Water Flare tensed slightly as she felt herself regain consciousness. She kept her eyes closed though, not wanting to think about what might be there if she opened them. She didn't feel any pain anymore though, that was quite worrying. In fact, her chest and bad leg felt numb. Even more concerning. She felt dry though, no dampness from the bleeding, something that was odd to her slowly coming back together mind. Even with her armour still covering her, if she'd been stuck in a changeling pod by now she should have been able to feel the goo thanks to the cut. It was impossible that she'd just been left alone though, not with an entire hive seeing her before she collapsed.

"Zeniti hi temm'ta soa ho?"

She tensed further, the sound of changeling language an unwelcome way to break the silence. Not that it was actually that silent, now that she thought about it. The buzz of wings was present as a constant, low droning sound, accompanied by background sounds that almost sounded like a normal town on a busy day. Except for the fact that it was a town of changelings instead of ponies. So she was still in the same cavern as before, somehow that realisation was even less comforting than anything else.

"Piasa, soa hi nagas."

She felt what seemed like a hoof work against her left cheek and heard a click before her mouthplate loosened and was opened up. She still couldn't resist though. A small twitch of each limb confirmed that they were all unrestrained, except maybe the front left which still didn't give any feedback, but the odds were still several hundred to one against her. At best. Even if she was in peak condition, she wouldn't last against five of them.

"Beli hekkalinas morgos equis dei hi regla?"

"Kop, dei xent saloma kosall. Na-Pend me'ek gaio."

Before she could react to whatever they were saying, Flare felt her helmet being removed and she scrunched her eyes up further as the world suddenly became brighter around her. Green tinged light flashed for a second, likely changeling magic. As it faded away again, along with a small clunk that sounded her helmet being put down next to her, she hesitantly took a deep breath and opened her eyes.

She was on her back, staring at the ceiling. As expected, two changelings were standing over her, watching her with what seemed to be a mix of curiosity and concern. Or whatever the changeling equivalents were. While were both the same black armoured, pony shaped bugs as the ones she had fought before, the one on her left had pale amber eyes while the one on the right was hornless and had vivid green eyes. Flare raised her head slightly and saw the same, for lack of a better word, red changeling king from before was standing there at her hooves, watching her closely and opening his mouth. It was at this point that her brain caught up with her eyes.

"Are-"

"Gyaaaaahh!!" Flare cried, dropping onto her side and using her good legs to pull herself away from them as quickly as she could. She only made it a few feet before she felt the wall at the back of her head, leaving no way out. Sitting up like this, she could see the glints of so many changelings again, a horde that had likely all turned as one to look at her again. "O-o-okay, I give up. I'm n-not telling you anything though, so you may as well kill me now!"

"Easy, easy," The king replied. His tone was softer than expected, yet it still sounded wrong. She couldn't tell if it was the echo of the cave or his natural voice, but it still had a sense of distortion to it, as if it were two voices speaking slightly out of sync. "You don't want to mess your leg up again, do you?"

"Again?" She asked, looking down herself despite feeling that taking her eyes off them was a really bad idea. The bandages from before had been removed and the open wound she had been suffering had been stitched up and covered with a salve that looked suspiciously like the changeling goo. It didn't hurt anymore though, and probably explained the numbness.

"You're lucky it wasn't too deep," He continued. "Your leg should remain strong enough to walk on once feeling comes back to it. Lucky we have such good doctors too. Gheni, Lanne, you both did well."

"Torb yees, yelka lesallia." The amber changeling identified as Gheni replied, bowing to the king. The green one, Lanne, did the same. Flare watched them, feeling so many questions coming to the fore in her mind.

"...Why?" She eventually said quietly, drawing their attention again.

"Hmmm?"

"Why would you help me?" She shifted nervously in place, reasoning that she may as well speak bluntly if she was doing down anyway. "Don't you normally just try and suck all the love you can get from ponies without regard for our wellbeing?"

