewing to remove her appendage. "S-saved my... life?" he asked, perplexed and scared; both emotions of which were not a healthy combination. "H-how? In what way? I was being attacked by you things, now I'm... in a cave! With you!"

"Technically, it's a cell in our hive," she corrected. "There are countless hundreds like it all around here. It's where we go to sleep at night."

"I'm in a hive?" sputtered the confused Chauffeur. "A changeling hive?"

"Yes," bluntly replied Lacewing. "Just stay still and I can explain everything to you."

Chauffeur puffed in disbelief. "How is it physically and mentally possible for me to keep still?!"

"Hey! Keep it down in there!" a new voice went out from somewhere outside the cell. It instantly shut Chauffeur up, and it only caused Lacewing to slowly spin around and huff in an irritated fashion.

"Yeah! Lacewing, there are some of us who are actually tryin' to sleep! It's been a long and disappointing day, you know!" another agreed, also provoking her ire and Chauffeur's blatant fright.

"Don't worry fellas! I'll stop!" she shouted back, before turning back to Chauffeur with a small glare. "I told you!" she hissed angrily.

Chauffeur took a deep (or as deep as he could intake) breath and tried to make himself feel relaxed. "Fine, fine... I'm calm, I'm calm..." he spoke softly. "So now tell me, why is it that I shouldn't be seething with terror at the situation I'm in?"

"Listen pal, you better thank whatever princess you worship that you found me and not one of the others," Lacewing sternly mumbled, before her visage mollified to what it once was. "Because of what I did, you are safe now, that much I'll tell you."

"I'm in a changeling hive, surrounded by more changelings than I can probably handle seeing for a lifetime. I'm even talking to one," he argued. "How, exactly, am I safe?"

Lacewing tapped her hooves together uneasily and looked away briefly. "You're a pony, first off. Our main prey. So I kind of had to... do something a teeny-tiny bit... drastic. Before my brothers and sisters could sniff you out and get you, anyhow." She reached down under the berth and pulled out a flat rock with a mirror-like surface. "Please, I beg of you, do not be alarmed by what you see."

She put it up to Chauffeur, and what reflected off the mirror was no earth pony of plain brown-and-white fur as he expected to see. It was a... changeling. He moved his startled head around to vainly prove that this was merely a cruel illusion, but what he was looking at was indeed himself, but as another creature entirely. A small, curved horn rested atop his head, his ears and mane were webbed like a serpent's, a pair of fangs lined the tip of his snout, and his eyes... they were monochromatic, blue, and compound - like a bug's! Seeing this image sparked a flare of terror in his brain and a shocked visage over his face, but it there was just barely enough clarity within his shattered mind to notice that a necklace of some sort was wrapped around his neck by a thin thread. What it bore, bouncing upon his chest as his breathing became rapid and panicked, was a small, jagged rock of sorts matching the tone of his skinless, chitinous carapace.

"Wh..." his voice gave out when he tried to speak, prompting him to swallow a gulp of stale saliva as he placed a hole-riddled forehoof to his now vaguely equine head. "Wh-what the- What have you... done to me? What have you done to me?!" he cried out in anguish, pushing the mirror away and staring at Lacewing.

"Please, stay calm!" she spoke aloud, pressing her hooves down firmly onto his shoulders in an effort to keep him where he was.

"What is this? What is this?!" he instead continued to scream as Lacewing tried frantically to calm him and keep his seated in his bed. His transparent, insectile wings buzzed behind his shelled back as he desperately sought to escape. "What happened to me?! I'm not... I..."

And then Chauffeur, far too caught up in this moment for him to bear, suddenly passed out cold. His wings stopped beating, his body fell limply upon the bed, and his eyes closed. Lacewing, alarmed and fearful that this dreadful surprise had killed him, pressed a hoof to his neck, but found to her relief that he was still alive after sensing his pulse. Sighing despondently at his terrible reaction, she looked to him in a more refined way.

"Poor thing," she whispered to his unconscious body, touching the necklace she had placed around his neck in a careful manner. "Don't worry. Come morning, I'll try to explain it all to you. But till then, I guess..."

