Honey Pie III: Revolution

Chapters

When You Talk About Destruction
We'd All Love to See the Plan
You Can Count Me Out
You Ask Me For a Contribution
People With Minds that Hate
We're All Doing What We Can
You Tell Me It's The Institution

When You Talk About Destruction

That doesn't sound good, said Ambassador Wildcard as the disguised changeling vanished around a corner.

No, it doesn't. I think you had better go tell Celestia about this, right away.

Yes, my queen. He gave me a sort of mental salute, and I pulled myself from his mind.

Standing once more in the midst of the hive, with drones resuming their business around me, I considered what I'd just heard. I hoped that when the other changeling had said we would suffer the consequences, she merely meant that she thought our hive would fail if we tried to live without hiding. But I had a feeling that she'd meant something a lot worse and more direct.

Her mention of allied hives worried me too. Assuming Chrysalis' claims hadn't just been propaganda, this hive was one of the largest in the world. But even so, enough other hives banding together could outmatch us considerably. I decided it was time to call a council of sorts.

I turned and headed back to my rooms. There was no reason to do this standing in the middle of the corridor. I could consult with the drones and under-queens I needed anywhere, so I might as well do so in comfort.

Is everything okay? You feel really worried all of the sudden, said Pinkie.

I'm not actually sure. But you've got a party to plan, don't worry too much about me. This is probably nothing.

If it turns out to be something, you know you can count on me to help, said Pinkie.

I know. Thank you.

I had been walking as I spoke with Pinkie, and now I was at my room once again. I flopped down on the bed with a sigh. Minder, who had shadowed me through all this, settled herself next to me and started grooming my wings. I relaxed a little bit.

Closing my eyes, I reached out to the hive. I touched each of the under-queens in turn, and asked them to share what they knew of other hives with me. Only a few of them knew anything. I sought the knowledge of the hive itself next, the combined experience of all its drones. I found several who had been used by Chrysalis to speak with neighboring hives, and even a few who had served the old queen Sepal in the same fashion.

From this knowledge I pieced together a rough picture of what we might face. It was not good. There were at least six other hives out there, perhaps more. All six of the hives we knew were within Equestria itself. My hive claimed Canterlot, and all of the smaller towns immediately around it, plus a great deal of territory that was mostly wilderness, but we did not claim any of the other major cities of Equestria. They were held by other hives. Manehattan, in fact, seemed to be shared between at least two hives. I could believe it from what I knew of that vast, teeming gathering of equine life.

Beyond the fact that they existed, however, I knew little about those other hives. Chrysalis had asserted that we were one of the largest hives, but there was no actual evidence of the size of any of the others. I had a few scraps of information—queen's names and drone's colors, mostly—garnered from the rare meetings between their drones and mine. I knew too that relationships between this hive and the others had often been tense. Chrysalis' aggression, and her predecessors' capable expansion, had meant that most of the interactions I could find memories of were disputes over the borders of our territory. Beyond that, the only other thing I had was the knowledge that they, like us, had always followed a code of secrecy. Changelings were never to be seen by ponies. We were to live and feed in hiding, always. It was a way I myself had been raised to follow. Knowing what I did now, it seemed utterly pointless. Foolish, even. It was far easier to gain positive emotions simply by living among ponies. There was no need to hide and steal their love.

I asked the under-queens for their advice, and got only the suggestion that I should warn our infiltrators and the others who were living outside of the hive of the possible threat.

I did so, wishing I had more to do. Beyond taking reasonable precautions, however, I didn't know what else could be done. The strange drone's threats had been nebulous, and I knew so little of the other hives. Hoping that all this would prove to be nothing, I rose and prepared to fly to Ponyville for Pinkie's party. I could use some love, and a couple of cupcakes, to cheer me up.

The party was a Pinkie Pie party, that was the only way to describe it. There was music, and cake, and punch. There were balloons, and streamers, and confetti. There were also, of course, ponies, including the guest of honor who'd just moved into town. And there were changelings. I was just one—though probably the most noticeable one—of more than a dozen that mingled with the Ponyville crowd. Pinkie Pie parties were prime feeding occasions, so few changelings ever missed a chance to attend one.

I smiled as I savored the emotional flavors in the air. It was quite a mix, but the overall taste was that of sugary happiness.

"You must be Sweetcake." I turned to see a stout earth pony mare with a green coat. Her ladybug cutie mark told me that this was Ladybird, tonight's guest of honor.

I gave her a nod and a smile. "Indeed I am."

"Pinkie Pie has been telling me about you, and about the hive. I find changelings very fascinating!"

I smiled. "Most of us find ponies fascinating as well."

"If it isn't rude, can I ask a possibly personal question?"

"Sure, ask whatever you like." I wondered if it was going to be a question about changeling sex. Some ponies seemed nearly obsessed with the subject, I'd noticed.

"You're the queen of your hive, yes?"

"Yes."

"But Pinkie calls you 'he' and I've been told you use a stallion's appearance when you're disguising yourself. Why? I'm told changelings are much more like insects than like ponies. So you must be female if you're the queen, yes? Why not 'she'?"

"Ah. Well..." I groped around for a proper explanation. "Imagine that everypony you know is a mare. The princesses are, but so are all the soldiers, all the fire-fighters, all the doctors, all the nurses, all the teachers, all the farmers, just... everypony. Eventually 'mare' would stop really having any meaning as a word. You wouldn't think of things like being a princess a something mares do, because there would be no stallions to compare them with, it would just be something ponies do. They'd be special because they were rulers, but not because they were mares, right?"

"Ah. I think I see. But wouldn't that mean you'd be kind of genderless, not male?"

"Changelings in general have no gender roles, and no personal idea of gender, but those of us who've trained as infiltrators and gone out among ponies had to learn pony gender roles in order to fit in. There's no reason to learn both male and female roles, so it's easier to just pick one and get comfortable with how to act in that role. It happens that the first pony I copied was a stallion, so I've always taken male roles. 'Queen' doesn't seem female to me, and I got comfortable with 'he' among ponies, so..." I shrugged. "That's just the way it worked out. I'd feel very strange calling myself a mare, even though yes, technically I'm female."

"I see. I have about a million more questions to ask you, really. Though I rather hope that someday I might be allowed to visit the hive and see it for myself."

My ears perked up at that. Changelings visiting ponies was only one half of the two races learning to not fear each other. Ponies visiting changelings was important too. Few ponies seemed to want to, though. "I'd be delighted to have you visit," I said. "In fact-"

I was suddenly cut off by a ripple of alarm that swept through the hive. My head snapped up, but my eyes weren't seeing the party anymore, I was looking through a drone's eyes, miles away from Ponyville.

It was Ambassador Wildcard again, and he was staring in shock at a squad of Royal Guard unicorns that had just burst into the embassy. Lying at the feet of their captain was another drone, whose pain had started the alarm call. She was barely conscious, having been taken down by a bolt of unicorn magic.

"What is the meaning of this?" hissed the ambassador. "How dare you barge in here and-"

His angry tirade was cut off by a gasp of shock as the captain's horn lit and shot another beam at the helpless drone. It was not a mere stunning spell, it was far more powerful than that. I felt a spike of pain from her and then she was gone.

He had killed her.

The ambassador, and the other drones with him, all stared in horror. The captain grinned. "Kill them all," he said, and the room erupted into chaos as attacking spells shot out into the unprepared drones.

The pair of warrior drones I'd assigned to the embassy raised a shield, dividing the room in two, but not quite in time to prevent several more hits. The air was full of screams, while the hive buzzed with mental shouts as the drones sought to coordinate some kind of defense.

The shield shuddered as the full power of more than a dozen unicorns slammed into it. Wildcard snarled defiance, his horn blazing, and added his magic to the warriors', strengthening it. Several other drones joined him. The unicorns had them outnumbered more than two to one now, though, and after less than a minute the shield shattered. The unicorns charged forward.

I reeled from the pain and death that erupted into my mind. Wildcard was fighting like a maniac, his magic lancing out at the unicorns. He even bucked one of them, a solid, crunching blow that staggered the big pony. But despite his efforts, and those of the increasingly outnumbered drones, I knew they were all going to die. Within minutes Wildcard had been backed up against a wall, both of the warriors were down, and there were only two more drones still on their feet elsewhere in the room.

Suddenly a wave of darkness swept over the room, knocking all the combatants from their feet. Wildcard fell against the wall with a stunning thud, but he was still conscious enough for me to hear the overwhelmingly loud voice that filled the room. "WHAT IN THE MOON'S NAME IS GOING ON HERE?"

Wildcard looked up to see Princess Luna standing in the doorway. I could feel the relief that washed through him. He scrambled to his feet. The attacking unicorns were rising as well, though.

"WELL?" thundered Luna.

There was a flash of red fire, and the unicorn who'd had Wildcard cornered vanished. All around the room the others did too, in a rainbow of differing colors, leaving only the broken forms of the drones they'd killed and wounded behind.

As Wildcard started to explain to Luna what had happened, something drew my attention back to my own body. I became aware of a pair of hooves wrapped tightly around me, and a familiar voice, sounding as though she were about to cry, saying "Sweetcake, please, be okay. Please, please, please, be okay." I was lying down in the middle of the room, with Pinkie hugging me desperately. Around us was a ring of drones—every changeling who'd been at the party—on high alert, glaring at the ponies. I could see Twilight and a few other familiar faces outside of their guardian circle, looking concerned and confused, but they wouldn't let anypony but Pinkie near me.

I wrapped my hooves around Pinkie, clinging to her. "I couldn't save them. They're dead, and I couldn't save them. I couldn't do anything. I felt them all die." My voice was sobbing, and I wanted to cry, but in this form I couldn't shed any tears. Instead I just held Pinkie tightly while I shook.

Eventually I lifted my head from Pinkie's shoulder. The protective circle of drones around me relaxed. The danger was past for now. I felt stunned, more shaken than I'd been since the day when I'd first lost my hive bond. The hive was still there, of course, but its hum was an agitated buzz of fear and aggression. It was also five minds smaller than it had been. It didn't make a noticeable difference in the sound of the hive, but I knew they were gone. I'd felt each one of them die. I could still feel the injured survivors too. They were being tended now, and as far as I could tell they would all live, but their pain wouldn't leave my mind. I knew I could block it away from my awareness, but I didn't want to. I'd failed my hive, I deserved to suffer with them.

"Sweetcake?" I looked over to see Twilight standing next to me. "What happened? Every changeling froze all at once, then Pinkie bowled over half the party-goers running to you, and then you screamed and collapsed, and the changelings all circled around you and wouldn't let anypony touch you. They were being kind of scary. They wouldn't talk or anything, they just hissed at us!"

"The hive has been attacked," I said. "They were responding to that by protecting the queen."

"Attacked? By who? And why?"

I thought about the red fire I'd seen, and a certain red-eyed changeling who'd delivered a threat earlier today. With that added to the astronomical unlikelihood of a Royal Guard captain deciding to wipe out the changeling embassy, I could probably jump to certain conclusions. "I'm not entirely sure, but I have a suspicion, and it's not good."

I looked around the devastated embassy. The walls were scorched and battered. The desk had been broken in two. Green changeling blood still stained the floor where the drones had fallen, though their bodies had already been taken away, to be returned to the hive for burial.

Wildcard came up to me, a resin bandage glued to his side. He bowed, and I could feel the anguish in his mind as he said, I failed them. I should have been more alert. I should have been ready. I knew to watch out for the other hives, but I didn't pay enough attention to that warning.

It's not your fault. What else could you have done? None of us knew that they were going to attack like that. I'm the one who failed, I should have sent more warriors here to guard you. You did very well with what you had. This is my fault for not realizing how serious the threat was.

You said yourself that none of us knew they were going to attack. Even if you'd sent more warriors, they probably wouldn't have been here by now in any case. Don't blame yourself, please.

I sighed. I knew he was right, but it didn't make it any easier. I was the queen, I was supposed to care for the hive. Instead, my refusal to betray Celestia had killed five of the people I was supposed to protect.

I finally pulled my mind away from my failure. You said there was something else?

Yes. Here. Wildcard led the way across the room. A sheet lay draped over a mound of something in one corner. He lifted it, and I saw the blood-spattered body of a warrior drone. But not one of mine. This drone had emerald green wing cases.

So. It was definitely the other hives, I said.

Yes.

A deep voice interrupted us. "Sweetcake?" I turned to see an armored guardspony standing beside me. "The princesses would like to speak with you."

"Good," was all I said in reply.

I followed the guard to the palace in silence. I had a pair of warrior drones with me, but was otherwise alone. Minder, for once, was not at my side, for she was back at the hive, making certain all ran smoothly there in my absence. Pinkie Pie was already in the palace, I'd sent her ahead of me rather than let her see the bloody mess at the embassy.

The silent journey, thankfully, did not take long. The embassy lay very near the palace itself.

Inside, the guard escorted me not to the throne room, but to a smaller private audience chamber. I was glad. I didn't really want to have Celestia's entire court listening.

I went through the doors to find Celestia, Luna, Twilight and Pinkie Pie all there already. Celestia was seated on a low, simplified throne. Luna as well had a silver, throne-like chair to match her sister's golden one. The other two simply sat on the carpeted floor. I walked across the room, feeling suddenly nervous. I had failed as queen. How could I stand in front of the princesses and ask them to aid the hive? Yet how could I not? If I did not, no one else would.

Pinkie was instantly at my side, offering me a physical as well as a mental hug. I seated myself in front of the princesses with her at my side. My warriors took up station by the door, flanking the guardsponies already standing there.

Celestia regarded me with sorrowful eyes. "I must first say that I am sorry, Sweetcake. The ambassador warned me of the threat to your hive, but I did not take it seriously enough. It is my fault that your people were killed. Were it not for Luna noticing that something seemed amiss whilst raising the moon, it would have been a complete massacre. It is unforgivable that we did not take measures to keep your changelings safe. I know my apology cannot possibly make up for your loss, but I am very, very sorry."

"We are taking further steps to protect the embassy," said Luna, "and are replacing the anti-changeling spells around Canterlot that we had let lapse since capturing Chrysalis." I could taste anger from her, surprisingly hot, given her calm demeanor. From Celestia I tasted sorrow and regret, softly bitter on my tongue.

I nodded. That was a start, but I knew I had to ask for more. "That almost certainly won't be enough to protect the hive. We're badly outnumbered in this fight. How badly I don't know exactly, but there are at least six other hives I know of, and they're all probably allied against me. My hive has less than fifty true warriors. We can't fight them alone."

Celestia did not reply immediately, and I felt my stomach sink. Finally she said, "I understand what you are feeling, Sweetcake. You care for your hive greatly, I know. Yet I care for my ponies in much the same way, and I cannot recklessly throw them into a conflict with a complete unknown. Their lives are precious to me."

I knew. Yet the fact that I knew meant I could not accept her answer. "You've said that you want to foster better relations between changelings and ponies. How can such relations be fostered when the only changelings who are willing to come out of hiding and have relations are dead?"

"What would you have me do? If I asked it of you, would you send me your drones to fight and die for Equestria? Would you send them into a total unknown, from which they might never return, just to save the lives of some of my ponies?"

I looked away from her rather than spit back the angry reply that came to my lips. She had a thousand thousand ponies, I only had two thousand changelings. Yet I knew perfectly well the lives of her thousand thousand were individually as precious to her as the lives of my drones were to me. Finally I looked back at her and said, "Then my hive may well be doomed."

Now it was her turn to look away, and the sorrow I tasted from her grew stronger.

"Please understand," said Luna, "if we knew the size and location of the other hives it might be different. Especially if they lie within Equestria's borders. If I had that information I would likely favor a preemptive strike against them in your defense. But as it is, it is entirely possible that the forces arrayed against you could outnumber our own military might."

"We are a peaceful kingdom," said Celestia. "We have not known war in centuries. We cannot go to war with a power that may outmatch us, not even for you."

Hearing that was as bitter as sorrow. "I could almost wish I hadn't chosen to stand by you rather than betray you."

The taste of Celestia's sorrow was joined by the deeper bitterness of guilt. "I am genuinely sorry, Sweetcake. I am glad you did not, and I do wish I had more to offer in return than this. Yet I cannot simply send my ponies to die."

"Celestia," Twilight broke in, "there can't possibly be that many changeling warriors, can there? I mean... changelings feed off of ponies! We have to outnumber them; prey species are always more numerous than predators. Uhm, no offense, Sweetcake. There is no way that there can be more changelings than ponies."

"That is true. Yet I have learned over the centuries that acting on such assumptions can all too easily backfire horribly. To dive into the unknown in hopes that all will go as you wish is to ensure that all will go terribly wrong. In this case it is true that there must be more ponies than changelings. Yet how many more is an unknown. Only a very tiny proportion of ponies are soldiers, Twilight. What proportion of changelings are warriors?" She turned to me as she said this, so I answered.

"In my hive, perhaps one in fifty."

"Oh." Twilight looked a bit deflated. "Ponies don't have one in fifty who want to join the guard. It's not even one in five hundred. It's more like one in a thousand. Outside of Canterlot it's not even that high. If we assume one pony out of every two thousand..." Her eyes went a bit abstract as she did mental math. "All it would take is one changeling to every forty ponies, and they'd be an even match for us. Given what I know about the relative populations of Sweetcake's hive and his territory, that's a completely reasonable number."

"Indeed," said Celestia with a nod. "And there is no certainty that Sweetcake's hive is typical, the other hives may have even higher ratios. Consider this too, Twilight; changelings need not feed on ponies alone, and we do not know how far this alliance goes. What if changelings from among the gryphon nations, or from Zebrica, are involved?" Twilight's eyes went wide, flicking back and forth. I could practically see her doing the rest of the math. Celestia gave her a small smile. "You see? Perhaps this is only a small threat. Perhaps these changelings would be easily deflected. Yet perhaps not. Perhaps I would be miring my kingdom in a war that would require me to not only spend the lives of those who have chosen to be soldiers, but also the lives of those who have not. Changelings live among us, my student. Outright war with them would be bloody, difficult, and cost many civilian lives, even if they do not have us outmatched." She turned to me, still sorrowful, but firm. "This tangle is far more thorny than it first appears, and I know too little to commit the lives of my ponies to it."

I sighed and bent my head in defeat. "You're right. But what would you have me do? I don't know anything of what I face either, and I can't stand by and let my children die. I have to do something for them."

I tasted sympathy, sweet to the tongue, and yet bitter in my heart, from Celestia. "Take heart, Sweetcake. I have never favored a military solution where other solutions might be found. I am not abandoning you merely because I cannot give you my soldiers. I cannot consider you one of my subjects any more, much as I was delighted to have one of my little ponies be a changeling, but you are my ally, and my friend. I will do what I can."

"We need to know more," muttered Twilight. "More about changelings..." Suddenly she sat bolt upright. "The book! The library! At the empire!"

I blinked at Twilight. So did everyone else. "Say what?" said Pinkie, summing up what we were all thinking.

"Three weeks ago we were at the Crystal Empire," said Twilight. I nodded. I had been unable to go with Pinkie, but I remembered her rather eventful visit there with her friends. "When we were going through the library, looking for the book we needed about the Crystal Fair, I happened to open a book and see a sketch of what was definitely a changeling. I would have stopped to read and see what it had to say, but we were kind of in a hurry. Still, if we need to know more about changelings, there is at least one book that says something about them. It may be nothing, but it may have information we could use!"

"Yay! We can go find it, and read it, and then maybe Celestia can help the hive!" said Pinkie, bouncing to her feet.

Celestia chuckled softly. "Do not pin your hopes too firmly on this, my little pony. Any book from the Crystal Empire will be a thousand years out of date, at least. Yet it is true that it may contain useful information all the same. I agree that finding it is a goal worth seeking."

"Let's go then!"

I sighed. "Pinkie... whatever else happens, I can't go. The hive needs me here."

"Oh. Right." Pinkie plopped back down on the carpet. "I don't know if I wanna go without you. I don't mind being apart sometimes, but right now maybe you need me too."

I put a wing over her. "Thank you Pinkie. I think maybe I do need you right now."

"Somepony should go," said Twilight. "I probably could, I wouldn't mind seeing Cadance and Shiny again. And I never turn down a chance to do research!"

"If you go, I'd like to send a drone with you, if you don't mind, so that I can know what you find out as soon as you find it," I said to Twilight.

She nodded agreement. "No, I don't mind. I think we have a plan."

I hesitated, then said, "Celestia? Would you object to my asking for willing ponies to come live in the hive?"

"So long as all who go are willing, I have no objection, no. Though I admit I am somewhat curious about the reason for this request."

"The changelings living openly at the embassy were the first targeted. I am fairly certain that the next target will be those living openly in Ponyville. I have already recalled them to the hive. Yet the hive depends on the love energy they bring. We don't have enough covert infiltrators right now to keep the hive fed. If a few ponies who are friends with the Ponyville changelings will come with us, though, we will at least be able to get by for a time."

"Ah. Yes, I fully support that idea."

Pinkie was frowning though. "I dunno, Sweetcake. It might not work. I know every single changeling friend in Ponyville, and most of them won't be able to come. I mean the Cakes won't want to leave their business, and even if they could, I dunno if they should bring the babies into the hive, 'cause there's this war now and everything. Bon Bon just told me that she's having to work extra hard right now because she's had a bad year at the sweet shop and if she leaves it she might lose the shop. Lyra probably won't go without her, she's still a little skittish about you guys sometimes. Daisy won't go because there's no way Lily and Rose would go. Ladybird would probably go, but I can't think of very many other ponies who could come to the hive for more than a super-quick visit. They all have stuff they have to do. So you won't get very many."

I felt a knot of despair forming in the pit of my stomach. "What do I do then, Pinkie? How do I care for the hive? I can't let them starve."

Pinkie hugged me. "We'll think of something."

There was a long silence, in which Twilight slowly said, "I may have thought of something. Princess? Does this qualify as a national emergency?"

"I believe it does, my faithful student. Sweetcake's hive is an ally, just as the Crystal Empire is. If saving the one qualifies, then so does saving the other."

"That's good. Then the fund will be available for myself and the other element bearers. That means we can go and help Sweetcake. If we all go... I know I remember him saying that when we were all together, there was a magnification effect on the level of friendship energy."

I nodded. "Yes. The whole when you are together is far greater than the sum of what I've been able to draw from any of you alone, or any incomplete group of you." I thought about what I'd sensed from the compared to the needs of the hive. It would not be enough for us to prosper, but it might be enough for us to survive.

"We'll go, then." Twilight smiled a little wryly. "I'm sure we can find somepony else to go find that book. I know I'm not the only pony capable of searching a library. But I am the only pony capable of completing my circle of friendship."

I looked at Twilight. I could taste a hint of regret from her, but mostly she was filled with sympathy that bordered on love. She cared for me. She was willing to give up something she wanted to do in order to help me.

Her smile perked up a bit. "Anyway, this means I can work on my paper about changeling social norms! I've been neglecting it lately. A prolonged visit to the hive will give me the perfect chance to gather some in-depth data!"

A little laugh went around the room at that.

"I was going to send a drone to the library anyway," I said. "I can send one without Twilight."

"Then I believe all is in order," said Celestia. Luna yawned, covering it with a hoof, and Celestia added with a small smile, "I also believe that Luna should go to bed."

I rose and gave Celestia a small bow. "I still can't help but wish you were willing to do more, but I understand why you can't. I do thank you for what you have done. And thank you, Luna for saving those at the embassy. Thank you Twilight, too, for being such a good friend to me." I bowed to each of them as well, then turned and left.

Pinkie walked with me as I went. Thank you too, I said softly to her. I don't know how I would deal with any of this without you.

I just hope that everything gets fixed soon. I still want you to be happy, Sweetcake. You've been very happy the last few months. You're not happy at all now.

I sighed. I have good reason not to be. But I too hope that this will be resolved quickly. I hoped, yes, but I didn't believe it would be. In fact I couldn't help but think that the only way this would be resolved quickly was if the other hives wiped mine from the face of the world. I was all too aware that they might well be capable of doing so. Twilight's book was a very thin thread, quite likely to break if I hung all my hopes on it. Yet I had nowhere else to hang them.