The king stared at her for several seconds and she instantly cowered, regretting trying to make a stand. Why did she always have to pull stupid shit like that? The awkward moment just kept hanging between them, as if each was daring the other to react first. Eventually, he blinked and his expression changed. It wasn't anger, or condescension, or even surprise. He looked...Disappointed, as he slowly glanced away slightly, looking at the two regular changelings with him.

"Isani term nectix," He said quietly to himself before putting a calmer look on his face and looking back at Flare. "I see there is much that needs to be clarified between us. However before we go any further, I think we should probably introduce ourselves. Though here, we can dismiss with the formal procedure. I am Thorax, King of Outlani."

"W-Water Flare, from Equestria." She replied, mind racing. Thorax, if that was his name, seemed to want to keep this civil. If she did, maybe she could keep him in a good enough mood to avoid killing her too quickly, or even at all.

"I imagine you must had a lot of bad experiences with changelings, and I can only offer my sincere apologies for those. I understand if you're hesitant to trust anything I say, but we have no desire or reason to feed on your love."

"...Why?" She knew she was repeating herself a lot, but there wasn't much else she could do in this situation. And there was a chance he was telling the truth, even if it was a small amount hidden in a mess of lies. She, wanted to believe though.

"Because we feed off our love for each other. It both sustains us and provides us with strength. If we could only feed off the love of other beings, chances are the changeling race wouldn't have survived long enough to learn it could feed like that," Thorax explained, looking back at the cavern behind him, and the swarm it contained. "Almost everyone here has a family member or loved one with them, despite the risk, because such care and support is a way of life."

Flare slowly looked out at the changelings she could see, studying them quietly. Now that she could get a good look at the area, she could see it was more of a encampment than what she expected a proper hive to look like. Everything she could see, supplies, resting areas, even a stockpile of armour, looked like it had been set up to be moved quickly and efficiently. Some areas she couldn't help but think were set up even better than most EDF operations. More surprising though. every changeling she could see had at least one other sticking close to them, and many of those where showing signs of affection to each other. Small nuzzles, gentle nips, a few cuddling off to one side. Even as she looked back at them, Gheni and Lanne were sharing a loving nuzzle, the larger Gheni giving a small, satisfied shudder as they did.

"Okay. Capable of sharing the love. Let's, say I believe that," Flare said, leaning back against the wall more. "That you're all decent enough. That brings up another question. Why exactly are you here?"

"The short version is, we're here to stop a traitor that threatens both our homes," Thorax replied, looking slightly saddened. "I'm not sure how interested you would be in the long version."

"Actually, I would. If...If I can leave, I might be able to get other ponies to know about it." She replied hesitantly, hoping this would give her an opening to get out soon. She'd noticed that their discussion was starting to draw the attention of more changelings within the cavern. All of them seemed to be pretty calm about it though, about her. Especially Thorax.

"That, would actually put us after the same thing. You see, Outlani lies to the west of Equestria, just beyond these mountains, so we've naturally been interested in ponykind for a long time. Our first attempts to learn began during the time you refer to as the Age of Advancement. They...Didn't go well. Our kind focused to the east for the time afterward, letting Equestria forget about our poor first contact while still attempting to learn quietly. It took a while before we felt we could attempt contact again, around fourteen hundred years, but I had hoped that my reign would be the one where changelings and ponies could finally become friends..."

"I'm guessing, something happened?" Flare asked simply.

"Hi salter cinridad!" Lanne said bitterly in response. Gheni wrapped a hoof round her and whispered something to try and comfort her while Thorax continued.

"There have always been those among the changelings who did not see why we should try to befriend others, those who saw other races as little more than stockpiles of love for them to take and exploit. Thirty years ago, I made the mistake of letting one into a position of power. A hive governor by the name of Chrysalis."

Those within earshot of him hissed slightly at the name.

"A...She's not actually a queen then?" Flare said in surprise, dropping her head back against the wall as she let the revelation sink in.

