Unlike Any Other

Chapters

Prologue
Arise
Introductions
The Universal Language
The Art Show
Conscription

Prologue

Asides from objective intelligence, one could find constants that defined sapient species. Language was one such constant. Another was tool use. Another still was the ability to form diplomatic relations with other beings. Something else could be found as well—something far more basic.

Pride.

The same sort of pride that one experienced after a job well done, or that of seeing their offspring gradually maturing into adults.

The latter type was the pride currently flowing through Chrysalis at that moment.

She stood towering over the three nearly-complete cocoons that her latest batch of offspring had spun themselves. The monarch had always felt proud whenever her children survived the larval stage and were ready to advance into their next stage of their lives.

Yet these three were noteworthy compared to the countless other hatchings. At first, Chrysalis had nearly panicked when there were no other eggs to lay after the third. A regular session would produce at the very least a baker’s dozen. She had initially considered the low yield as a sign of growing infertility. In fact, that whole gestation period had felt different from all of the other times. Something was off.

And yet… it also wasn’t.

She had begun to suspect that nothing had gone wrong soon after her initial panic, as there was something within the changeling queen that kept her collected whenever she would think about the scarce numbers. In her attempt to understand why this egg laying was different, Chrysalis dove into the few written scripts that the Hive conserved. And in there, she found a possible reason that was both wondrous and miraculous.

Once the three larvae had emerged, that possibility had become a certainty. The queen had given life to three changelings marked for greatness. The blue stripe along the bulby backs of the three larvae confirmed it.

Chrysalis had entertained the possibility that at least one of them would become a queen, as Chrysalis herself had been marked before she formed her own cocoon. At least, that’s how mother had recounted the tale. Again, instincts told her that regardless of their fates, these changelings would never be queens. A tinge of disappointment did touch her when she had realised this, but if mother hadn’t omitted anything to her, Chrysalis had outdone all of her predecessors.

Three changelings that were destined for great things.

Knowing that, watching these otherwise unremarkable larvae doing what larvae did was certainly odd. There was nothing in their behavior that made them distinct from what Chrysalis had observed so many times before; there was nothing asides from that stripe of theirs that told her that these three little creatures were any different from any other changelings.

After a month of near continuous feeding, they were ready for the next stage. As she watched, two of them were now fully encased in their protective cocoons. The third was still finishing up.

Chrysalis’s fanged smile spread along her snout. This last larva had always been slow in its every action: slow to hatch; slow to eat; slow to rest. Whereas the other two had taken the necessary amount of time for all of their actions, this one seemed to like to take its time.

That in of itself was indicative of a level of intellect that would be uncommonly high in adulthood. Chrysalis had observed the trend far too many times for the circumstances and results to be mere happenstance.

The smile grew some more; if this one was already going to be a great changeling, just how much would it achieve once it emerged fully as an adult?

For a moment the weaving ceased, and Chrysalis felt the curious eyes of the larva upon her. “Go on,” she said with the appropriate pheromones. “You’ve almost made it.”

The larva lingered for a while longer before resuming its task. Its pace was slow yet meticulous. Just as the little one was finishing, Chrysalis leaned in to kiss the as-of-yet uncocooned bit of chitin.

It seemed to pause once more at the contact, but the larva promptly continued. Soon enough there was nothing except for a sticky cocoon to see.

The queen let out a slow sigh. There was nothing else that she could do for now. It would be two more months before she would be able to see her children once more. Chrysalis knew that the wait would be both excruciating and worth it. She had experienced this before in every other batch, but this one felt far more important than the others.

Were she to be asked if that meant that she loved them more than her other children, she would have pounced on the idiot asking such an absurd question, fangs at the ready. Of course the queen loved them just the same! She loved all of them!

Still, that didn’t mean that the pride right then was not marginally greater than what she had felt for her other children. Her smile returned: could anyone really blame her for that?

Chrysalis let out another sigh as she watched the cocoons being collected by nurse drones and workers to be taken away to a more suitable chamber.

Her anxiety must’ve been palpable, because one of the nurses approached her. “Do not worry, my Queen. We will be more careful than we’ve ever been before.”

Part of her wanted to insist that the worker was not to treat the cocoons as something more than she or her podmates had handled before, yet, as Chrysalis parted her lips to say so, she relented. They were more important than any other cocoon.

Firmly rooted on the spot where she stood, her gaze followed the last of the cocoons leave for the appropriate brooding chamber with a sense of longing.

So begins the wait.

Many changeling scholars have often pondered about the processes that a larva undergoes inside of the cocoon. All that was known about them for certain was the end result: a nymph that after a few hours would wear the same colors as an adult.

Vivisecting a cocoon that was still transforming the larva within was unthinkable. Not even those of other hives were exempt from the taboo of infanticide.

As such, the mechanics of the metamorphosis could only be hypothesised. Chief among the few theories was that of a complete deconstruction and reassembly of the being inside. This school of thought prompted many debates on whether or not the larva as a person died in the process. Biologically it was nearly universally agreed that the larva never ‘died’, but the crux of the philosophical discussion revolved around the character of the larva.

Even at emergence, larvae had been observed to display quirks that could be described as character qualities. While most of these could be classified as general aggression for dominance, there were cases of altruism and even timidity. As a general rule, these ‘attitudes’ carried over to the nymph stage, suggesting a continuation of the same ‘person’.

There were, of course, exemptions. Sometimes seemingly meek larvae would grow to be great warriors, while other times what appeared to be a strong-willed larva would become highly subservient as an adult. Furthermore, if the metamorphosis was similar as those studied in other arthropodal species, there was evidence that the larva’s body was essentially destroyed before that of the nymph was formed.

So the question remained unanswered: did the larva ‘die’ as a person, or was it preserved in some other way?

Such queries didn’t concern the larva currently inside its cocoon. It allowed itself to slowly fall apart into a mixture of dissolved flesh and juices, as it knew that it was simply meant to be. It could feel its abdomen lose its physical form, feeling neither pain nor fear all the while. It might have known that it was an individual, but it hadn’t yet formed an identity; it simply had not mattered.

The head was the last structure to melt away. In truth, a hint of trepidation had crossed the larva’s mind. It knew that this was supposed to happen, yes. However, what would happen to it? It’d change, of course, but would it still be able to recall its life before the cocoon once it emerged?

These considerations were brief. The larva’s consciousness winked out peacefully as its brain dissolved into a mess of grey matter.

Some time later, there was once more the spark of intelligence. With a new brain taking form, recognition slowly returned. The being currently inside finally had something resembling an identity. It was no longer the larva of before, as it could not recollect anything prior to its transformation.

It still had memories, but they were of a life spanning many years. Far too many for them to belong to the little larva that it was before. As the being came to, it had several questions in mind:

What happened?
Where am I?
Did I die?

Sensation returned in full force, though not in the entirety that it—no, he was familiar with. Albeit muddied and blurred, he still had his thoughts and memories of another life, but absolutely nothing else.

This realization terrorised him.

Physically, the being forming within the cocoon did not react. It was still only a brain, after all. There were no limbs to flail about, no eyes to flicker this way and that, no skin to feel goosebumps, no lungs to hyperventilate with, no mouth to scream with. The form didn’t have the appropriate organs for him to piss himself in fear.

So for a long indeterminate amount of time, he did the only thing that he could.

Monty used the voice of his mind to scream himself raw.

Arise

It had been… days? Weeks perhaps? Monty couldn’t tell. Seconds and hours bled together in such a way that made it difficult to gauge the time. The lack of any point of reference only compounded that difficulty. The only thing he had to go on was his own body.

Monty was still hesitant to even call it his body. From what he could remember of his moments of lucid thoughts during his bout of hysteria, he knew that he didn’t really exist, at least not in the physical sense. The one experience that came close to describing that period was that of a dream of which he was aware of. Monty knew that he was still here —wherever ‘here’ was— but he had no influence beyond his mind. If he did have a body, he had no sensation over it.

That had been the initial assumption. Eventually his senses did come back, albeit at an agonizingly slow pace.

It was a gradual process. The first thing that returned to Monty was the sense of a physical head, followed soon after by what he could only assume was that of his torso and lower body. He couldn’t move anything back then. Monty suspected that perhaps he hadn’t formed the necessary muscle mass to do so or still lacked the actual structures, like it was in the case of his eyes and mouth early on.

It only dawned on him then that he was being reborn as a fetus.

Key phrase here was ‘a fetus’. The hopes of it being a human one had since been dashed when Monty noticed that the supposedly vestigial tail never went away, or when the structure of his mouth was markedly different from what he had remembered. He would have chalked them up to odd moments of development, were it not for the seemingly ceaseless growth of his upper canines that eventually jutted out of his lips.

Monty briefly considered the notion that he could have possibly been a vampire of sorts. It had probably been the least absurd scenario of the lot!

But other developments put an end to that thought; his ears seemed to have been higher up along his head than they had once been; there was some sort of growth jutting out from his forehead; his limbs were completely disproportionate from what he had been used to; two small knobs of flesh protruded somewhere on his back; he even suspected that he lacked digits.

Whatever Monty was developing into, it was most certainly not human or human-like.

All of this had been deduced from his developing senses while remaining stationary in what he assumed was a fetal position, or whatever passed for it in this freaky conglomeration of a body. He still couldn’t move anything except his own thoughts, though Monty believed that it wasn’t for a lack of muscle strength like before. He almost felt like he was tensed up like a coil, waiting to spring after whatever was blocking it was removed; there was plenty of potential strength.

Regardless of the reason why, Monty could not move an inch of his body. As such, he couldn’t feel it out in motion. He couldn’t even open his eyes, though he didn’t expect to see much in the womb or whatever he was in. Additionally, he couldn’t operate his mouth or his nose (if he even had the latter), which meant that breathing was out of the question.