The afternoon sun was bright as I walked back to the embassy. I felt anything but bright myself. Thankfully, by the time I arrived the place had been cleaned a little bit more thoroughly. The bloodstains were gone, and the ruined desk had been removed, making the front room seem oddly bare. Half a dozen Royal Guard ponies stood along the walls, with another pair at the door. I'd passed by several squads of guard unicorns stationed outside as I entered, too. So Celestia was definitely taking her promises seriously.

I yawned. I hadn't really slept last night, I'd been too disturbed by what had happened. I'd taken the first train to Canterlot. In fact I'd even considered just flying straight here myself, but that would have been only slightly faster than waiting for the train, and would have left me exhausted. Not to mention that warrior drones were hardly swift fliers, so I'd have ended up leaving them behind. They had been very firm about coming with me. I got the sense that they'd been ashamed that no warriors had been present to guard me when the hive had been attacked. I would probably be unable to go anywhere outside the hive without them from now on, but I didn't really mind.

I'd stopped at the hospital before heading for the embassy, and had found the pair of injured drones there doing well. I'd known they were alright through the bond, but I'd wanted to check on them personally all the same.

Now I went to personally look in on the trio of survivors still at the embassy. None of them had more than light injuries, the sort easily mended with a little attention and resin. Physical injuries, however, were only part of the trauma of such an attack.

I walked into their living quarters and looked around. The room held several bunk beds, no doubt left over from when this building had been owned by ponies, but none of the beds contained drones. Instead there was a pile of mattresses and blankets in one corner, with a pair of drones curled up together in the center. They both looked up as I came in. I walked over and laid down next to them, offering the nearest a comforting nuzzle. Pinkie Pie snagged a pillow and set it on my withers, draping herself over it comfortably. She was well used to changeling piles by now.

The two warriors sat down nearby, relaxing a little, but making certain to place themselves between me and the door. I began grooming the crest of the nearest drone, who let out a soft sigh and relaxed.

All will be well, I told her gently.

My queen, she said simply, and began grooming me in return.

I looked up at the sound of hooves. The warriors snapped to alertness, even though they must be able to sense who was approaching as easily as I. It was the third surviving embassy member, the ambassador himself. He stood in the doorway, looking at us.

Wildcard, come join us, I said. I could sense the tension in him, and the tiredness. He hadn't slept any more than I had, I knew.

He hesitated, then replied out loud. "I think I've lived as a pony for too long. I've gotten too used to sleeping in beds and taking showers. I feel as though I've forgotten how changelings do things."

"You don't have to join us if you don't want to. If you do want to, though, you don't need to worry about what you may have forgotten."

He sighed. I know, he said silently. The hive knows, so I know. I just... sometimes I think maybe I should be a pony, and not a changeling at all.

Ponies and changelings are not all that different.

"I'm a pony, and I'm here," said Pinkie, apparently having been listening in my mind. She had difficulty hearing what other changelings said to me, but she could hear my responses, and was often quite good at figuring out what I must be replying to. "You should come join us. You're all sad and tired and I bet you could use a hug."

He gave her a small smile at that. "I probably could." He walked over, and when he reached the edge of the little nest, Pinkie rose and gave him a hug. He hugged her back tightly. When he let go, she drew him into the pile. Soon he was curled up next to me, letting a little of the tension go out of him. I bent my head and began to groom his wings. He sighed softly, relaxing a little bit more. His eyes slid closed and moments later he was asleep.

Somehow that made me feel a little bit better. I still feared for my hive, but I'd managed to help one of my changelings today, even in such a small way as this. Perhaps I wasn't a complete failure as a queen after all.

Author's Note

We're now on a once a month release schedule for new chapters, woo! Also, this was posted with minimal pre-reading/editing, and gdocs imports does ungodly things to formatting sometimes, so feel free to point out any errors that have snuck in.

We'd All Love to See the Plan

I woke with late sunset light filtering in through the windows. A warm weight across my back was Pinkie Pie, draped over me. Another weight was Wildcard, his head pillowed on one of my forelegs. Against my other side a drone pressed close, with another draped partially across the first, her head against my flank. One of the warriors was dozing too, still in position but with her head resting on the floor, her eyes closed. The second warrior sat bolt upright, alertly looking around. Her eyes met mine and she nodded a silent greeting.

Since rising would mean waking everyone else, I merely stayed where I was and reached my mind out. I found what I sought easily. The drone who had volunteered to travel to the Crystal Empire had just disembarked from the Friendship Express.

I'd been a little surprised when she had volunteered. Most of the drones who offered to deal directly with ponies were infiltrators or infiltrators in training, with the occasional worker who'd always wanted to be an infiltrator. This drone, however, was a warrior. She had definitely been the most interested of those who'd responded to my call for volunteers, though.

When I'd asked her why she wanted to go, she'd said, I was raised my whole life to fight ponies. They were the enemy. Now they're friends, and I find I'm curious about them. I was also raised to protect the other drones. I am better suited to go into danger than anyone else in the hive. I couldn't stay here and let some worker go instead.

Now I looked out through her eyes to see that she was standing on the platform at Canterlot Station, looking curiously around at the ponies going about their business. Most circled wide around her. No doubt they were intimidated by the sight of the burly changeling, with gleaming midnight-blue armor augmenting her natural chitin. She could probably take any dozen or so of the ordinary citizens.

An equally well armored guard unicorn approached her. "You the changeling headed north to the Crystal Empire?"

"Yes," she nodded.

"Follow me then."

She trotted behind him calmly, ignoring the way ponies continued to give her wide berth. He led her not to the palace, but to a guard station. Guard unicorns passed a changeling-revealing spell over them both as they entered. The guardspony remained a pony. The warrior remained as she was as well.

Inside she found the Princess Luna standing with a bat-winged pony at her side. "I am sending one of my Night Guard with you. Although we do not anticipate any particular danger, there is always a risk of encountering enemy changelings. We considered sending a whole company, but that would draw undue attention to this mission. So I am merely sending Shadowed Path. He is a master of shadow magic, and one of my best fighters. I hope he will serve you well."

"Thank you," said the warrior with a nod. She gave Shadowed Path a curious look. He was not much like the ponies she'd seen before. In fact he looked a little bit like a changeling in some ways. His bat wings were closer to her translucent wings than to a pegasus' feathered ones, and he too had fangs, though they were smaller and blunter than hers.

"We have also prepared some supplies," said Luna. "I trust you will not find it onerous to carry a saddle bag?"

"No." The warrior shook her head.

"In addition, Shadowed Path volunteered because he feels positively towards changelings. I hope that he will be able to provide the emotional energy that you require."

The warrior found she could indeed taste a hint of something sweet and pleasant in the air, along with a stronger flavor that was citrus-tart. She smiled, entirely delighted to actually taste positive emotions, straight from a pony, for the first time. She drew on the pleasant sweetness and it flowed into her, just like taking from a feeding crystal, only better. "Thank you," she said.

She and the bat pony donned their saddlebags without further conversation. When they were done, Luna bid them good hunting, and directed them to the train station. Shadowed Path led the way, with the warrior trailing obediently—and curiously—behind him.

They waited on a different platform from the one the warrior had disembarked on, and when the train arrived it was different as well. It was sleeker, with a dangerous, military air about it. Fewer ponies boarded it than had boarded the Friendship Express to Canterlot.

The warrior drone and Shadowed Path had a car to themselves. Shadowed Path sat on one of the benches; the warrior sat across from him. As the train began to move, Shadowed Path said, "So you never did introduce yourself."

"Forgive me if I offended," said the warrior. Her voice was nearly flat, with very little inflection to it. She was unaccustomed to speaking aloud. "I know very little of pony ways. I am a warrior, not an infiltrator."

"Nah, I'm not offended." Shadowed Path smiled. "I would like to know your name though."

"Changelings do not have names."

"Some of them seem to. Ambassador Wildcard, or Queen Sweetcake, for example."

The warrior drone nodded. "The queen's name is the hive's name. I do not understand why others have taken names."

"Well if you don't have names, how do you talk about each other? I mean, if I want to tell you that I met the ambassador, I can say 'I met Wildcard," but what would you say?"

The drone blinked, considering this never-before encountered problem. "Were you of the hive I would communicate his essence to you through the bond."

"Yeah, but ponies don't have bonds. The only way I can 'communicate his essence' to anybody is by using his name."

"Ah! I see." The warrior drone nodded, understanding finally dawning fully. Names were the equivalent of a pony's essence. No wonder ponies regarded them as so important!

"So what do I call you, if I need to communicate your essence to somepony?"

"I do not have a name."

Shadowed Path heaved a long-suffering sigh. "Just make one up, then."

The warrior drone considered that. She knew almost nothing about names, or how they were chosen. Feeling rather at a loss, she reached out to me. Can you name me, my queen?

Of course, I replied. I considered her essence. Her lively curiosity, her strength, her flexibility, her unchanging determination to protect her fellow drones, all that passed through my mind. Finally I said, Your name is Bright Steel.

Thank you, my queen. "Bright Steel," she said aloud. "My name is Bright Steel. My queen has named me."

"Good to meet you, Bright Steel. You can call me Shade if you like, most ponies do."

"Shade." She gave him a smile.

"So now we have each other's 'essence', and we can start to get to know each other." He grinned at her. "I don't know much about changelings, really. I've only ever met the ones at the embassy. Well, and I met Pinkie Pie, I guess she's an honorary changeling or something. She's part of your hive, right?"

"The queen's consort is bonded to the queen. She is not bonded to the rest of the hive."

"Uhm. Okay. What does that mean?"

"The bond is what unites us. We feel through the bond. We know through the bond. I may speak to my queen, or to the other drones, or to the under-queens, through the bond. The queen's consort shares her bond only with the queen, not with me."

"Ah. So you can't just ask her stuff, the way you asked for a name just now?"

"No."

"What's this 'consort' thing, anyway? I thought a queen's consort had to be male. You know... making little baby changelings and things?"

Bright Steel shrugged. "I know nothing of mating, nor of the queen's arrangements with the hive males. I am only a drone."

"Heh. Okay then. So that brings up another question. Are you a colt or a filly?"

Bright Steel looked at him in puzzlement. "I am a drone."

"No, I mean are you male or female?"

"I... am a drone?" Bright Steel was now entirely baffled. What did males or females have to do with drones?

Shade heaved yet another sigh. "What I mean is, if I were talking about you, would I use 'he', or 'she'?"

Bright Steel blinked as yet another consequence of the ponies' lack of hive bond dawned on her. "Oh! 'She,' I suppose."

Shade gave Bright Steel a small half-bow and a smile. The taste of his emotions changed slightly, though she had no name for the new flavor. It was very like the citrus flavor she had tasted from him before, but also subtly different. "It is a pleasure to be working with a lovely lady such as yourself," he said, which she found nonsensical. Before she could ask what that meant, though, he continued. "Do you have anything you'd like to know about me?

Bright Steel found her curiosity about his words sidetracked by her curiosity about him. "You are not like the types of pony I know. You have wings, like a pegasus, but they are not pegasus wings. Your eyes are somewhat like a queen's eyes. You have fangs like I do. What are you?"

"I'm a thestral."

"What is a thestral?"

"Most other ponies call us 'bat ponies'." He wiggled his wings a bit, and Bright Steel nodded understanding. "Luna created us, way back when. So we owe her everything."

"Created? I did not know that was possible."

"Thestrals are the only created race I know of. It's why there are not many of us. It is also why we give Luna our complete and utter loyalty."

"I suppose it must be somewhat like the way we changelings feel about the queen."

Shade nodded. "I think it's probably pretty similar, yeah. Not all thestrals enter the Night Guard, but all of us find some way to serve our creator. For me, though, the Night Guard was the only way to go. I wanted to get out there and do something that mattered, not just stand on the sidelines."

"I understand. I am a warrior for similar reasons."

"You get to choose, then? You're not like... born to it, like warrior ants?"

"No. We are all born alike, and those who will be under-queens are chosen, but drones have some choice in what we become as we grow. I have wanted to be a warrior since I first pupated."

"Me too. Well, except for the pupating part, ponies don't exactly do that. So..."

My attention was drawn from Bright Steel back to the embassy. The sun was about to set. One of the warriors spoke to me. My queen? If we are to make the last train to Ponyville we must go soon.

Thank you, I replied. I nudged Pinkie away gently. "Time to get up." Pinkie rose with a yawn, and I managed to extricate myself from the trio of drones without waking them.

The trip to Ponyville was blessedly uneventful, and after saying goodbye to Pinkie, the flight back to the hive was likewise peaceful. It was nearly midnight when I arrived. The guards accompanied me all the way back to my bedchamber, where my hoof-maidens met me and insisted on giving me a thorough grooming, as if to remove every speck of dust from outside the hive from me. I could tell that they were worried. The whole hive was still shaken and unsettled.

I couldn't blame them. Five lives lost to an enemy we know effectively nothing about, and that was almost certainly just the beginning. I couldn't help but feel unsettled myself. I wished I could think of more to do than I had already done, but nothing came to mind. I checked in on Bright Steel and Shadowed Path, and found that they'd arrived at the Crystal Empire and were staying in the palace. They would seek out the library when it opened in the morning.

The hoof-maidens finished grooming me and settled in around me to sleep. I felt too restless to sleep, but I lay among them for a while anyway. I let my mind wander around the hive, looking in on various tasks. The nymphs were sleeping, their minders watching over them. The fungus farmers were at work, the task of growing food for the hive never entirely stopped. A building crew was repairing the floor of a tunnel not far from my room. Everything seemed like a typical, peaceful night in the hive. Were it not for the edge of tension and unease in the air, I would never have known that anything was wrong.

A pair of faintly glowing blue eyes suddenly opened in the darkness next to my bed, and my attention snapped back to my room. I touched the mind that went with those eyes, and found an ordinary tunnel worker, one of the crew who I'd looked in on only minutes ago. I looked at her in confusion. Why are you here in my room?

Because things aren't always what they seem. The drone grinned at me. Suddenly I couldn't feel her anymore. She was simply gone from the bond. Yet I hadn't felt her cut it. A moment later she was back, but the mind I touched was a completely different mind. It was a bright, alert, and almost manic intellect, that flicked from thought to thought, constantly analyzing and fitting together all that it saw. I gaped at her, my jaw dropping open.

Who are you?

Ah! Trust a queen bonded to a pony to actually ask that question! I am Quicksilver.

And what are you?

I may be our salvation, my queen.

I stared at her in confusion. Despite the impossible change she'd just undergone, she seemed to be an ordinary drone. Explain, I said.

To fully explain, I must go back to before your birth.

Her darting thoughts settled, as she swiftly sorted out the narrative she wanted to convey, then she began to speak silently again. Our hive has always been the boldest. I do not believe Chrysalis' assertions that we are the largest, but she is right that we are braver than other hives. We must be, to feed the way we feed. Think on it. The other hives all have territories within the great cities of Equestria. They live beneath them, even. They travel through secret tunnels directly to their prey, in places where so many ponies throng that a new face is impossible to spot as strange. Yet in this hive, we have the choice of flying miles through open country to feed beneath the nose of Celestia herself, or feeding in small towns where every stranger is known and noted.

I nodded agreement. I hadn't really thought about it like that, but when put that way it seemed obvious. Our queens have always prided themselves on that boldness, continued Quicksilver, and each has chosen a successor based upon it. It served us well, until one let envy drive boldness into madness.

Chrysalis, I said.

Yes. Sepal, the queen before her, was perhaps the greatest trickster there has ever been. She expanded the hive greatly during her reign. She loved to trick ponies, and would dare things no other changeling would dare, just for the thrill of it. When next you speak to Celestia, ask her about her good friend Flower Leaf.

My eyes widened a bit at that. She had become friends with Celestia while disguised? That was daring indeed.

It was that, I think, that drove Chrysalis too far. The hive was not entirely happy when she became queen. There were many who felt she was not the leader that Sepal had been. In reaction, she strove to prove that she was even greater, and in the end it drove her to attempt to surpass Sepal by tricking Celestia, not into friendship, but into defeat and conquest.

Quicksilver shook her head. Chrysalis' fixation on Celestia, and on ponies in general, led her to ignore me when I came to her, as I come now to you. She did not value my skills. She was not interested in knowledge of her own kind.

My breath suddenly caught. Knowledge of changelings. As in... knowledge about the other hives?

Yes. Sepal created me. She saw what the ponies had, how strong they were, united in their countless numbers beneath Celestia. She envisioned the changelings grown to similar strength, united beneath her. She dared to dream of bringing the hives together, as allies. She tried this openly several times in her youth, but was always rebuffed by the other queens, who would not consider alliance without some compelling reason. Eventually she concluded that the only way to move towards her dream would be to infiltrate other hives, as we infiltrate ponies. So she made me. She used her magic to alter me before I even pupated, to give me the ability to alter my mind as easily as another changeling can alter her body. She intended to make more like me, and gave Chrysalis the spell to do so when Chrysalis succeeded her, but Chrysalis did not want to spend so much energy simply to obtain a spy who could go among other hives. I believe that Chrysalis did not wish to become the Celestia of changelings, she wished to simply become Celestia. So I remain the only changeling like me. Yet one may be enough, my queen, if you will let me finally go and do what I have trained to do all my life.

My mind reeled as I processed what I had just learned. I knew without needing to consider further that Quicksilver had indeed just offered me salvation. I will. I absolutely will. Go with my blessing, and my utmost gratitude.

Thank you, my queen. If you will permit me? Her mental query was a request to come close and touch me. Not quite understanding why, but willing to let her do just about anything she wanted at this point, I nodded my agreement.

She reached out and touched her horn to mine, passing a spark of magic between us. When she stepped back I felt an odd new connection in my mind. It was a bond, but somehow it was different from the other bonds I had. I looked at her curiously.

I can quite literally change my mind, my queen, she told me with a smile. If you seek me through our normal bond while I am bonded with another hive, you would find nothing. This is a bond that ties you to the part of my mind that always knows who I am, even when I am being someone else. So you will be able to contact me at need, whether I am disguised or not.

I see. I nodded. Thank you, Quicksilver. Do you need anything from me?

No. I know where to begin.

Then go. Good luck, and good hunting.

She gave me a small bow, and went. The ordinary bond I had with her flickered, and once again I could sense only the mind of a completely unremarkable worker drone, tired after a long day, thinking of nothing more than returning home to eat and sleep. Yet through the other bond she'd given me I could see that bright, amazing mind working away, planning her approach to the first of the other hives.

As I watched her make her way out of the hive I felt my heart lifting. For the first time since the attack on the embassy it seemed like we might have some real hope of survival. With that hope to comfort me, I closed my eyes and slept.

The morning dawned clear and cold. Autumn was turning rapidly towards winter now. Here in the badlands it wasn't likely to snow, but there was a bite in the air. I felt the high scout shiver, and made a mental note to see if I could get coats or something for the scouts to wear during winter.

Ponies wear clothing, said the scout hesitantly. Changelings don't.

Ponies enjoy the winter, changelings have always just endured it. Doing things the way we've always done them isn't necessarily the best way.

But... her mental voice was even more hesitant, almost afraid, Maybe we should try to keep doing things the way we've always done them. Then we wouldn't be at war with the other hives.

Some things, once done, can't be undone, I told her gently. They want to pretend we can erase our existence from the minds of all ponies. That would never work. We can't go back, we can only go forward.

The scout assented wordlessly, not entirely convinced, but either unable or unwilling to come up with a counter-argument. I withdrew from her mind. The sun was not quite up yet, but I had things to do.

The first thing I did was reach out to Quicksilver. I found her on a train to Manehattan. I wondered how she'd gotten the bits for the ticket, then decided that maybe I didn't want to know.

It was very odd being in her mind. I could feel her thinking, as I always could when I connected this closely to one of my drones, and I could see what she saw, and hear what she heard. But I could also sense a second layer of thoughts, not as clear to me, that covered her real thoughts. Her actual mind was laying plans to contact one of the Manehattan hives, thinking through the steps she would take to locate one of their drones. Her surface mind, though, was thinking pony thoughts, musing about weather work and anticipating the play that she would see when she got to Manehattan.

It was not quite a perfect replica of a pony mind, I'd touched Pinkie's thoughts enough to know that ponies didn't quite think like changelings did, but it was amazingly close. I even felt her expending a faint flicker of magic somehow, and realized that she was putting out emotional energy.

My queen, she said to me with a kind of mental bow.

How are you doing that? You're casting without a horn, and you're giving off emotional energy! Those are both impossible.

Sepal created well, she said. Her mental voice was amused. How else could I make contact with other hives? I cannot do any proper spells this way, but I believe this works somewhat like the way ordinary changelings can absorb such energy, which they may also do without a horn. I could not be what I am if I lacked such a skill. If I do not give off emotional energy, they will know me for a changeling, and not one of theirs. This allows me to get close enough to another changeling to slip into their hive bond.

Isn't it draining?

A little. But I am also a fairly good infiltrator. It is easy enough to get enough energy from ponies to expend at need, if I need not gather extra to take back to the hive.

I shook my head in amazement. I wish I could have met Sepal.

You are her daughter, said Quicksilver with a smile. You are a queen as great as she, in your own way.

I don't know about that. I thought I was doing fairly well, but I may still rule over the total eradication of the hive. I don't think Sepal would have allowed that.

Don't give up yet, my queen. Even if I fail, I am sure you'll find a way to save the hive.

I hope so.

I pulled my mind from hers to check on Bright Steel. She was breakfasting with Shadowed Path, Princess Cadance, and Shining Armor at the palace. Nothing of interest was going on there, so I moved on to check in on Pinkie Pie. She was packing a saddlebag full of streamers and confetti. I smiled. Getting ready to throw some parties at the hive?

You betcha!

I smiled. I could tell, though, that she was worried. I was too, of course. Not just for the hive, either, I was also worried for her. She and her friends could be going into danger by coming here.

You know... You don't have to come.

Yes I do, said Pinkie firmly. If I don't, the hive is going to starve. That's important. My friends and I are used to doing lots of crazy-dangerous stuff. She giggled softly to herself. We've fought changelings before, you know! We'll be there tonight, and we'll stay as long as we're needed.

Thank you, I said to her again.

I pulled my mind back to the hive. My hoof-maidens had risen and were grooming me, but it wasn't as pleasant and relaxed as usual. They were worried. The whole hive bond still buzzed with apprehension. I let my awareness take in the whole of it. Not only was the hive as a whole apprehensive, the usual little knots of discontent were larger, too. Those who didn't approve of my reign were gaining some traction. I touched the minds of those who were most afraid, offering them reassurances. There was hope, I promised. Some of them rallied, and the hum of the hive calmed a little bit. Others, though, still resisted. I, as queen, should do what was best for the hive and resume the Compact.

I nearly wanted to scream at them in frustration and anger at the stupidity of those—in the hive and out—who thought it possible to return to how things had been. We couldn't just go back to the old ways. Too many ponies knew about us. Even doing what the other hives wanted and erasing our existence from the minds of the princesses wouldn't be enough. It would probably be worse in the long run. The princesses weren't stupid, they'd notice discrepancies between what they remembered and what the ponies around them did, and would not only rediscover that we existed, but would probably be able to figure out that one of us had meddled with their minds. They would regard us as enemies, and rightly so, after an act such as that.

The counter argument that the malcontents presented was that it didn't matter. The princesses had said they wouldn't go to war for us, so they wouldn't go to war against us. We could quietly slip from their awareness, and all would be well.

I mentally flung up my hooves and gave up at that. Most of the hive was with me, the others would at least not betray me, so that would have to be good enough. I wasn't going to get anywhere with the few who disagreed unless I took over their minds outright, which I wasn't willing to do.

To have something more pleasant to think on, I flung my mind back north, to see what Bright Steel was doing.

Bright Steel was walking down a street, while snow sifted down around her, the clouds muffling the morning sun and turning the streets of the Crystal Empire a dull gray. Shadowed Path walked at her side. The library loomed ahead of them, snow gathering on its imposing facade.

Bright Steel shivered, buzzing her wings to shake the snow from her carapace.

"Are you cold? We could go back to the palace and get you a coat. Or I can help warm you?" Shadowed Path stepped a little closer to her and unfolded a wing helpfully.

Bright Steel just trotted faster. "We are nearly there, I shall survive."

Shade looked—and tasted—rather nonplussed, but folded his wing again, and followed her.

