The Lost Changeling: Eleven One
“OLDE!!! You will leave now, and get King Thorax in this room!!!... NOW!!!”
Shortly after I hear a shout in the next room over, two changelings trip out of the room and hit the ground: Carve and Carina.
“Uh, hey girls.”
“Hi, Thorax. Apparently, Lace ordered me and Carina to get you.”
“Um, okay. Is this about the whole Correal incident?”
I sigh at the girls nodding.
“Alright. I might as well get this over with. In the meantime, why don’t you two go to the twenty fourth floor and check on the results if you want to see for yourself what happened.”
Carina and Carve leave as I head their opposite direction, entering the room they tripped out of.
“Greta, Mono Solaz.”
“Greta, Rehis. Ecuhestelihan... loda?”
Lace nods.
“Very well. King Thorax, we have received word that Carina and Carve had talked to you about a wake up call they were a victim of. Afterwards, they immediately walked to a substantially lower elevation of the hive. Is this true?”
“Well, I do know that the talk about the wake up call was true. However, I can’t judge whether or not they stayed or if they left the hall to my room.”
“What else about this case can you remember?”
“All I know is that Moph had told me about the floor shaking. Personally, I wasn’t high enough to feel it, because I didn’t know about Correal’s situation until I saw her in the crater.”
The note translated to-
“ORDER!!! I will give out information to King Thorax when necessary! King Thorax, Carina and Carve had said that you must’ve talked to Correal earlier this morning like they requested. What actually happened?”
“Well, from what you said about them, they had a spot on conclusion. I went down and found Correal, and told her that she’s not the latest sleeper and that she should be careful not to make too much noise early in the morning. That is all. At first I thought her response was quite dramatic when I saw where she ended up. I never yelled at her, so she seemed okay with my advice from what she said before I walked off.”
“What about the tone in her voice?”
“Well, what about the tone, Moph?”
“Did she turn sad or something?”
Thinking about the situation, I try to replay what I heard from Correal, and pay attention to her tone. After about the tenth time, I still draw a blank on the tone change. Suddenly, my thoughts are interrupted by a call from Moph.
“HELLOOO?!? Hive to Thorax!! Any answer will do!!”
“I don’t know.”
“Wh-what?!? What the hell do you mean you don’t know?!?”
“I think I might’ve resurfaced the wrong memory. I don’t know. I was drawing blanks all over.”
“How can something like figuring out vocal tone be that h-”
“Moph! One more outburst, and your demise will not be followed by a calling!”
Lace’s interruption results in Moph drooping her ears, and looking to the floor in front of her.
“Anyway, King Thorax, do you know of any outside information on this case?”
“Well, I don’t know what good this piece of information will do, but I thought I noticed, especially in Correal, some adjustment difficulties up until today, but it seems the level of adjustment difficulty is more alarming than I thought.”
“King Thorax, if you noticed adjustment difficulties at all, why didn’t-”
“Lace, did it worry me that changelings were having a hard time adjusting? Not really. Remember one thirteen? I had a hard time adjusting from queen to queen. It’s normal. I thought the difficulties would blow over, like it had in one thirteen. However, we shouldn’t let what happened to Correal gnaw on our adjustment progress. Equestria has been our friend for nearly a month.”
“Understandable. Session is adjourned.”
Lace stamps his right hoof once, resulting in the crowd starting to chatter. After a little while a hole forms in an empty portion of the wall, prompting the nearby changelings to leave. Suddenly, the chatter falls silent. After a few seconds, there’s a voice that I recognize that is speaking.
Hi everyone. Carina and I traveled up to the twenty fourth floor ourselves and have made up our minds. Carina?
It’s... it’s Carve.
I would like to request the location of King Thorax for his approval of a calling.
Well, then here goes nothing. I enter the hall, seeing the two I expected to see.
“Well, here I am. I think I know what the calling is for, so I approve, Carina.”
“Do you know any royal family members that live here?”
“Well, no. It’s just me. And since you became my very first friend, I’ll send you as the speaker.”