The prospect of not being able to breathe had contributed to his initial irrational break, but weirdly enough, he had grown used to not requiring air. Besides, with all of the warm liquid surrounding him, Monty didn’t want to take the chance only for him to drown before officially being born.

That made him chuckle inwardly. Dying before being born would very much put a damper on his mood, and he had no intention of dying before figuring out at least what he looked like.

With all of these limitations, he had worried that he would have nothing to interact with (asides from himself) until ‘the time was right’ or whatever.

Fortunately, and quite unexpectedly, Monty began to sense… emotions.

That’s the closest word that he could attribute to the sensations that came to him. It was difficult to say why or how these senses existed, but they were definitely recognizable. In his past life, he has had moments where the emotions of others were so palpable, that he could recognise them without needing to hear or see them.

This was similar, just far more intense, by several orders of magnitude.

At first, when Monty began feeling them, it was mostly a jumbled mess of frustration and anxiety. That gave way to curiosity, then to hope. From then on, the exchange had become a series of ‘conversations’, as whatever was radiating them seemed to respond to his own. Granted, these were as basic and as frustrating as the conversations he had with Peruvian locals who didn’t speak a lick of English during his time in the country.

Still, this was probably the closest that Monty would ever get to having a conversation with someone using their minds alone, and he had to admit: that in itself was pretty damn cool.

As time passed, he concluded that he was with at least two other beings. There were on occasion others that passed by and contributed to the ‘discussions’, mostly by providing reassurances and consolation. With these visitors came along what Monty believed to be voices. Being distant and muddled (probably due to, in no small part, being a fetus in amniotic fluid), he couldn’t identify the language. Going by what had happened since his reawakening, this pointed to it being an alien language.

Then again, Monty had always been terrible with foreign languages. It could have been Chinese or some African bush language as far as he could tell.

In time, he supposed that it was unlikely that the series of what sounded like hisses and chirps belong to any human language. Judging by the emotions that came with the ‘words’, whoever or whatever was speaking was referring to Monty.

Maybe—conversing with emotions was still a hard concept to fully grasp, and ‘directional emotions’ might have been him assigning directions where there were none.

There was, however, one voice that stood out. Perhaps not so much by the sound, which sounded vaguely feminine, but by the emotions that accompanied it. They were difficult to decipher at first, mostly because Monty felt like he was drowning in them. Eventually though, he narrowed it to one possible candidate:

Love.

Pure, unconditional love.

Even as an alien fetus, the emotion was completely instinctual and matched with the same love that he once shared with his two-years-old daughter Ruth in his previous life. The startlingly similar sensation had renewed the sorrow that Monty experienced whenever he remembered that his friends, family, wife, and daughter, weren’t there to comfort him.

That had prompted an immediate response from those around him, specifically from the one that loved him so. There was a sense of worry and confusion from the latter, clearly at a loss as to why he was despairing, as she —such love and concern felt more like those of the maternal variety— redoubled her efforts to assure Monty that nothing was wrong.

Again, this was all mostly conjecture on his part, as he still couldn’t attach meanings to every emotion with absolute certainty. His gut feeling, however, insisted that his new biological mother (another intuition that his body had) was only doing her best to assuage to Monty’s distress.

She had even hummed to him.

And, more surprising to his human mind, it worked.

The foreign lullaby had put Monty to sleep multiple times already, and it always brought peace of mind, even when he was at his most anxious. As was happening right then.

This time though, the song wasn’t directed at him. One of his two companions had been radiating misery by the bucket loads, eventually garnering the attention of a fourth soul that often came by and joined in the emotions ‘discussion’ that the three of them usually had. Their ministrations were insufficient this time, and they had left to fetch Monty’s mother (although by now, it had become rather evident that she cared for all of them, even the fourth person.)

Her arrival was swift as were her quiet whispers and soft hums. She spoke again, and although he still couldn’t define those words, the tones spoke volumes. Or was it perhaps the emotions charged into her words?

Regardless, Monty got the sense that something was going to happen, and soon.

To that, he joined his companions in making their relief evident. Perhaps finally he could get some answers. But now, despite the tinge of anxiety that constantly protested in the back of his mind, he was drowsy again. Growing a body as a fetus really drained him.

Monty’s consciousness drifted away with the relaxing tune reverberating in his head.

Chrysalis continued humming the lullaby passed down to her from her mother, repeating the full verse to allow her three children to fall soundly asleep. As the final tones faded, she proudly noted that all three of them were content. Her good news had definitely gotten through to them.

Still, her mind was not at ease. Why had her cocooned children emoted so negatively and so frequently? Never before had any of her children displayed such distress outside of physical ailments disrupting their growth.

Yet there is no sign of ill health in any of them, Chrysalis reminded herself, recalling the observations that the nurses had reported to her. This problem was clearly related to their marks for greatness, but she couldn’t understand how.

The first time she had shared her genuine affection, the Queen had nearly panicked at the massively negative response from one of them. Only later did she recognise it as the longing sort of grief, the kind that one held when they had lost something once very close to them.

It made absolutely no sense: what could possibly have been the object of this quasi-nostalgic desire of a budding changeling larva? Perhaps there had been a nascent relationship between the three clutchmates; changelings from the same clutch did tend to foster closely-knit relationships, but, again, never prior to emerging as nymphs.

Moments like these brought Chrysalis frustration. Why hadn’t she asked her mother more on how she had behaved as a cocoon or as a larva when she still had the chance? What was the Queen missing here?

“Mother?”

With Chrysalis’s reverie momentarily shattered, she eyed the concerned nurse drone. “Yes, Petiole?” she said sweetly.

“Are you alright?” Petiole asked. “I can smell your worry.”

The Queen ran her forked tongue along her teeth. This hadn’t been the first time that she had allowed her tight grip on her emotions to slip. Normally this wasn’t necessary, as she had few concerns plaguing her mind and thus, usually allowed her glands to announce her mood. Chrysalis had recently found herself carefully keeping her emotions in check lately. After all, a worried queen was a worried hive.

“I’m...” She swallowed. “I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing here.”

Petiole’s widened eyes seemed superfluous with the amount of surprise that he radiated. “Mo‒ my Queen?”

“It’s true,” Chrysalis said with a remorseful tone. “This has been very trying, Petiole.” Her eyes returned to the three burgeoning cocoons. “For most of the challenges that I have faced in my long life, I have had experience to assist me. Failing that, I had my instincts to fall back on.”

She waved a hoof to the cocoons before her. “I’ve done as experience has taught me and followed my intuition, and yet I have no idea how these three will emerge.” Chrysalis focused her gaze once more on the small male. “Have I been wrong to do as I have done countless times before?”

In the darkness of the brooding chamber, his white pupils seemed to almost glow, darting every which way. Petiole may have been an alpha nursing drone, but he was still only a drone. It had been he who summoned Chrysalis for insight whenever he was at a loss when dealing with these particular siblings, not the other way around. What could his comparatively miniscule experience teach that his own mother didn’t already know?

“Er, I’m not one with the answer, mother,” he began slowly, rubbing at his chin. “But I do not think that you were wrong.”

Chrysalis wanted to sigh: despite the smells that he was emitting, Chrysalis admired the rather convincing front that Petiole put up. Unlike him, she made sure not to let her true feelings be so evident.

Instead, she allowed herself a smile. “Thank you, Petiole.”

His respectful bow came by far more naturally than his prior response. “I aim to only help, my Queen.”

The changeling queen’s gaze shifted back to the near-still cocoons. Two days, she told herself. Two days and then I’ll understand them better.

Hopefully there wouldn’t be anymore unexpected emotional bouts prior to their emergence.

As Monty woke, he immediately knew that something had changed. It wasn’t how his body had grown or developed in his sleep (though his limbs did feel a bit longer now), but something else.

There! He just felt movement somewhere nearby. Was that the womb shifting about? He hadn’t noticed it before, so Monty moved a limb to—

The surprise was such that he barely noticed his brows shoot up. He could move! He could finally move!

With much gusto, Monty explored his body’s articulations and quickly came to realise just how different everything was from what he had been used to.

Of immediate note was the skin, or rather, the smooth and inflexible material acting as skin. It was soft to the touch, but it was far less elastic than what he recalled of his own skin. There were hard greaves in certain spots (like at the base of his enlarged neck and at the joints) that made each patch seem like different segments of skin, much like plated armor.

The next thing Monty realised was that one of his early suspicions was correct: he did lack fingers after all. Or rather, he only had something that felt like a single big toe stuck on a wrist-like structure. A quick flick of his legs told him that it was a similar situation with where there had once been feet.

The fact that his fingers and toes had all fused into single digits on each limb was disconcerting enough, but running the stubby digit along the ends of his arms and legs, Monty was horrified to find them riddled with holes and pits. He couldn’t see them to confirm it visually, but they almost felt like the flesh and skin had been eaten away. But that didn’t make sense; he would have felt the pain if that were the case—he should have.

...right?

A thought occurred to him. Monty extended his right arm as far as he could, eventually pushing out against the womb or sac, finding that he didn’t have much room in there and that the walls were surprisingly elastic. Once stretched to its maximum, he swung the big toe right against his chest.

He got a mouthful of fluid as his jaw dropped reflexively, in addition to some minor twitches along his body, as pain spiked from the point of impact. Damn, that smarts!

At least Monty confirmed a few things with that questionable test: first, he could very much feel pain; second, the toe end was very, very hard, and was probably deadlier than a fist; lastly, the amniotic fluid didn’t taste half bad.

That led him to another thought, one bit of trivia that had stuck with him for many months after reading about it when Charlotte was pregnant with Ruth.

...wait, did I just taste my own piss?

A part of him, the logical part, decided that it couldn’t have been the case, as he didn’t recall ever relieving himself at any point. A decidedly larger and concerned part wondered if it had been possible for him to wet himself while asleep.

Despite vehemently repeating to himself the risks of attempting to breathe while submerged, it took all of Monty’s will not to gag.