The two ponies entered the library and looked around. It was a huge maze of shelves, which Bright Steel found rather daunting. She could read, she had learned as a nymph, but she did not read all that well. How was she supposed to find just one book among all these?

"May I help you?" An elderly crystal pony with a lilac coat and pink mane and tail greeted the pair. She peered at them rather quizzically through her thick glasses, no doubt somewhat surprised to see a thestral and a changeling.

"Hopefully," said Shade. "We're looking for a book with information on changelings."

"On what now?"

Bright Steel and Shade exchanged glances. That wasn't a terribly good sign.

"On changelings, like myself," said Bright Steel, gesturing at herself.

"I'm afraid I've never seen anything like you before, in the library or out of it."

Bright Steel felt her spirits sink. If the librarian know nothing about changelings, their mission might well be useless. Yet the queen had seemed very certain that a book containing changelings was here. Could the queen somehow be wrong?

"Don't look so gloomy, youngster!" The librarian smiled cheerfully. "Just because I haven't read it doesn't mean it's not here. I've read a lot of them, but nopony could read them all. Do you happen to have the name of the book in question?"

Bright Steel shook her head. "No. All I know is that it contains an illustration of a changeling."

"Hmm. Not much to go on. Still, I'll see what I can do." She turned and walked away, leaving Bright Steel and shade standing in the foyer. Bright Steel shrugged and sat down to wait. Shade seated himself as well. They were both soldiers, and soldiers learn how to wait just as surely as they learn how to fight.

The door opened and another crystal pony trotted in. He was a green stallion with a lighter green mane and tail. He paused and wiped his hooves on the entry mat, then looked up. When his eyes met Bright Steel's he gasped in shock. She expected him to flee at the sight of her, but instead he rushed to her side.

"By the Heart, it's a Love Warden! They exist! Clover succeeded! I never thought I'd actually see one even if they were real. You have to tell me where you came from! Can you really eat love energy? What is it like? How do you store it? Do you use it for anything? How many of you are there? Are you actually communal? Why are-"

"Peridot! Are you harassing our patrons?" The librarian's scolding voice interrupted the over-enthusiastic pony, much to Bright Steel's relief. She had been slowly backing away, but the pony had moved forward as she did. She had no idea what he was babbling on about.

"Sorry, Mz. Agatha. I just never thought I'd see an actual Love Warden."

"I am not a Love Warden," said Bright Steel, confused and annoyed. "I am a changeling. I came here to find a book with changelings like myself in it."

"Yes! The Journal of Stone Hoof, Volume 12. It's one of my favorites. I've read it so many times!"

"So that's what this is all about. You and your obsession with ancient history! We have a thousand years worth of knowledge to catch up on, and you still insist on spending most of your time with the books that are a thousand years older than that! But I suppose it's come in handy for once." The librarian shook her head with an amused smile. "Well, go show them the book. But don't hang around bothering them once you have. You have work to do!"

"Yes ma'am," said Peridot. "Follow me," he said to Bright Steel. He headed off into the library, practically bouncing as he went. Bright Steel trailed behind him, with Shade following her. Eventually he stopped before a shelf that looked just like all the other shelves to Bright Steel. She had no idea how anyone could find anything here. "Here's the section we want, pre-imperial history." He scrambled up a ladder and his hoof went straight to one particular book. He pulled it out and slid down the ladder. When he opened the book, the pages fell open to a easily recognizable sketch. The enthusiastic colt had apparently turned to this page very often. "And here it is, see?"

Bright Steel looked. She frowned faintly as she puzzled out the words under the sketch. It did indeed say "Love Warden." She felt somewhat confused. "This is not a Love Warden, this is a changeling."

"This is also from well over a thousand years ago," Shade interjected. "I guess they called them something different back then? What is this book?"

"It's one of the journals of Stone Hoof. He was a soldier and an explorer, he wrote constantly, producing more than fifty volumes over his life. I've read them all, he was amazing! This particular one always fascinated me. This is from when he was first in this part of the world. He was an Equestrian, who came here not long after the founding of Equestria. He was stationed at a watch tower that used to stand more or less where the palace stands now. The city grew up around it."

"What were they watching for?" said Shade.

"Well... nopony quite remembers. Some threat from the north. Stone Hoof never specified, his journals seem to assume that everypony knew what it was, and he didn't find it all that interesting. He quit the watch not long after that, and spent his time traveling and writing. It's marvelous luck that we have the journals, he loved the northern lands, so he settled here when he finally retired."

"What about the changelings?" Bright Steel peered at the page opposite the sketch. It was densely written, and she knew it would take her forever to puzzle her way through all those words.

"This part of the journal is from when he was a guard on a supply train going to Fort Winter, to Clover the Clever's laboratory there. He apparently spent quite a lot of time talking to Clover about his current project. Clover showed him some drawings, this is a copy of one of them." Peridot's hoof tapped the sketch of the changeling. "He was working on a project to create a new race! Nopony had ever made an entirely new intelligent species before."

Shade grinned, but said nothing.

"Fort Winter was abandoned about twenty years later, after some kind of disaster. The journal doesn't say anything about what, Stone Hoof had moved on by then. I always assumed that meant that Clover's work hadn't succeeded, but now I see that it did!"

"Does the book hold any further information about changelings?" asked Bright Steel.

"Only what Clover told Stone Hoof. That he was trying to create them, that they were designed to look frightening to ponies, and to eat love energy, and live in communal groups. He mentions the Crystal Heart a few times, that they have something to do with it, I think because they're supposed to store love energy in crystallium?" His eyes brightened suddenly and he stared eagerly at Bright Steel. "Can you show me that? Please, please, please?"

"Uh..." Bright blinked at him. "Can I show you what?"

"What it looks like to see crystallium charged with love energy. I've seen the heart, of course, but that just discharges it immediately. Here, I'll be right back!" He galloped off between the shelves with a clatter, leaving Bright Steel and Shadowed Path to exchange bemused glances.

"Well, that was... interesting," said Shade.

"It was. My queen had hoped for more information from the book. I wonder if perhaps there might be some further record of this Clover pony and his work?"

Shade chuckled. "There ought to be, he was only one of the Founders, one of the most famous ponies of early Equestria."

"Oh. Where would we seek for this information?"

"There might be something back in Equestria, now that we know to look for 'Love Wardens' and not changelings. But I was wondering about the fort, and the laboratory there. It's been a long time, but there might be something worth seeing left. Sometimes magical sites get left with warding spells on them, which help preserve them."

A clatter of hooves announced Perdiot's return. He had the string of a pendant clenched in his teeth. He dropped it on a reading desk next to Bright Steel and looked at it hopefully. "So... can you?"

Bright Steel looked at the pendant. It was a crystal, and she did know how to put energy into a feeding crystal, at least in theory. Presumably this would work the same way. Given how much emotional energy Peridot was giving off, she would have no trouble replacing whatever she put into the stone.

"I will try," she said, and bent her head to touch her horn to the crystal. The energy flowed easily into it, with hardly any effort at all. When she lifted her horn, the crystal was glowing with a familiar golden glow. She regarded it curiously. "This is a feeding crystal," she said, her normally flat voice sounding surprised.

"Feeding crystal?" asked Shade.

"What we have in the hive, to share and store energy."

"You do live communally then!"

"Yes." Bright Steel looked at Peridot, who was nearly vibrating with enthusiasm. She could taste it too, a sweet, almost fizzy flavor. She drew a little in, replacing the energy she'd expended into the crystal.

"Is it like bees, do you have a queen? What do you do with the energy you store? How-"

"Hey, much as we would love to stick around and answer questions, we kind of have a mission to complete. There's nothing else in this book about 'Love Wardens'?"

"No, just what you've already seen."

"Right. Guess the next step is to send word back to Canterlot to search the archives, while we go looking for this Fort Winter."

"I can lead you there!"

Bright Steel ignored the crystal pony, she was busy passing what they'd learned along to Ambassador Wildcard. Shade, the other hand, gave Peridot a flat, disapproving look. "I don't think so, kid. This place is on the maps, isn't it?"

"Well... yes, any good map that shows the northwestern range will have it marked. But I still want to come! I've studied that era extensively, I know everything about the fort."

"Sorry, I'm sure you do, but we can't baby a civilian along on this trip."

Peridot bristled. "I wouldn't need babying. I do a great deal of camping, hiking, and backpacking. I know how to take care of myself."

"You also do a great deal of walking, and we'll be going there by wing," said Shade.

"Oh."

"Sorry. We do appreciate your help. Couldn't have found this without you."

"Will you promise to tell me what you find when you get back?"

Shade shrugged. "If we pass back through here, yeah. We might not, though." He turned to Bright Steel. "Let's get moving. We need to find a map, and send a message back to Canterlot."

"I have already informed the Ambassador there. He has passed the message along through the guard. Celestia will know shortly."

Shade blinked at her. "Well hey, that's convenient! Damn." He looked suddenly thoughtful. "I wonder if we could make arrangements to get a few changelings in the guard? Being able to pass instant messages halfway across the continent without needing to exhaust a unicorn or two would be pretty damn useful."

Bright Steel considered this. Once again she had failed to think what it would be like without the hive bond. She wondered exactly how they coordinated warriors in battle without the bond to guide them.

Shade's voice shook her from her thoughts. "Well, since that's done, all we need to do is get a map. Thanks for your help, Peridot. Let's get going!"

Author's Note

Thanks for reading! If you'd like to support me in writing more stories like this, (and if you'd like to get early access to everything I post) please consider becoming a patron.

You Can Count Me Out

I withdrew my mind from Bright Steel. She was doing better than I'd hoped. I brushed against Quicksilver again briefly. Her train was just pulling into the station. I left her again and considered if there was anything else that needed my attention.

For lack of anything better to do, I checked in again at the embassy. There had been a possible enemy sighting in Canterlot this morning, I found. Wildcard was discussing it with a guard captain. One of the changeling reveal spells near the embassy itself had stripped the disguise off of a strange changeling, but she had resumed it and escaped into a crowd before more than a glimpse could be caught.

A sudden ripple of alarm dragged my mind away from the embassy, to a spot less than a mile away, within the city. I felt pain, and fear, and caught a brief glimpse of a sneering unicorn, and then the contact was cut off. The drone who'd sounded the alarm was dead.

I felt a cold chill run through me. They'd found one of my covert infiltrators. If they'd found one, they could probably find more.

For a long moment, as fear spread throughout the hive, I hesitated. I knew what I had to do, but doing it might yet doom us. The hive should have had more than a hundred infiltrators. After Chrysalis' idiocy, we had barely eighty, and more than a dozen of those had already been called home from living openly in Ponyville. Three more had died in the attack on the embassy. Of those who remained, thirty-odd were covertly gathering love in Canterlot. If I called them home too, less than thirty total infiltrators would remain in place to feed the entire hive. Even with Pinkie Pie and her friends, that spelled starvation. Yet I could not leave them to die. So I hesitated only a moment before sending out my orders to all the Canterlot infiltrators.

Get out. Go as unobtrusively as you can. Remain in disguise if you can. But go as swiftly as you can. If you are near the embassy, go there. Otherwise get out of the city and come back to the hive. Go now, don't delay! Wildcard, put the guard on alert. Tell them what's going on. I will do what I can to help from here.

I didn't pay his assenting reply any attention, but sent my mind out over the city, checking on each drone, hoping that they all would make it to safety.

A drone, disguised as a pale blue unicorn, noticed a pegasus heading through the plaza, moving towards her with a little too much purpose, and hurried her excuses to her friend.

"I can't explain, sorry, have to run now!"

"But Silver Song-!"

She was already gone, galloping down the street, away from the pegasus. He confirmed her suspicion by taking wing and coming after her. To her left another pony, a unicorn, shouldered his way through a group of friends, ignoring their angry cries at his rudeness, and tried to flank her.

Silver ran faster, her heart pounding. The pegasus was overhead now. She ducked down an alley, trying to get where he couldn't see her. Another turn and he seemed to be gone. The hooves of the unicorn still sounded behind her. She bit back a curse and tried to get a little more speed, but she was not a runner. She turned again, hoping to lose him, but skidding to a halt at a dead end. Overhead the pegasus came into view again.

She hesitated. I knew she could teleport, why wasn't she doing so?

I didn't gather much, if I teleport I'll use it all! I'm supposed to bring the energy back for the hive!

You can't bring back anything if you're dead, go!

Her horn lit and she went, just as the unicorn's horn lit and he charged. She popped back into existence two blocks away and started running. I knew she'd never get out of town, nor to the embassy in time. A glimpse of white and gold reminded me that there was another option, one that wasn't far off. Get to the guard station!

I sent that out to the others. Forget leaving Canterlot, get to a guard station! Find a guardspony!

She glanced up, and saw the pegasus heading her way. She ran for the station. She skidded in through the door, to stop short in front of a startled guardspony, who knocked her feet out from under her with an instinctive defense spell, then hit her with a changeling reveal spell. "Help me!" she shouted, even as her disguise was stripped away.

The pegasus landed outside the door, then halted as he saw the half dozen guards inside. One of them hit him with a changeling reveal spell too, and his disguise vanished to show a red-eyed changeling with crimson wing cases. He hissed at them, then turned and ran. The ponies in the street scattered around him.

I took a moment to make sure Wildcard told the guard that they were about to have a heap of changeling refugees dumped on them. Not that the message would reach most of the stations before my changelings did, but some warning would be better than none. That done, I turned my attention back to the fleeing infiltrators. A few had already reached safety, mostly pegasi who'd taken to the wing as soon as I'd issued the warning. Most of the rest were running for their lives to whatever safety they could find. My infiltrators could fight, some of them very well, but it seemed that at least two or three of the enemy was chasing every one of them, and the enemy were obviously skilled fighters as well.

One mind I touched was not even fleeing yet. I knew this changeling quite well, for he was entirely unique. Most of the changeling infiltrators in the hive did single-day replacements, using magic to keep a pony asleep, hidden somewhere, while they went about their day in said pony's place, gathering love and affection from all around them. In the small towns in particular this was necessary. Ponyville had probably been the most dangerous, given the public exposure provided by Pinkie Pie parties, but Pinkie or not, small towns always noticed new ponies. It was safer to be a pony who already lived there.

Canterlot was different. It was large enough that a new face was seldom remarkable. Infiltrators there quite often made up their own personas and lived there long-term. Such personas were often very similar to the changeling's real personality, so the relationships they built were very real.

But High Peak was unusual in that he was both a replacement and a long-term infiltrator. Years ago, a changeling infiltrator had come across a dead pony in the badlands while traveling from the hive. Seeing a potential opportunity, the changeling had taken the pony's form and wandered into the nearest town, pretending to have gotten a head injury and to have forgotten even his name. The original pony had bought supplies there, and talked to the shopkeeper about his home in Canterlot, so the impostor had followed that clue, eventually finding the dead pony's wife and two children. Still feigning amnesia, he had settled into a life with them. That had been six years ago.

His wife had been baffled by his complete personality change, but their relationship had always been rocky, the original High Peak had gone rock climbing in the badlands as a break from their constant fights. With her "husband" now able to sense her feelings, and wanting nothing at all in the world more than to make her happy, their relationship flourished. High Peak had told me that he was genuinely in love with her.

"You swore! You swore after tearing out of here last June that there wouldn't be any more crazy trips! You promised me!" Looking through his eyes, I saw a distraught pale purple earth pony mare, tear marks on her cheeks, blocking the doorway of High Peak's home.

"I'm sorry. I have to go. I have to go now. I'll come back as soon as I can. I promise I will."

"Why can't you at least tell me what's going on? Why?! What's so urgent that you have to race off in the middle of the day?"

"I can't explain. You have to let me go, please!"

Staying here is putting her in danger too, I reminded him. Just go. Explanations can happen later.

I felt his anguish at the knowledge that I was right. He shoved past his wife, pushing her aside. "I'm sorry! I promise I'll tell you everything, about this and about last June, when I come back!" He sprinted down the street, headed for the guard station. There was a shout behind him as his wife ran out into the street and then was knocked down by a pair of unicorn mares charging towards him. They thankfully ignored her, focusing on High Peak. I yearned to help him somehow, but all I could do was watch. No other drones were near enough to come to his aid, and many of them had their own problems.

My mind was full of panic, mental cries for help sounding from all over the city. I jumped from cry to cry, but found nowhere where I could do anything. Another stab of pain that cut off sharply was another dead drone. I yearned to do something, anything to help. Several of the fleeing changelings had reached help already, but for the rest I could do nothing but bear witness.

High Peak drew my attention again as he fell skidding around a corner. He lived somewhat near the embassy, so was headed there. I held my breath when he barely rolled away from a diving pegasus. Before he could scramble back to his feet the pursuing unicorns caught up with him. They lit their horns.

Oh Celestia, I'm going to die! Tell Lilac I really did love her.

"Halt!" A shield bubble appeared over High Peak just as the unicorns' attacking spells shot out. He looked up to see four Royal Guard unicorns flanking Ambassador Wildcard. The unicorns who'd been chasing him turned to run, and the guardsponies went after them without hesitation.

Get to the embassy, Wildcard told him. There are more out there who need help.

High Peak lunged to his feet and ran. I let out the breath I'd been holding.

Another changeling drew my attention. This one had dropped her unicorn disguise entirely in favor of having wings, and was shooting across the city towards the nearest guard station. Three pegasi chased after her. They were apparently unwilling to drop their disguises completely, so while they flew they couldn't attack with their magic. I shared her strategy with several of the others still running. Immediately nearly every one of my changelings was in the air.

A couple of them summoned protective shields as they flew, and I shared that strategy as well.

The level of panic began to drop a little bit. A solution had been found. I watched through the eyes of one as she approached the guard station, nearly to safety. Then a beam of magic shot out from the roof of a building right next to the station, knocking the inbound changeling from the air. Her shield shattered, and she crashed hard into an open plaza. She'd cracked her carapace as badly as I'd ever felt. She looked up, and she and I both saw another unicorn standing over her. Then she was gone.

I wanted to scream in frustration. What I did instead was make sure the other changeling that had been headed to that particular guard station veered away. I sent her towards the palace instead, hoping that would be safer. Several others chose the same, redirecting themselves towards the palace itself or towards the embassy near it.

Only a dozen or so were still out, most had made it in. But we'd lost three more infiltrators already, and I wouldn't relax until every single one was safe.

Wildcard and the guards from the embassy saved another drone, this time one who spotted them from above and dove down to join them, his pursuers banking and breaking off at the sight of the guardsponies.

Another reached the embassy, which still had plenty of guardsponies stationed there.

Two more reached the palace grounds, and found guardsponies on duty there as well.

Then a third and a fourth reached the palace. Only six were still running.

One of those now had five enemy pegasi on her tail, but it seemed that the palace guard had decided to be proactive, a pair of guard pegasi met her in the air, and the enemy once again broke off.

Another wasn't so lucky. She had been on the outskirts of town and by now there were far too many of the enemy in the air. The down side of dropping the disguises to use both wings and magic was that a changeling in the air was recognizable. A pegasus dove down from a cloud above and knocked her down to the ground. Before any attempt at rescue could reach her, she too was hit by an enemy unicorn and vanished from my mind.

I felt like I might weep. I almost wanted to take pony form, just so I could. But at last the four remaining drones reached safety. I slumped in relief. Unless the attackers were going to dare a frontal assault on a guard station, the embassy, or the palace, it was over. Given how they'd refused to confront the guard even when they'd had numbers on their side, I guessed that that was unlikely.

Are you okay? That was absolutely awful. I felt Pinkie give a shiver, though I knew she had only felt what I was feeling, and hadn't actually seen through the dying drone's eyes, hadn't actually felt their deaths.

I wanted to hug Pinkie tightly to me, but she was still miles away. I am as okay as I can be. I lost four more changelings. Four more that I couldn't save. If so many of them hadn't been clever and resourceful, and if the ponies hadn't helped, I'd have lost many more. I don't know what to do, Pinkie. I keep failing them.

Don't you say that! You haven't failed them. You did a lot to help them, I can tell.

I haven't done enough. And it's my fault all this happened! If I'd just agreed to go along with them, if I'd agreed to go back to the old ways, none of these changelings would have died.

Then I guess that makes it my fault, not yours, said Pinkie.

What?

It's because of me that you got revealed at the talent show. It's because of me that changelings started living openly. It's because of me that you became friends with Celestia, so it's because of me that the other changelings got mad at you. This is all my fault.

No! It's not your fault at all.

Well it isn't yours either, so stop being so silly! You're doing the best you can. You're special and amazing and smart and strong and you're doing all kinds of things to try to save the hive, and so am I. Don't you dare blame yourself for what a bunch of meanie-pants other hives are doing though, it's not your fault! I could tell she was angry, though not at me. She was angry at the other changelings. I realized that she was right. If I was to blame anyone for this I should blame them.

I guess you have a point, I said.

I'm glad you agree! Now go on, I know you have lots of things to take care of. I'll be there as soon as I can get there.

She gave me a mental hug, and went back to concentrating on walking. I could see that she and the others were in the badlands already. They would be here by tonight.

I found, now that my mind was finally firmly back in my own body, that I was surrounded by my hoof-maidens, being groomed again. I sighed softly, trying to relax. I was physically fine but I felt mentally exhausted. Feeling all that panic, all those desperate changelings, hoping to somehow make it, and feeling the ones who hadn't-it left me feeling like I was bruised and battered, even though I was whole.

Still, my work was not done. I checked in again at the embassy. Guardsponies were escorting the rescued changelings there. The building had been over-large for the small staff who had lived there, but it was crowded now with changeling refugees pouring in. I could tell, though, that all of them were glad to be together. There was a lot of grooming and mental reassurance going on among them.

I sieved through the memories of the attack, trying to learn anything useful. I noticed that all those who had been actively pursued were those living long-term pony lives. None of the short-term replacements had been attacked until after they'd started to run.

With that in mind, I contacted the small number of long-term infiltrators outside of Canterlot. There were only three, and within minutes they were all packing up and preparing to come back to the hive. The short-term infiltrators I left out for now. They worried me a bit, but as far as I knew there was no way the could be discovered except by amazing coincidence. The small town nosiness that made it hard on them would make it doubly hard on the other hives. They didn't know this territory, so slipping in spies to find my infiltrators would be difficult. Not impossible, though, so I still fretted a little. Yet I had to have the love energy they would bring in. In fact I briefly considered sending out some of the infiltrators who'd been pulled in from Ponyville to augment them. I decided to save that for if it turned out to be truly needed. We had some energy reserves. We could get by on them for a time.

That decision made, I turned my attention back to Quicksilver. She seemed like the hive's best hope for survival.

She was still wearing the same pegasus form that she'd worn on the train. Right now she was strolling through a park, enjoying the noonday sun. Or at least the part of her mind that was being a pony was. The rest of her was alertly aware of me, and the situation in Canterlot.

My queen.

How goes the infiltration?

So far, about as I expected, which is to say that nothing much in particular has happened. Running into a changeling while wandering the streets at random is a very unlikely outcome. Nevertheless I am making the attempt, on the off chance that luck is with me. I am much more likely to find what I seek this evening, however. Given the need to gather emotional energy, and the lack of the small-town problem, I expect that the city night life is full of changelings, taking their food from the revelry of the youth, who certainly have energy to spare.

And you're really certain you can join their hive bond unnoticed? Chrysalis spotted it immediately, when I re-joined the hive.

Oh yes. Do not fear, my queen. I know what I am doing.

You're also doing it for the first time.

She laughed at that, though it was just inside her mind, the pony's expression and thoughts didn't change. No I'm not, my queen. Oh, it will be the first time I've slipped in and out of a foreign hive, yes, but I have come and gone from Chrysalis' bond unnoticed many a time.

Oh.

It is what I was made to do. Even though she never wished to use my skills, I couldn't help but want to practice them. I have spent the last twenty years slipping around the hive, perfecting my abilities as much as I could. I have even had the occasional outing as an infiltrator, to practice my skills among ponies.

I see. I guess you have this well in hoof then.

I will let you know once I find my target, my queen.

I withdrew from her mind. For a long time I just sat in the dimness of my room and thought of nothing at all. I felt a little better than I had before I'd spoken with Quicksilver, but I was still dreadfully tired. Then a gentle tug pulled my attention towards Canterlot. I blinked confusedly as I looked through Ambassador Wildcard's eyes again. I hadn't felt another alarm, so why...?

