Flurry woke feeling stiff, doing her best to clear her eyes she tried to take in her surroundings. The room was dark, soft moon light came in from open windows behind her, casting the room low light. But the low light was a good thing for Flurry, it reminded her more of home, her hive. Once she was able to see, Flurry found herself in one of the castle's many guest rooms. It seemed smaller than the one she woke in with Cadence all those months ago, lying back Flurry stared at the ceiling. Everything had happened so fast, it felt like years, but it had only been what? Five? Six months? So much happening in so little time, Flurry wondered how she had managed it all.

Getting out of bed Flurry moved to the door, she needed to get the stiffness out of her joints from yesterday's flight, as well as finding more food. Pausing, Flurry looked back at the window and the moon beyond it. It was night, but that was all she knew. How long had she been asleep?

With my luck, it's probably been a few days. Well, I did fly from the empire to Canterlot in less than half a day.

Exiting her room, Flurry found a Thestral, or bat pony, standing guard outside her room.

Oh great…

“Lady Flurry, it's good to see you up.”

Well, that's new. “Thank you, although I’m a bit disoriented, how long have I been out?”

“You’ve been out since late afternoon yesterday, it is currently the waning hours of the night.”

So out for at least half a day, and it's between midnight and sunrise, good to know. “Thank you sir, would you mind pointing me towards the kitchens, I haven't properly eaten since flying from the Empire.”

The bat pony nodded. “Right this way, our lady of the night left orders that you are not to be bothered, so I shall escort you.”

“Thank you kindly,” Flurry said as the bat pony began leading her. “But who are you keeping away from me if I may ask?” Let's see if they play ball.

“Until you woke up, everypony, you had quite a few wishing to, ‘express their undying gratitude’. Our lady wished you to be able to rest undisturbed.”

“And now that I’m awake?” Looks like the crystal ponies are settling in well, or at least I hope.

“That would be any late night nobles and reporters, you’ve come back from the grave, then you are spirited away to the Crystal Empire where you are, how did they put it? ‘Kept locked away from the rest of the world.’ You are big news around the city.”

No lies, either these night guard are really good at hiding, or he's telling the truth. “I've never experienced politics outside of a few lessons over the past few months, I’ll take your word for it.”

The pair walked in silence for a moment before Flurry spoke up again.

“May I ask you a question?”

“Certainly.”

“I've heard about your kind before ever coming to Canterlot, but I’ve never met one of you, is it wrong to call you bat ponies?”

The guard let out a deep chuckle. “Not in the least, we are in many ways related to bats, our wings, hearing, eyesight even our diet is more akin to bats than the average pony. There are a few terms we do take offense to, vampire and the like, it's rather degrading.”

“Like how if someone was to call a changeling a leech, it would only paint our true nature in a negative light.”

The guard paused, seemingly contemplating this. “Yes it is much the same case,” He started walking again as he continued. “I must admit I haven't had a chance to get to know the hive very much, the Solar Guards don’t seem to want to work with them, only the Night Guard work with the Hive Guard. It's been rather busy, to say the least.”

As they rounded the corner the main kitchen came into view.

“I’m sure, setting up a new hive, as well as making sure ponies feel safe, it must add a lot of stress to you and yours.”

“Not only that, we’ve been working counter cell operations, we started calling the others cells rather than changelings, gets less confusing.”

“I’m sure, not that those creatures deserve… to be… called…”

Sitting in the large open kitchen was Shining Armor, he was eating a sandwich, but now was just looking at Flurry as they both stood looked at each other. Sensing the tension between the two, the Night Guard quietly slipped back out and into the shadows.

“Hey Shining, can’t sleep?”

Shining nodded. “My wife is being possessed by a dead changeling queen while being held in a cocoon, sleeping isn’t high on my list of things I’d like to do.”

Flurry was silent, it seemed no matter what Shining wasn’t going to trust her hive, her family. Pulling out a few ingredients Flurry made a few sandwiches, sitting across from Shining they ate in silence for a while before Shining spoke up.

“I know you told me that you knew you were adopted, but there is something that keeps bothering me.”

“What's that?”

“Why did you never try and find out about us?”

Flurry paused for a moment, recalling the only day she had considered leaving the hive.

~o0o~

Flurry stood at the entrance to the hive, the gates wide open, the path to the surface clear, yet she didn’t move. Looking back Flurry could see the faces of her adopted parents, Arrow and Glade.

“So, I can just walk out? Find my first parents?”

“It's up to you my little flurry,” Glade said with a sad look in her eye. “Just know if you want you can always come back.”

Flurry nodded, took a step, then stopped again. “But where do I even begin?”

Arrow stepped up and put a leg around Flurry’s shoulders. “I’m not sure, when I found you it was near the hive in a storm, your wings could have carried you quite a ways back then, I know ponies keep records, maybe they have a list of missing foals?”

“Actually they do,” said another changeling. “Our adopters have brought a few back, we try to remember as many as we can in case we find any of them, but there has never been a missing alicorn, that we know of.”

Flurry looked between Glade and Arrow, then the ground. “Was I thrown away?”

Glade came up and hugged Flurry tightly. “I’m sure that's not true, we just don’t know what happened.”

Arrow nodded in agreement. “Perhaps you're the lost daughter of one of the other alicorns?”