Desperate to take his mind off of the possibility that he had just gotten a taste of his refuse, he continued to get a feel for his body, this time focusing to feel out his head.

Another one of Monty’s early guesses regarding his ears proved to have been correct. They were higher up, right at the cusp where the sides of his head curved into the top of his head. Oddly enough, their structure seemed to resemble more of a tube with a somewhat wide opening. He noticed that they were far more mobile than the seashell-like design that was intimately more familiar, twitching at every hint of a sound beyond his containment.

The growth on the forehead turned out to be a rather sensitive horn curving skywards, sharp as a thorn. Whereas lower down, gingerly touching what Monty was fairly certain were his eyelids, he found that his eyes were absurdly large, though their shape at least felt very human.

What really got to him though was the snout. It was a tiny thing, barely sticking out from the very rotund head, but it had a sharp upturned structure (my nose?) and his mouth ran along the muzzle. Of all of the weird things that were different from his previous body, Monty was mostly fixated on the facial protrusion. Would it be consistently within his field of view, or would it go by unnoticed as his human nose did?

In fact…

Part of him outright rejected the idea that had just then cropped up. He had already gotten urine in his mouth, why should his own eyes get the same treatment? Just because human babies in the womb did occasionally open their eyes, it didn’t mean that he could too. In fact, like human fetuses, Monty would probably see nothing. Were his new eyes even capable of seeing in the darkness of the womb?

No harm in trying, right?

Eventually curiosity won out and Monty willed his eyes to open.

A world of dark greens and blues greeted his vision for the first time. Completely ignoring the pointed shape present at the bottom of his sight, he took in the surprising view before him. He was encased in some sort of green sac or semi-transparent fleshy membrane.

Well, there went the possibility that he was in a womb.

The first word that came to mind was ‘egg’, soon followed by ‘xenomorph egg’. That comparison made little sense, Monty eventually decided. The iconic eggs from the movie series were opaque and leathery things, whereas here, he could see beyond the boundaries of the egg, spotting dark shapes through the walls.

Excitement surged through him as he recognised two of the smaller shapes to be of a similar size to his own egg. His two companions!

Possibly waking only now, Monty’s emotional probing was slow to earn a response from two of them—the third presence, possibly the third dark, unclear shape, replied with a wave of empathetic pleasure. Soon enough, the initial confusion from his companions turned to an excitement palpably similar to his.

Before long though, the excitement from one of them turned into something altogether unexpected:

Dogged determination.

Monty felt confused along with his second companion, whereas the third other presence felt excited themselves. Soon enough, they had left the vicinity. Where did they go?

Then the other companion grew determined as well. Monty found himself at a loss. Every time he probed the others, he was rebuffed with the same conviction to accomplish something. The chief question that presented itself here was simply ‘why?’

Suddenly, there was something that surpassed every curiosity, want and need. Something very basic, yet very powerful, came from deep within Monty’s self. A single directive that outweighed any other, and a single command:

Escape.
Escape.
Escape.

Driven by that instinctual call, Monty felt momentarily at a loss. He had tested his boundaries by pushing against the placental wall with his limbs, and while it was flexible, it seemed rather resistant to brute force. With this, he wondered what he could possibly do.

That was when he realised that he was approaching the wall with his maw extended to its very limit.

Whatever surprise he had felt that his body was acting on its own accord, and whatever disgust that had surged again because he had let amniotic fluid inside his mouth once more, simply didn’t matter. He had a job to do, and he would do it.

He bit into the wall and began to cut.

“Quickly, mother!” Moxa cried out excitedly. “They’ll be done emerging by the time we get there at this pace!”

Chrysalis kept close to the beta worker, though her pace remained constant. Just from the playful tone alone she knew that Moxa was exaggerating the urgency, and had allowed herself to simply join in her daughter’s enthusiasm. Her giddiness lingered as an olfactory trail for others to follow, and, soon enough, Moxa and Chrysalis were joined by other workers and drones from nearby nursing chambers.

Part of the Queen hoped that those following her had best not be busy with their charges, but she ultimately couldn’t bring herself to chastise them for this lapse of responsibility; this was to be a once-in-a lifetime event for them, after all.

Smiling widely for all to see, the smell and watchword for the day was clear: triumph. Or, more specifically, Chrysalis’s triumph. It was expected for a changeling queen to match her mother’s own achievements, and it was safe to say that Chrysalis had managed just that.

Oh, how mother would beam if she could see me now.

Her self-congratulatory thoughts faded as she entered the chamber that had housed her three prized children. A small group of two beta nurses and an alpha nurse was already present, intently and eagerly watching their assignments with keen eyes, ready to intervene if anything went wrong. The Alpha, Petiole, was the first to take notice of the new arrivals.

“My Queen, you’re just in time,” he said with a grin. “They’ve been hard at work cutting the silk, and this one here”—Petiole pointed to the cocoon shaking the most—“has almost emerged!”

Pride once more swelled within the changeling Queen. No matter how many times she witnessed her children emerging out of their shells into the world for the first time as nymphs, it never failed to make her happy. Only now, as the chamber filled with onlookers and eager nurses, did Chrysalis see just how lucky she had been in her life. Throughout her trials and tribulations, this was among the few things that brought her true joy, the same that she was now sharing with all of her present children.

Patiently and silently, she watched over the cocoon indicated by the drone, smelling the intimate determination of the soon-to-be nymph. The Queen gave her own wordless encouragements among those offered by the nearby nurses. “You are so close,” she whispered.

The changeling within was finally rewarded for their effort as they gave a final push and stumbled out of the cocoon with a small flood of fluids.

It turned out to be a drone. Though ghastly pale and miniscule, there was no mistaking this particular drone with any other. That blue marking from his days as a mere larva was still there, just in between his wings. That would fade in time, to be replaced with the sheen of blackened chitin, if it was anything like it had been with Chrysalis.

Before she could fantasise about the little drone’s future, Chrysalis had to make sure that the nymph would complete his emergence without issue. Following an unspoken command, two nurses approached the writhing changeling and stood by just in case. He would start breathing soon enough.

And with the first gasps of air, the drone finally got a taste of the Hive’s plethora of smells. He coughed up some fluid that remained in his mouth, but he otherwise appeared healthy. So far, the little drone’s emergence had been nominal.

One of the nurses moved in to antiseptically coat the drone with her saliva. The nymph recoiled at the contact; he still had not opened his eyes, and likely had no idea what was happening.

Pouring out as much reassurance as she could, Chrysalis spoke. “Come, little Farris. Pry your eyes open, so you may see your home and family.”

The newly-dubbed changeling had been shaking since he had emerged, but his trembling ceased almost immediately upon hearing his mother’s voice. His earlier confusion that had followed his emergence only intensified, and had almost completely rebuffed the love offered by everyone present.

Before Chrysalis could wonder why that was, Farris’s brow furrowed and shot up along with his eyelids, revealing beautiful emerald green eyes: far more exotic than the typical teal or blue in most changelings.

But instead of curiosity or joy, there was a sense of disbelief and terror within those eyes.

Farris opened his mouth not to chirp like any other nymph, but to outright shout three alien words:

“¡¿Qué coño eres?!”

There—he heard another voice, but this time Monty could at least recognise the language. Bad as he was with languages, he could at least tell when someone was speaking Spanish.

Why anyone here would be speaking Spanish was a worthwhile question to ponder, but completely irrelevant to the current circumstances. His companion’s voice was fraught with fear, and the accompanying emotions redoubled Monty’s efforts.

Instincts formed by years of training and experience woke up, and a new objective secondary to that of escaping his containment made itself evident. Monty would come to the aid of his companion, regardless of the consequences.

Despite having his attention focused elsewhere, he still had noticed certain things that were odd.

First was the greatly increased number of presences that had come in. Monty recognised some of them as previous entities that had overseen his ‘conversations’, some who had even participated in them. There also was his new biological mother, who possibly set off his companion’s current distress, but Monty was somehow expecting her.

What was of more concern were the newcomers; there were so many! It was difficult for Monty to separate the influx of emotions from multiple individuals, but he counted at the very least ten people in the immediate vicinity, not including him, his two companions or his mother.

Monty would have thanked his lucky stars that he wasn’t troubled by large crowds, but he really didn't care about that right then; someone needed help.

As he kept slicing away at the increasingly malleable egg, among the number of perplexed and frightened emotions, Monty felt his second companion grow confused as well, soon joining their Spanish speaking friend’s anxiety.

Funnily enough however, while the latter's fear was typical of a panicked person, the former’s was far more restrained: they hadn’t screamed or so much as let out a startled gasp. Among the chaotic chirps and, presumably, highly vulgar Spanish expletives, Monty’s second companion was unnervingly quiet.

Images of people frozen in burning rooms, numbed by fear, formed imperfectly in Monty’s mind; even though he couldn't see, he had no trouble picturing what he had seen so many times before. Such a response wasn't common, but far from being unusual or unfamiliar to him.

Part of Monty worried: another person to assist. Would he be able to help both of his companions with the current circumstances?

Escape, the instinct insisted. The others don't matter.

Before Monty could even formulate a counterargument, his efforts were suddenly and unexpectedly rewarded as the egg wall peeled open, allowing for gravity to punish him.

Many things happened at once asides from the obvious.

The first was the sudden explosion of sounds—everything had gotten much clearer and louder. The chirps, the hisses, the string of Spanish, momentarily ceased only to start up with gusto, to the point that Monty’s ears automatically tried to flatten against his skull. The Spanish was particularly harsh in volume and...

He would have furrowed his brow were he not already doing so from hitting the gravelly ground. Were there two people speaking the exact same words at the same time?

The next thing that Monty was aware of was the hurried approach of two people who promptly began to—

They were licking him! These two definitely-not-dogs-but-people were licking him with their long and thin tongues and leaving spit and slobber all over and oh God stop stop stop!