As my mind actually took in what I was seeing, I realized that the white form in front of me was Celestia.

"The Guard has done everything the could to capture or drive off the rest of the enemy changelings," she was saying. "Unfortunately without Shining Armor we cannot enclose the city again, and our other methods let most of them slip through. I'm sure I don't need to tell you how difficult it is to spot a disguised changeling in a city of this size."

"I know," said the ambassador. "The queen is here now, if you would like to speak with her."

"I would, yes."

Wildcard gave me a sort of mental bow and let me step forward in his mind. It was a bit odd. I was used to looking through other changelings' eyes, and I had spoken through him once, but this was a little more complete. For the moment, at least, I was him. I was no longer aware of my body back at the hive at all. It felt a little odd to be a drone again, and to have to look up so far at Celestia.

"Celestia."

"Sweetcake. I am sorry for your loss."

"Thank you."

"If you wish to plead with me to go to war on your behalf again..."

I shook my—or Wildcard's—head. "I know that none of what you said has changed, so no. Mostly I just want to thank you. Were it not for your guards I would likely have lost more than half the drones here. They dealt very well with what must have seemed an extremely confusing situation."

Celestia smiled wryly. "They did knock out quite a few of your drones when they raced into unprepared guard stations."

"Knock out, yes. Not kill. Those drones are alive because of them. So thank you."

"You are very welcome."

"I also wanted to tell you that I may have a way to discover everything you could want to know about the other hives."

Celestia hesitated. I knew that look in her eyes, and I could taste a flicker of guilt. "You know that if we learn the guard is outnumbered, I will be less likely to provide military aid, not more. This chaos has shown just how difficult this will be. We are not talking about a war with borders and targets, we're talking about war with a population that is intermingled inextricably with my own, where it takes specialized magic to even know which ponies are the enemy and which are my loyal subjects."

"I know. Still, I have some hope. It may be slender, but it is there. And so long as your guard can do as much as they've done today, we at least have a chance. I don't want conquest, I just want survival."

Celestia sighed softly, and I tasted a strong upwelling of sympathy from her. "I know what it's like to wish only for survival."

Things in Canterlot tended to, I finally remembered Bright Steel and turned my mind back to her. I found her and Shadowed Path in the air. She was now wearing pegasus form, presumably because the air around them was bitterly cold. Changelings didn't tolerate cold as well as ponies did. Dark clouds were gathering as they made their way north and west from the circular capital city of the Crystal Empire. They hadn't gotten far, they must have spent much of the intervening time making preparations of one kind or another.

They were over wild land, where the weather wasn't managed. That meant that the gathering clouds could do nearly anything, there was no predicting them. In this case what they did was to keep gathering, until the early afternoon light was swallowed up in a gray twilight. Soon it began to snow, a light dusting sifting down from the clouds above.

The wind picked up, and the two fliers had to fight their way into it. The further they flew, the worse it got. The wind howled around them and the snow was thicker, coming straight into their teeth as they flew. Either the storm was building or they were headed into the heart of it. "We need to get above this!" shouted Shade. He pointed up.

Bright Steel could barely hear him even though she was flying so close their wings were almost touching. "Right!" she shouted back, heartily wishing for a hive bond with him so that they could actually communicate. The queen had formed one with a pony, perhaps she should look into finding a way to form one with Shade somehow. Still, she understood what he meant well enough. She beat her wings harder, trying for altitude. Shade did as well, the pair rising slowly towards the clouds above.

The winds were punishing and unpredictable. Gusts blew in every direction, and it didn't get any better when they hit the clouds. If anything it was worse, for now they could barely see. Bright Steel in particular struggled. She wasn't used to the way feathered wings behaved. She'd never been a pegasus before. It had been easy enough to take flight in the calm over the city, but now she constantly found herself feeling off balance, nothing working quite like it should have.

Shade had to constantly hold back to keep her in sight. Between the buffeting winds and Bright Steel's difficulty flying, they weren't making any progress up through the storm. Finally Shade gestured downward. Bright Steel nodded and dropped.

That was easier, though still far more difficult than gliding down on a calm day would have been. They had to struggle to keep together, unpredictable winds tugging them in different directions.

Even in pony form, Bright Steel found her wings getting numb from the cold. She squinted into the driving snow that pelted her face and stung her eyes. They had to be near the ground by now, but she couldn't see anything. Shade was only a dim shadow to one side of her amid the swirling white. Suddenly another shadow loomed directly in front of her. She swerved just in time to miss the top of the evergreen that had risen out of the storm, but in doing so slammed into another one with punishing force. She let out a yelp and tumbled out of control, crashing into yet another tree, before falling straight down.

Then everything went black.

For a moment I felt a cold chill myself, thinking she was dead. I relaxed as I realized I could still sense her. She was merely unconscious. Worry immediately returned, though. She was unconscious, crashed in a blizzard. Shadowed Path might not be able to find her. She might still die.

A moment later she slowly stirred. I sighed in relief. At least I wouldn't have to sit here and feel her die without waking. She had a chance at survival now.

Bright Steel slowly got to her feet. Her whole body ached, she felt like she was covered in bruises. Soft pony hide bruised too easily. On the other hand she didn't seem to have any broken bones, and she would probably have cracked her chitin if she'd still been in her natural form. When she tried to fold her wings she winced. One of them quite definitely didn't want to fold up.

The wind was still blowing, but it was less forceful here under the trees. The snow lay unevenly, piling up in drifts against any obstacles, but scoured clear of the flatter ground. Bright Steel looked around.

"Bright! Bright! Where are you?"

"Here!" she called out. A moment later Shadowed Path came flying among the trees toward her.

"Thank Celestia, you're alive!" he said as he landed next to her.

Bright was a little surprise to taste a strong wave of something from Shade. She didn't know enough to identify the flavor, but it was sweet and delicious. She drew on it and felt a little better.

"We've got to find shelter. Come on."

"Right." Bright walked beside Shade, glad that she hadn't injured her legs at least. They made their way through the driving snow, the wind stealing their warmth and sapping their strength as they went. They stumbled from tree to tree, looking for something other than solitary, barren trunks to shield them from the rage of the storm, which still seemed to be growing.

Before long Shade halted. "This isn't working. I need to try something. Stay right here, don't move, whatever you do."

Bright nodded. Shade spread his wings, as if to fly, but instead shadows seemed to seep from them. Blackness crept over his entire body, and then he himself was a shadow, a misty, formless shape that flowed off along the ground. Bright had no idea what had just happened, but she waited obediently for him to return. She found herself shivering, her teeth chattering. She stomped her feet, trying to keep warm.

Suddenly Shade was next to her again. "Found something. Follow me."

Bright followed willingly, keeping as close to Shade as she could. They walked through the howling wind for some time before reaching a spot where an outcropping of rock rose above the forest floor. He circled it to a black hole that gaped in the side of the stone. He had to squeeze to get inside, and so did Bright, but the space widened out again shortly. It was still cold inside the cave, but Bright immediately felt better now that she was out of the wind. The cave continued further back, vanishing into utter blackness. Bright didn't feel like exploring, though, she merely sat down just inside the narrow entrance.

Shade pulled off his saddlebags and rummaged in them. He came up with a brick-like object, wrapped in paper. He set it on the floor and, while Bright watched curiously, drew out a striker and lit the paper on fire. It burned oddly, with a slow, slightly bluish flame. "Fire brick. It'll burn for a good eight hours. I have one more after that. Hopefully that'll be long enough."

Bright sat as close to the fire brick as she dared. The warmth began to chase away the numbness from her wings and hooves. Shade sat next to her and examined her dragging wing. He gently manipulated it, making Bright hiss with pain. "Well, I don't think it's broken. Might have a hairline, but it's definitely dislocated. We should see if we can set it back in the socket." He looked up at Bright. "This is going to hurt a bit."

"Do what you must," she said, bracing herself.

He took the wing in his teeth and pulled, hard.

Bright let out a yelp of pain, then a sigh of relief as some of the ache eased. She flexed it, then slowly folded it. "Thank you." She shed her saddlebags, and removed her armor too, before settling to the ground, letting the warmth from the little magical fire seep into her.

Shade had already taken off his bags, but he too shed his armor, then settled himself next to her. "We should stay close, to keep warm."

Bright nodded and leaned against him. She was used to the near-complete lack of personal space of drones within the hive, so she found his warm presence very comfortable. Even without the chill in the air she would have enjoyed the closeness. Relaxing further, she bent her head and started grooming the edge of one of Shade's wings. He immediately tensed, and the taste of his emotions changed. Bright, feeling frustrated by her unfamiliarity with what the flavors she tasted meant, finally reached for the hive's knowledge, and identified the cinnamon-like taste as embarrassment.

She stopped grooming and said, "I am sorry if I have done something to embarrass you."

"Uh. Well... ponies don't groom each other's wings unless we're kinda intimate. I don't really know you that well."

"Oh. I see. How well should I know a pony before grooming them?"

He grinned. "You ought to take 'em on at least one date first, generally."

"Date?"

"Ah never mind. Given the state your wings are in, you could use a good grooming anyway. Just don't get too frisky with me."

"I do not understand what you mean."

Shade snorted. "Nah, I suppose you wouldn't. Don't worry about it. Here." He started to groom her wings, and she spread them for him willingly. The feathers were a mess—bent, broken and even coated in pine sap in places. Bright almost wanted to change back to her natural form, but though the cave was nearly comfortable for her now, it would be much, much colder without the insulation of her pony coat, so she did not. She just let her eyes close and enjoyed the strange but pleasant sensation as Shade carefully groomed her feathers into shape.

Eventually he was finished. He shifted a bit, resting his head on his front hooves with a yawn.

Bright yawned too, and rested her head on his withers. He tensed again when she did, but he relaxed almost immediately, and she didn't taste embarrassment this time. For a long time they were both silent.

Eventually Shade sighed. "Sitting around a campfire, but we don't have any marshmallows. This trip has turned into a right mess."

"What is a marshmallow?"

"It's a treat, something foals like to roast over a fire and eat. I loved 'em when I was little."

"I see."

"We used to go camping a lot when I was a kid. Not any kind of serious wilderness exploration or anything, just trips out to somewhere where we could pitch a tent and light a fire. My dad loved it. My mom hated it, she stopped going when I was still pretty little, so it was just my dad and I. We'd roast marshmallows and sing campfire songs and stay up all night. This was before the Night Guard, when Luna was still gone. A lot of thestrals gave up on nights, during our long wait. But my dad never quite did. Even though he had to work during the day, he took the chance to be up at night as often as he could. He'd look up at the moon and say that she was still up there, looking down, and the night was still hers." He heaved another sigh. Bright Steel could taste something softly bitter from him. She asked the hive, and found that it was sorrow. "Other ponies ask how Celestia could forgive Luna for what she did, but I always wondered how Luna could forgive Celestia. Sometimes I'm not sure if I forgive Celestia. Princess Luna was up there a thousand years, and we were down here without her all that time."

He glanced at Bright, still resting her head against him, and gave a tiny shrug. "Ah, I shouldn't get all maudlin about that stuff. She came back, and I was here to see it and serve her again. That's what matters, right? Anyway, what did you do as a kid? Do changelings go camping?"

"I do not even know what camping is, other than what you have just told me."

"Heh. I guess that's a 'no' then." He chuckled. "What did you do, then?"

"We learned, and prepared to serve the hive."

"Dang. That's kind of cold. Just learning, you didn't play games, or do anything fun?"

Bright smiled. "Some of the learning was in the form of what you would consider 'games', especially when I was a very young nymph. I found many of the tasks which were physical in nature to be enjoyable, I suppose one could even say they were 'fun'."

"What about your... No, I guess you don't really have parents, do you?"

"The queen is our mother. That is the closest we have to what I know of pony parents."

"That's kind of weird."

"Having two parents who concern themselves directly with one's upbringing seems quite strange to me. It is all a matter of perspective."

"Yeah, I guess that's true."

There was another long silence. Shade stared into the crackling fire. Bright closed her eyes and rested.

After quite a long time, Shade said softly, "You still awake?"

"Yes."

"Me too. Too keyed up to sleep yet. I'm sure I'll be tired enough soon. Trying to think of some way to pass some time. I don't suppose you know any campfire songs?"

"No, I do not."

"Yeah, I figured."

"I do know a song, however."

"Oh?"

"Yes. My minder used to sing it to us when I was a very young nymph. It was a lullaby, to help us sleep."

"Now I gotta wonder what a changeling lullaby is like."

"I could sing it for you, if you wish."

"Sure, I'd like that."

Bright lifted her head and closed her eyes, reaching for the hive's memory to help her recall the words. Her speaking voice was normally flat, almost toneless, but when she began to sing, her voice rose and fell perfectly, without any flat or sour notes. It sounded a bit strange by pony standards, but it was beautiful all the same.

Softly, she began.

Hush now, sweet hatchlings,
As you lay down to sleep
And I'll sing you a tale
Of lies and deceit.

Before the Sun's dawning
We'll go forth from the nest
And sneak into towns
To do what we do best.

A little bite to the neck
To ensure they don't wake;
With a flash of green fire
Their appearance we'll take.

We go about their business
In our perfect disguise;
Whilst stealing their love
As we tell them sweet lies.

And when the moon rises
We'll all return to the Hive
To feast on our bounty,
Grow stronger, and thrive.

So, hush now, sweet hatchlings,
As you lay down to sleep;
And heed well this tale
Of lies and deceit.

When she was finished, Shade's eyes had closed and he was asleep. Bright smiled softly. She felt strangely affectionate as she once more rested her head on his sleeping form. He was quite odd, but he seemed kind, and his emotions tasted pleasant. He felt caring towards her. She thought that perhaps she was coming to care for him in return.

Author's Note

Credit for the changeling lulaby goes to The Ponytrician. (Canonically speaking I suspect, given how positively it seems to regard "lies and deciet", that it was probably written during Sepal's reign, as she prized such qualities highly, as thus so did her hive.)

If you'd like to support me in finishing this story (and writing other stories like it) please consider becoming a patron.

You Ask Me For a Contribution

I gently pulled my mind away from Bright's, even as hers began to relax into sleep. I felt better than I had before I'd checked in on her. I'd needed a peaceful moment like that after all the chaos of the rest of this terrible day.

Even better still, I could tell that Pinkie was almost here at last. I headed for the entrance tunnel to meet her. I could see a gleaming light from outside as I waited at the point that marked the change from natural tunnel to hive. The sun was still up outside, though it would set soon. The light from the tunnel dimmed as someone stepped in front of it. I ran forward, not able to wait a moment more, and met Pinkie running the other way. We hugged each other tightly. I could feel sadness and worry from her, but it was eased as we held each other close.

Eventually, however, I had to let go and turn my attention to her friends. They were smiling at us, happy to see us together. I saw Ladybird standing with them, apparently the only other Ponyville pony who'd been able to accompany them. I smiled back all the same. I was glad they'd come. "Come, I have rooms prepared for you. I'll show you to them." I led the way through the hive. I'd cleared the path again, anticipating Rarity's discomfort with being surrounded by "bugs." Interestingly, though, I tasted almost no revulsion or apprehension from her. Instead there was friendliness and a strong undercurrent of anticipation. She was eager about something. I resolved to ask her what at the soonest opportunity. Now, though, my attention was more on Pinkie Pie than on any of the others. I had missed her, strange as that was to say of someone who was always present in my mind.

I settled her friends, and Ladybird, in a series of rooms near the throne room. I'd done my best to furnish them comfortably for ponies, though I knew that the sleeping mats would not compare to pony-style beds. I'd provided extra pillows and blankets, which would hopefully suffice. Rarity, who I'd worried the most about, was towing a cart laden with things, including more bedding, and set about unpacking everything in her room without complaint. Several of the others had baggage as well, about half of which proved to actually belong to Rarity. I smiled at that. Some things never changed.

Finally they were all comfortable and I was able to retire to my room with Pinkie Pie. I flopped onto the bed, mentally waving off the hoof-maidens who peeked out of their small bedroom to see if I wanted them. Right now all I wanted was sleep and cuddling with Pinkie Pie, not necessarily in that order.

Pinkie climbed into the bed next to me and hugged me tightly. I tasted her emotions, very much like my own. We had both been thrown into chaos by today's events, and I felt guilty for putting her through so much. She shouldn't have to suffer because of me, yet our bond made it inevitable. I looked for something to say, some comfort to offer, some words to reassure her with.

Before I found them, her lips found mine. She kissed me gently. I love you, she said in my mind, where I knew she could not lie, and I felt it, tasted it from her. I drew it in despite my guilt. I needed it so desperately. Not because I was hungry, but because I needed her, needed to be reassured, needed to have something good and right and stable in my life right now.

I love you too, I said as I kissed her back. A trickle of fire ran down my spine, and another, different, need came to life in me. I kissed her harder, holding her tightly to me. She felt it, and responded by running her hooves down my back, stroking over my folded wings.

Her body was warm against mine. Her love was sweet and spicy on my tongue, and for a while, at least, I was able to lose myself in her. I put aside the rest of the world, even the hive, to be in a place where it was just Pinkie and I.

Later I lay spooned about Pinkie's smaller form, seeking sleep that would not come. I felt better than I had before Pinkie's arrival, but my thoughts were still restless. There were nine dead changelings now. Nine of my children—for even though it wasn't literally true, I couldn't help but think of them that way—that my choices had killed. My mind kept jumping from one might-have-been to another, seeking some way out of this trap I found myself in. I thought of Bright Steel and wondered if I would sleep easier were someone here to sing a lullaby. I smiled a bit at the thought of asking one of my hoof-maidens to come and sing for me. No doubt they would find that odd.

I did tell them they could come and join me in the bed if they chose. They did, changelings always preferred to sleep together rather than alone, and the drones found my physical presence to be extremely pleasant. They settled themselves around me, careful to not disturb Pinkie, and one of them started grooming my wings, attempting to help me relax.

I felt something tug at my attention, and flung my mind willingly away from my own cares to Manehattan, where Quicksilver was seeking enemy changelings. She had found one.

She was out on the dance floor of a trendy club. All around her, ponies danced and laughed and shouted to be heard over the ear-shatteringly loud music that filled the room.

They were all young and full of energy. The room brimmed with a thousand emotions, some negative, but many positive as well. Pleasure, enjoyment, friendship, a wisp or two of young love, and plenty of young lust, all hung in the air. It was an ideal feeding ground. Quicksilver, however, wasn't pulling in any emotions. She was putting out some. A tasty bit of bait for the pony—who wasn't a pony at all—that danced opposite her. The other was a unicorn, with an orange coat and a pink-and-yellow mane. Quicksilver was currently a mint green pegasus with a white mane and tail. She winked at the mare dancing opposite her flirtatiously, radiating playful enjoyment. Not as good as love, but well worth bothering to feed from.

Quicksilver was carefully cultivating three layers of thoughts. In the uppermost she was exactly what she seemed, a young pegasus from out of town, here to have a good time. Beneath that lay a kind of proto-changeling, a mind very like that of a grub, something without a personality, whose presence would be unnoticed when added to the hive mind. It could be developed into something more when she needed it.

Beneath that, of course, was her real mind, analyzing and planning and being entirely delighted at finally doing the task for which she'd been born. She almost could have radiated the necessary enjoyment without magic.

The changeling mare in unicorn's form finally took the bait, moving a little closer, brushing up against Quicksilver as she danced. Physical contact was all Quicksilver needed to insert her little unformed changeling's mind into the new hive. Everything from that hive came to her filtered through the grub-like mind, so she couldn't learn much right away. What she could tell, even without full access, was that this hive was big. Very big. Possibly half again the size of Sweetcake Hive.

It also seemed quite peaceful. Oddly so for a hive that ought to be on war footing of some kind or another. Quicksilver couldn't detect any unusual agitation in the strange hive. Yet earlier this very day some of their warriors almost had to have been involved in the attack at Canterlot. Quicksilver had paid close attention to every bit of information she could get about that, and it was blindingly obvious that the enemy had mostly failed. They'd targeted more than twenty long-term infiltrators and had gotten only three, plus one changeling they hadn't originally targeted. With such a failure on their hooves, why were they not concerned that their plans were going awry?

Quicksilver didn't show her puzzlement on her face, of course. The pegasus dancing was something very close to a complete personality, who really was having fun. She bumped her hip against the unicorn, who bumped back, grinding just a little against her with a broad wink.

She let her pony persona dance and flirt and enjoy herself while she concentrated on carefully nurturing the half-formed changeling mind. It went slowly, to suddenly develop a personality would be to draw the attention of the whole hive, including the queen. So it took the better part of an hour to develop it far enough to truly reach the Manehattan hive. But finally, as her pegasus personality broke away from the changeling to dance with somepony else instead, Quicksilver gained the access she needed.

She explored cautiously. Being too obviously curious would draw needless attention. A drone who'd lived her whole life in this hive wouldn't ask about certain things. The information had to be gathered without explicitly asking. Still, it didn't take long for her to learn what she'd come to find.

It was not what she had expected. This hive was not at war. The ordinary workers were barely aware that there was any kind of conflict at all. They all knew of Chrysalis' failed invasion, and most of them were vaguely uneasy at the idea of ponies knowing all about changelings, but that was as far as it went, among the ordinary drones. The warriors were a bit more aware. A few of them, in fact, were very much aware, as they were outside the hive, having participated in the attack this morning. That had been exciting, and the hive had been on alert at the time, but it didn't matter much to anyone here. Even the warriors doing it hadn't really cared that much about it.

Their queen, whose mind Quicksilver didn't dare to touch directly, had told them to go, so they had gone. Meanwhile the queen herself, at least judging from her actions and the attitudes of her drones, had only done so at the insistence of someone else.

Quicksilver could have danced with glee. The pegasus persona put an extra bounce in her step as she shook her flank. The alliance against Sweetcake hive was not the monolithic thing they had assumed it was. This was not a gathering of hives, all intent on bringing Sweetcake's hive down. This was a half-hearted and casual agreement to lend a few warrior drones to someone else's effort. I felt my own heart leap at the news. If the other hives felt similarly, then it was likely that the warriors who'd attacked at Canterlot represented the enemy's full forces. Still enough to outnumber my own warriors, but not enough to even remotely outnumber Celestia's.

There is hope, my queen. Far more hope than we had feared.

Yes there is. Thank you so much, Quicksilver.

We need to know more. Which hive is behind this? Whose idea is it? I'm sure that Floret, who is queen here, knows, but asking her directly might reveal too much, and trying to covertly gather information from a queen is difficult. I believe I will cross town and try again tomorrow. There is a second hive in Manehattan, perhaps they will know more.

Then go and find out. And thank you again.

I live for the welfare of the hive, said Quicksilver, with a little mental laugh. She mocked herself for saying it, yet I know it was nothing but the truth. She was risking her life by going into enemy hives like this. Even if this one had proved to be relatively safe, others might not be so peaceful.

As I puled my mind away from Quicksilver, I found some of the fear and tension that had kept me up was easing. I sighed and rested my head against a drone who was curled up next to me. Pinkie was still there, a warm presence against my stomach. With my head pillowed on the drone and the rest of them pressing close around me, I finally drifted off to sleep.

I woke with a sense of urgency. Something needed my attention.

My queen! I am very sorry to wake you, but I think you'd better see this.

I blinked, my vision double for a moment as I saw my dim bedroom chamber overlaid with a room full of early morning sunlight. I let my attention go to the second image, and found myself once again looking through Ambassador Wildcard's eyes. His ruined desk had been replaced with a larger, sturdier one. Spread out on it was a newspaper. There was a photo, a little blurry but easy enough to tell what was going on, of a changeling drone cowering at the feet of a guardspony.

"Changeling Chaos in Canterlot!" read the headline. My spirits sank. That didn't sound good.

It gets better. Or worse, maybe, said Wildcard. His eyes scanned down to the article beneath the picture.

Did somepony you know made sudden, frantic excuses at 11:03 yesterday morning before running off? Well, we hate to be the bearers of bad news here at The Canterlot Chronicle, but chances are that your special somepony, friend, or acquaintance was a changeling!

There was more, but I didn't bother to read it. That much was bad enough.

