"This day was going to be perfect,"
Her song whispered through winding corridors, hollow and drained of emotion. Black hooves stumbled across the rocky ground, her once strong stride reduced to a limping gait. The hive around her remained silent, allowing her haunting singing to echo throughout. But she could sense them, feel them. Her darlings, her children. They called to her.
"The kind of day of which I dreamed since I was small."
A falter, and she careened to the side, her flank scraping against the pitch black surface of the hive. Pain lanced up from a deep gouge on her thigh as a splattering of green blood left a vivid imprint of the wound upon the hard wall.
"Every pony would gather 'round, say that I looked lovely in my gown,"
Back to her hooves she scrambled, determination forcing her pace. One hoof in front of the other. They were so close.
"What they didn't know was that I had fooled them all."
A light. She squinted against the green glow as she drew near, shielding her one good eye. She knew not the fate of the other, whether merely mangled or lost entirely.
"I couldn't care less about the dress, I wouldn't partake in any cake."
When she reached the exit to the hallway, her half blind eye missed a small rocky outcropping. Catching her hoof against it, she screamed as her already horribly twisted ankle flared up in agony. Her precarious balance faltered, threatening to send her to the ground once more. Steadying herself and gritting her teeth, she pushed on. They needed her.
"Vows, I'd be lying if I said,"
Slowly her eye adjusted itself to the higher level of light within the dwelling. It was the feeding room, designed to hold many changlings, but not for the multitudes that stood before her. Hundreds of bodies, thousands, crammed in so tight as to look like a single creature.
"That through any kind of weather, I'd want us to be together,"
Silent as a whisper, they parted for her, shifting aside as she limped through the room towards the center, where the glow's origin sat.
"The truth is that I didn't care for him at all."
A little one, barely old enough to walk, wasn't quick enough. His short stubby legs unable to carry him out of the way. With her sight so poor, she tripped upon his chitinous shell, driving her face into the floor. Her already broken nose streaked blood across the ground, leaving a long green smear. Immediately the little one ran as fast as he could to her head, and nuzzled against it. She accepted his apology, rubbing her shivering armored forehead against his. She could never be upset with her little changlings. Never.
"No I did not love the groom,"
Dozens of loving hooves assisted her return to an upright position, and with renewed determination, she arrived at the center of the hall. A glowing massive crystal sat there reaching from the floor to the high ceiling, radiating warmth and light, and love, to all present. The most important part of the hive. Standing before it, she raised a hoof, and concentrated.
"In my heart, there is... just no more room left."
Thick pink liquid seeped from the holes adorning the limb, slowly filling them to the brink. Bringing it down, she touched the crystal. The pink goo drained from her leg, the glowing monument absorbing it like a sponge. A hungry sponge that needed more. She was so tired, so sleepy, barely keeping enough sustenance to sustain herself.
"I'm sorry, my children. I failed," she gasped, her breath shuddering. So tired...
Suddenly bodies pressed against her own, their armored hides clacking against hers, holding her up as her bleeding legs failed her. Voices rose into a crescendo, murmuring their support for her. Their love. Their adoration. Their forgiveness for her failure.
They were hers, just as she was theirs. Chrysalis gave a weary, sad smile as soft tears made their journey down her cheeks, their path interrupted by the nuzzling of a female changling.
The famine would continue, but she knew they would get through it. Together.
Somehow.
* * *
Three months had passed away, as had so many changling lives.
So many plans. So many ideas. All for naught.
Conditions had worsened to depths that Queen Chrysalis would never have fathomed, the hive's population dropping to a mere fraction of what it once was. Thin and starved foals shades of their former selves, adults in the prime of their youths reduced to frail husks, the elderly having passed long ago. Even herself withered to a shadow, decrepit, sacrificing all she had.
And still it was not enough.
White walls shimmered around Chrysalis, a polar opposite of her beautiful hive, as she limped through the halls. As ponies stopped to stare at the changling as her escort lead her through the castle corridors, she could feel the waves of confusion and fear roiling off them. Once she would have found it amusing, but... those days were long gone.
"This way," one armored stallion grunted as he trotted towards a massive pair of golden doors.
Message after message, back and forth, pleas to any who would hear. None did. None listened. None cared. None wanted to harbor the 'monsters', the 'parasites'. That's all they had ever been to most. Not living creatures who's feeding didn't hurt.
They were alone, their last hope an option that no changling ever wanted.
"Introducing, Chrysalis! Queen of the Changling Hive!"
The golden doors creaked open, and one of her escorts jerked his head towards the entrance.
Into the throne room she half stumbled, head bowed. Everything was as she remembered from her invasion... her failure. A set of stairs leading up to two thrones, one black as the darkest night, a waning moon gracing the backrest, the other white as snow, a orange depiction of the sun upon it. Identical to the two that sat upon them.
Both Celestial Sisters watched her, eyes locked onto her weak form as she wavered slightly. Stopping before the steps, she stood upright, mustering what little strength she had. Trying to look like the Queen she was.
Celestia's face didn't change, but the younger sister gasped, her mask slipping.
The changling didn't blame her. Her carapace had lost it's shine and rigidness, wrapping pitifully around her ribs. Deep wounds that never properly healed marred her body, her nose crooked from too many breaks, one forehoof a mangled stump. Her once flawless face pale and scratched, only holding one single, sunken eye, the other socket empty. A mess. A beggar.
Slowly, with a weakness born from sickness, Chrysalis prostrated herself before the two Goddesses.
"Chrysalis. You've come before us requesting aid. You know the terms I've set. Do you accept?"
With a voice that shook from effort, the once Queen of the Changlings answered. Two words that she'd been so close to saying, so many months ago, in this very room. Sealing the fate of her children, and herself. For better... or for worse.
"I do."