Monty clumsily scrambled away from the tongues, thrashing his limbs uselessly and finally forced open his eyes to understand just what was going on.

When he did, he immediately regretted it.

The place wasn't a room. It was dark, claustrophobic and humid, probably a tunnel that had been dug manually or a cavern. Filled with beings that were not people.

Bugs. Large charcoal-black forms with nearly luminescent, arctic blue pupiless eyes staring and darting this way and that. Wings on their backs buzzed maliciously and their long jutting canines held a cruel sheen. This was a scene taken straight from an insectophobe’s worst nightmare, and was now Monty’s reality.

Heart racing and limbs quivering, he made to yell, but found that something was keeping him from doing so. In fact, his chest was burning up. Why couldn't he…?

Monty took notice of something that he really should have realised as soon he had cut open the egg: he wasn't breathing. After so long of not requiring air, it had simply not occurred to him.

Fortunately for Monty, the mechanism was functionally similar to what he was used to before, and after a moment of struggle he willed his lungs to work and took in a big gulp of air. Part of him noticed the plethora of smells that came with that breath, but he really had one concern in mind.

Taking a few more breaths to get his new lungs to function properly, Monty inhaled deeply and screamed with two voices that did not belong to him.

“What the fuck is happening?!”

His outburst and string of repeated cursing that followed it were immediately picked up. The Spanish stopped entirely, and what few of those glowing eyes that were focused elsewhere were now solely fixed upon him. Emotions that were not his billowed out and flowed to him, most of them originating from the monstrously large insect creatures, and they were…

Caring and loving? The hell? Weren't these things about to attack him? With such terrible features, how were they capable of such empathy?

Still breathing rapidly, Monty’s fear abated somewhat, enough for him to take another once over of the creatures. Somehow, those fangs weren't as threatening as before, neither were the eyes. If anything, the almond shapes radiated a warmth that simply wasn't there before, and appeared… right. Even the buzzing wings just seemed to fit with everything else that was going on.

“You!”

Turning perhaps a bit too fast for his body, Monty looked for the one who had spoken with the odd accent. On his left were four more of those insect things standing over two pathetic-looking pale forms. They were petite and the wrong color when compared to all of the others, but there was no mistaking it: these were the same creatures, with the same small horn, four scarred legs, tube-like ears, and solid eyes, just on a smaller scale and different coloration.

Somehow, Monty recognised these creatures, not by their name, but by their emotional ‘fingerprint’: his companions.

He had lost track of them in the confusion following his escape.

Only one of them, the one with green eyes, was the focus attention of the insects including the other companion. For its part, the little white thing began to move towards him, only to stumble and fall forwards. A new wave of concern crashed upon Monty as the two large insects besides the smaller one closed in to assist, their solid eyes going wide.

Had Monty the time, he would have been more amazed by just how much emotion those faces could show. Right then however, his attention was on the small creature that was struggling to get on its feet. It lashed a limb at one of its larger kin, almost as if it was refusing the help provided.

Once it had managed to bring its muzzle to his level, it spoke again.

“You, do you spea– do you understand me?”

Monty felt his eyes widen. The voice had an odd quality to it, sounding as if two people were speaking perfectly in sync with one another, only breaking the illusion due to one of them being about an octave higher in pitch and reverberating as if it was faintly echoing. The end result was something that would pass as an alien or demon voice on a budget show on the Syfy channel.

Monty nodded dumbly at the decidedly male companion. This is too fucking surreal.

The companion worked his fanged jaw, either failing to speak or because he didn’t couldn’t quite get it working right. After a third false start, he shifted his eyes (exactly how, Monty couldn’t tell) to the second, silent companion with the peach-colored eyes.

He again raised a forward limb and pointed. “C-can you understand?” he shakily asked in his strong accent.

Whatever the response was, it was overshadowed by the approach of a massive presence. Their mute companion was the one to first notice it and grow deathly still. Following its gaze, both Monty and the speaker turned to face the oncoming creature.

It was far too large: larger than the ‘adult’ insects, it stood towering over everything in the chamber. Monty’s eyes followed the scarred and chewed up limbs, up along the lean articulations and to its center of mass. From its sides sprouted two tattered, see-through wings, splayed open, looking absurdly tiny in comparison to the rest of the body. Where middle school biology had taught him to expect to see a head, he found none; there was instead a vertical and slender neck. Its height seemed superfluous, and, from where Monty stood, it seemed to go all the way to the ceiling.

Of course it didn’t, and it ended well before with a head affixed on the top of it. However, when he finally set his eyes on the head, Monty was stilled into silence.

The eyes were what caught his immediate attention. They seemed far too large for the head, like those of the other insects, but that was where the similarities ended. They each had a vertically slitted pupil, encased in what were two different irises, similarly colored in green hues. Above them was some sort of oily and matted material that Monty was reluctant to call hair, even though the stringy strands were long, and formed a veil not unlike that of human hair. Sprouting underneath it was a jagged, black horn that almost resembled the shape of a lightning bolt striking upwards.

As those predatorial eyes took him in, the pupils dilated enough to swallow up the inner iris, and the creature finally opened up its fanged maw.

Monty hadn’t taken too much notice of the snout, as it was similarly pronounced to the smaller insectoids but with smaller fangs. Now that he could see all of its many, many teeth, Monty could fully appreciate the old adage of size not always mattering.

Some part of him immediately recognised both the creature and its action. It was his biological mother, offering a forced grin. Monty didn’t know how he knew that, but the larger, more concerned part of him didn’t care about that, nor did it care about the palpable love that was practically dripping from her very being.

He was scared shitless.

And judging by the renewed wave of terror radiating from his two companions, Monty wasn’t alone with a low opinion of he– it. Dirt scratched against him as he tried to skitter away from the terrifyingly large quadruped.

The grin fell and the pupils became cat-like once more. It emanated a series of chirps that denoted pain, reinforced by the accompanying emotion.

Monty’s heart hitched in his throat; the sound wasn’t physically painful, but it made every fibre of his being cry out in want. Something within him wanted to move in to offer the large creature a comfort that could only be given with a hug.

But Monty wouldn’t have any of that. He forced himself to continue his retreat.

That decision hadn’t gone by unnoticed by the large being, as its brow creased in a startingly human manner that just screamed sad. Again it let out the same forlorn chirps, and again, Monty’s body threatened to rebel against him. This time, it was a struggle for him to keep backing away from her.

The creature stared back with a slack jaw. Monty momentarily paused, this time almost compelled to stop and observe, although he was still mostly concerned abo—

A sickly green glow lit up the chamber. It was faint, but the light was evident from the horn of the insect before him. The soft gleam was somehow warm and inviting. He couldn't bring himself to look away from it, even though Monty belatedly noticed that he was losing himself. His vision narrowed and slowly darkened, always focusing on the light until an afterimage replaced it when his heavy eyes closed.

Despite everything that had happened, even as he wondered what was happening to him, Monty was at peace when he gave into unconsciousness.

Chrysalis’s horn shimmered as she closed the spell, but everything was still as strikingly clear when the nursing chamber had been illuminated. The three little nymphs, her little nymphs, now rested peacefully.

She let out a shuddering breath. What happened?

When Farris had begun blabbering in his utterly alien language, all of Tartarus had broken loose, and a practiced ritual had fallen into chaos. He was so afraid, so terrified, so… mature. His distress, the weird language: they were all completely unbefitting of a recently emerged nymph. No nymph had ever spoken anything more intelligible than a chirp or a hiss. Granted, Farris was special, but…

Then the worker had emerged, and while she was (thankfully) quiet, her emotional state was perhaps in a worse state than Farris’s. The terror had taken hold over her, and Chrysalis could sense the unhealthy speed at which the little one’s heart was beating at. That had prompted two nurses to assist their young sibling, trying to salvage the rite, at least in part. Their cleansing only seemed to allow for the fear to tighten its grip on the young worker, quickening her already frenzied pulse.

Then, before Chrysalis could think of something, a second voice tore through the cacophony, and had effectively silenced everything else. The warrior had spoken, but in yet another language. Just how were they speaking already? The worker would have let out a verbal outburst of her own, had she not been petrified from fear, Chrysalis was sure of it.

Hearing the warrior seemed to snap Farris out of his hysterics, and had switched to this new language to question his siblings. The confusion and apprehension was still there, but things seemed to have calmed to the point that even the worker appeared to be responsive.

Chrysalis tried to seize the opportunity, by pouring out as much love as she was physically capable, and showing her pleasant surprise. It wasn’t an entirely genuine attempt, as her mind was still reeling at the unexpected reactions. In retrospect, her smile was perhaps too large and wide, but there was honest intent behind it.

But they all rejected it. Her placating smile; her peace offering; her unyielding love: they were all rebuffed.

At that point, Chrysalis felt an ice-cold claw grip her heart. Her children were afraid of her.

Even her mournful cooing did not work, as both Farris and the warrior stumbled over themselves to get away from her. Left without other options, Chrysalis resorted to a sleeping spell that she only reserved for the most unruly of nymphs, one that she herself deemed to be extreme.

And yet, there she stood, having cast it on new nymphs. What kind of mother would have done such a thing?

“M-mo– mother…”

Chrysalis snapped her head towards Moxa’s voice and faced several shocked visages. She slowly blinked; she had almost forgotten that she wasn’t alone, even though their emotional presence was so thick that their physical presence felt redundant.

She briskly shook herself and rid any weakness from her smells and appearance.

“Petiole,” Chrysalis suddenly called, prompting the Alpha to snap to attention. “Take them to a chamber separate from the main hive,” she said, indicating the three pale forms. “Have a nurse present and ready to feed them at all times until I order you otherwise. No one else has the authority to do so but myself. Am I clear?”

His breath was sharp. “Ah, I-I…”

Chrysalis’s gaze didn't waver. All she did was cock her eyebrow questioningly and punctuate it with the appropriate pheromone.