There were several reporters snooping around yesterday. I didn't tell them anything. Maybe I should have, since the rest of the article is full of wild speculation. There's another batch of them at the door now, being held off by the guard, and it's probably going to get worse as the day goes on.

Well, this is what you're ambassador for, I said, sending a wry sympathy to him. Time to earn your pay. I made a mental note to see about finding some way to actually pay him. The hive didn't use money, but those changelings that lived among ponies would find it useful, I knew. You should call a press conference and set things straight. Don't go into much detail about the war, but you can tell them the truth about the situation yesterday, and about Celestia's position. Reassure them that ponies are being kept out of it as much as possible. Let's try to avoid starting a panic.

Will do, he said with a nod.

I stayed with him as he trotted to the well-guarded door. Outside, a dozen more guards stood in a half-circle, blocking the path to the embassy door. Beyond them a handful of ponies, several obviously reporters with cameras, hovered expectantly.

Wildcard cleared his throat. "I'll be holding a press conference this afternoon, at two o'clock. I'll answer your questions about yesterday's events then. Thank you."

"Can you tell us where the replaced ponies are?" shouted a reporter.

Wildcard scowled. "I'll answer your questions at the press conference. Not now. If there are any reporters still here in five minutes, I'll have the guard escort you from the premises."

There was a muttering from the little crowd, but they slowly dispersed. When the reporters had gone, however, there were two ponies still standing there. "I'm not answering any questions," said Wildcard.

"The only question I have is where is Silver Song," said one of them, a unicorn mare who looked frazzled and afraid. "The real one, I mean. What did you do with her? Do you have her in one of those cocoons in there? She's my friend, I don't want her to be hurt."

Wildcard sighed. "Those ponies who were being replaced have already been returned, ma'am. We do not have any ponies here, only changelings."

"Silver Song didn't come back."

"That's because she was a changeling all along," said the other pony. She was a light purple earth pony, who seemed a bit familiar to me for some reason, and she sounded more than a little irritated. "Don't be any more dense than you have to be."

"Silver Song was a good pony, not a changeling!"

"Silver Song was a good enough changeling to make a good pony. So are you here to see her, or are you just going to continue being deluded?"

"I... I... She was a pony. She wasn't some kind of monster. She was my friend."

"She might still be you friend," said the earth pony softy. "Why don't you find out? That's..." she trailed off, swallowing and blinking sudden tears from her eyes before continuing. "That's what I'm here to find out." She turned to Wildcard, looking at him over the backs of the guardsponies. "I want to talk to High Peak. If... if he's still alive. I know some of them didn't make it. If he's there, and if he will see me, I want to talk to him, please."

Wildcard could taste her emotional turmoil. She was very conflicted, but she was also very sincere, and he tasted no hatred from her. "I'll let him know you're here," he said. He looked at the other mare. "And I will let Silver Song know too."

"Tell her it's Sunbeam," said the unicorn.

Wildcard nodded and relayed the information over the bond to the changelings within. Getting confused assent from both of them, he turned to the guardsponies. "They can come in."

They parted, letting the two mares into the embassy.

A pair of changeling drones stood in the front room of the embassy. To pony eyes they were perfectly identical. The mares both looked back and forth between them. Sunbeam spoke first. "Are you... uh, is one of you Silver Song?"

"Yes," said one drone, taking a hesitant step forward.

The purple mare's eyes went immediately to the other drone. "High Peak?" she said. Her voice was shaky, uncertain.

"Lilac. You... you didn't have to come." His voice was even more so. He was nearly paralyzed, seeing her there. When he'd realized that he'd been revealed, he'd thought it was over. Now he didn't know if he should hope that she still cared, or fear that she'd come to denounce him and leave him forever.

"Yes I did." She ran at him suddenly and hugged him. He stiffened in shock, then hugged her back, feeling her love flood into him. She held him tightly for a long time, not seeming to mind that he was a chitinous changeling and not a pony. Finally she stepped back and said, "I had to at least know if you were alive. The paper said several of the changelings had been killed. You don't know how glad I am to see you're still alive."

"I do know," he said softly.

She looked at him, a shiver of nervousness going through her. Then she gave him a tentative smile. "I guess you would. That's how you always knew just what I needed, wasn't it? You could taste it, or whatever it is changelings do."

"Yes."

"I... I guess I'm glad, really. I have to ask, though... It wasn't just an act, was it? It wasn't just... just... feeding? Was it?" Her smile had vanished, and tears were standing in her eyes again.

"No, never." His reply was instant. Then he hesitated and continued, "Well... at the very beginning, yes. But the more I knew you, the more I saw how wonderful you were, and how High Peak never appreciated what he had in you. I could have just fed from you that first time, when I came home, and then gone back to the hive. That's what I originally planned. Living long term in somepony else's life isn't something we normally do. But I couldn't give you up, or Cotton, or Butterscotch. It started as feeding, but I wouldn't have stayed for six years for that."

Lilac smiled, though it was still tearful. "I am so sorry I delayed you so long yesterday. I don't know how I would live with myself if you'd been killed. It would have been my fault."

"You didn't know any better. You couldn't have known."

"I wish I had. I wish you'd told me. As soon as I saw the story in the paper, I know. That sudden, weirdly urgent trip to some mountaineering conference last June, right before the changeling invasion. The way you were so different six years ago. I knew." She smiled at him, with tears in her eyes. "And I knew something else too. I knew that you have been a better husband to me than that jerk who fathered my foals and then spent every second he could away from us ever was! I love you, High Peak, or whatever your real name might be."

This time it was High Peak who moved forward and hugged her tightly. "I love you too, Lilac. I love you so much. I thought I'd lost you forever. I never want to be apart from you again."

"You won't be," said Lilac.

High Peak pulled back from the embrace, shaking his head. "Yes I will be, at least for a little while. I can't stay here in the open, it's too dangerous. I have to go back to the hive. I do promise I'll come back when this is over though."

"You won't be, because I'm coming with you."

"But... the kids..."

"Gran was already going to take them for two weeks so we could have that big anniversary trip next month. She can take them early. They're at her place right now already, and I mentioned the possibility to her before I came here."

"But we're at war. You might get hurt!"

"So might you. I'm not letting you go alone, and that's final."

"You don't know what it's like in the hive."

"I imagine it's full of changelings. They all survive there somehow, I'm sure I'll be fine."

"Lilac... it'll be dark, and they don't have beds, and there's not much you could eat there but mushrooms. Are you sure?"

"I'm not leaving you."

High Peak looked over at Wildcard, as if pleading for him to intervene. Wildcard shook his head. "I won't tell her no if she wants to come. The love she has for you could spell the difference between survival and starvation, with how few infiltrators we have left."

"See? I can help. I'm coming, and that's that."

"Yes love," said High Peak with a little sigh.

"Oh, don't act like a martyr." Lilac smiled at him.

"I never act like a martyr."

"You always act like a martyr. But you know you love making me happy." Lilac suddenly blinked, as the familiar argument suddenly had all new meaning. Then she laughed. "And I guess my happiness is tasty, hmm?"

High Peak chuckled weakly. "Well... yes. It's quite delicious."

Sunbeam and the other changeling had stood and watched all this with fascination. As High Peak and Lilac turned to speak more softly to each other, Sunbeam said, "So I guess you're really Silver Song? You didn't replace her?"

"No. I created her when I first came here, so I could try to make friends."

"You did a pretty good job at it."

Silver Song smiled a little wryly. "Not really. The only good friend I've made so far is you."

"Well... I'm a good enough friend to go trying to hunt you down when I thought changelings had got you, so I still think that you did pretty good."

"Thank you."

"And maybe..." Sunbeam looked over at Lilac and High Peak. "Maybe I can do a little more. Maybe I can come with you back to your hive too."

"What? But... but what about university? You'll miss your classes!"

"You know I was only going 'cause mom wanted me to get a degree. I don't have any use for it, I'm not going to actually be an art teacher, I'm going to be an artist. Most of my classes don't teach me anything I hadn't already learned. You know I hate half of them, and the other half are fun but not challenging."

"But..."

"But me no buts." Sunbeam grinned, and Silver Song couldn't help but smile. "I'll bring my sketchpad and do a bunch of studies while I'm there. 'Life in the hive.' That's something new and different enough that I might finally get my break and get into a real gallery. So don't try to stop me!"

Silver Song shook her head. "I guess I won't. But I will say thank you. Thank you so much. When they said you were here, I was so afraid."

"Yeah, I almost was kind of an idiot about it. I'm glad Lilac was here to show me a little sense. But you're the same pony I always knew, that's pretty obvious to me now."

Amazing, I said softly to Wildcard. I never would have thought this could happen.

Ponies are something else, aren't they? Too bad that none of the reporters are likely to be this reasonable. He sighed.

I don't envy you that task. I do, however, thank you for this. Let any pony that wants to come to the hive. Hopefully there they won't be in any danger, and if enough come, then we don't need to worry about our reduced number of infiltrators. Even without the Royal Guard, ponies may save us after all.

Feeling lifted by hope, both for the hive's survival and for my long-term wish for friendship with ponies, I swept my attention through the hive, checking that all was well elsewhere. The main hive itself was. Drones were going about their business undisturbed. I made certain that some new construction, which would be needed with the extra population of infiltrators and ponies that would soon arrive, was going as planned, and dropped Wildcard a reminder to send as much pony-suitable food as possible with the eventual caravan that would carry the returning infiltrators and whatever pony friends and family came with them. The mushrooms that were the staple diet here would keep ponies alive, but I knew they were used to more varied fare. Changelings tended to vary our diets with meat, but I knew that most ponies would not appreciate being served that, not even if it were just fish or insects.

The hive's warriors were alert, keeping their guard stations at the entrances and near the nursery chambers. I had pulled down all the barrier magic keeping ponies out. I spent a moment to wonder if I could design a spell that would let changelings of my hive in, but keep others out. I would have to ask Twilight about it.

Seeing that all was as it should be with the hive itself, I sent my attention out further. The remaining infiltrators in the small towns around Canterlot were doing well. There had been no suspicious signs to point to enemy changelings. They were keeping their schedule of replacements alternating with trips back to the hive to share the energy they gathered.

I skipped out further still, finding Quicksilver in Manehattan. She was in a hotel room, sound asleep. Interestingly, even in sleep her mind was layered. I wondered if all three of them could dream. None of them were dreaming at the moment, so I left her and finally visited the furthest mind from the hive, Bright Steel.

The center of her world, at the moment, was cold. She was still wearing pegasus form, but even so, she was chilled to the bone. She and Shade were slogging their way along a narrow, winding road, knee-deep in snow. The sky above was clear, but all that meant was that the sun off the snow was nearly blinding.

They had left their cave not long after sunrise, and had managed to find their way to a road that would eventually lead them to their destination by land, but that route would take far more than the single day of flight they'd originally anticipated. It would be more like a week. Perhaps even longer, as they would have to forage for food, since they hadn't brought a week's worth of supplies. Bright's wing would probably be healed enough for her to fly before then, it had only been dislocated, but for the next few days, at least, the pair were definitely grounded.

Neither one was going to turn back, however. Bright Steel could taste Shade's determination, and her own was just as strong. His princess and her queen had given them their orders. They would persevere until their mission was accomplished.

Right now that meant trudging through the snow. Bright's hooves were numb. The rest of her wasn't doing much better. She couldn't even imagine what it would be like to be stuck out here in her natural form.

Still, at least the air was calm. There was no wind whatsoever. The forest was perfectly silent, all the animals gone south or asleep for the winter. There was nobody for miles and miles. Just an endless expanse of snow-covered evergreen trees, climbing the slopes of the mountains that towered around them.

In the silence, it was quite easy to hear the crunching of hooves in snow from behind them. Bright and Shade both paused and looked back. Around a corner came a familiar green crystal pony, wearing a parka and towing a large sled behind him. It was Peridot.

"Hello there!" he called out cheerfully. He trotted along the road, hardly seeming to notice the weight of the sled behind him. "Say, you're that bat-pony from the library! Have you been to the fort yet?"

Shade shook his head, still staring in surprise at Peridot. "No, we were grounded by the storm yesterday."

"That would explain why you're walking again. Where did the, uh... changeling? That's what you called her, yes? Where did the changeling with you go? And who is this fine-looking pegasus?"

"Oh. I am Bright Steel, the changeling." Bright felt a little bit odd about saying that. Even though she was not an infiltrator, and not used to hiding in pony form, it seemed unnatural to admit to being a changeling while disguised.

Peridot's eyes went wide. Then he gasped in delight. "You can shape-shift? Of course you can! Love Wardens were meant to be hidden, secret. What better way than to be shape-shifters? That's amazing! You have to tell me how you do it!"

"What are you doing out here anyway?" asked Shade.

"Oh, I was curious about Fort Winter. I've always sort of wanted to go, and I thought that if you found any secret entrances or such there, that it might make it easier for me to find them later. So I figured since you wouldn't bring me along, I'd just take a camping trip and go see for myself." He took another look at the half-frozen pair and added, "Maybe it's a good thing I did. You two want a ride?"

Shade hesitated, but Bright didn't. She was aching and cold and if this pony was offering to carry her on his sled she was not going to turn him down. "Yes, please. That would be good."

"Climb on then." Peridot gestured to the sled. Bright climbed into it without hesitation. Shade eyed it, then snorted and shook his head. "No thanks. I'll walk."

"Suit yourself." Periodot started forward at an easy trot, his hooves crunching through the snow. Bright smiled at Shade as she slid by him on the back of the sled. Shade muttered something under his breath and trotted after the other two.

Author's Note

Lilac is one of my favorite OCs. Her and High Peak are way too much fun. They are also at least mildly inspired by Nyerguds' marvelous Flitter.

P.S. As always, if you'd like to get these chapters early, among other perks, consider supporting me on Patreon.

People With Minds that Hate

Deciding that Bright Steel was in good hooves for the time being, I pulled my mind away from her and back to the hive. Having made certain that all was well with my children, it was time to see how things were with my friends. I rose from the bed, noting that Pinkie seemed to have already gotten up ahead of me. I trotted out into the throne room, to find Pinkie in the process of trying to decorate it with streamers. Since she didn't have a ladder and the ceiling was quite high, the streamers looked a bit odd, covering only the lowest portions of the walls.

"Hi Sweetcake!"

"Getting ready for a party?" I said with a smile.

"Yep! I'm going to throw a party tonight for the whole hive! And also my friends, and Ladybird. It's going to be terrific! Though I wish I could have brought more things from Ponyville, I have lots of decorations, but I can't bake here. What kind of party is it without cupcakes? I could have brought some, but not enough for the whole hive, because that is a lot! Way more than I could carry. Maybe even as much as Rarity's baggage, just for the cupcakes! There's just no way I could do a traditional Pinkie Pie party, so I'm going to have to improvise."

"I'm sure it will be wonderful," I said. I thought about the entire hive at a party. They wouldn't all come—they wouldn't all fit if they did—but quite a large number were likely to attend. I thought too, about the way that the Ponyville changelings had used her parties as feeding opportunities. That worked well when you had a great many ponies and only a few changelings, but in the reverse it could be problematic. I made a mental note to make certain that all the drones attending knew to not actively try and draw on the emotions from our pony guests. It was hard to pull in feelings that weren't directed at you specifically, but Pinkie was quite capable of feeling happy at the entire hive, which wouldn't go well.

I left her to her preparations and walked out into the tunnels. I decided to go check on Rarity, so I took pony form again. When I arrived at her chamber, I found that she'd hung a curtain over the entrance to her room. I smiled. I'm sure it was partly because she wanted more privacy, but I was also sure that the color had been carefully chosen. I tapped at the wall next to the improvised door with one hoof.

"Come in!" called a cheerful sing-song voice. I ducked through the curtain and found Rarity within, surrounded by a flurry of fabric swatches, sketchbooks, and even one of her dressmaker's forms. Effervescent excitement hung in the air. Rarity was obviously "in the zone," as she called it. "Ah! Sweetcake! I was just about to go out in search of Viridian. I don't suppose you could find her for me?"

"Of course." I sent the mental summons to the drone, one of those who had been living in Ponyville and who thus had acquired a pony-style name. "Can I ask why you need her?"

"Well, dear, just the other day she gave me the most marvelous idea! She promised to help me with it, but of course she had to come back here before we could really get anything done."

"What exactly is this idea?" I asked, feeling puzzled. Why would Rarity want to work with a changeling? She had a phobia of insects that made it difficult for her to deal with changelings at all.

"Changeling fashion!" said Rarity, actually dancing in place with delight. "She approached me to make a set of little charms, you see. Since ponies have such difficulty telling changelings apart, she had the idea to wear little symbols, like cutie marks, to help ponies know who was who. And of course I'm sure that most changelings are, ahem, how shall I say it? Practical-minded, I suppose?"

"Boring?" I said with a little smile.

"Oh, I wouldn't go that far." Rarity waved a hoof, dismissing the very thought. "In any case, most changelings are practical-minded enough to only want a simple charm, but I talked Viridian into trying something a little more elaborate. And once I started sketching for her, the ideas I began to have!" Rarity clapped her forehoves together with glee. "This is something exciting! Something completely new! With so many new challenges! I have so many wonderful ideas! How would you feel about putting hoof-polish on the insides of your leg perforations, for example? They are just crying out for an accent color!"

"Uh..."

"And then there's your natural iridescence! You in particular... I could do such things for your natural form! The colors! The elegance! There is so much there to work with! Here, change back so I can hold some swatches up against you."

I took a step back. The intensity of her enthusiasm was more than a little bit intimidating. "I thought you didn't like how changelings look? What about your phobia?"

She made a dismissive gesture. "Such things are nothing in the face of my art, darling! You may still look a bit too much like bugs, but now that I've realized the world of fashion possibilities that has opened up before me, I do not care one whit!"

Fortunately Viridian arrived just then, sparing me from being the sole focus of Rarity's mania. After a few minutes, I managed to make my excuses and go, before she could actually start applying paint to me. Feeling very glad that Viridian didn't seem to mind being the guinea pig for Rarity's fashion experiments, I headed down the corridor to check on the rest of my friends.

The room next to Rarity's was Applejack's, but it was empty, there was no sign of the orange mare within. I reached through the hive, looking to see if any of my drones knew where she had gone. I found her in the mushroom farms, which shouldn't have surprised me. The drone's memories told me that she had been there since shortly after dawn, asking endless questions about how the farming worked, and what techniques the worker drones who tended the crop used. I debated going down to talk to her, but before I could, a message from Ambassador Wildcard let me know that it was nearly time for the press conference.

I wanted to listen closely to that, but didn't want to just stand in the corridor while doing so, so I headed back to my room.

Pinkie was nearly done with the decorating in the throne room. She waved as I went by. She'd enlisted several drones to help her hang the streamers higher up. Pony and drones alike were enjoying themselves, so I left them to it and walked into the bedroom.

I settled myself back on my bed, closed my eyes, and looked out through Ambassador Wildcard's.

The ambassador was standing on a small stage that had been erected in front of the embassy. A podium in the center held a microphone. A line of guardsponies stood in front of the stage. Beyond them, a crowd of reporters and other onlookers was slowly gathering. Guards were scattered throughout the crowd, and were keeping those who weren't reporters further back, only letting ponies with the press up next to the stage. I saw quite a few photographers and even one pony with a bulky video camera, hoof on the crank, ready to roll film. There was also a cluster of curious changelings off to the side of the stage, and I recognized Lilac as a bright splash of color among their dark carapaces, still at High Peak's side despite that putting her in the middle of the changeling group rather than among the ponies.

A few more reporters arrived. The crowd behind them grew a little larger. There was a low murmur of conversation filling the open square in front of the embassy. Finally Wildcard glanced up at the sun, nodded, and stepped to the podium. The crowd quieted. The pony with the camera started cranking it steadily.

"Ladies, gentlecolts, esteemed members of the press, changelings of the hive. Thank you all for coming out today. I would like to begin with a short statement about yesterday's events.

"As I'm sure you are all aware, yesterday every changeling in Canterlot not already within the walls of this embassy was forced to flee to safety. In the process, four of them were killed and several more were injured. Some of you may also be aware that those attacking us were also changelings. Said changelings do not belong to our hive. They are not bound by our agreements with Celestia and the nation of Equestria. They hold to the ancient changeling philosophy, that changelings should always be hidden and should always steal. We disagree rather profoundly on that point, for the changelings of Sweetcake Hive, which I represent, believe that changelings should seek an ideal of openness, friendship, and cooperation with ponies.

"We hope that this conflict will be short-lived, that a peaceful resolution may be found, and that no further lives will be lost. But however it may go, we are not willing to return to living lives of deceit. We desire nothing more than to live in peace with both ponies and changelings of all hives."

He paused, then added, "I will now answer whatever questions you may have."

There was an immediate stir among the reporters. One, a blue unicorn stallion a bit quicker than the rest, shouted, "Where are the ponies that were replaced by changelings? Are you holding them in there?" He pointed at the embassy. "Or are they at your hive?"

"We are not holding any ponies, here or anywhere else. All ponies who were replaced have already been returned to their friends and family."

"But what about all the ponies who are still missing? Where are they?"

"Right here," said Ambassador Wildcard, gesturing to the group of changelings standing by the stage. "Those individuals are not ponies who we replaced, they have always been changelings."

"So you're saying that changelings have been living as ponies, right here in Canterlot, for years? Some of these ponies have records in the city that go back nearly a decade."

"Yes."

Another reporter, this one a cream-colored unicorn mare, called out, "And does Princess Celestia know about this?"

"Yes, she does. With her blessing we have been working to do away with both replacement and pony disguises. But moving to a completely open method of energy gathering has been going slowly. Not all changelings are willing to accept it, nor are all ponies. She has agreed to allow covert energy gathering from such changelings until we can complete the move to open methods."

"I find it very hard to believe that the princess would tolerate such deception, Ambassador," said the mare with a scowl.

"Celestia is a very compassionate person," replied the Ambassador calmly. "Although she has made it clear that she does not enjoy such deception, she also isn't going to force us to starve."

"These other changelings," interjected a dark brown earth pony mare, "you said they weren't part of your hive. Are they renegades of some sort then?"

"The other changelings belong to other hives, who have not allied with Equestria."

There was a murmur through the crowd at that.

"You mean there are more hives full of you creatures?" said the unicorn stallion who'd spoken first, sounding aghast.

"Yes."

The Ambassador paused, trying to decide what best to say about the other hives, but before he could continue, the earth pony said, "Does this mean that these other hives and yours are at war?"

"There has been no official declaration of war. All we know is what they have said, that they demand we return to the old ways of hiding and thievery, and what they have done, which is two attacks resulting in nine deaths."

"Here now," said the stallion, rather aggressively, "You said that your hive and Equestria are 'allies', does this mean that our soldiers will be expected to fight and die to save changelings? I notice that the guardsponies here practically seem to be working for you."

Wildcard shook his head. "No. Celestia wishes to avoid violence and conflict whenever possible. She has no plans to send her guards to fight on our behalf. They have nobly done their duty to save lives and prevent lawbreaking here in Canterlot, but they will not be sent off to war."

"But if there's a changeling war in the middle of Equestria, ponies will be hurt!"

Wildcard stomped hard on a jolt of anger. He wanted very much to point out that so far the casualty list included nine dead changelings while no ponies had been injured at all. Instead, he said, "We are taking steps to prevent any such accidents. This evening we will be sending most of our hive members in Equestria back to the hive. Further conflicts, should there be any, will not be taking place amid the pony population."

"Going back to those changelings who have been living as ponies," said the unicorn mare, "isn't it endangering ponies, to have changelings feeding from them?"

Wildcard managed to not sigh at the far-too-common question and answered, "The process of drawing energy from ponies is not at all harmful to them. Especially not when performed responsibly, by changelings who care for their friends and family among ponies."

"Friends and family," said the stallion with a snort. He seemed to be actually angry now. "You say feeding does no harm, but what of the harm done when these 'friends and family' learn that somepony they cared for was a lying creature?"

Wildcard once more stamped on his anger and answered mildly, "Relationships always carry the chance of emotional harm, whether with ponies or with changelings. I do not think you can claim that no pony has ever lied to another about who and what they were, nor that ponies are so fragile that they cannot cope with such discoveries."