“Thanks, King Thorax, but I’ll send that title off to one changeling I know the most: Carve.”
Carve nods.
“Thanks, Carina. Let’s head to the site.”
And with that, the changelings run off without me, prompting me to wave goodbye.
“Uh, good-bye!”
;=;
Nearly twenty minutes of reflection of everything from the past month, I begin walking to a nearby forming porthole. I rest my left elbow on it and support my head. It’s hard to believe any changeling, much less a king, would ever feel this way, but I do. I... just don’t have anything to do. I could visit Ponyville, or maybe Canterlot, but I did that just a few days ago. I have to wonder how Chrysalis ever kept her sanity at points of having nothing to do. Maybe she did a lot of deliberation at a time, sitting on her throne, which kind of makes sense since we did invade Equestria quite a bit before Canterlot back five and a half years ago.
Suddenly, I see something out of the corner of my left eye appear. It looks kind of like a dark mosquito, which is odd because most mosquitos, even black ones don’t fly in place. Oh well, it’s nothing to worry about.
I decide to head up to my room, only to let out a short shriek when I start to fall. Looking up, around my room, my nest looks quite disheveled, yet it’s still in the same spot, despite the rest of the floor looking like it was dug up for a meter, bumps everywhere. The walls appear to have spread out as well. Finally, a floor to wall slope covers the entire room like they were what was dug up and grated from the floor and walls. Still in the same position otherwise, my jaw drops at the sight.
“Who could’ve done this?!?”
Whoever dug up my room, I sure wonder what had gotten into them.
I travel back to the bottom of the hive to look at the strange dark mosquito-like figure to try and get more details. However, about halfway down, all of the changelings I saw during the session appear, looking like Chrysalis’ drones again, and they look extremely angry. I simply wave, trying to hide a wave of nervousness washing over me.
“Um, hi?”
The front changeling takes two paces forward.
“Thorax! Why did you let Correal go out like she did?!?”
“Changelings, it was her decision, and I didn’t even know about what she did until Moph and Lace told me about it.”
“We trusted your way! We thought we’d find a better life with you! And you made a mistake that made us realize how INEXPERIENCED you are at ruling a hive!!!”
“But do you want Equestria to hate us again? Because it sure sounds like it!”
“We don’t CARE about our relationship with Equestria at this point!!! We went centuries without a case like Correal’s, and that was a time we would have preferred to lengthen as much as possible!”
During emphasis, the front changeling fires her magic that I barely dodge by quickly stepping aside. A hole opens up when I look at the wall the beam hit.
“I know we lost Correal, but that really shouldn’t-”
I get cut off by the leader of the crowd.
“No! We don’t trust you anymore! A changeling needed you, and you weren’t there for her! You have to know that what you let happen to her was unforgivable!”
“Can we just stop for-”
“Do you see how we look?!? Do you think we would stop for you NOW?!? We never thought we'd say this, but you gave us no choice... FOR THE QUEEN!!!”
The changelings start approaching and firing magic at me.
Although I duck to dodge the first dozen or so of them, I try to back away, only for the one of the incoming beams to throw me across the room as I shriek before hitting the wall torso first as a result of a six thirty flip. Slowly recovering from the collision, I groan. However, a hole right behind me forms before I can get up, causing me to begin dangling off of the hive. The front changeling exclusively approaches me.
“Uh, guys? A little help here?”
“Why would we ever help you after what you let happen?!? We’re sending you to where Rolling Acres is going!!!”
Suddenly, another approaches me, both changelings firing magic at my hooves, causing said hooves to let go of the ledge. Screaming for my life, I have quick thoughts on all of those events that had played out. Equestria is going to hate changelings again. Chrysalis is very evil. She almost sucked the love I had out of me. She’ll exact unknowable revenge on Starlight very soon. But... will I miss anything, where I’m going... where this “Rolling Acres” is? I don’t know what will happen, but I sure hope the changelings knew what they were doing.
My thoughts are interrupted when I land sharply on the top of one of the lower parts of the hive. The last thing I hear is cheering before I lose consciousness.