Buzzing up to her own bed with her wings, Lacewing laid down upon it. Her eyes quickly closing after a few minutes, the changeling fell asleep.

Author's Note

Based off a weird dream I had last night. Sorry if you think this chapter's a bit short, fellas. Next ones will be much longer.

Weird Stone

Chauffeur had awoken from his horror-induced unconscious state long before the morning sun rose over the changeling kingdom. He could get up and move if he really wanted to, but for the next few hours, stiffened with shock at his unbelievable situation, he chose to remain where he laid on his side facing the wall. He couldn't draw his eyes away from his hooves; off of the horrible, nightmarish transformation he had undergone. That strange rock on the necklace he wore was also something he kept looking to, but he dared not remove the alien object without knowing what consequences could occur.

He nearly jumped and screamed when the feeling of a hoof suddenly tapped rapidly against his chitinous shoulder some time later. "You awake?" came that same voice he heard in the night.

"Y-yes," he shakily responded. Rolling over, the first thing he saw was Lacewing's peering face right in front of his own, though it was upside-down since she was currently poking most of her body from the bed overhead. Lacewing pulled it back and hopped from her perch, landing swiftly onto the ground.

"Better get up and get those joints stretched and wings buzzing because we're both going to be moving in a few minutes," she advised, stepping toward the middle and much more spacious part of the room.

As he began to stir, Chauffeur took in a deep breath and stared back to his hooves for the eightieth time since he first regained consciousness. "How did... how did I get here?" was the question he asked. Lacewing paused what she was doing and turned her head to him again.

"I was one of the drones assaulting Canterlot yesterday, and from what I recollect, you were the pony I was currently attacking," she revealed, returning to her activity. "The absolute second I pounced at you, some sort of blinding explosion of magic came from the castle and blew all of us away. When I came to my senses, I saw most of us changelings were thrown completely back to the changeling lands from its force. Since I was still holding tightly onto you as I was doing just before it happened, you must have come with me."

Chauffeur put on a face of utter dejection and looked away when Lacewing concluded with her story. "After that, I dragged you back to my cell before anyone else could notice," she curtly finished, stretching her legs and wings out and about as she prepared for the day.

"But why'd you do it?" he decided to ask next, leaving his bed and approaching her with a hint of bewilderment. "You said you were attacking me. You were trying to take and eat my love. Why'd you save me instead?" To this, Lacewing let out a hum and scratched her chin.

"Call it 'pity' or whatever you ponies feel, but I... guess it looked kind of unfair to see someone like you get dragged from your home to a place you had zero hope of surviving in," she said. "Wanting to know how I did it is the real question you should be asking."

"Yeah, I guess I kind of do..." he spoke, motioning a hole-filled hoof to his chitinous hide. "How am I... like this?"

Finishing her exercise, she pointed to the item resting on his upper chest; dangling from the thread. "You see that stone I put around your neck?"

"I might have noticed it..." he answered.

Lacewing took in a deep breath. "When a changeling dies of old age or another cause, we inter them in the old catacombs far below the ground level of the hive. They may be dead as dust, however the residue of our natural changeling magic will still be active for some time after they're gone. Because of that, a certain type of rock made of solidified changeling magic will occasionally sprout out from where they were buried like a stalagmite. We call that 'wyrdstone'. It's what some parts of the hive are made from. That's what your necklace is made of."

"It's a... rock?"

She rolled her blue eyes. "Not a 'normal' rock, but yes, it's a rock. That necklace you're wearing is a chip I scraped off one of them."

Chauffeur lifted the minuscule object into his hoof and examined it closely. Lacewing continued after he refocused his attention back onto her. "Anyway, there's a documented legend my people speak of about how this kind of rock, if placed onto a pony like one would put on a necklace or bracelet, will transform them into another changeling when worn. It appears that old stories are true, because when I did it to you, you transformed into one of us."

Chauffeur gulped, his heart now pulsating in his dry throat. "S-so... I'm going to be like this... forever?"

Lacewing shook her head. "Well... not exactly."

"What does that mean?" asked he.