"Some ponies are more fragile than others. What of the foals? At least one of you creatures was raising children. What should we think of that? A changeling, raising pony children? Surely we should be concerned for the foals?"

"All right, that is it!" That voice came not from the group of reporters, nor from the podium, but from beside the stage, where Lilac was standing next to her husband.

"Honey, don't," said High Peak, worriedly.

"Don't you 'honey don't' me! I have listened to this nonsense long enough!" Lilac shouldered aside a drone and marched past the guards, up to the stallion who'd been speaking. She stood nose to nose with him, glaring up at him, her entire body practically vibrating with righteous indignation.

"You!" She poked him in the chest with her hoof. He blinked down at her in shock, obviously at a loss for a reaction. "You blithering idiot! You keep babbling on about how our friends and family are 'oooo, scary changelings' and you are missing the blindingly obvious fact that these 'scary changelings' are our friends and family!"

Lilac's ears were back, and she hardly even paused for breath as she pressed on with her angry rant. "You want to know what we should think about changelings and foals? I'll tell you about what that changeling right there," she pointed back at High Peak, who had put a hoof to his face in embarrassment, "has done to my foals. He has gone to their piano recitals. He has helped them with their homework. When Butterscotch started algebra last year and he didn't know anything about it, he stayed up late for weeks to read the entire textbook, so that he could help him with it. When Cotton had a fever when she was two, he's the one who rushed her to the hospital, and insisted on sitting by her bed for the entire night, even though he fell asleep four times at work the next day and nearly lost his job! A job that he only has in the first place so that he can take care of his children! He has changed diapers and stayed home to babysit and done absolutely everything a father could possibly do for them. And no, I didn't know he was a changeling during all that, but I don't bucking care! I found out because he had to run for his life yesterday! You're sitting there trying to whip up some kind of paranoid, pitchfork-wielding mob against my husband, when he's already in danger of his life! Do you think my children will thank you for getting their father killed? I can assure you that they will not! We shouldn't be sitting here fussing over how hurt and upset we are because we got told one single lie by our friends, we should be thinking about what we can do to help them! They need our help and they need our love, and I for one am happy to give it to them."

She gave the reporter one last heated glare, then spun on her hoof and marched back over to High Peak. She grabbed him in a tight, purposeful hug and kissed him, briefly but emphatically. Then, her foreleg still over his shoulders, she turned and glared at the rest of the ponies present, as if daring any of them to say something.

There was a long, stunned silence from everyone, changeling and pony alike. Then somebody out in the crowd, possibly Silver Song, started to stomp her hooves against the stone plaza, applauding Lilac's outburst. Other ponies joined in, and so did some of the changeling infiltrators. Soon the whole plaza was alive with nearly-thunderous applause.

Wow, said Wildcard to me, still staring at Lilac in shock. You should give that mare a medal.

Looking at Lilac through his eyes, all I could do was agree. Maybe I will. If anyone deserves one, it's her.

The press conference wound down rather shortly after that, and Wildcard set about getting the drones and the ponies who were accompanying them ready to head back to the hive. He had that all well in hoof, though, so eventually I left him to it and turned my attention to other matters.

As soon as I opened my eyes in my own room, I was pounced on by a fluffy, pink missile.

"Ack!"

"Hee!" Pinkie kissed me soundly, and I laughed and kissed her back.

"Is your party ready?"

"Almost! The store room drone said I had to ask you before she'd let me have all the honey I wanted though. And your brain was away in Canterlot, so I had to wait for you to come back, but now that you're back, can I? Please? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease? It won't be a party without sweets!"

I laughed. "Pinkie... you can have some of it, but I suspect that if you take all you want, you'll use it all up. We don't have that much. Unlike ponies, none of us keep bees, that's all wild honey that the scouts have found. It's a special treat, mostly for nymphs, and once it's gone it will take a long time to replace."

"Can't you just buy more?"

"With what? We don't have very many bits. It's not like most of us work jobs."

Pinkie looked thoughtful. "Some of you did. The ones living in Canterlot mostly had jobs."

"Yes. But they were told to bring back love, not bits. Most of them spent their money when they earned it."

"Oh." Pinkie sighed, her ears going down.

I nuzzled her. "Hey, I said you could have some of it. There will be sweets at your party. And I have some ideas about getting bits for the hive. Wildcard and I were discussing trade with ponies, and ways the drones living among ponies might be able to earn bits. Someday the hive will be a much brighter, less dreary place. Now, though, is not the time for that. We're basically under siege right now."

"I know. Parties are still super important though. I think they're even more important when things are bad and scary. Ponies need to be cheered up. So do changelings." She nodded, her face setting into an expression of determination.

"That is why I love you. You work so hard to make everyone happy." I bent and kissed her again, more lingeringly this time. She kissed me willingly back. I felt a sudden rush of desire, and couldn't help but entertain the idea of keeping Pinkie here for a while.

She pulled back from the kiss and kissed my nose tip. "Gotta go get the honey and finish getting ready for the party," she said.

"Do you have to go right now?" I did my best impression of big, pleading foal-eyes at her.

She giggled. "Some things are better when you take the time to do them right. That means both parties and bucking. There will be lots of time after the party is over."

I couldn't help but chuckle at that. "I'll bow to your superior expertise on both fronts," I said.

Pinkie giggled again. "If I have a queen bowing to me, what does that make me?"

"An empress, obviously. The empress of parties!"

"Whee!"

"Or maybe the empress of bucking..." I grinned at her.

"Or the empress of bucking parties! Except I've never actually hosted a bucking party. Maybe I should! I bet that would be lots of fun!"

"Uhm..."

Pinkie booped my nose with one hoof. "I was just kidding. I do have a party to plan though! Gotta go!"

She zoomed out of the room as quickly as she'd arrived, leaving me grinning behind her.

Feeling much better, I once again mentally sorted through my various responsibilities, in what was becoming something of a regular ritual. In the hive all was well. There were still little flickers of resentment, and I noticed that two of the most resentful under-queens had gathered small circles of similarly minded drones. I made a mental note to keep an eye on that. I wasn't going to demand that they all agree with everything I did, but letting an outright rebellion break out wouldn't be good for the hive, especially not now.

Outside the hive, Wildcard was still doing fine at the embassy. The little caravan of changelings and ponies was almost ready to depart. I noted with approval that Celestia had agreed to send along a guard company to keep an eye on them. That was good. It would be disastrous if the caravan were attacked. Things looked fine in Canterlot, so I moved on.

Bright had just started setting up camp. Or rather Peridot was setting up camp with help from Bright, and from a grumbling Shade, who didn't seem to appreciate the crystal pony's presence at all. Still, everything was going well there too, so I moved my attention to Quicksilver.

She had reached the other side of Manehattan and was scouting out the club scene there. It was still daylight, so it was too early for her to do anything, but she'd picked out several potential locations to go changeling hunting. I nodded my approval and shifted my mind once more.

The long-term infiltrators that I'd recalled from the small towns had reached the hive without incident. All the short-term infiltrators reported no suspicious signs either. Several of them were at the hive too, dropping off their gathered emotional energy. I considered holding them here, just in case, but in the end decided to let them go back to their work. Much as I hated risking them, we needed them. When the caravan arrived, we would have ten ponies in the hive, all but one of which had strong feelings of love and friendship to draw on. But nine sources of energy, even ones that put out plentiful amounts of love, wouldn't keep up with the appetites of two thousand changelings. They would come closer than some might guess, a little love could go a long way, but it still wouldn't be enough. We needed the infiltrators.

So I confirmed their orders and sent them back out to find new ponies to replace temporarily. I told them all to be careful, and offered any who were afraid the chance to stay behind, but none of them took that offer, they were all willing to risk themselves for the hive.

I felt a little glow of pride at that. They weren't literally my children, but they were mine in a more symbolic sense, and their loyalty to the hive was gratifying.

I found myself musing on the fact that the average drone of the hive seemed more dedicated to the hive's welfare than its former queen had ever been. Perhaps that was why I was doing as well as I was with ruling. I didn't think I was anything all that special. In fact I thought it quite likely that any drone in my place would have done as well as I had. We were raised to think of the hive's welfare before our own, after all, and that was what the hive needed.

As far as I knew, Chrysalis had been groomed to be a queen since before she'd had her final molt. I had been barely an adult when she'd taken over, but I knew from the memories of those older than I that she hadn't been raised as an ordinary nymph, nor even as an under-queen candidate, she'd been told she was the chosen queen from a very early age. Perhaps that had been the wrong way to go about it. I'm sure that Sepal had meant well in carefully grooming her successor, yet maybe she had done the wrong thing. Maybe if Chrysalis had been raised as I had, with her whole life dedicated to serving the hive rather than ruling it, she might have come out a better changeling for it.

The party that evening was, somehow, a very Pinkie Pie party, despite nearly everything being different. The music, for example, was provided by Pinkie's singing. She was currently trying to get some of the drones to sing along, with mixed success. Singing was mostly a thing for nymphs, not for adult changelings, but if anyone could convince them to join in, it would be Pinkie Pie.

The food was also different. I wasn't sure I dared to ask what Pinkie had done to the fungus from the fungus farm. Ordinarily it was off-white, coming in irregular, blobby lumps. She seemed to have dyed and sculpted it into a variety of fanciful shapes.

She'd used her access to the hive's honey supply with great care too, I saw. She'd taken raw honey comb and carefully cut bite-sized clusters of the little hexagonal cells. Each one provided a sweet mouthful, and a gum-like bit of wax to chew after. The trimmed scraps had been used to sweeten the punch, so nothing was wasted.

With colorful food, sweets, music, and streamers, it managed to be an almost typical party, despite the backdrop of the throne room and the changelings vastly outnumbering the ponies.

There were exactly seven ponies present; Pinkie, her five friends, and Ladybird. There were also more than a hundred changelings. They varied from curious to delighted. Quite a few of them were the infiltrators from Ponyville, who knew Pinkie quite well and loved her parties. The rest were largely curious workers who had never so much as seen a pony before, with a few equally curious warriors mixed in.

That was the dominant emotion in the air, both what I felt through the bond and what I tasted from the ponies. Happiness was there too, the drones were enjoying this strange event, as the ponies seemed to be as well. Of course there was a faint tension beneath it all. We were still effectively at war, and that wasn't going to go away, but for the time being everyone present seemed eager to put that aside and enjoy themselves.

I circulated through the party, answering questions from the drones about party etiquette and chatting with Pinkie and her friends when I encountered them.

I ran into Twilight near the base of the throne itself. She was looking up at it speculatively. "Have you ever sat on it?" she asked as I approached.

I shook my head. "No. It seems kind of pointless. When I had just molted into my wings there wasn't a throne here at all. Chrysalis had it installed."

"Somehow I'm not surprised," said Twilight dryly.

I chuckled. "She was more than a little narcissistic. She used to sit here with the room full of drones, just so she could see them bowing to her. It's probably a good thing the whole hive wouldn't fit in this room, or nothing would ever have gotten done."

Twilight surveyed the room. "I don't know, the ceiling is fairly high. If you could optimally distribute flying changelings... How may did you say there were in the hive?"

"Right now, just under two thousand. It was a little over that for most of Chrysalis' reign. She lost some in the attack on Canterlot."

"Hey there." I look over to see Rainbow Dash, hovering in mid-air. "Whatcha' talking about?"

"What a narcissistic idiot Chrysalis was," said Twilight, making a face. Then she paused, looking suddenly thoughtful. "Uh. No offense to you or anything. She was your mother, wasn't she?"

I shook my head. "No. I was hatched during the previous queen, Sepal's, reign, so either Sepal or one of her under-queens was my mother. Probably her, the queen usually lays most of the fertile eggs."

"Ah, even if you were Chrysalis' kid, lame-os can totally have awesome kids," said Rainbow Dash. She nodded seriously at me, then zoomed off towards the refreshment table.

I looked after her, feeling a bit puzzled. There'd been something about her voice, and a hint of some bitter emotion in the air around her, that made me think there was something behind what she'd said.

Twilight was looking after her too. After a while she shook her head and said, "If she weren't right about that, she wouldn't be here herself."

I nodded, but didn't pry further.

Pinkie started singing again, and a chorus of drones were singing along this time. I smiled. They were enjoying themselves. So was she. I think I could declare the party a success.

"I'm going to go see what the punch is like."

"A little odd," I said with a smile, "but I liked it."

Later, when the party had wound down, I found Pinkie standing in the middle of the mostly empty room, her mind a fuzzy blank of near-exhaustion. She had flung herself eagerly into making this party a bright, happy note in a very dark time and it had taken a lot out of her. I could feel a deeper, emotional weariness creeping around the edge of her mind too. I sometimes thought that the occasional bouts of depression she sometimes still suffered might well be simply the natural result of pouring so much of herself into others. The font of happiness wasn't endless, it could run dry, and it seemed that tonight it had.

She protested when I herded her towards my bedroom, insisting that she needed to clean up, but I had already set a half dozen willing drones to that task. Pinkie gave in and leaned against me as we walked slowly along the short passage that led from the throne room to my bedroom. I tucked her into the bed there, then climbed in with her. She clung tightly to me.

I love you, I said softly, silently to her.

I love you too, she said, and clung to me even more tightly. Her emotions were complex, a softly bitter blend of sadness, weariness, and guilt. I could guess at the reason for the latter. She blamed herself, as I couldn't help but blame myself, for the mess we were in. It wasn't fair to either of us, but it was hard to shake all the same. If I had never loved her, none of this would have happened...

I pushed that thought away, trying to not feel sorrow and guilt. It would only make Pinkie even more miserable. But the feelings were hard to shake off.

I wish I could fix everything for you, said Pinkie, burying her muzzle against my shoulder. I wish parties and cupcakes really could make everything better. I tried so hard tonight to make everyone happy. It's not enough, though. It's never enough. I'm so sorry.

No, don't be. It's okay Pinkie. It is, really. I hugged her tighter, my muzzle against her mane, the candy-sweet scent of her filling my nostrils. A flicker of another emotion ran through me at that, and my pulse beat a little bit faster.

There was no answering quickening from Pinkie, though. She knew what I'd felt, but she only sighed softly, and her sorrow gained another bitter note. I'm failing at everything tonight...

I bent to kiss her forehead and pushed aside the insistent little flicker of arousal. That's just silly. You're not. You're here, when I need you. You're saving the hive. You're saving me. I couldn't make it without you.

Maybe we won't make it at all, though, and it will be all my fault.

We'll make it, I told her. We will. Bright Steel and Quicksilver and Celestia and so many others are helping out. Everything will be okay. Yet even as I said it, I wasn't sure I believed it myself, and Pinkie knew it.

Pinkie and I held each other in the darkness for a long time, and though she eventually drifted off to sleep, the bitter taste of her sorrow and guilt, echoing the sorrow and guilt that I felt, never quite faded away.

We're All Doing What We Can

My Queen.

I jolted awake, aware of a strange but familiar duality. I was curled around Pinkie Pie, in my own bed. I was also walking through a quiet, night-time city, my hooves echoing from the pavement. Quicksilver?

Yes. I am about to go inside the Ptyxis hive. I wanted to let you know what I have found so far, in case the hive shields cut our bond.

I remembered when I had lost my hive bond. Will you be okay if that happens?

Oh yes. It will merely be annoying, given that I will not be able to immediately re-establish it.

I felt somewhat dubious about her breezy assurance, but she continued. This hive is large, at least as large as the Floret hive, and it seems to be somewhat more aggressive and war-like. What I learned from the drone I encountered suggest that their aggression is turned towards Floret hive more than towards us, but I feel there may be more to learn here. My bond with them is weak yet, so entering the hive will let me gather more information without drawing attention to myself by "shouting" at the hive.

She was still walking steadily as she spoke to me. Ahead a dark concrete staircase led down to the subway system that ran beneath the city. As Quicksilver descended she said, So far I have learned that they are definitely contributing warriors to the attack on our hive, but the infiltrator I first contacted didn't know anything more. Given the general aggressive tenor of their hive mind, I would not be surprised to find that this is the hive behind the attacks. But who knows what I'll find when I get there? She was excited about the idea of sneaking into this other hive. I wanted to suggest that perhaps she should go slowly, work on strengthening her bond, and get the information without risking herself, but so far she'd known what she was doing, so I kept silent and simply followed with her as she made her way through the subway station. The trains were running but seldom at this hour, so there were few ponies there, but a steady trickle passed her as she walked along. She turned down a particular hallway that led away from the station proper, went through a closed door, turned several corners, and halted in front of another door, which was flanked by to burly ponies. I felt them reaching out to her, touching the upper layer of her mind, which was that of a changeling of their own hive now, not a pony, and letting her pass with a nod.

She returned the nod calmly, as if she passed this way every night, but her inner self was bouncing up and down with glee. We're in! And you're still will me, so the shields didn't cut the bond. That will save us a great deal of trouble!

Inside, the walls were still apparently pony-built at first, but as she continued, the squared concrete gave way to the rounded stone walls of a hive much like our own. Other changelings moved around Quicksilver. Their wing cases were bright emerald green, and their eyes a paler grass green. On seeing one, she "dropped" her pony disguise, by replacing it with one just like the changeling drones all around her.

Well, the colors suggest these are not the changelings behind the attacks, said Quicksilver as she walked along.

Yes, the one who delivered the initial message was red-eyed.

Indeed. Still, every time I whisper a bit of thought about the conflict into this hive, there's anger in response. They seem more dedicated to the cause than their rival hive was. I wonder... She continued along the corridor, but paused when she passed a feeding crystal to dump some of the energy she'd been carrying into it. Have to keep up appearances, she told me with an inward smile that didn't show on her face at all. Now, about that thought... yes, there it is. Of course. They're angry because one of their warriors was killed in Canterlot.

If they hadn't attacked us, that wouldn't have happened, I said, feeling a flicker of anger of my own. They were mad at us because of a single warrior? I'd lost nine of my children!

Very true. It makes me wonder why that anger is directed at us, and not at the one who instigated this conflict? Perhaps it could be re-directed. Before I go, I believe I will try to slip that thought into their minds, and see what comes of it.

Are you leaving now?

Of course not. I would only draw attention to myself if I left now. An infiltrator just come from gathering energy would sleep, which is what I will do. And there's still much to learn. If I can just find the right thought, the right way for my Ptyxis-hive infiltrator self to wonder about who and what is behind the fighting in just the right way, I may get the information you need. I'll be a bit restless and unable to sleep, I think, and will let my mind wander, until curiosity makes me ask the hive.

I yawned, feeling my own tiredness drag at me. Pinkie made a soft sound in her sleep and shifted in my embrace. I squeezed her gently. Another spark of desire stirred in me as I did. I pushed it aside, though. She needed her rest. So did I, really, but I wanted to know what Quicksilver would find. So I remained awake, reaching across the gulf between us, watching through her eyes as she found a communal sleeping chamber and prepared to sleep.

The drones there greeted her just as they would have in my hive, and groomed her as well. I could feel her surface mind's sleepy enjoyment of the contact, and Quicksilver beneath it seemed to enjoy it also. I felt uncomfortable about it, for some reason, and withdrew somewhat from Quicksilver, so I couldn't actually feel what she felt.

I tried to pick apart my own discomfort as I lay there, waiting. Was it just that I didn't like such close contact with enemies who would no doubt kill Quicksilver if they knew who and what she was? That might be part of it, but there was something else lurking beneath that thought. I wasn't really afraid for Quicksilver, I realized. I was uncomfortable with seeing that my enemies were just like my own children. I'd hated the alien attackers who'd caused me such grief and pain, yet here were some of them, peaceful and affectionate, just as my own drones were. I knew, as I watched them groom each other, that their warriors would be like mine as well, brave and loyal.

Only their queens would differ.

The queen makes the hive. Chrysalis made ours rather psychotic. Floret made hers careless and detached from the world. Ptyxis seems to be making this one somewhat warlike. And the other queen, the one whose name I will hopefully know soon... Well, we'll have to wait and see what she's like. Quicksilver curled up with the drones, her eyes closing. After a few moments she rolled over restlessly. It was odd, since I could faintly hear her surface mind thinking idle, randomly racing thoughts, much as I myself often did when I couldn't sleep, even while I could also hear Quicksilver carefully shaping the question to be inserted into those thoughts. Why are we fighting this stupid fight, anyway...?

The Ptyxis-hive drone's mind thought that, and worried over it, and finally consulted the hive's memory. The hive didn't seem to know much. The queen had ordered them to enter this alliance, so they had done so. The false-changeling Quicksilver had constructed didn't find that a satisfying answer, so she naturally decided to ask her queen. I nearly gasped at the daring of it, and found myself holding my breath. Ptyxis herself was awake, the city-dwelling hive in general kept late hours, and a moment later I could actually hear, faintly, the voice of another changeling queen.

Because we have to uphold the old ways, she said. We cannot let the mad changelings of one hive ruin everything for all of us.

So you decided to form this alliance so we could fight the mad ones, noble queen Ptyxis?

Oh, I cannot take credit for the idea, my child. Chelicerae, of Las Pegasus, proposed the alliance.

Gotcha! Quicksilver crowed silently in delight. Her other self, though, was still talking. Is Chelicerae right, though? Before, ponies just knew about one hive, the mad hive. But our dead warrior was left behind in Canterlot. They know about us now! There are rumors about changeling war in the streets out there tonight. It worries me.

Don't worry, my child. Chelicerae has promised that once we are victorious, it will be a simple matter to wipe the minds of the pony leaders, and the lesser ponies are no danger to us, they are merely our prey. And there may be other benefits as well. I could almost see the other queen's sharp-toothed smile as she continued. Think, my child, on what may come if Chelicerae is victorious. She will conquer and absorb the hive of this upstart "Sweetcake". And should that prove possible, well... Floret may learn that this city can be ruled by one after all.

Ah. Yes, that is a worthy cause, noble queen. Pleased at the thought of victory over the hive's traditional enemies, the faux-changeling withdrew from the contact and soon settled into a peaceful slumber. Quicksilver was somehow able to stay awake. I had no idea how that worked. But I found myself yawning again. It was time for me to rest too.

I'll depart for Las Pegasus in the morning, said Quicksilver. Meanwhile we know more than we did.

Yes. Thank you. I made a mental note to pass along what I'd learned about the numbers of warriors that the two hives had, and how many they'd contributed to the alliance, to Celestia in the morning. That, at least, was hopeful news. If it was just the six hives I knew about, and if the other four had contributed similarly, my warriors would indeed be outnumbered but the royal guard would not be. Perhaps this would all end well after all. Thank you very much, I repeated to Quicksilver, and then I let go of her mind and slipped immediately into a deep, peaceful slumber.

I woke to a sense of wrongness and conflict, and for a moment, half awake, I was full of nameless dread. Had someone attacked the hive again? The caravan of refugees from Canterlot? The few remaining infiltrators gathering emotional energy? Then I realized that the conflict came from my bond with Pinkie, not from the rest of the hive, and felt a wave of relief, followed immediately by a stab of guilt. Pinkie was my love, my other half, the person who'd kept me sane and happy and healthy through all this, who'd worked just as hard in her own way to save the hive as I had. I shouldn't be relieved that it was "only" something upsetting Pinkie.

As the guilt swept through me, my sense of Pinkie nearly vanished, for she was feeling guilty as well. I tried to untangle the confused feelings enough to get a sense of what was going on. Strangely, even as a crushing, guilty despair wrapped its tentacles around Pinkie, a kind of manic energy burbled in her mind as well. I finally caught of glimpse of what was happening through her eyes, and found that she was bouncing up and down, babbling cheerful nonsense at Rainbow Dash, who lay on her side on the crude bed she'd been provided with, facing away from Pinkie, and from her other friends, who were there as well.

"I'm fine," said Rainbow, with a frustrated tone that suggested she'd already repeated this sentiment several times. "We won't be here forever, I can race and practice again soon. I'll be just fine."

"Aww, but Rainbow, you don't look fine, you look all sad and droopy! You need to turn that frown upside down. Come on, smile for your auntie Pinkie!" Pinkie reached out, turning Rainbow's head towards her, and tried to pull her lips up in a smile, grinning ridiculously herself. All the while I could feel her despair slowly growing.