Eventually Petiole relented with a muted affirmative and relayed the order to the other nurses. After some momentary hesitation, an entourage of them carried their sleeping siblings out of the nursery.

Petiole cast one last glance towards the Queen before leaving. He saw a changeling that had assumed control of the situation, a look that was far more at home on that visage than the bewilderment before it.

Meeting the Alpha's stare, Chrysalis's lips confidently turned upwards in a lopsided smile. This was the Chrysalis that he knew and cherished. Returning it with a smile of his own, the drone exited.

Chrysalis stared intensely at the threshold of the tunnel, almost daring for it to bring someone else in. When she was completely certain that she was truly alone, she took a long and deep breath, and slowly exhaled it.

The second intake wavered almost instantly and her voice cracked. Sobs soon overwhelmed the large changeling, her legs buckling under her own weight, and she collapsed to the ground. Ears folded, she brought up a hoof to stop herself, but she couldn't stifle her tears or her whimpers.

Chrysalis wept for a long time before anyone took notice of her prolonged absence.

Introductions

Stirring herself to consciousness, Karlene’s first impulse was to scowl. She had the nightmare again, and though the details were rapidly slipping from her mind, she had noticed something odd about it. There was something in it this time that seemed to have been caused by the one before it, although she couldn’t recollect it beyond a few vague aspects.

Something about being in a cave, while being watched and… was she even paralyzed in that particular instance? By that point, Karlene couldn’t recall much of the usual nightmare either.

Resigned to no other alternative, she tried to shift her body to get a better position. There was something irritating her side; perhaps the egg had changed? For some—

Karlene stopped herself, suddenly very alert.

She was breathing.

Memories then flashed before her mind’s eye: her birth; the dark cavern; the dozens of glowing eyes; the black insectoids; the fangs… that had all been real!

With her breaths growing short and shallow, she gingerly opened her eyes to see that she was, as she feared, in a cavernous chamber. The humidity felt heavy all of a sudden, and the air was thick with the ‘emotions’ that she had grown used to, though they were muted compared to all of the other times. Scanning her surroundings, Karlene spotted two of the small insectoids —her companions— peacefully sleeping by her side.

They were different, however. Their pale coloration had darkened to a gray tone, like ash, and no longer appeared to be the frail things as they had before. She was about to look down to see if her own body had grown dark as well, when one of the ‘emotions’ flared to life.

A sound followed it. Karlene would have almost called it a chirp of some sort if it weren’t for the reverberation that made it resemble more like a trill. She had heard a similar sound before, and that meant…

There was one of the larger insects, sitting like a dog would, a short distance from them. Its eyes stared unblinking, and the fanged jaw was fixed in such a way that part of her recognized it as hopeful.

Karlene stilled; the rising sense of anxiety that she had lately been experiencing had formed a lump in her throat. Her mind drew a blank as it had before, and she dumbly stood there, her eyes locked with the creature’s own.

For its part, the insect’s brows knitted in such a way that, in combination with its mouth movements, appeared to be apologetic. Or was it the ‘emotion’ that it emanated? Either way, it had also brought up a forward limb in a placating manner, not dissimilar to how a person would have done it with a hand.

Her senses returned, if reluctantly, and Karlene did eventually feel the lump in her throat disappear. Still, she eyed the being with a healthy amount of caution. Apparently sensing this, it put on a small smile. Just how an insect had the mechanical capacity to form such a smile was beyond Karlene, especially when she considered the chitinous structure of the face.

As she watched, she noticed that its eyes weren't entirely featureless. Yes, they were a solid blue, but looking closely, she saw a whitish discoloration that seemed to move independently from what little light there was. Whenever Karlene felt that its eyes focused on her, that discoloration also seemed to follow her. It behaved just like a pupil, so perhaps that's what it was? If her own eyes were the same, that would explain why her vision wasn't a kaleidoscopic mess as it ought to have been if they were compound eyes, if she recalled her middle school biology correctly.

The creature then pointed with the same scarred limb —A paw? Or is it something else? How can it function with so many missing chunks of flesh?— to four items that were arranged in front of it. These were crudely shaped bowls made out of some rocky material, each filled to the brim: three of them with water, while the fourth contained what almost looked like opaque marbles.

A low grumble from within Karlene’s midsection cleared up any doubts as to what she was looking at. Even if she herself didn’t know what they were, her body knew when it saw food. The pang of hunger tempted her to approach, but she still warily watched the creature. It seemed genuinely interested in her wellbeing, but her apprehension proved difficult to shake off.

The insectoid’s ears wilted somewhat at Karlene’s suspicion, but it sought to make its intentions clear. It dug its paw-thing into the small mound of food, and lifted one right at the cusp of its limb, displaying both the single glass-like pellet and its own impressive dexterity. In one swift motion, it brought the piece up to its mouth and lobbed it straight into the open maw, much like one did with a single piece of popcorn.

As it munched on the food, the creature let out a satisfied hum, rubbing one of its paw-things below the chest in a circular motion.

Karlene’s wary gaze turned into one of disbelief. She had guessed that there was a higher intelligence in the insects, as they had displayed signs that were indicative of it, but this… this was absurdly human-like. What other animal performed such a gesture?

Once it had finished its charade, it looked on with a new smile and chittered something in its alien tone. Again, Karlene’s body clearly had the advantage in recognising the insect’s behavior, as she once more felt compelled to trust its apparent intentions.

Biting back her reservations, she struggled with her limbs to draw herself closer to the bowls. As she moved, Karlene caught glimpses of dark grays on her body. Same color as the other two, she noted.

Once she had a good view of the bowls, Karlene felt her long, serpentine tongue run along her teeth. She probably would have recoiled at the alien sensation, but her thirst and hunger made it rather easy to pay little notice to that. She first went for the water, being the more familiar sustenance that she was used to. After a momentary quandary on whether or not her new lips would allow for easy drinking, Karlene was greedily lapping up any stray droplets from her snout soon after.

Then came the food, which had brought about some hesitation. There was the question as to just how much she was allowed to have, as she understood that this was supposed to be shared. Seeing this, the creature nodded —it actually nodded its head!— apparently understanding her concern.

A familiar green glow encased its horn, and one of the marble pieces began to glow as well and—

Karlene’s eyes widened at the sight. The little bit of food had lifted itself from the pile, always radiating that green aura, and lazily floated towards her.

Her hunger temporarily forgotten, she merely watched in fascination as the pellet came to her and stopped just in front of her face. Tearing her eyes away from it for just a moment, Karlene looked to the insect for some sort of approval. She took the slight tilt of its head as such, and she clamped her mouth shut around the food.

Whatever structure that it had immediately melted upon coming into contact with her tongue. It was remarkably similar to crystallized honey in substance, and was possibly just as sugary. Its flavor was far closer to some kind of berry, though Karlene couldn’t come up with a close analogue asides from perhaps raspberry.

It was delicious.

As the exterior came apart, the harder core required her to finally put her teeth to use. The molars were farther back than she had expected, but grinding the food was thankfully both straightforward and incredibly satisfying. With a particularly loud crunch, she was rewarded with the near-liquid contents, and where the previous taste was somewhat close to raspberry, this felt like a mixture of different berries; Karlene thought that she recognized blueberry somewhere in there.

She lolled the food all around her mouth with her dexterous tongue, enjoying every moment of it. Soon enough though, it was all gone. Now that she had gotten a taste, Karlene couldn’t hold back her body’s impulse:

More.

Sclerite was pleased with herself: she had managed to get through her little sister’s unease and had gotten her to eat and drink up. Of course the apprehension was still there, but at least she was willing to move, unlike during the… incident a few hours back. Sclerite was perfectly happy with any progress, no matter how small it was.

It was clear that their mother had made the right call by limiting the number of faces that the little ones saw. Odd as it was, agoraphobia was the right diagnosis, at least when it came to this worker. The little bit of coaxing had managed to get her out of the comfort zone, and she now seemed comfortable with Sclerite’s presence.

Using the opportunity to get a bit closer, she offered another pellet to her sister. Like before, the little nymph was far more interested in the food than she was in the nurse. By the time that she was wolfing down on it, Sclerite had settled herself by her side. A part of her was almost hurt by the fact that the nymph wasn’t paying attention to her, but she knew how nymphs could be when they were hungry.

She glanced to the two clutchmates behind them. Sclerite wondered when they would finally wake up. Keeping the food dehydrated enough for consumption was a chore, and if the other two siblings were going to wake later, they’d be even hungrier which mea—

Sclerite’s ears twitched to the sound of clattering, and when she turned to look she found the little worker trying to get inside of the food bowl.

“Ah-ah– hey!” Sclerite immediately lifted the nymph with her magic to separate her from the bowl. This was exactly what she was afraid of. Turning her in midair so that they were eye-level with one another, the nurse brought up a reprimanding hoof. “No,” she said with a firm voice, “you don’t play with your food.”

The nurse readied herself for a confrontation from the nymph. Even workers tended to react badly when their food was taken from them.

The nymph barely moved, and that anxiety from before had begun to radiate in waves once more.

Sclerite’s features softened at once; she hadn’t expected this response, at least, not at first. Had she perhaps exaggerated with her authoritative pheromones? Regardless, the nurse mended her mistake by first setting her sister down and then switched to friendlier smells, offering a consoling smile all the while.

Sclerite lifted another pellet. “Oh come on, sister. You can eat these, but you need to pace yourself.” She playfully cocked her eyebrow. “Understood?”

The little worker still barely moved, but at least she didn’t reek as much of fear as before. Nymph steps, Sclerite reminded herself. Nymph steps.

“Alright then.” She hoofed the pellet over to the nymph and watched it get gobbled up with a little more restraint. “See?” she asked when her little sister finished. “Was that so bad? Here,”—Sclerite picked another bit of food—“have some more.”