"No, she's actually closer to what you'd consider a city mayor. If you mean her appearance, blame evolution. About fifteen percent of the changeling population look like me or her. It has no bearing on our roles. Our last queen was a regular changeling."

"Huh...So, what do you call changelings like you?"

"Qeuv'Gos. It simply means tall kind. Changelings you're more familiar with are Kergi'Gos. Many kind."

"Okay," Flare looked down at herself, slowly tracing a hoof over her cut. "And, what happened after that?"

"Well as I said, Chrysalis was power-hungry for a changeling. Her leadership position with the Borealis hive allowed her to create a following that also desired domination over cooperation. Twenty-five years ago, she declared herself 'Queen of the true changelings', removed the other qeuv'gos of the hive and fled toward Equestria with eight thousand of her followers. Borealis was declared a rouge state and I moved to secure the hive again. The remaining changeling rebels there surrendered quickly, but we lost track of Chrysalis in the process. It took several years for us to track her down again, mostly because she had gone to ground within your homeland."

"Yeah, she kind of set back pony-changeling relations a few thousand years twenty-three years ago," Water Flare pushed herself into more of a sitting position, thinking Thorax needed to know out of a sense of openness, rather than trying to be antagonistic. "She took the place of one of our princesses, launched a full scale invasion of the capital, incapacitated our leader and a number of our best and generally caused a shitton of havoc before her army was repelled."

"As I feared. Our first scouts reported an extremely hostile opinion of changelings," Thorax mused, stopping as he noticed the look Flare gave him. "I promise you they had minimal interaction with ponies, they were just looking for Chrysalis. We found her in the region you refer to as the badlands, with barely a quarter of her original numbers. She had been attempting to replace those numbers, but in a crueller home, without a caring leader...Those new changelings were smaller, meeker, looking like they were lost compared to their older brethren. Two years ago, the three thousand changeling rebels that remained moved through the southern lands and back west. We confirmed they took refuge in these mountains recently, now we have come to bring the traitors to justice and help the new generation learn what it means to be a changeling."

"I see..." Flare looked down and curiously tested her bad leg against the floor. Part of her wished that it had been Aurora in this situation instead of her, he could have figured out if this was the truth in a heartbeat. In her case though, everything she'd seen, despite everything...She wanted to believe it was the truth. Maybe it was some delusional side effect of her healing, maybe it was just pony nature, but she wanted to try for peace. In any case, the least she could do was be thankful for the knowledge they had given her. "Is there anything I can help with?"

"Pabe?" Gheni asked in surprise.

"Well, you patched me up, I'm starting to get feeling back in my leg, and you told me so much that could really help ease the anti-changeling sentiment back home. So, if I can help you in return, I will."

"Hmmm. To be honest, your being able to leave to tell ponies would be the biggest help," Thorax replied, watching as she carefully got back to her hooves, her bad leg shaking but holding up for now. "We're almost ready to move from this mountain against Chrysalis' location though, but if needed I can spare someone to help you back to Equestria."

"Well thank you but, there's still more of us lost out here and I have no idea what happened to them. We were trying to confirm if Chrysalis was here ourselves so, for now, it might be best if I stay with you and we help each other finish our tasks?"

Thorax nodded and his horn glowed green, the aura attempting to surround Flare. After several seconds of nothing happening it petered out and he stared before crouching down.

"Whoever made that armour did impressive work for it to resist magic like that. For now, climb on and rest your leg." He said simply. She nodded and clambered onto his back, gripping on as he rose again and began calling orders out in changeling. She couldn't do much else for now but wonder. What this revelation about the changeling race might mean, if it really did give ponies a chance to be free of the threat of Queen Chrysalis once and for all.

Most importantly though, if her friends were still alright.

Author's Note

Huh, could have sworn that this chapter was longer. Not sure if that's just me being a bad writer or if I'm missing something, but there we are.