Pinkie... you promised you wouldn't pretend like this. Rainbow Dash may or may not be fine, but you're not fine. I tried to say this as gently as possible, putting all my love and concern for her into it. Yet even as I sent the words across our bond, I felt something in her crumble. My care and concern was only making things worse, increasing her guilt.

I know I promised but it's my fault Rainbow is stuck here and it's my fault your hive is in trouble and all of this is my fault and I want her to be happy and I want everything to be better and I can't fix it!

That sent an additional flood of guilt through me as well. It wasn't Pinkie's fault, it was mine. If I'd cut the bond when Mender connected the hives instead of taking responsibility for everyone, if I'd given in to the enemy's demands immediately, if I'd done any of a hundred things differently, none of this would have happened. It's not your fault, Pinkie, it's mine. I'm so sorry. I'm hurting you. I'm hurting my hive. I should never have become queen.

I felt Pinkie's facade collapsing as her guilt and mine fed into each other, dragging us both into despair, but I couldn't pull free of it. I was guilty. I was destroying everything I cared for. Despair overwhelmed me and spilled from me through my other bond, to the hive. The hum of constant activity faltered, individual changelings stopping in their tracks, suddenly despondent. There were many individuals in the hive who had their own fears, and worries, and even guilt about the current situation. They all fed into the sudden pool of despair, which grew, sucking in every changeling who shared the bond. My own guilt only grew faster as I felt it happening. My lack of tact with Pinkie and my reckless emotions were making everything worse. I was destroying the hive without even needing an enemy threat. I knew I had to somehow pull myself out of this spiral, and somehow pull the hive with me, but I couldn't. The hive was larger than I was, and I couldn't fight it. That was just one more failure, and it only recognizing it made everything worse. I was drowning, the hive was drowning, and we would never emerge from the ocean of despair. Everything was over, I had failed as queen, and the hive would die because of me. I was not suited to be queen. I should never have let myself think I could somehow rule.

That is a lie. You are better suited than any I have served, even Sepal. That voice came somehow from both beyond and within the bond, and I recognized it as Quicksilver. The ordinary changeling mind she used to connect to the hive was echoing with despair, but her other selves were unconnected, and thus undespairing, yet somehow using the extra bond her original self had established with me to reach through that despair. Her mind, or minds, touched mine closely, offering me confidence, support,and something that felt shockingly like love.

She reached beyond me as well, finding other minds within the hive. There were strong, independent minds that were fighting back against the sucking maelstrom of emotion. Quicksilver pulled one free, and I heard another familiar voice, Wildcard's, offering me the same reassurances. I believe in you. I wouldn't be returning to the hive if all was lost. I wouldn't be taking all these changelings and ponies with me either, even if I were crazy enough to do it myself. I think we can beat them. I think you can beat them, and I'll be there to help.

As will I, my queen. Minder's quiet voice surprised me. There was still sorrow and guilt in it, she had not entirely freed herself from those feelings, but then perhaps she had cause to feel them, for she added, If anyone is to blame for your current position it is I. I am the one who pushed you into this role. I did it because I believed you would serve the hive best. I still believe it. I am not without fear, but I trust you. You will do what's best for us all, pony and changeling alike. If you cannot save us, then none could.

A slow but growing chorus of other voices joined. Changelings in the room with me, those all across the hive, even Bright Steel, far to the north, gave me their support and filled the hive bond with something that I could not deny: love. It was not like drawing love energy from a pony, but it was a feeling that buoyed me up, pushing my guilt away. They believed in me. They were helping me. Some of them might well be the hive's eventual salvation. All of them were its—and my—salvation now. Whatever might come, they were my people, my children, my charges, and I couldn't let them down.

I wasn't going to let Pinkie down either. She couldn't feel what I felt, the flood of support didn't reach through our bond, so I reached instead, and poured my love for her into her. As I did so I rose to my feet. Rainbow Dash's room wasn't far from my own chamber, so it took me only moments to reach it. When I arrived I saw all five of Pinkie's friends gathered around her, offering her concern and comfort, while she was curled into a ball of misery, with tears leaking down her cheeks. I joined them, adding physical comfort to the love I was sharing.

"I'm sorry, Pinkie," I said gently out loud.

"It's all messed up and I can't fix it!" she sobbed. "I can't make everyone happy. I just made everyone sad! Everyone!"

"You didn't make me sad, Pinks," said Rainbow, trying to be gentle, but sounding a little bit aggravated.

"But I did! It's my fault you're stuck inside. And then I made everyone else sad, too. All the changelings were all depressed and it was all my fault!"

That got a puzzled look from Rainbow Dash, and from the other ponies. But I shook my head and said, "It wasn't your fault. If it was anyone's, it was mine. But I'm not sure it was anyone's fault. We have a strange bond, and neither of us tried to make that happen, it just did. We can't help that it shares our feelings, and there's nothing at all wrong with feeling sad, Pinkie."

"I'm supposed to make ponies feel happy! That's my cutie mark!"

"You do make ponies feel happy, every day, Pinkie dear," chimed in Rarity.

"You're better are cheering ponies up than anypony I've ever met," said Twilight

"Yes. You are our best friend," said Fluttershy fiercely. "We want you to be happy too." She hugged Pinkie with equal fervor. Just as the hive was pouring love into me, I could sense her friends pouring their love into Pinkie Pie. They didn't have a hive bond, but the taste of it was strong in the air, and even without being able to taste or feel it, I knew Pinkie could hear it in their voices, see it in the way they hugged her and stroked her hair. I felt something shift in her as she realized the extent of the love they were offering.

She started sobbing again, but the tears were different now. "You are all so great. You are the best friends a pony could have," she said, and hugged them all back at once somehow. The love and friendship were so strong around me I felt like I might be rendered somehow taste-blind from it, and I drew in all that I could. All around me in the halls and chambers nearby other changelings were doing the same, for the love was strong enough to reach through stone walls, flooding half the hive. I smiled, feeling not only filled with love, but also filled with gratitude for Pinkie and her friends. Their friendship was one part of what would save the hive. In that moment I could actually believe that the other parts-Quicksilver, Bright Steel, Wildcard and perhaps even Celestia herself—would all come through in the end.

Some time later I sat atop a cloud above the hive. Far in the distance I could just make out a faint rainbow streak, arcing through the air. I had been foolish to not realize that the ever-active pegasus would not deal well with being cooped up inside the hive for days on end, but once the situation had become clear, the solution had been easy enough. She was doing a series of long scouting patrols, something I really should have begun immediately after the first attack. The hive's location was not exactly public knowledge, but it was no longer a complete secret either, and the enemy changelings could probably discover it easily enough. Rainbow was not, perhaps, the ideal scout for a hive that wanted to stay hidden, but she needed something to do, so this solution nevertheless seemed fairly good.

I'd introduced her to the high scout, so she'd know where to report anything she found. Then I'd found a cloud perch of my own and settled down to once again check in with the various pieces of my hive, and see that they were well after the strange emotional storm they'd all weathered.

Bright Steel, stalwart and stoic as always, seemed completely unaffected. She was traveling through a steady snowfall, still accompanied by Peridot and Shadowed Path. She relayed that Peridot estimated they might reach their goal late the next day, if the snow didn't become too heavy. I bade her luck and moved on to Quicksilver.

Her I spoke with longer. Both because I had to thank her for helping pull me—and the hive—out of the spiral of despair, and because I thought her quest had the highest chance of saving the hive. She was on a train to Las Pegasus, and would also reach her destination late tomorrow. We spoke for a time about the difficulty of infiltrating the Chelicerae hive, and of what she might find there when she did, but I finally bade her good luck as well and turned my attention to Wildcard and the approaching caravan. They were in the badlands now and would arrive before the day was out. They had seen no sign of trouble on their journey, which I wish I could have greeted as a relief, but instead I felt as though I were waiting for the other horseshoe to drop. The enemy might be smaller than I'd feared, and their warriors less united, but that didn't mean they weren't still a threat. I heartily hoped that Quicksilver would able to gain access to their plans, not knowing when or how they might strike next was maddening.

I yanked my attention away from that frustrating train of thought and turned it to the hive. After what had happened this morning, I should keep a close eye on the tone of the hive's background hum. Mostly it was good. The despair had been brief and the outpouring of love after had been strong. Indeed hundreds of ordinary workers were still buzzing with pleasure and delight at having tasted emotions directly from ponies, without simply drinking from the hive's energy crystals.

Unfortunately that wasn't the only feeling I caught from the hive. The little clump of disapproval I'd sensed before was still there, and if anything it had only been strengthened by what had just happened. I frowned, trying to decide what to do. I could continue to ignore it, it represented a minority of the hive, but what if it spread? There were at least two underqueens who were part of it, and if they decided to try some form of rebellion, I wasn't sure what I'd even do. Crushing dissent by sheer force of mind was possible, I was the queen and had the weight of the rest of the hive behind me, but I didn't want to do that. If it did turn into an outright rebellion, though, I wasn't sure what other option I would have. Perhaps it would be better to see if I could somehow deal with it now. I reached out, somewhat cautiously, and asked the changelings who were radiating such doubt and unhappiness, What is it that displeases you? What would you have me do for the hive?

One of the underqueens immediately responded, We would have you surrender, and agree to return to hiding.

You truly think that would help? We can't erase the knowledge of our existence from the minds of every pony, no matter what this other queen may claim.

Does it matter if we can? If we agree to try, the attacks will stop, the hive will be safe.

From the other changelings. But we'll have betrayed the ponies. We'll have betrayed Celestia and Luna. Do you think they won't find out what we've done? Do you think they won't regard us as enemies, after such an act? Would you rather be at war with a few changelings, or with all of Equestria?

There was a long silence, and I sensed the under-queen organizing her thoughts. At length she said, My queen, I had hoped that you would return us to the old ways, the right ways, when you replaced Chrysalis. She led the hive into madness, and her under-queens hoped to free the hive of that madness when her reign ended, myself most of all. I stayed silent when you instead chose a new way, for at least the hive seemed to thrive. But it is not thriving now. It is under attack and may be starving again soon. Please, let us go back to the way things should be.

I can't do that.

Why not? Hiding is our nature, my queen. We are meant to disguise ourselves, and take what we need from ponies. We were not meant to walk openly among them. It is wrong. Maybe it isn't as mad as Chyrsalis' desire to conquer them, but it is madness all the same. It's not right.

I tried to formulate a reply. I wanted to argue that changelings were not "meant" to do anything, that we could chose our own destiny without a care for such notions. Yet the scrap of information Bright Steel had found suggested that changelings were a created race, like thestrals, and thus might well have a purpose and a destiny. I didn't know enough to know what such a purpose or destiny might entail, but it was possible that it did exist.

I did know, though, what lay at the root of my inability to chose any other path than the one I'd chosen. I loved Pinkie Pie. Returning to the old ways would mean giving her up, and that was one thing I simply could not do.

That thought sparked another in me, and I finally found the words to answer her plea. Hiding is not our truest nature. Love is. Feel the love the fills the hive now. Taste and test the levels of our feeding crystals. They may not be full to the brim, but there is enough there, and it is because of love. We hide only in service to gathering love. Love is the power that fuels us and the goal that drives us. It is central to everything we are. The worst thing Chrysalis ever did was pervert the hive to cause fear. We should cause love. We have caused love! And if we turn against that now, if we throw aside my love, and Pinkie's love, and the love of all the other ponies who have supported and befriended us over the last few months, we will be acting against our nature even more surely than we are by refusing to hide.

The under-queen was silent for a long time. The other discontent changelings, who had heard all that we'd said, murmured among themselves, divided and uncertain about this new way of looking at things. Finally the under-queen replied, I know that love is our nature, as you say. Yet so is hiding. So is deceit. Can we not find a way to live true to both these things?

If I knew such a way, and that it would save the hive, I would take it in a heartbeat. But I don't. Do you?

You could... you could keep your consort and return the hive to hiding, keeping her secret within it.

And her friends, whose friendship and love for her is so strong it has fed the entire hive this day? It wouldn't be right to destroy their love either. Should I keep them captive too? I think that Princess Celestia would notice that her favored student was missing. Shining Armor—I invoked that name, knowing that memory of his shield flinging the changelings from Canterlot was still strong in the hive—might also notice that his sister was missing, and he and his consort come seeking her. No, that is no solution.

There must be some way out! There must be some way back to what we should be!

There is no perfect solution. Those are precious few in life. The only way out is forward. We learn more of our enemy's weakness every day. Their alliance is not strong. We will find a way to break it. I will not let the hive be destroyed, I promise you. I am queen, and you are all my children, and I will not abandon you. That's love too, and that's also our nature and our strength. Trust in it. I projected all the love and sincerity I could through the bond, seeking to reassure her, and the hive as a whole. I felt, and could almost see, the under-queen sigh softly and bow her head, submitting to the will of her queen. There was a kind of echo as many of those who'd resisted my reign with her did the same.

I will try to trust you, my queen. But I still wish things could be other than they are.

So do I, I said gently in reply. So do I.

It was late afternoon when the caravan from Canterlot finally arrived. I went to the hive's main entrance to meet them myself, with Pinkie Pie by my side. A pair of Guard unicorns were at the head of the little procession, alert and wary but tasting mostly of curiosity as they stepped into the hive's tunnels. Behind them several changelings, including Wildcard, were helping to tow a trio of wagons, heaped with supplies, with guardsponies marching warily in between each. I greeted both changelings and supplies with delight. The fungus grown in the hive sufficed to keep us alive, but I knew that with so many ponies living here, other food would be more than welcome. The ponies came next, mixed with their changeling friends, and were also well guarded. I wondered exactly how many guards Celestia had sent, already more than a dozen had entered the hive.

I spotted Lilac among them, walking tightly by the side of High Peak still. I didn't see Sunbeam, and a quick mental query to Wildcard revealed that she had failed to come at the last minute, without notice. The changeling who had been Silver Song wasn't exactly happy about that, but there was little I could do to comfort her. Two other ponies, however, had apparently found their friends since the news conference, and made up their minds swiftly to accompany them.

I made certain to greet each of them warmly, and thank them for coming. They reacted with varying degrees of curiosity and pleasure. None of them seemed wary or afraid, and after another mental query I found myself thanking Wildcard as well, for he'd had their friends spend the whole trip telling them in detail about hive life, soothing many of their fears and uncertainties.

Pinkie, of course, greeted everypony as well, including the guards—half of them by name—as well as the returning changelings. She bestowed cheering smiles and hugs with reckless abandon.

When all the changelings and their friends were safely inside, I addressed the Guardspony who seemed to be in charge. "Thank you for escorting them safely here."

"Just doing my duty, Your Majesty." He gave a brief, almost formal nod. Then he added, "The ambassador tells me you can provide a suitable barracks for my ponies?"

I blinked at him in bafflement for a long moment. Barracks? Then I heard laughter behind me, and felt a spike of gleeful delight from the hive bond. "They're staying here," said Wildcard. "Surprise!" And you have no idea how hard it was to avoid even thinking about that whenever you checked in, he added silently. I didn't even have to turn to see his broad grin.

The Guardspony was smiling as well, and I could taste faint amusement from him. "Ah, so you weren't told. Yes, Your Majesty. The ambassador has apparently been relaying intelligence from your hive's spy network to the Princess, and Celestia has decided that the risk of outright war is minimal. Additional troops will be following in a few days, once they're organized, but since I and my ponies were here already, we've been sent orders to stay and assist in protecting the hive any way we can."

"Thank you," I said, feeling completely and utterly floored. Though I also had time for a flicker of amusement at the thought of the hive's "spy network", which currently consisted of one single changeling. I shook the thought off and tried to focus on practical matters. A few silent messages summoned several warrior drones to escort the guardsponies to suitable barracks. I thought they might be more at home with their fellow fighters. My mind hummed with sudden, hopeful thoughts. The day was late, and no doubt the ponies needed sleep, but I also needed to have some sort of meeting, perhaps with a few of my own warriors, some of the under-queens, and the guardsponies, about how best to use the new resources that had arrived, both militarily and to keep the hive fed. There was so much to be done!

As the ponies filed off towards their new quarters, though, the brush of soft pony fur against my side distracted me. Pinkie leaned against me and smiled up at me. I tasted and felt a flicker of loving care from her. "Looks like all those changelings saying things would be okay earlier were right. Things are looking up."

"They are," I responded, leaning down a bit to nuzzle her. The scent of her filled my nostrils, waking a wave of sudden desire that flashed through me.

Pinkie giggled, a delighted and somewhat naughty sound, somehow, and lifted her muzzle to give me a quick but intense kiss. "Maybe it's time to retire to the royal bedchamber, hmm?"

I chuckled. "Well, there's not much more I can do tonight, so yes."

"There's at least one thing more you can do, it looks like!" She winked at me, her gaze directed around the area of my hindquarters. I felt a faint flush of embarrassment at the realization that my desire was having a rather obvious physical effect on me. I wasn't normally the one who initiated that sort of thing, usually it was Pinkie who started our occasional lovemaking, but apparently tonight I was very much in the mood.

Pinkie just giggled again and trotted down the corridor, her tail flicking against my side as she went by. I followed after her, suddenly very much able to put all my worries out of my mind. For at least a brief time only Pinkie, and the bond of love that we shared—physical as well as emotional—would matter.

Much later, as we lay contentedly together, the brief peace we'd found was shattered.

My Queen! The shout coming from the high scout perched above the hive was urgent. Enemies are approaching!

I touched her mind, looking through her eyes. The sun had just touched the horizon, and from her cloud perch I could see nothing amiss, but Rainbow Dash hovered beside her, quivering with agitation, and I swiftly read the memory of the report she'd just given. A swarm of changeling warriors, far outnumbering the warriors of my own hive, was approaching by air.

"Did you see their colors?" I asked through the scout.

"Yeah." Rainbow Dash nodded. "I got pretty close. There's a bunch of different colors, but most of them have red on them."

I'd known what the answer would be before she'd spoken, but somehow the confirmation wasn't comforting. Chelicerae and her allies had arrived.

Author's Note

I love this chapter. When I first started writing Honey Pie, it was because I was depressed, and the thought of a changeling cut off from the hive seemed like a good way to explore that depression.

The sad reality of depression is that there really isn't a "cure" for it. It can get better, and it has for Pinkie and Sweetcake, but it may never completely go away. Yet even when you fall back down, you can't give up hope that you'll find a way to climb up again. For Sweetcake it's the hive, for Pinkie it's her friends, and for both of them it's having each other. For me it's been many things, sometimes even including my fans here on FimFic. (People who leave me nice comments always make my day.)

If this sounds like a goodbye, I'm afraid in a few ways it is. I haven't solved my depression, and I'm a little bit overworked and over-stressed right now, which makes writing difficult. Also my muse is not being cooperative on this particular story. In a word, it's stuck, and I have a lot of other commitments that are higher priority, including my paying commissions and my patrons on Patreon. I am not abandoning this! But I am going to have to put it on hiatus for a while.

In the meantime, I have a massive number of other stories you may enjoy, and I will certainly come back to this story eventually. I just can't say exactly when. Thanks for sticking it out with me this far, and don't forget to put this on a bookshelf, so you can get notified when I start updating again!

You Tell Me It's The Institution

Morning dawned in soft light over the badlands. I watched the sun rise, as I often did, through the eyes of the high scout, who sat on her wisp of cloud far above the hive. She welcomed me with a wordless warmth. She enjoyed my company. Together we watched Celestia paint the sky with dawn color, while the world below gradually turned from a dark, misty unknown into a stark world of red and orange stone.

At last the sun itself peeked above the horizon. The buzzing of insectile wings announced the arrival of the day scout, and as the two exchanged silent pleasantries I bid them both a quick mental farewell and opened my own eyes.

It was much darker here, within the hive. The main lights of the room were still off, but a gentle golden glow shone over everything from the feeding crystal embedded in the wall. Seeing that made me smile. When I'd first arrived in the old queen's room, that crystal had held the barest flickering spark and the hive had been on the brink of starvation. Now it glowed with a vivid amber warmth, full with more than enough energy to keep the hive well-fed and content.

Around me, faintly glowing blue eyes flicked open as the other changelings began to stir. The gigantic bed in the center of the room was a pile of drones, and I was at the heart of it. They were my "hoof-maidens", the drones who tended and groomed me. The privilege of doing so was already a sought-after honor in the hive, and I made certain that they rotated regularly to give as many drones as possible a chance. They all enjoyed being near me, and I found that enjoyment gratifying. One of them reached out and started grooming my crest. It looked almost like a proper mane now, rather than standing up stiffly as it had when I'd been merely a drone. I yawned and stretched a little bit, then settled myself in to enjoy her attentions. After a moment I started to return the favor. I enjoyed grooming as much as I enjoyed being groomed, and the drones were always ecstatic at my touch.

Of course some of the hive's members still weren't all that fond of me. Some of them had actually liked Chrysalis, and a number of others didn't approve of the new direction the hive was taking under my guidance, no matter how little they’d liked the old Queen—not to mention the several under-queens who still resented my "stealing" the chance at the throne from them. Such malcontents would never volunteer to be here, though. I was aware of them, tiny sour notes in the contented hum of the hive in my mind, but they were a minority, and I knew most of them would come around eventually.

That hum was another thing that had changed. I hadn't been all that aware of it at the time, but under Chrysalis, especially towards the end, the hum had been as mad as the queen herself. Individual changelings might have been calm and sane, even as individuals now might be discontented or angry, but by and large the hive felt as one. The queen was the heart of that feeling, of course, yet now that I was queen I found that the hive affected me as much as I affected the hive. That had been difficult at first. I'd felt strange mood swings, bouts of depression, and long stretches of despair and confusion as the hive dealt with the aftermath of Chrysalis' defeat and my accidental coronation. But now both hive and I were mostly happy, and life was good.

Hey, you're awake! Pinkie Pie's voice sounded in my head.

Indeed I am. I see that you're already baking. I looked through her eyes for a moment, and they showed the familiar sight of the kitchen at Sugarcube Corner.

Yepparooni! Bread rises before the sun does. You still on for the party tonight?

I am, yes. Have you found out if your guest is changeling-phobic yet?

I have! She's so totally not, it's amazing. She actually told me that she's an entime... entym... that she studies bugs! So she thinks changelings are kind of neat. The way there are so many around Ponyville is one of the reasons she wanted to move here. How awesome is that? So you can definitely come as yourself.

That sounds wonderful. I'll be there then! Love you.

Love you too, said Pinkie in reply. I pulled back from Pinkie's eyes and returned my attention to the grooming, enjoying the attentions of the half-dozen drones gathered around me. When that was done, I rose and headed out of the room. One drone, whose eyes were a bit less blue and a little more green than the others', followed after me. She was Minder, effectively my second in command, and she was nearly always at my side.

I made my way through an open archway into the imposing throne room. I still wasn't sure what to do with it. Chrysalis had spent a great deal of her time lounging on the throne and feeling adored by her drones. I had pretty much zero interest in that; the grooming was the closest I came to wanting their worship, and to me that was more of a chance to become friends with them—to strengthen the hive bond with bonds of affection. I supposed the room would be useful if there ever was an official pony visit to the hive. Throne rooms were the kind of thing ponies expected from royalty—Celestia's was certain impressive enough.

I thought about how far we'd come as I walked. Only a few months ago the hive had been near starvation, ruled by a queen who was growing increasingly manic and paranoid. Now we were once again prosperous and well-supplied with emotional energy, and I ruled in Chrysalis' place. For someone who had formerly been nothing but an ordinary drone, a mid-level infiltrator of no particular importance, I'd come a very long way.

The hive's prosperity still came in part from the work of such infiltrators. We weren't yet free of the need for covert energy gathering... but we got a little bit closer every day. Already drones were becoming a common sight around Ponyville, drawing food freely and openly from the many ponies there who welcomed them and considered them to be friends.

That was not without its problems on both sides, of course. But once the drones tasted that ponies generally didn't hate them or wish to do them harm, they adjusted swiftly. My reassurances in their minds helped, too. Ponies were slightly harder to convince; they couldn't sense the drones' intentions the way the drones could sense theirs, and changelings could hardly have been more frightening to the pony eye if they'd been designed with that in mind. But with Celestia herself publicly proclaiming my hive friends and allies, and the Elements of Harmony backing her up—not to mention all that Pinkie Pie did as an unofficial ambassador for the hive—the ponies were slowly coming around.