The supervised feeding continued for some time, with Sclerite praising the worker everytime she behaved, which, pleasantly enough, was very often; that had left Sclerite both surprised and pleased. When they had gotten to the tenth pellet, Sclerite noticed her other two siblings finally stirring. The one who had rose up first was Farris, slowly blinking away the sleep with heavy eyes.

“Hello there, sleepyheads,” the nurse said with a smile. She beckoned both him and the warrior over with a hoof and an inviting smell. “Lunch is ready.”

And then Farris began to speak.

Karlene tore herself from her food when the Spanish had started up again. Turning to look behind her shoulder, she saw both of her companions awake, the one with green eyes loosening a torrent of Spanish. His breakneck speed was far too fast for her to catch the meaning beyond those of a few words, of which she had definitely heard ‘where’, ‘why’ and ‘who’.

The impromptu refresher on her high school Spanish stopped when he switched over to an accented English.

“Do you…” His eyes narrowed at Karlene’s caretaker by her side. Looking directly at it, he spoke once more in Spanish, but at a slower pace.

“¿Me entiendes?” he asked it. Karlene stayed quiet despite understanding the question. Judging by the creature’s blank stare, it hadn't.

Her companion pouted before switching to another language. “Est-ce que vous me comprenez?”

This time, the purple-eyed companion joined the large insect by dumbfoundedly gazing at their companion. This time, Karlene spoke up.

“Yes. Un peu.”

Despite her voice being utterly unfamiliar to her ears, Green’s lips and ears twitched upwards. “Canadian?” he asked.

“American,” she said with a shake of her head, smiling genuinely all the while. Finally: something that was familiar in this strange world, even though it had come in an unexpected form.

He let out a snort. “Obviamente,” he muttered. He began to speak before he was cut off by a third voice.

“You too?” asked the other companion, carrying a subtle Western accent.

Karlene took in the person before her. Unlike with the other companion, she couldn’t quite tell if they were male or female; their voice, much like Karlene’s and the Spaniard’s, were child-like in pitch, with the latter’s being deep enough to distinguish as male.

She promptly found the current situation absurd. There she was, trying to understand if one of the creatures that sounded American was a male or a female, while Karlene herself wasn’t entirely certain of her own body’s sex, or even if it had one.

Putting aside all of her doubts and concerns, she took a deep breath. “I’m from Stafford, Virginia. How about you two?”

Green answered first. “Barcelona,” he said, before hastily adding, “Spain.”

Purple looked at Karlene with a cocked eyebrow. “Huh, no kidding? I’m from the good ol’ DMV.” They smiled. “This shit’s just getting weirder and weirder.”

Green gave them an odd look, but said nothing of it. He instead turned his gaze on the caretaker. “You, do you understand us?”

Blue merely blinked, its expression surprisingly easy to read along with the confused air about it. It then chittered something that none of them understood, and forced out a smile; it wasn’t very convincing.

Green grumbled something that Karlene didn’t quite catch, only for his stomach to protest as well. Both he and Purple then finally took notice of the bowls.

“That’s food,” Karlene provided while pointing to the small collection of pellets. “It’s like honey, but with a weird berry mix taste.”

The insect seemed to pick up on her meaning and, when both of her companions hesitantly (yet hungrily) approached, it brought up two of the edible marbles for them. Having done so in its physics-defying way, the two companions stared.

“That’s not possible,” Purple said immediately.

Green uttered a breath that almost sounded like a whispered ‘pero’, though Karlene wasn’t entirely sure. With a bit of a huff, she said, “I’m sure that what we’d normally call possible has stopped being relevant since I woke up in that egg.”

Purple kept their suspicious glare on the pellet, though Karlene did spot their tongue quickly wet their lips.

“And ah…” Purple turned to face her, occasionally glancing at the creature’s glowing horn. “It’s safe to eat?”

“I ate eight or nine of those,” Karlene replied automatically. “I’m not suffering from anything at the moment, although the lack of symptoms doesn’t rule out food poisoning or anything similar.” Her eyes met Blue’s. “Though I don’t think that it’d try to poison us.”

Purple cocked an eyebrow. “That’s a concise answer.”

They’d meant it as a joke, but Karlene noticed how she had reverted to her training to calmly provide the answer. The fact that she wasn’t making more of a fuss out of, well, everything, was itching at her mind. And now that she thought about it, wouldn’t the others, if they were humans like she was before all of this, be panicking over everything that had happened? How had they all skipped multiple steps of grief?

Her memory of being mute, blind, deaf, and bodiless flashed in her mind. Noting the long period of denial and pleading that she went through, that image had instantly put paid to that line of questions. It wasn’t a satisfactory answer, but Karlene didn’t have the luxury to think of a better one right then.

Lips thinning, she insisted: “They’re safe.”

Taking her word for it, her fellow possibly-former-humans went for the floating food. Their eyes shot open in ecstasy once they started eating.

“This is delicious,” Purple said with a pleasured hum. Green didn’t say anything; he merely continued eating and looked at their caretaker with expectant eyes once finished.

Blue didn’t seem to take offense at his exigency; it simply continued to offer the food, sharing it between the three of them. This went on for some time, without anyone speaking a word. Only the sound of grinding teeth and crunching marble-food was evident throughout.

Karlene ate her meal slowly. Compared to the others, her pace was almost lethargic, though she paid it little mind. When Green decided to take a gulp of water, Purple followed suit and so too did Karlene. During this water break, as she and Green were lapping up their snouts, Purple looked to the two of them.

“Since we’re ah, probably gonna be stuck together for now,” they began, rubbing their chin with a paw-thing, “do you have names?”

Both Karlene and Green looked to their companion. Purple continued, “I mean, I’m still not sure whether or not this is one hell of a fever dream and you’re just figments of my imagination, but I’d like to know.”

Karlene scrunched up her face at them. “We’re definitely real,” she immediately said, “and there’s no way that this is some sort of dream.”

Purple regarded her with a cocked eyebrow. Eventually, in a mutter, they finally said, “That doesn’t answer my question.”

Before Karlene could snap at them with something vulgar, Green interjected. “Marciano.” After a moment, he added, “Marciano Cristobal Zacarías Vargas.”

Deciding not to let her irritation to stew, she relented and gave her name.

“Pender, huh?” A thoughtful look came upon Purple. “Your name isn’t new to me…”

Karlene suppressed a groan. “It might help if you gave us yours.”

“Montgomery Franklyn Hackett,” they... he provided. “Most people just call me Monty.”

Now that she had heard his name, Karlene felt that she had read it somewhere. It suddenly hit her: “Are you a firefighter?”

Hackett’s eyes narrowed. “Rescue One, Engine House Two, DC,” he replied slowly. “How did you know?”

“I’m an EMT from Gateway International, we did a cross-agency EMS drill with your fire station’s medical personnel and I worked with a paramedic.” She paused for a moment as she tried to recall a name. “Russel?” she said, uncertain.

While he furrowed his brows in thought, Karlene thought that she saw Vargas mouth something, but having been just out of the corner of her eye, she wasn’t certain. “Russel,” she repeated, somewhat more sure. In a huff, she tried to remember details that she could offer: amber eyes… had scruffy brown hair. Or was it black?

Slowly the image of the paramedic formed, and she soon had a face to concentrate on: he had a somewhat tanned and round, clean shaved face, a short and stout nose, and soft amber eyes that complemented his—

Green fire that engulfed Karlene’s vision tore her from her thoughts. A curtain of the fire flashed by and faded just as quickly as it had come. It washed over her so swiftly that it did not even leave the impression of warmth.

Every set of eyes were solely fixed on her. Vargas and Hackett stared in utter disbelief; even Blue’s unblinking eyes were wide, though perhaps with more of a sense of wonder.

Not that Karlene had time to dwell on it. Where had the fire come from? “What ha—”

She had begun to speak, but the reverberation was gone. By all accounts, her voice had become human again, but it had the wrong timbre and frequency: it was deep—male deep.

It sounded exactly like Russel’s voice.

Her dark-gray snout/nose was gone. In its stead was a fleshy pink-white nose that Karlene could spot if she crossed her eyes.

The silence did not last for long. “What th– what the fuck happened?” cried the human-headed insect creature.

Sclerite knew her place in the Hive, just like all of her brothers and sisters knew theirs, and she was a gamma nurse. A respected position, even if every other role was just as integral to the Hive’s function and survival as hers. Regardless, she was well versed in the care of younglings. Egg, larva, cocoon or nymph—she knew all of the possible scenarios involving them and the proper procedures to handle any situation.

Ever since the emergence of these three particular nymphs however, the worker realized that her knowledge and experience only fully applied to normal changelings. After all that had happened since the previous day, it was safe to assume that these nymphs were not ordinary.

With no experience or wisdom to draw from in regards to rearing marked changelings, Sclerite had simply followed her instincts where her prior knowledge failed.

To her credit, asides from the little worker's unusually timid attitude and their (supposedly) incredible grasp of the spoken word, her gut feeling had carried her through the first several minutes alone with them.

It was during this time that Sclerite wished that she had some linguistics or deciphering training, even though such matters were exclusively taught to infiltrators. She had never had the desire to learn them prior to then, and why would she? She was a worker, and a nurse at that; these things were simply not needed in her line of work.

Still, she suspected that she could maybe begin to understand the strange language that the nymphs spoke had Sclerite been trained as an infiltrator. It was a ridiculous thought, but one that was surprisingly compelling.

Alas, circumstances limited her usual options for interaction. She knew that the siblings before her were far more intelligent than they had any right to be by this stage, and yet she had no way of verbally communicating with them.

It was a curious problem, and one that the changeling had no real answer to.

So she fell back upon the tried and tested method of teaching nymphs speech: talk until the nymphs catch on the meaning and repeat her words.

Once Farris had opened his mouth however, none of them seemed interested in Sclerite’s attempts. They either barked —barked! Did they think themselves to be diamond dogs?— to each other in their cockamamy language or focused on eating. The latter was understandable, normal even, but it left few opportunities to use her tactic.