"It's a bit complex," said she, pawing the stone ground anxiously. "The tales go on to say that if the necklace or bracelet containing a wyrdstone is not taken off a pony after twenty-four hours, they will stay a changeling forever. However, if taken off before those twenty-four are up, they will return to being a pony. You've only worn that thing for about ten so far."

Chauffeur sighed the deepest sigh he had ever produced in his life, exhaling a long breath of relief that seemed to fill the entire cell with the sound of his euphoria. "Thank Celestia..." he murmured.

"Yeah, thank whoever you want, but here's the deal. Seeing how there's no way to get you back to your homeland as of now, you're going to wear that thing for the whole day when we're out foraging for food or guarding places around here, and when we get back here at night you'll take it off for a little bit before putting it back on."

Chauffeur's brow lowered. "Foraging? Guarding?" he questioned.

"Yes, foraging and guarding," Lacewing confirmed. "I'm a soldier drone, and those two job descriptions are part of what we do. Since there's no other way to keep you by my side the whole day and out of trouble, you're my new partner, buddy."

She walked past Chauffeur and approached his berth before putting a hoof under it, where a good-sized hole was burrowed in the wall's stone; an area that the once-pony hadn't noticed until now. Digging through the small stash of items held underneath and within it, she pulled out bits of what Chauffeur quickly recognized as armor of sorts. It bore a dark phthalo blue coloration, and had a surface very similar to the wing-shells resting on his and her backs.

When the last of the set was in a pile at her feet, Lacewing picked up the helmet of it and looked to her new colleague. "Put it on and let's go. I don't want to get chewed out by the captain for being late to report in because of you."

"Do I really have to?" he asked her back hesitantly. "I'm perfectly content with just sitting here away from sight."

She managed a chuckle at his words. "I don't trust you to be by yourself, and besides, we need as many working hooves as we can use after what happened at Canterlot. You know what they say: It's the roving bee that gathers honey."

Chauffeur tilted his head to the side. "I don't get it."

Lacewing ended her tittering with a single wry and flat "Hah," before tossing him his helmet, which he caught in his forehooves in reaction. "Well, too bad. Put the armor on and get set to fly, pony-boy."

Looking back to the smooth, reflective surface of the helmet he held, Chauffeur sighed. Lifting it and placing over his head, he pressed it down and it snugly fit on. Approaching the rest of the set, he began to put the pieces on as well. Having never put any sort of armor on before in his life, he immediately noticed that it felt lighter than he thought it would, but the overall weight was still quite noticeable.

"You all set?" she asked, having fetched her own armor and donned it in half the time it took him.

"I think so," he responded, tucking his wyrdstone and the rest of the necklace away from sight under the folds of his gear.

"Good," she continued, trotting over to the entrance of the cell and beckoning him to follow. He did so, and once he got to its edge he could see out over the vast, chasm-like area of the hive's interior. Before he even noticed just how high up he was standing, he realized his knees were shaking.

"Now keep your wings going, and don't stop," sternly ordered Lacewing. Truly afraid in his paranoia that she would push him off if he failed to comply, Chauffeur did just that. Before he could stop himself, his droning wings had lifted him up and out of the cell, and soon he was hovering outside of it. Yelping in terror, he began to slowly soar away aimlessly after Lacewing left the small chamber in pursuit.

Chauffeur, unable and unwilling to control himself, looked like he was going to fly straight into a stalactite, only for a small pat on the side from Lacewing to direct him into the desired direction. The female changeling, now flying closely beside him, gave a warm smile.

"That's it! Just keep those wings buzzing and you'll be fine, so long as you don't get caught in any strong winds."

"Are you sure?" inquired the still-terrified Chauffeur, holding his hooves to his eyes out of pure and abject fear. "How do I know that I won't suddenly plummet to the ground and... and...?"

"Trust me," was all Lacewing lightly replied with. There was a truthfulness in her affable tone that Chauffeur sensed, and it eased him just enough to remove his hooves from his face and open his eyes. He could see the walls, luminous green sacs of some kind of substance he didn't recognize hanging from them and the ceiling like lanterns, and other changelings that happened to pass by. Even the ground far, far below he could vaguely make out.