There was an official ambassador too, with an embassy in Canterlot, just outside the palace itself. It was staffed by several drones, all volunteers. They were led by one particularly quirky individual, a drone who'd been one of the hive's best infiltrators in times past. I actually vaguely remembered him from my own training; he'd been one of those who helped teach me about pony customs. He had told me that he enjoyed living among ponies more than living with the hive, and that the chance to do so openly was an exciting new opportunity.

He went by the name of Wildcard, which was another eccentricity. Most changeling drones only used names when passing as ponies; they didn't tend to think of themselves as individuals. Wildcard was about as much of an individual as I'd ever met though, and he was doing an amazing job of charming the ponies of Canterlot.

I let out a contented sigh as I moved through the hive's arched corridors. Everything was going perfectly.

Of course there had been a few hiccups... My first few days ruling the hive had been particularly chaotic. Thankfully I'd had Pinkie Pie and her friends with me right at the beginning, or one thing in particular would have probably gone horribly wrong.

"Oh dear." Rarity shuddered as she looked around the chamber.

"This more what you had in mind when you were thinkin' about changeling decor, sugarcube?"

The little group of ponies stood in the arched entrance to a large chamber. From the ceiling dangled a dozen green pods, each one enclosing a sleeping pony. I reached up with my magic and cut the resin that glued one of them to the ceiling, carefully lowering it.

Pinkie and her friends gathered around. I also looked like a pony for the time being, having taken my by-now-comfortable pink stallion's form to avoid alarming the prisoners we were about to release.

I looked through the translucent pod to see a familiar face floating in the green goo within. The occupant of the first pod was Lyra. I wasn't surprised to see her here; Lyra's face had been worn by one of the infiltrators who'd captured me. I swiftly cut open the membrane, letting the goo drain out. Lyra staggered to her hooves and immediately began coughing, clearing it from her lungs. After a few minutes she raised her head, her eyes looking more than a little wild. "Changelings! Changelings everywhere!"

"It's all right, you're safe now, I promise," I said.

She narrowed her eyes and suddenly shot a beam of magic at me. I was not remotely ready for it and didn't manage to block or dodge it, it struck me square in the chest. My disguise vanished in a flash of green fire, leaving me standing there, a tall, lanky changeling with bright blue-green wing covers, a mane-like crest of filmy turquoise, and a long, curved horn. Even my usual cupcake cutie mark had been stripped off by the spell, since it too was created by my magic.

"Changeling!" screamed Lyra as she backed away from me.

"It's okay, I won't hurt you, please," I said, feeling more than a little panicked. What was I supposed to do now?

"Lyra! Do me next!" shouted Pinkie Pie, bouncing between us with a gleeful grin.

Lyra yelped and shot another beam of magic, which hit Pinkie and did nothing at all.

"That tingles, he he!" said Pinkie.

"N-not a changeling?" said Lyra.

"Nope, just Pinkie Pie."

Lyra's eyes flicked around to the others. "What about them?"

"Sweetcake is the only changeling here, and you know him. You were at both his welcome parties, remember? He won't hurt you. It's okay. We'll let the rest of these ponies out, and then we can take you home." Pinkie trotted forward and gave Lyra a hug, and after a long moment when she stood stiffly, radiating acrid fear, Lyra suddenly hugged her back, clinging to her.

"Home. Home is good."

I quietly resumed my disguise, and set about setting the other ponies free, but I let Pinkie and her friends handle greeting them after that. Lyra kept shooting me suspicious looks, but every time she did, Pinkie would start up some strange line of conversation about something completely random, and keep babbling until Lyra smiled.

Fortunately the rest of the ponies were freed without further incident and returned safely to their homes, whether in Ponyville or beyond it.

That hadn't been the only unexpected difficulty I'd faced since becoming queen, however. The second problem to crop up had reared its head the very same day we freed the captured ponies, only two days after I'd become queen.

Pinkie and her friends had left, escorting the other ponies back to Ponyville. I'd taken one last meal of love and friendship from them and seen them on their way. Back in what was now my bedroom I contemplated putting more of that love energy into the hive's stores, but decided to finish exploring my rooms first. There were three arches, besides the one that lead to the throne room, and I had no idea what lay behind any of them.

The first proved to lead to a small, dark chamber. When my eyes adjusted I saw half a dozen changelings sleeping in a heap on the floor. One of them opened her eyes and looked at me. I sensed a drowsy query, did I need her? I told her silently that I did not, and she lowered her head and went back to sleep.

The second arch led to a bathing room at least as luxurious as the bedroom. I blinked at it. Why would Chrysalis need a pony-style bathing chamber, when she had servant drones to groom her? I stood there for a while, looking in the huge mirror against one wall, and realized that the mirror itself was at least part of the answer. Chrysalis was vain. She quite likely thought a mere grooming insufficient.

The third arch led into a tunnel that sloped down into darkness. Across its mouth was an invisible shield. I could sense it now because it was mine. It was as ancient as the hive itself. I walked through it easily and continued, curious to see what might require such protection.

I passed through eight more shields as I continued down. Each one felt a bit different. I concentrated on them and found I could read what it was they were shielding against. The first, surprisingly, was shielding against changeling drones. Another excluded ponies, while still more blocked out such unlikely creatures as buffalo and zebra. One, interestingly, excluded under-queens, but it was subtly different. It rippled oddly as I passed through it, in a way that would let an under-queen through, but only directly in my wake. As I stood before the last one, contemplating the room beyond it, I suddenly knew where I was and what—in general at least—I would find inside. The final spell also shielded against changelings, but not drones, no. It was tuned to exclude changeling males.

I was certain, as I cautiously stepped through it, that it was meant not to keep anything out, but to keep the occupants of this room in.

Inside, the room did not look like a prison. In fact it looked more like a paradise. The walls were entirely covered in tiled mosaics, showing pastoral scenes from the world above. Animals frolicked across meadows and among forests, while birds flew in the blue sky above, and flowers bloomed everywhere. The floor was tiled too, in an abstract pattern of blue and green, accented with charcoal black—the hive's colors.

Overhead, a magical light shed a faintly greenish glow over everything, while from one wall a waterfall fell over mossy rocks, to run down a tiled channel in the floor and disappear through the far wall. Its peaceful babble filled the room. There were several arches leading into additional rooms. I caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a small version of the hive's fungus farms through one, so the changelings living here seemed to be well-supplied with food, as well as water. Another looked as though it contained sleeping quarters; I could see a carpeted floor, and a corner of what was probably a bed.

One thing, however, was missing. I could see no sign of a feeding crystal's golden glow anywhere here. Meaning that the changelings kept here had no way to gain emotional energy save from the one being able to pass through those spells: the queen of the hive.

That was me, now, but only two days ago it had been Chrysalis. And she had not been exactly what I'd call benevolent. I would not have wanted to be dependent on her generosity.

The sound of my hooves on the tiled floor brought a swift reaction from within another side chamber. A tall, slender form emerged from the archway, and I caught my first glimpse of a changeling male. He was about my height, which made him a little bit shorter than Chrysalis had been, but a good bit taller than an ordinary changeling. His eyes were blue, like a drone's, and without pupils, and his body was covered in charcoal-colored chitin, but there his similarity with other changelings ended. His wings, horn, and fangs were all stunted, comparatively tiny. The wings were beautifully iridescent, far more so than my own, and marked with subtle patterns. His wing cases as well were bright, showing a shimmering rainbow of green, gold, blue, and purple. His mane and tail seemed to be actual hair, like a pony's, and were so long they swept the ground. They were a soft indigo, with shimmering hints of gold where the light fell on them. His body was slender, even more so than my own, and his hooves were small, almost delicate, at the ends of long, slender legs that bore no holes whatsoever. Possibly because if they had, his legs might have snapped.

In short he was delicate, fragile, and absolutely gorgeous, and I felt a strange, rather unnerving quiver in my stomach to see him. It wasn't anything conscious, really. I could see that he was pretty, but if it were up to me he wouldn't hold a candle to Pinkie Pie. My body, however, had a very different opinion of him. It thought he was the most wonderful thing in the world.

I took a deep breath, trying to settle myself. That proved to be a mistake. He smelled amazing. The scent strengthened that quiver in my stomach, making my heart beat just a little bit faster.

He came over to me, moving with perfect, elegant grace, and bowed deeply, his muzzle nearly touching the floor. "My queen," he said. It was out loud, which was another way in which he was different from other changelings. I could feel a bond with him, but it was a faint, tenuous thing. He was hardly present in my mind at all. I could catch a faint hint of what he was feeling—hunger was foremost it seemed—but it lacked any subtlety, and I couldn't tell what he was thinking at all.

"Rise," I said. "You have no need to bow to me."

"You are our queen," he said.

I sighed. "Yes. That means I'm responsible for you, not that you should worship me."

He looked at me silently, his eyes unreadable. His bond revealed little more. I didn't know what to make of him. I could at least do something about the hunger which was the one thing I sensed clearly from him, though. "You have no feeding crystals here?"

"No. The queen feeds us after we have pleased her."

I blinked. Did he mean what I thought he did? Knowing Chrysalis, probably. I scowled. "That stops now. I will have feeding crystals installed here. For now I will feed you myself. Come here."

He hesitated, and I did sense something other than hunger then. Fear. Still, he slowly drew closer. His scent was strong in my nostrils, sending an electric shiver down my spine.

I managed to ignore the urges that stirred in me and only lowered my head to carefully touch my horn to the little nub of a horn on his forehead. I fed him generously, pouring love energy into him. As the hunger he felt eased, I could sense his other emotions a little bit more clearly. Foremost among them now was surprise. He hadn't expected me to actually do that.

"I will feed the others as well, if they wish," I said.

He nodded and stepped back. I could sense that fear and surprise were warring within him, but he looked serene enough as he bowed again, then turned and left, going into the sleeping chamber. A few minutes later he returned, with eight more males following him. I took a moment to marvel at that. Just nine males. There were seventeen under-queens, if I counted Minder, and a little over two thousand drones in the hive. But just nine males.

They looked shy and fearful. Several of them were apparently trying to hide behind the one who had spoken to me first. One even hid behind his mane in a posture that reminded me strongly of Fluttershy. I noticed that their colors differed slightly. All were mostly the blue-green colors of this hive, but there were hints of gold and purple to be found as well, and the exact shades of blue or green varied quite a bit across them.

Moving slowly and doing my best to project a soothing calm through the fragile bond between us, I went to each one in turn and touched horns.

The air of fear in the room eased a little bit as I did no more than feed them emotional energy. I was left close to exhaustion, I hadn't held back any reserves, but I could draw on the feeding crystal back in my chambers when this was done.

I felt Pinkie peering curiously out through my eyes, no doubt wondering why I was feeling so suddenly tired. She looked at the males and sympathy filled her. Poor things, she said as I fed the last one. They look like kicked puppies. Chrysalis must have been pretty mean to them.

Indeed. Add one more to the list of crimes she has to answer for. The male nearest me flinched back, apparently sensing my sudden spike of anger. "Ssh, I won't hurt you," I said to him. "I'm not angry at you. I am angry at Chrysalis, for treating you so badly." I turned and looked at the little group, all still trembling and hesitant, even now. Only the one who had approached me first seemed without fear, and I suspected that he was merely better at hiding it. "I want to help you be happy. What do you want? Name anything and I will get it for you. I can remove the shields if you want, and let you free. Whatever you wish, you have only to ask."

The bolder one shook his head almost frantically. "No, no don't take away the shields. It's safe here. There are ponies out there. They would hurt us."

"You don't need to fear ponies," I said, but he kept looking at me with terror in his eyes, so I added, "I'll leave the shields up, don't worry. But ponies are our friends. They are much like changelings, there's no need to fear them."

He looked away, obviously not believing me, but not willing to argue with his queen. I sighed. Hopefully they would lose their fear of ponies eventually. Hopefully they would lose their fear of me eventually! "What else do you want?" I said. "I'll put feeding crystals here, so you don't need to depend on me for food. What else would you like?"

"You don't want anything from us first?" asked the bold male. He sounded and felt puzzled.

"No, not at all. I just want to take care of you, to help you be happy."

The shy one, with his hair falling over his face, crept close to me. He was practically crouched with his belly to the floor, despite his long legs. "Don't you want us?" he said, nearly whispering. "Do you find us so repulsive?" His eyes, looking up at me, were full of sadness. I swallowed. With him there at my feet, his scent filled my nostrils. Another little shiver ran down my spine. My body definitely had ideas about what I should be doing with him. I told it to shut up.

"I don't find you repulsive," I said. The corners of my mouth quirked, unsure whether to turn up or down. "Quite the opposite, in fact. But it wouldn't be right for me to act on that desire, for a number of reasons. So please, rise. You don't need to bow to me. You don't need to do anything you don't want to, any of you."

"We want to please you," said the bolder one. "That is our purpose." The shy one was still at my feet, his scent making it increasingly hard to think straight.

"I, uh, I don't want to make you unhappy, but I can't let you."

"Why not?"

"It's complicated." I tried to figure out how to explain Pinkie Pie and my love for her to them. They wouldn't understand pony ideas about love and fidelity. Changelings didn't operate that way. I understood them only because I'd been among ponies so much. Finally all I could say was, "I just can't."

I looked down at the shy male, still crouched near my feet. I reached out a hoof and patted him softly, trying to reassure him. "Rise, please," I said as gently as I could. He peered up at me, then slowly got to his feet.

"Do the under-queens treat you well?" I asked.

"They do not come here often," the bolder male said.

"Would you like it if they came more often?" I asked.

He nodded, and I saw the others echo his nod without hesitation. That made me feel a bit better. Surely if the under-queens had been abusive as well they wouldn't all want them to come? "That would be good," he said.

"I'll arrange for it, then." I was fairly certain I could dismiss some of the protective spells. I could probably even bring Pinkie in here with a little work, but she would probably terrify them. "Is there anything else you would like?"

There was a puzzled silence, and finally the bolder male shook his head. "Only to please you," he said again.

"You will please me best by being happy," I replied. They still seemed baffled by that. There was really nothing else I could do but let time show them that they wouldn't be punished for daring to have wants and desires besides serving me. So I turned to go. "I'll come back later and make sure all is well here. And I'll get those feeding crystals for you, and see that the under-queens can visit. Don't hesitate to let me know if you think of anything else you want."

I walked back up the tunnel, grateful to be leaving the extraordinarily distracting scent of them behind. As I walked, I mused on my predecessor's complete mismanagement of the hive. I hoped that the males could become happier and less timid now that she was gone. Perhaps eventually they could even leave their prison and live out among the other changelings, finding relationships as they desired with the under-queens, and not depending on me for anything at all.

Now, three months later, they were somewhat less like kicked puppies, but they were still fearful and cautious. I had not yet brought Pinkie Pie to meet them. I had, however, put in the promised feeding crystals, and the under-queens visited them regularly, once I'd made it clear that I wouldn't object to it, nor to their passing through my room in order to do so. I had nebulous plans to build a new entrance to their chambers that didn't go through mine, and I still hoped to eventually coax them into being willing to leave their rooms. Even if they said they didn't mind, it didn't sit well with me, effectively keeping them as prisoners.

So on that front, too, all was going well, and the future held hope for things to improve even further.

The future of the hive was, in fact, where my hooves were headed this morning. With Minder shadowing me faithfully, I made my way through the busy corridors to a room that lay behind several layers of protective shields. I stepped through them into a high-arched space filled with greenish pods. These, however, did not hold ponies; they were too small to do so. Or, too small to hold adult ponies, at least. They were a little larger than a newborn foal. They also were not hanging from the ceiling. They were carefully stored in hexagonal chambers built into the walls of the room. A trio of drones tended them, scurrying busily about the room. There were quite a few empty chambers, but even more of them bore pods. Some pods seemed empty, though they were not. Others clearly showed the small, dark forms within.

I rested my nose gently against the surface of one pod, whose little grub was particularly well developed. She would pupate and hatch soon. Closing my eyes, I touched the tiny, unformed mind within. I sensed nothing but a wordless murmur of contentment. All was well.

I lifted my head and regarded the other pods with a benign smile. I loved coming here. The minds of the developing grubs were pleasant. More than that, though, this room symbolized everything I wanted for the hive. Most of these grubs had been laid in their pods by Chrysalis, and none by me, so they were my siblings rather than my literal children, but I still felt rather maternal towards them.

My queen?

I turned, facing the source of that soft mental query. One of the under-queens stood there. She was one of those that had been glad when I had replaced Chrysalis. She was also one of those who tended diligently to the hive, bearing her greater power as a duty rather than a mark of superior status. I smiled at her. Are the nymphs ready?

They are. They are very eager to see you.

Lead on then.

This particular under-queen had charge of teaching the youngest nymphs. She was assisted by a small army of drones, as caring for the young was very important in the hive. It had, of course, been below Chrysalis' notice. I, however, had recently decided I should visit a class of nymphs at least once a week. I'd begun with the older nymphs, so this would be my first visit to this particular class.

Now I followed the under-queen out of the egg and grub chamber and into one of the nymph nurseries. This particular room was the classroom for the three-to-four-year-olds (Though changeling nymphs developed a little bit faster than ponies, so they were similar to pony children of around five).

When I stepped into the chamber there was a chorus of happy squeaks, and I was showered with a sudden hail of mental voices.

It's the queen!

Yay, the queen!

They swarmed around my hooves, excited and eager. They were much quieter than a room full of pony foals would have been, of course, but they were still far from silent; they squeaked and buzzed with enthusiasm and my mind was full of their excited questions. I could feel their eager happiness, and also feel that some of them were rather intimidated by me. Even some of those who peppered me with questions were sometimes amazed at their own daring.

Your mane is so pretty, can I touch it?

Is it true you're friends with ponies?

Does love taste as good as they say?

Do you get lots of it from the ponies?

The six-year class said there was a pony with you, where is it?

That last prompted a chorus of mental agreement. We wanna see the pony!

I chuckled. Pinkie liked visiting the nymphs even more than I did. Unfortunately she had her own life to keep her busy, so she wasn't always physically by my side. I'm sorry, little ones, she is not here today. I will try to bring her with me next time I come.

Can I please, pretty please, touch your mane?

I smiled and settled myself on my stomach in the middle of the room. You may, I said.

I was almost instantly buried in a pile of changeling nymphs. It was rather more rough than a grooming, they were less restrained and more inclined to tug on something to see if it would come off. Thankfully the crack in my chitin was completely healed by now, though I did still have a rather impressive scar there. One of the nymphs crawling over me noticed it. Wow! Did you get this fighting ponies?

No, it wasn't ponies, I said.

Gryphons?

Was it a hydra?

I bet it was a manticore!

I chuckled, a little sadly. No. That was from Chrysalis, the old queen.

Oh. The mood in the room darkened a little bit. Perhaps I shouldn't have told them, but even this young, they would have known if I were lying to them. It is nearly impossible to lie through the hive bond.

One nymph, her curiosity overcoming her reticence, asked what I knew they were all thinking. How come you fought her?

Because she gave me no choice, I told the nymphs. She wanted to kill me, and wouldn't leave me, or the ponies, alone. And because it was best for the hive. She was letting the drones go hungry so that she could send infiltrators to attack me instead of gather food. That wasn't right.

I remember. The teacher was sad. The hive felt hungry. Even under Chrysalis’ sick direction the nymphs themselves always took priority over the hive's adults, so they wouldn't have gone hungry; but they were part of the hive too. I think it's better now, the nymph added. There was a chorus of agreement from the others. She was the same one who had dared to ask why. She seemed quite bright. I made a mental note to see that she was put on the list of nymphs who might become under-queens, if she wasn't already.

That is why I had to do it, so it would be better for everyone.

How come your mane isn't like the teacher's mane? That question, from the nymph who seemed rather obsessed with my mane, changed the mood once more. I smiled and explained the difference between queens and under-queens to the nymph, happy to be on a safer subject.

Several hours later I left the classroom, feeling almost smugly content. I had wanted to find some way to step down as queen, when I'd first taken over the hive. Now I discovered I was glad I hadn't found the chance to. I cared for my fellow changelings. Maybe even loved them. I wanted what was best for them, and it seemed that I was actually capable of taking care of them. I was happy as I had seldom been in my life. I had absolutely everything I'd ever wanted.

And it was all because of one particular pink party pony, who I would be seeing again very soon.

I smiled and took a moment to look out through the eyes of the drone on high watch again, to see where the sun stood. It was not even noon, so I had hours yet to spend before I would need to leave for Pinkie's party.

I decided to go have a look at the fungus farms. As I walked through the corridors towards the vast farming chambers, however, a sudden, strange sensation caught my attention. The hive bond suddenly buzzed with tension, the feeling very much like when Minder had rejoined my small hive with Chrysalis' larger one. This was, however a much stronger tension than that had been. I halted, while all around me drones halted too, confused by the strange sensation. My mind was drawn to a particular drone, and I found myself looking at the familiar streets of Canterlot.

I knew this particular mind well; it was Wildcard, the ambassador. Standing in front of him was a pony, an apparently ordinary unicorn mare. Wildcard's immediate memories told me that just seconds ago she had rather rudely shoulder-checked him while he was walking back to the embassy in Canterlot from having lunch at his favorite cider bar.

The pony's eyes flashed red, and I knew. She was a changeling, from another hive. The strange sensation was that of her hive bond and Wildcard's meeting and refusing to join. Two different hives, each with their own queen, could not become one, but the bonds would still try. The feeling was already fading, though, as my hive rejected hers.

"I would speak to your queen," said the changeling, her voice hard and cold.

May I? I asked Wildcard.

Of course.

"I am here," I said with his voice.

"I speak for the allied hives," she said. "You have broken the Compact. You have revealed us to ponies."

"Queen Chrysalis revealed us to ponies," I said. "She was mad, and she is queen no longer."

"You are mad as well! You live openly among ponies. You tell them our secrets! You spit on the old ways that have kept the changeling race alive for centuries! You will cause doom and destruction to fall upon us all."

"I do the best I can to care for my hive. They are happy and prosperous now."

"They are deluded by a mad queen! You must return to the old ways. You must hide yourselves from ponies."

"To what end? Ponies already know that we exist. What good would pretending we do not accomplish? The cat is out of that particular bag."

The changeling smirked at me. "It can be put back. There are ways."

I didn't like the sound of that at all. "Ways?"

"Ways a true queen should know," she said with a hint of scorn. "But we can teach them to you. You have the ponies' trust now. You can gain access to all three princesses. Cast the spell I shall show you on them and you can wipe their minds clean of all knowledge of us. With their leaders no longer interested, the ponies will forget us soon enough."

I scowled at her, and was aware that Wildcard was cooperating with the scowl; he didn't like that notion any more than I did. "I think not. I would not so abuse their trust in me."

"You should reconsider. If you do not abide by the Compact, your entire hive will be considered outcast. Enemies. Prey, as ponies are."

"I have no wish to make enemies, only to live in peace—with ponies as well as with changelings. The old ways aren't necessarily the best ways. My hive thrives on love given freely, which is far more abundant than stolen love could ever be."

"Your hive is an abomination. I give you one last chance! Clear the memory of changelings from the minds of the pony rulers and return to hiding as a changeling should."

"No," I said flatly. Much as the strange changeling's threats worried me, I was not going to betray Celestia's trust in me. I'd tasted her love and knew it was honest and true. I could not give her betrayal and deceit in return. Even if I had been willing to betray her, I'd meant it when I said the new ways were better. The hive had so few infiltrators now that a return to the old ways might well doom us to starvation. And, above all, returning to the old ways would mean losing Pinkie Pie. That, I could not do.

"Then you and your hive will suffer the consequences," hissed the changeling, her eyes flashing red again. She spun and stalked off down the street, leaving both the ambassador and myself staring after her.

Author's Note

Welcome to the next portion of the increasingly epic Honey Pie saga! New chapters will happen every other month.

Credit where credit is due:

Thanks to Astral Blaze for letting me borrow Ambassador Wildcard. They're not quite the same character, but the inspiration was definitely there.

Thanks to Jordanis for editing, and for letting me bounce all my ideas off of him. He always improves things.

And many thanks to all the readers who have stuck around since the first Honey Pie. Your patience is much appreciated.