She was considering stepping in when something that wasn’t altogether unexpected occured:

The worker had partially shapeshifted.

Now that, in it of itself, wasn’t something that was unheard of. It was perhaps uncommon, but even at such an early age, all changelings could achieve some level of this. So when Sclerite had seen that ubiquitous emerald ring of fire engulf the small nymph, she wasn’t all too surprised.

She was however surprised when she finally saw the head that remained.

It was mammalian in nature, what with the bare skin and fleshy face that covered most of the head, except for the messy mane of hair on top. It reminded her of a primate’s head that had been squashed and flattened, with a strange nose thing separate from the mouth, jutting out like an unwelcome growth. Its beady little golden eyes were sunken into the skull, and while they did not carry as much emotional weight as larger eyes, the hairy little brows on top of them sufficed in displaying the nymph’s surprise.

She spoke in a decidedly male voice that was clear and distinct, though confused and anxious. Just what was she even supposed to be? Sclerite didn’t recognise the creature whose visage the nymph had adopted.

Her clutchmates froze immediately, watching with growing worry before they too were roused to yelling in their own, distinct tongues. Everything had blown out of control all too quickly. It wasn’t quite the same as an upheaval caused by rowdy behaviour, but it was the closest thing to it. Thus, Sclerite decided to take the appropriate course of action.

The gamma let out a sharp trill to grab the nymphs and stomped a hoof, releasing a smell that was unmistakable: cease.

While the warrior and drone followed her order almost immediately, the worker did not take heed, still stuck in her manic state. Sclerite was almost impressed by just how wide those beady eyes could get, but she had a more pressing matter.

Before she proceeded, a small voice in the nurse cautioned against what was supposed to come next. She knew that Mother loved all of her children, but these three marked ones were her favourite; it was a poorly kept secret by this point, even if no one would say that aloud in Mother's presence. Sacrosanct as younglings were, these three were even more so, and the voice warned of the consequences of mistreating them.

But what other alternative was there? The nymph would risk magical exhaustion if she kept the imperfect form for too long. Sclerite had to defuse the situation, one way or another.

The youngling’s hysterical movements diminished as her body was lifted up once more in mid air. Gently, the strange head was forced to face forwards and to lock eyes with the adult’s own. Sclerite let loose a new chemical signal and spoke with a hard, sharp edge to her voice.

“Calm down.”

It was unsubtle and blunt, something that bordered on abusing one's innate power of suggestion and the vulnerability of a youngling; a recourse for those desperate for results.

Sclerite needed said results.

Mercifully, the worker stilled once more. Unfortunately, it was a stillness bourne from abject terror. Its smell was foul to Sclerite’s nose, but she maintained her glare. Now that she had the nymph’s undivided attention, she modified the pheromones to impress her command upon her sister.

Strange as the youngling was, there would be no mistaking the nurse’s instruction.

At least, that was Sclerite’s hope.

Too much was happening too quickly for Karlene to feel anything that was more tangible than the confusion that persisted. The others only added to the chaos with their own incredulous shouts, forming a horribly mangled mockery of a male trio barbershop group. Her cries and theirs continued until the insectoid made its presence known with a powerful smell that couldn't be ignored.

It spoke in its alien voice, adopting an element of that firmness that it had done earlier while chastising Karlene. She couldn't attach meaning to the sound, but the tone and glare were unmistakable. Even the odor that brought back the debilitating shivers seemed recognizable, though Karlene didn’t realise it at the time.

What she did notice was her body’s lack of responding to her will: it was almost as if there was some other part of her giving conflicting orders, leaving Karlene static. She wanted to understand what had happened and why, but something about Blue’s actions also made her want to sit down, shut up, and pay attention to the big black creature that was staring her down.

Karlene did neither: her joints locked and she trembled like an autumn leaf, her new neck and jaws tense with anticipation.

The noise had died down, and had she been paying attention, she would have felt the eyes of the others on her.

Something changed. It was subtle in the grand scheme of things, but Karlene’s keen senses picked up on it as if it were a warning klaxon. The musk! It had grown even heavier and would likely have been unpleasant to Karlene were she still human.

Her body knew better.

Every fiber of her being relaxed, starting first in her muscles, soon calming her mind. It was as if Karlene had taken a dose of Diazepam without the drowsiness or exhaustion that often accompanied its calming effect.

A warmth had cleared her mind; something within herself willed her to release… well, something else.

Karlene did so, and her world was momentarily consumed by green fire once more. Surprisingly enough, this time it had felt perfectly natural, as if a load had been taken off of her mind.

A quick once over didn't show any of the human features that she had suddenly adopted, and that grey snout that was both out of place and perfectly natural had returned. Letting out a relieved breath, her voice seemed to have regained that doppelganger falsetto as well. Karlene was back to normal.

Or at least, what constituted as normal in this new form.

She began to smile, feeling the warmth spread to her face and chest. When she glanced at Hackett and Vargas, they still had those shocked looks on their chitinous faces.

“Ha,” Karlene said in a long breath, “wha– whadda drip.” Funny, her tongue felt numb.

As if on cue, she felt a new warmth considerably lower down from her chest, spreading like a little rivulet along her right hind leg.

Karlene’s mind immediately sobered up; the warmth in her face flared up in an unpleasant manner that she was accustomed to, once she recognised what exactly was the liquid warmth that was running down her leg.

Her limbs shot like coiled springs in an attempt to cover her embarrassment, only for her to lose her unstable footing and falling face first unto the dirt.

Her nostrils flared as Karlene sent specks of dust flying with a strained snort. She wanted to say ‘fuck me,’ but her tongue and mouth weren’t really responding, so the words came out instead as a long ‘fffffaah-mmm.’

Not one of her better introductions.

Sclerite immediately knew that her plan had worked, and that it had produced the results that she was looking for… and then some.

The little worker nymph lay sprawled on the ground like a ragdoll, wet with her own urine, saying something in her tongue that, even to the nurse’s untrained ears, sounded incorrect.

It was safe to say that Sclerite's command had worked too well, though she told herself that this was temporary and that Mother needn't know of the incident.

As she prepared to lift up her sister with her magic, Sclerite brought one of the bowls of water by her side. She dipped a hoof into the water and proceeded to clean the nymph; this was nothing new to her—nymphs were typically messy changelings, after all.

The aura from the little worker intensified to the point that Sclerite couldn’t ignore it any longer: her sister was embarrassed.

It was also a very adult sort of embarrassment, as if she was fully aware that others had seen her unfortunate incident. Again, Sclerite could only guess at just how intelligent her siblings were, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else besides them being marked behind their intellect. That would be something for the Beta and Alpha nurses to figure out together with the others.

The worker was shaking in her grip. At first Sclerite thought that her charge was resisting, but then she noticed the tears welling up in those rosy eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Sclerite asked innocently, still wiping away at the little one’s shame. “There’s no reason to cry, little sister.”

She knew full well by now that it was the wrong thing to say had the youngling been able to understand her. Still, the nurse had put on a comforting voice and realesed the appropriate smells to try make her sister feel better.

Still the nymph trembled, threatening to cry.

Sclerite finished up her task, and brought the little one close for her to slip a foreleg around her sister. In a hush, she said, “It’s fine. Accidents happen.”

Finally the youngling quieted down, letting out her breath with a shudder, allowing for her elder to continue her soft coos.

It was only then that the other nymphs seemed finally compelled to act. At least, the warrior seemed to do so, clumsily approaching to offer some sympathy along with some words that at least sounded consoling.

Sclerite smiled at the gesture and genuine concern that the warrior held; this was something that she could identify as typical youngling behavior when around clutchmates. Farris’s sat still, keeping an impressively neutral expression and silently taking in the scene. That was a little more concerning in Sclerite’s mind, but she had other things to fret over.

She squeezed the worker a little harder. “It’s all going to be fine.”

The Universal Language

Things had been teetering on the edge of the absurd for far too long for Marciano, and the line had been crossed so many times. It was a wonder how he still retained his sanity. Perhaps he hadn’t come out of that egg mentally sound, but he had calmed down since then; Marciano had even gotten a drink and meal, so he didn’t have to worry about that particular demand.

Then the Pender woman had suddenly gotten the head of a man due to some green fire. Marciano had reacted about as well as one was expected to in such a situation. For God’s sake, how else could he have taken it? It was something beyond human possibility: it was logically impossible! He had lived through a Camusian nightmare, and now this?

The large insect had asserted itself rather quickly and, by means that Marciano didn’t understand, had gotten Pender to revert her form and to piss herself. That poor woman was driven to tears by it, and it acted as if it hadn’t meant it. The cleaning and the hug were a rather convincing act, but Marciano wouldn’t be fooled by it, not like the Montgomery fellow.

He saw those dagger-like fangs; he saw that wicked horn; he saw those alien blue eyes. Such things belonged on a predator. In spite of that terrifying form, both of his companions were seeking reassurance and warmth from such a creature, as if it were their mother!

Americans, Vargas thought disappointedly to himself. So easily swayed.

His observation from the sideline didn’t go unnoticed by the creature, and it seemed to cast a saddened look on him. Marciano’s lips tightened. That kicked-puppy-look wouldn’t work on him; both it and its ilk had done something to his mind and those of the Americans. How else could he explain the conflicting thoughts and instincts that had been warring within him?

He had questions, and he would get answers.

Careful not to let it show, Marciano felt some relief as Pender’s features tightened up, indicating the return of her motor functions. She muttered something under her shaky breath and wiped away her tears. The words went by unnoticed, but her emotions were as clear as day, as were those of both Montgomery and the creature.

Part of Marciano urged him to join in the reconciliatory session, and he suspected that even his former human self longed to do so as well. He did not give in to the temptation: he was fairly sure that the Americans’ reaction was genuine, but he could not trust the creature. If not because of his suspicions of its true intentions, he didn’t partake in this get-together because Marciano wanted to focus on Montgomery’s words.