"I'm actually flying..." he spoke breathlessly, still more full of fear than excitement as he started to guide himself. "I'm actually... flying?!"

"Feels better than walking, right?" Lacewing said.

"I-I don't know about that..." Looking to the hole-strewn walls, rock formations and winding passages surrounding the two, to Chauffeur's surprise and confusion they looked like they were... moving. As if rearranging themselves and morphing about. He thought it was merely some cheap illusion or hallucination brought forth from his thrill at this flying he was performing, but after a few seconds of soaring through the dark, winding place he knew what he was seeing was real. Some of the entrances of the walls and levels even closed, only to reopen in the same way just a few feet from their original position. "Why are the walls doing that?" he finally asked out of an annoyed desire to know what this queer phenomena was.

"It's a changeling hive," Lacewing casually stated as they rounded a corner and actually passed through one of the holes, to Chauffeur's rightfully-perturbed worry. "Thanks to having wyrdstone embedded in them, and no small part due to our magic, that's what they do. You might have a hard time navigating through them when walking or flying around, but I know my way around as well as any other drone in the hive."

"Weird..." Chauffeur mumbled as they exited through a last large hole and finally entered the bright blue sky outside. Looking about, the landscape surrounding the tall and twisted 'castle' could only be described as very similar to that of the walls of the hive, and was barren; save for the fact that it was littered with dark and jagged rocks. It was here when Lacewing started to drift down near the hive's guarded ground entrance, and he followed as best as he could.

While Lacewing landed quickly and gracefully, Chauffeur took his time touching down with a heavy caution in his stride. Walking off, where she took him next was a particular changeling who was currently yelling something to five other armored drones standing in front of him as unarmored workers busily went about in the background behind them.

The changeling who stood before them was perhaps the single bulkiest creature possessing any sort of equine shape that Chauffeur had ever seen. His short-snouted face, curled into a grouchy sneer, was an expression Chauffeur could only compare to a bulldog that was chewing on a wasp. As soon as he finished barking an order to the five drones, he noticed Lacewing and Chauffeur's presence and looked to them right off.

"Report your designation!" he roared when they were close enough.

Lacewing instantly saluted without so much as a hint of fear on her being. "Lacewing, reporting for duty, Captain Tarsus."

Captain Tarsus, as Chauffeur now knew, proceeded to focus his attention onto himself next. "Who's this grub?" he growled, stomping up to and butting his comparably thick head against Chauffeur's, effortlessly pushing it back when it met no resistance. "Looks a bit scrawny in the chitin to me. 'Didn't know you got yourself a new one, Lacewing. I hope he doesn't disappoint the hive as bad as that Tegmen fellow. What's your name, drone?"

Chauffeur could only let out a nervous squeak, and Lacewing, seeing his predicament, instantly answered for him. "He's... Chafer! I got him assigned as my new teammate," she said, trotting beside Chauffeur and wrapping a hoof over his armored shoulder as though he was an old friend.

Glaring at Chauffeur for a few seconds longer, Tarsus finally brought his head back and coughed into his hoof. "'Chafer', eh? Alright then. Listen up, cause I only have time to say this once, and it's important. Your two's duty's to go out like the last few patrols I sent out, find as much love as you can store in the surrounding area, and bring it back here. Everyone's famished after the invasion botched up, and we still have a great many workers and soldiers unaccounted for since the explosion, so we need as much as we can get. You got it?"

"Yes sir," saluted Lacewing, obediently.

"Oh, uh... yes sir," Chauffeur also agreed in turn. Tarsus snorted before turning away and fluttering his wings. After he took off into the air and headed into the direction of the castle, Lacewing also began to fly away, but in the opposite direction. Chauffeur, with a heavy sigh, buzzed his wings and hurriedly began to follow her.

As they flew off together, a peculiar question came to Chauffeur's mind. "I beg your pardon, but who was 'Tegmen'?"

Lacewing thought for a moment before answering. "He was my last partner. He wasn't the sharpest knife in a drawer to begin with, and I didn't know him for too long before..."

"Before what?"