Flurry shook her head, seemingly dismissing the idea. “We might not have a lot of books, but we know all alicorns ascend, may-maybe they got rid of me because I’m not supposed to exist?”

Glade appeared disgusted at the idea. “That is not true, you are meant to exist and no one is going to tell you other wise, even yourself.”

Flurry nuzzled up to Glade. “Thanks, mom.”

Flurry looked back at the open gate, the dark tunnel seemingly far more intimidating than before.

Looking over her shoulder she spotted the changeling who mentioned lost foals before. “Hey Veil, has there been any other alicorns born in the past thirteen years?”

Veil paused looking thoughtful for a moment. “Not that anyone is aware of, I think at least three of them have at least a lover of some extent, at least that is the information we’ve picked up.”

Flurry turned away from the entrance to the hive, closing the main gate with her magic. “I don’t want to leave.”

“Are you sure? You can change your mind later you know, this isn’t a one time offer.” Glade said, trying to sound convincing but still sounding relieved.

“Yes, if three alicorns in thirteen years can’t have a foal, and they aren't looking for a lost daughter, then I can’t be one of there’s, and even we would have heard of a missing alicorn, I’m not missed out there, but I would be here, at home.”

Arrow and Glade hugged Flury tightly, refusing to let go for the moment.

Finally, Glade managed to speak. “My little Flurry.”

~o0o~

Shining Armor sat in silence for several moments after hearing Flurry’s story, part of him was hurt to think she thought that she had just been thrown away, yet another part of him could understand Flurry’s thinking.

“So because there were no other alicorn foals you thought you weren't wanted?”

Flurry shrugged. “No pony was looking for me, our adopters would have heard about it. Between the first mission to adopt foals and the day you attacked, we returned nineteen missing foals. We would have definitely heard of a missing alicorn.”

“But we were looking for you,” Shining said exasperatedly. “We searched for years, the papers had coverage about it for nearly as long.”

Flurry paused a moment, something definitely didn’t seem to be adding up.

“How long did you look for me?”

“Technically we never stopped, though officially we had to ‘call off’ the search after,” Shining paused, thinking back to less pleasant times. “I think it was four or five years after you went missing.”

Flurry groaned, holding a hoof to her head. “Now things are starting to make more sense, our adoption missions didn’t start until I was five.” Flurry blinked, realizing she had yet to ask something important. “Um, how old was I when I went missing? We always treated the day I was found as my ‘birthday’, but we were never officially sure how old I was.”

“Two weeks, so you're only off by that much.”

Flurry nodded. “If the search was ‘officially’ called off after five years, we still wouldn’t have heard about it. We started in some of the larger cities, but only on the edges, places where ponies keep to themselves, and where a colt or filly sleeping in a box at the end of an allie wouldn’t be noticed it wouldn’t be another five or so until we started actually adopting foals from orphanages, even then it was still the over crowded run down ones.”

Shining narrowed his eyes. “Then where did you find ‘missing’ foals?”

Flurry rolled her eyes. “Just because we started going to orphanages doesn't mean we stopped going through the back streets, if every orphanage in Equestria emptied over night don’t you think that would be just as suspicious?”

Shining nodded, seemingly accepting the explanation for the moment, then something else Flurry said sunk in.

“Wait you mean to tell me that you legally adopted foal.”

“No we paid the caretakers to look away while we ran off with a dozen foals,” Flurry said her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Of course we adopted them legally.”

Shining hung his head in shame. “We attacked families.”

“I’ve been trying to tell you both that all along, the hive is family, MY family.”

Shingings ears lay back, seemingly more dejected now than ever. “I’m surprised you didn’t try and return to them.”

“The thought crossed my mind more than once, but then what? You would know where I would be going, you could either track me down on the way or wait at the hive for me to show up. After staying in the empire, and knowing what kind of pony power you have ready, you would use every guard available to bring me back, kicking and screaming if necessary, tell me that isn’t what you would do.”

Shining let out a heavy sigh. “You're right, we wouldn’t even think about losing you again, we would move the entire Imperial Guard to bring you back, we did the first time.”

“So to keep my family safe, and to keep from making either of you angrier, I stayed. I did what I was trained to do, I fit in, I did my best to become a part of your empire.”

Shining tilted his head at her mention of training.

“I took some infiltration classes in the hive, they were very useful, it's where I learned disguise magic.”

Shining nodded. “I had wondered about that.”

There were several minutes where nothing was said, finally, Flurry asked the question neither of them wanted to but had to.

“So, where do we go from here?”

Shining’s face fell. “Is there still a ‘we’? I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to leave the Empire, I-I won't force you to stay.”

Flurry walked over to Shining, placing a hoof on his shoulder.

“I want to get to know you, both of you. So few if any ponies in the hive have first parents, but you need to understand, they are my family, just as much as you and Cadence are.”

“I want to know you too, but after everything I’ve been through with changelings, I just don’t know…”

“I’m not expecting it to happen over night, I would be suspicious if it did, but please give them a chance, that's all I’m really asking.”

Shining gave a dry chuckle. “Seems I don’t have a choice now, they raised my daughter and now they're keeping my wife alive. Is it too late to start over, again?”

Flurry smiled and held out her hoof. “Do over.”

Author's Note

Some have asked why Flurry never just left and went back to the hive, here you go.