She chuckled uneasily. "Um... Let's just say you should never pick arguments with Tatzlwurms."

Author's Note

G'day, you all! If you're still reading, make sure to hit that thumbs-up button if you like what you see!
Also, here's a note I need to add, but it has a barely-noticeable/important spoiler for the final episode of the season (I succumbed to my urges and watched it a little while after posting this story, so look over it if you dare.) I added the shifting/changing walls within the hive as a way to keep it closer to the canon. I made up that 'wyrdstone' stuff, though.

Love Lessons

As the minutes rolled by, Chauffeur could see that Lacewing had taken them past the barren lands surrounding the changeling castle, and to a forest that laid beyond it. It was a dense forest, with leafy trees bearing dull green foliage on their branches of varying thickness as far as the eye could see. Some were healthy and tall, others bore a more twisted and gnarled visage, but it was not unlike the woodland surrounding Canterlot Chauffeur remembered witnessing before ending up in this royal mess.

As Lacewing lowered from the sky to the ground, he went down to join her. She landed with grace, while her charge had to once again use great caution as he drifted to the earth. Being a small patch of dirt where they landed, the ground was made up of moist soil, but surrounding it was short grass that was covered in sparkling dew.

Lacewing looked at Chauffeur. Her visage was entirely serious, devoid of the light sarcasm that he had come to associate her with.

"Stay close," she said to him. "You'll never know what one can find out here. Big or small."

"I will," he said back, shifting his helmet into a more comfortable position.

Lacewing gave her companion a half-smile and turned her head forward again. They proceeded to walk through the grass and ventured into the woods with only a host of twigs from low-hanging trees and shrubs to get in their way. Traveling through the unkempt wilderness, Chauffeur could hear the songs of birds flying in the canopy above them, and the distinct chirping chorus of peeper frogs somewhere nearby.

When what felt like the fifteenth minute rolled by, Lacewing halted in her stride and stopped her new partner as well by placing a hoof to his chest.

"Don't move," she whispered to him. Slowly taking her hoof off of Chauffeur's chest, she started to sneak up to a nearby bush with as much silence in her approach to match a prowling fox. She arched her shoulders, and one still moment later, she suddenly pounced at it.

She tackled the bush and vanished from sight behind the foliage. It rustled quite violently, and Chauffeur only stood there, waiting for her to reappear (or not, if she was right now wrestling with a large, terrible beast). Seconds later she did, emerging from the brush with a furry, brown, and clearly alive mass in her jaws.

"Miff iff af furrel," she tried to speak while the creature wriggled around in her jaws and chattered away in a panicked fashion.

"What?" asked Chauffeur.

Lacewing, rolling her eyes, spat the small creature to the ground. Before it could scramble away, she pressed her hoof down on its fuzzy tail, rooting its squeaking, gray shape in place.

"This is a squirrel," she restated. "I heard it rummaging around in that bush. I assume you know what they are, yes?"

"Of course I do," he replied, his brows slanting when he looked down at the rodent. "What are you going to do with it?"

"It's not what I'm going to do with it," she smiled. "It's what you're going to do with it."

Chauffeur was silent for almost ten long seconds. "What?" finally came his flat response. Lacewing sighed and rolled her eyes once more.

"What I'm saying is that you're going to drain the love from it, okay?" she went on. "I know you must be famished. We changelings are always hungry, and you should be no different right now."

Now that she mentioned it, Chauffeur had been ignoring the drilling pangs in his stomach for most of the morning. It was not unlike the feeling one had when skipping the day's first two meals. "You're right, I do feel a little hungry, I guess. How, exactly, do I do it then?"

"A changeling always knows how to extract love from others with their magic. You've just got to feel it and let it come to you," she instructed. "Try it now. Just look at the squirrel and try it."

Chauffeur did as she said with a deep breath. Thinking with all of his might, he put his horn forward. "Hergh... Hragh!" he growled, next, attempting in vain to activate his magic.

Afraid that he was going to pull a muscle with the way his neck started to stretch out, Lacewing spoke up again as the hapless squirrel could only look on with fear shining in its black eyes. "It's nothing to do with willing it to come forth with your mind," she told him. "You need to feel it in your body. Feel and allow the magic to flow on its own. And when it does comes to you, don't fight it. Let your instincts take over."

Chauffeur took Lacewing's words to heart, and this was shown in full clarity as he stopped straining himself, and his horn almost immediately began to glow a sickly green color not long after hearing them. Doing as she told him, he let his new hungering instincts, in spite of how alien they felt, take over. Without even willing it, he opened his fanged mouth up wide and a long, ethereal stream of pinkish energy began flowing from the squirrel's body, into it.

"Yes, good, good," Lacewing grinned in triumph. "Now feed off of this squirrel's love, but not all of it. Savor some, save the rest. And don't try to gather all of the love from this squirrel either. We try to periodically collect from the animals living here, as to not waste our resources, sort of like... collecting milk from cows, or whatever you ponies do with them."

His eyes still closed, Chauffeur devoured the essence hungrily, and couldn't help but admire the taste and feeling it gave him. It was so unbearably sweet and delicious, yet slightly bitter. Were he able to compare it to anything, Chauffeur thought it was like eating a wonderful cupcake, but covered in frosting of a flavor he was not particularly fond of. Whether it was from the love itself, or the rotten thoughts and realization of having to eat this innocent being's very essence, he couldn't tell.

His hunger was still strong, but remembering what Lacewing had told him not several seconds before, he closed his mouth. The stream focused to the horn on his forehead now that there was no other part available to absorb it, and when he sucked as much as he felt was necessary, the energy ceased.

Lacewing, after releasing the squirrel's tail, walked over to him and tapped on his horn with a hoof.

"This is being stored away within you. And it's going to the hive," she said, giving him a warm smile. "When we get back to it, we'll give it over to the workers. They know what to do with it."

Chauffeur turned from her to the recovering squirrel with a worried face. It appeared dizzy from the transaction. Sluggishly, it began to crawl away until it had stumbled into a bush and away from sight. He continued to look at where the unfortunate rodent departed when he heard the sound of Lacewing purposefully coughing to get his attention, right behind him. He turned and looked to her.

"Well? C'mon!" she said, waving her hoof. "The hive isn't going to feed itself."

Lacewing and Chauffeur found more animals to siphon the food the changelings coveted as the day dragged on. Some were more squirrels, some were birds they caught unawares, and the rest was just a small assortment of random woodland creatures, ranging from badgers, to groundhogs, to rabbits.

Their individual horns glowing vibrantly, the pair finally returned to the changeling castle as the sun was just starting to set. While Lacewing's face was stern with pride at their accomplishment, Chauffeur still didn't look sure about everything, but he followed her still; mustering a more confident look.

Upon returning and reporting directly to the waiting shape of Captain Tarsus, they showed him just how much love they had accrued. With a hearty "Well done, soldiers," and a rugged pat on the shelled back that almost felt like to Chauffeur like a violent blow, the two were directed to enter the hive and take what love they collected to some workers. With a content smirk on her face, Lacewing flew off to do just that, and Chauffeur was not far behind her when they went into the hive.

Chauffeur followed her through the long, winding, and ever-shifting passageways until they happened upon a pair of changelings who weren't wearing armor. Apparently, they were working on some of the odd, glowing sacks of the gooey substance that littered the roof and walls of the hive like stalactites.

Lacewing slowed and let Chauffeur catch up with her. She instructed Chauffeur to follow her to them, and he did.

The workers quickly took notice of the drones and buzzed over to them without hesitation. In swift and honed actions they used their horns to siphon and take the love from them with no need for prompting. When all of it was gone and their own horns were the ones set aglow they turned and flew away, not a single word uttered by either of them.

Chauffeur had no idea what was going to happen next, and he looked at Lacewing curiously. "What do they do with this?" he asked after the two workers buzzed off a short ways with the love energy.

"They process it and store it," she responded. "Watch."

Still hovering beside her with a droning from his wings, Chauffeur did so, and from what he could see that's what they started to do. The workers began to spit out some sort of green goo onto the ceiling they had flown up to, and then placed their glowing horns onto their individual strands of the stuff. The love then left their horns and entered the goop, and the sticky strands began to form into a larger shape at their bases.

As soon as the workers had finished, the little sacks of goo they had created began to illuminate a green light, just like their horns had. Visibly content with their work, the workers then flew off, evidently to pursue other parts of their agendas while their onlookers simply continued to stare at what they had made.

"That's so... weird," Chauffeur remarked with a curling lip.

"Well, it's normal to us. These help feed the other members of the hive," shrugged Lacewing. She nudged his shoulder gently and motioned for him to follow her. "We did our job and there's still an hour left in the day. Want to relax and maybe socialize with some other drones in the soldiers' lounge before hitting the sack, pony-boy?"

Chauffeur slowly nodded, almost reluctantly in the motion. "Um... sure, I... guess."

Smiling, Lacewing began to fly in what Chauffeur assumed was the direction of the place she had spoken. Wings buzzing, he flew after her in pursuit after she beckoned him to do so. After a few minutes, they reached an area on the ground level of the hive-castle, where nearly two dozen other changelings could be seen wandering or sitting about. They all sported armor not unlike the kind Lacewing and himself were wearing, but most of them had their helmets off and propped somewhere to the side, or else tucked under their forehooves.

It wasn't long before Lacewing encountered who Chauffeur quickly figured to be some of her friends. Their names, which he overheard within the conversation from where he stood, were Elytra and Chaeta.

Elytra, the female of the duo, was sleek, thin, clearly more feminine in appearance, and had features that were sharp like knives. By offhoof conversation alone she sounded like and had the mannerisms of a flirty young mare, and for reasons Chauffeur chose not to think about, she would sneak the occasional itinerant peek in his direction.

Chaeta, on the other hoof, was a large male changeling, but he didn't look as intimidating as his companion; if anything, he seemed more unfocused. His left ear looked tattered and smaller than what most other changelings had, and despite his kind lacking pupils, his left eye looked a bit lazy as well.

They continued to speak, mostly about their failed invasion of the Canterlot wedding. Chauffeur just sat behind Lacewing the whole time, sitting on one of many rocks that had forms resembling chairs. With nothing to really entertain him but his thoughts, he spent it trying to further process his predicament, again reaching no firm conclusion to this nightmarish misfortune.

What was left of the hour was soon spent, and Lacewing had visibly grown tired of it. As Chauffeur could only assume, it was nearly around the time of night she usually headed off for her cell. Thusly, it looked to the disguised pony that she was readying herself to depart.

"...Yeah, that does sound quite interesting, but you should really tell me if we get the chance tomorrow," Lacewing yawned as Elytra was about to start on the events that went on while she and Chaeta were out foraging. "If you'll excuse my companion and I, we're just about to go back to our chamber and get some sleep."

"Before you leave Lacy, can I get the name of your new partner?" Elytra lightly spoke to her friend, smirking at Chauffeur through heavy eyelids. Lacewing looked at him, as if expecting him to answer for her, which he sadly obliged to.

"Chafer," Chauffeur said with some uncertainty, still just growing accustomed to his new fake name. "My name is... Chafer."

"Well, you don't have to sound so nervous about it," giggled Elytra. "Or shy, for that matter. We're all just friendly drones here."

"My name is Chaeta," Chaeta suddenly spoke up in a dull and bland way, though not particularly aiming his attention onto Chauffeur, or anything for that matter when he said it.

Grinning and chuckling at Chauffeur's reaction, Elytra patted her partner on the shoulder. "Don't mind him, dear. This big bug hit his head pretty hard against a rock when we got thrown back from the invasion. His brain's a little bit scrambled from the impact right now, but the medics in the infirmary told me that he'll recover in about a month or two. Won't you, Chaeta?"

"My name is Chaeta," Chaeta monotonously repeated, head now lolling about slightly. His cross-eyed brow curled downward a small ways when he caught sight of Chauffeur, and he gave a crooked, interested glance toward the pony he unwittingly saw as just another changeling.

"So who're you, exactly?" he asked, rubbing his chin with a hole-filled hoof. "I don't remember seeing you before, and I know everyone in the hive. I think."

Chaeta continued by letting out a loud snort and inhaling a gust of air, causing all three changelings before him to give him an odd look. His action finishing, he next hummed, "You certainly smell new. I think. And... you look a little like a grub, but with a shell and... wings."

Elytra shook off the look she was sharing with the others and let a large grin come over her snout. Hopping from her rock, she flirtatiously sauntered closer to Chauffeur as well, brushing past her partner in her eagerness to use this chance to tease the fellow drone.

"He's no grub for sure Chaeta, but I think he looks as fresh as a nymph. Are you one, rookie?"

"I, uh... I..." was all that came out of Chauffeur's stuttering mouth. Lacewing saw what was happening, and with a silent sigh, acted for him.

"Ah, stop making fun of him," she butted in, coming between the pair just as a distressed visage started to appear on her charge's face. "We both had a long day foraging, and he probably had a longer one than me with all the coaching I did. Nothing special for him, and not a single thing different than what you two or I went through when we came of age."

"So he is a newbie? Hrmph," huffed Elytra, lifting her snout. She took one more, final look at Chauffeur, gave him a wink, and then turned away from him. "Whatever. You said you both were about to hit the hay? Well, Chaeta and I are tired too. Think we'll go get ourselves some shuteye."

"The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell," Chaeta commented when Elytra approached him, causing Elytra to shoot her companion an amused chuckle.

"It sure is, buddy," she concurred, as she gently grabbed Chaeta's hoof into her own. "It sure is. Now, come on, big guy. Let's get you some rest." The two turned to one of the currently-open exits on the chamber's ground level, and walked into it before the hole sealed itself.

Now with two changelings less in the lounge, Chauffeur exhaled a deep breath he had been holding.

"Th-thanks, for... saving me from that," he said to Lacewing in a low voice.

"Don't mention it. It wasn't anything major I could contend with," she smiled. Her head titled, concern flickering in her eyes. "You feeling okay?"

"A little, yeah."

"Good," she replied, picking her helmet up from the ground nearby and putting it over her cranium. "But like I said beforehoof, we should go to my cell now. It's around the time that you need to remove the necklace anyway. Let's get to it, before you-"

"-Turn into a changeling forever?" he finished for her in a small voice.

She nodded. "Yeah, that."

Through the ever-changing folds of the hive, the two eventually returned to the cell where they had previously emerged from that morning. The moment he landed, Chauffeur removed the armor around his body and concealing his necklace. He looked at the wyrdstone with a cautious eye, and while he did, Lacewing spoke.

"Okay, you can take the necklace off now," she whispered to him. "And you should do it quickly, before somechangeling gets the chance to pass by and peek in here. Just take it off, and put it back on after a minute-or-two."

Without a moment to spare, Chauffeur pulled it off from around his neck. The second the thing was off of him and he had handed it to Lacewing, Chauffeur suddenly keeled over with a loud groan. A bright glow overtook him as he gasped out in what sounded like breathless agony, and he muffled whatever shriek he felt wanted to escape from the back of his throat. Lacewing could only watch what happened, and the glow slowly, slowly faded. When it vanished completely, what now stood before the changeling was an ordinary earth pony.

Coated in sweat, Chauffeur weakly looked to Lacewing. Now without the wyrdstone, Lacewing once more saw what he really was.

He was normal-looking an earth pony covered in brown-and-white fur, and was of a medium build. Not particularly sturdy, and a bit thin in most areas, but normal either way. On his flank was a cutie mark all adult ponies seemed to possess, this one depicting a light-brown wagon wheel, visibly broken. He choked in several more deep breaths before calming down and dropping to the floor.

Chauffeur turned to Lacewing with a strained face. "That thing... If that's what I have to feel every time I put it on, then I never want to put that thing back on... ever again," he sighed, looking at it where it was in her grasp.

"Ugh. I can see why," she chuckled sympathetically, before her face dropped to an expression devoid of any humor whatsoever. Letting a minute pass and lifting her hoof back up with the necklace hanging from it when it was done, she put it forward until it was touching the pony's chest.

"Now, put it back on."