DC… the capital of the United States. What was it about that almost offhand mention that had since been tugging at his mind?

Marciano’s memories right before his becoming aware in the egg had been hazy, unreachable things. All that he could recall clearly was his arrival at DC with his fellow colleagues of the theatre company. They were there to perform Vegas’s The Steel of Madrid, but…

He ignored the world around him to concentrate; the two Americans were emergency response personnel if he understood correctly. The firefighter in particular itched at Marciano, but he couldn't understand why. There were far too many things that he wasn't able to understand as of late, and Marciano did not like it one bit.

He was about to give up when one memory finally seemed to coalesce: a droning ringing; a look of surprise from Héctor; then the fire and—

“Recuerdo,” Marciano muttered incredulously, almost as if he were out of breath. He looked to Montgomery and approached just as their get-together ended. “Do you remember what happened?” he asked the American. “Before the egg, I mean.”

“Come on, man,” Montgomery said with a groan. “Is this really the time?”

“It is,” Vargas stated resolutely. “Think: where were you before you woke up in the egg?”

The American’s palatinate eyes narrowed and focused on nothing in particular. His jaw drooped slightly as he thought over it. “I don’t—” Montgomery shook his head. “I don’t remember.”

“What’s your last memory?” Vargas asked, inching close enough to reach him.

“I...” Hackett was blinking profusely. “God, it’s all hazy,” he grumbled, working his jaw in frustrated thought. “I remember being in the lounge room of the Engine House with…” There was a momentary pause, and a curious emotion boiled over quickly before it dissipated just as quickly. “With my colleague, yeah,” he finally said. “We were just finishing up after taking a break from a‒ an overdose call I think, but…”

Marciano drew closer to the firefighter. “Were you called for a fire at the Arena Stage?”

Again, Montgomery failed to provide a quick reply and instead stumbled over his words. “I don’t know. Maybe?”

Vargas drew a breath and let it out in a thoughtful hum. The Pender woman had been let down and had come closer to the two of them. “How about you, miss?”

“Missus,” she answered automatically, but her word hung in the air. “And I… I was starting my shift at Gateway. That’s all I remember before it gets fuzzy.”

Marciano mulled over their words: the two were present at their respective stations, last they recalled. Just how much of this was a coincidence?

“I think I know what happened,” he said, loud enough to perk up everyone’s ears, even the large insect’s. He eyed both of the Americans and took a deep breath. “The Arena Stage, DC: I was part of a troupe performing a play at the, uh, Kogold Cradle.”

“The Mead Center?” Karlene asked thoughtfully, having apparently recovered from her earlier embarrassment.

Vargas nodded. “The same.” He spared a moment to glance at the curious gaze of the large insectoid. It fixed its absurdly large eyes upon him, two different seas of blue that shone like the waters of the Mediterranean on a cloudless day. They both called to Marciano, begging him to lower his defences.

Just like the Mediterranean however, he knew that they could turn in an instant and become dangerous to him if he didn’t keep a careful eye on the creature. Mindful of it, Marciano continued.

“We were finishing the first act when the fire alarm rang. I ran out, then…”

Something large and heavy came down upon Marciano, barely missing his head but catching his right leg with a terrible weight. He had screamed himself raw from the fractured leg for some time, and Héctor had to leave him because of the thickening smoke. The last thing he saw was a light that cut through the billowing blackness and a figure that appeared from nothing. It was clad in tan suit with two strips of white retroreflectors, axe in gloved hands and face obscured by the smoke.

Vargas thought he heard an interrogative from the person, but he couldn't make out the words. His response was wracked by a coughing fit before it all went black.

“Then I was trapped by something,” Marciano managed to say, looking expectantly to Franklyn. “A firefighter found me before I lost consciousness.”

Montgomery’s eyes widened. Stuttering, he said, “Wait, you think that I found you?”

Vargas wanted to frown, but he considered the question. There were far too many holes in his logic to call his conclusion as anything beyond coincidence, but something in Marciano was convinced that he was right. They were all here; they must have all been involved in the same thing that had brought them here. Was his hypothesis really that much of a leap in logic with everything considered?

Eventually he nodded. “Si. You or one of your colleagues did.”

“I…” Montgomery draped one of his forelimbs —possibly a hoof?— over his snout and rubbed. “I mean, now that you mention it, I do remember being at the Arena Stage.” The hoof then began to tap the side of his nose. “There was… a body? No, someone trapped under a girder. I remember pushing it off and carrying them out. Made it outside and was heading to a… to a waiting para, but—”

“A flash,” said Pender suddenly, garnering curious looks from both Vargas and Franklyn. “And heat. A lot of heat.”

Her troubled emotions were very telling, and Vargas’s jaw clenched as he considered the implications. Could it have been…?

“An explosion?” Franklyn asked incredulously. “From what? We cut the gas and power before we go in, so unless someone fucked up…” He checked himself, and, with a sigh and another hoof brought to his face, he muttered, “Ah shit, that's exactly what happened, wasn’t it?”

Karlene gazed at the dirt, saying nothing but affirming with her true feelings.

Something within Marciano stirred, and he felt his breath waver momentarily. He had suspected during the hell that he had gone through, but he now had what was essentially a confirmation: he had died, as had the Americans.

It was a strange sensation; it was as if the cold, skeletal hand of Death itself had reached into Vargas’s soul and clenched it for a mere moment, with numbness rolling all over his being. For an instant, both he, Pender, and Franklyn had been ripped out from their mortal coils. The back of his neck burned; he didn’t like thinking about it back in the egg, and he certainly didn’t like to do so now.

But, for whatever reason, the hand had let go. The numbness melted away, and his breathing returned. Marciano had survived. They all had.

For the first time since he had been reincarnated, the man finally cried.

“What now?” Sclerite said in a huff.

Farris had begun to sob after the three had finished their unintelligible conversation. Unintelligible, but Sclerite had managed to follow the tone of it. If she understood correctly, it was the same fretful and macabre tone than one used when discussing death. Yet another instance that her three siblings had an intelligence that belied their age. Why in Hatcher’s name would younglings be talking about death of all things?

The nurse began to move to begin comforting him —whether he wanted to or not, Sclerite hadn’t missed his distrustful demeanour— but she stopped short as she took a moment to pay closer attention to his smells.

Farris was… glad?

His lips twitched upwards, and his small teeth flashed in the darkness. No, he wasn’t glad, he was relieved. Why though? Sclerite wanted to think it over, but the distinct sound of hooves on gravel carried over the connecting tunnel with an accompanying smell that was unmistakable. Mother.

Sclerite hissed a curse and acted quickly. Farris couldn’t be seen like this, so she approached to wipe his tears away. He, of course, loudly resisted all the while.

“Please don’t,” she begged. “Think of how Mother would react if she sees you like this.”

Farris either didn’t understand or didn’t care, because he let out a loud protest in whatever zany language his was as she tried to make him presentable. “Will you please pipe down?”

“Sclerite?” said a slightly authoritative voice.

The nurse felt a twitch in between her neck plates as both she and Farris fell silent. She carefully lowered her sibling and turned to face the newcomer. Surprisingly, Mother was nowhere in sight. Rather, it was an embarrassed Petiole in her stead.

He closed in. “What are you doing?” he asked in a harsh yet quiet voice, narrowed eyes and smells underscoring his words. “Why was he crying?” Sclerite’s ears drew back but she otherwise did not respond. “Gamma, Mother is right outside waiting to see her children. How will I explain her son’s tears, hm?”

“Different,” she said under her breath. Was that supposed to be an answer to the Alpha, however? Maybe it was just a part of herself stating the obvious. As she chewed on the thought, her eyes shifted over towards the three nymphs; Farris’s tears weren’t obvious anymore, but they had left streaks of a sheen that followed the same path that the tears had rolled off of his chitin. Both the worker and warrior looked fine, but like their drone clutchmate, their anxiety and unease were all too palpable. Mother would immediately notice that, and she would be none too happy about it.

Needless to say, Sclerite was concerned, though not necessarily about Mother’s reaction or the prospect of a well-deserved punishment. No, she looked on to the three younglings. They needed a good nurse, yes, but they needed someone else to help them. Who exactly, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps a healer—not of the body, but one of the mind and soul.

Sclerite again found herself cursing at her limited skill sets, even though she really had no reason to do so: she was a nurse first and foremost. She was taught the craft, for she did not need any other.

Blinking the thought away, she addressed Petiole. “Alpha, if I may?”

He clearly had a half a mind to outright refuse her if his furrowed brow was anything to go off from. “What is it?”

“The nymphs may have emerged hours ago, but they are far older.” Sclerite momentarily glanced at Farris, thinking back on his previous emotions. “They’ve been talking in their language of theirs, and while I couldn’t really follow any of it…” She locked her eyes with Petiole’s. “They were discussing about death.”

The Alpha’s eyes widened. “Death? What do you– how would you know that?”

“Their smells,” she replied, though the worker realised just how absurd she sounded. Yes, a changeling’s sense of smell was nearly peerless, acute enough to distinguish a creature’s emotions with a whiff. A changeling’s nose was good, very good, but was it good enough to tell what caused the emotions that it caught wind of?

All that Sclerite had done, she realised, was infer that they were speaking about death.

It was a massive leap of logic; she knew as much, as did Petiole’s unimpressed expression. The stink eye that he threw her way was all but deserved.

And yet…

The drone blinked slowly. “Duly noted,” he said in a near-mutter. He instead picked Farris up with his magic. Gentle as he was, Farris’s budging and protests were uncalled for. Where Sclerite was expecting such behaviour, Petiole was left flustered.

“We don’t have time for this, brother,” he muttered under his breath while wiping clean Farris’s cheeks and giving him another once-over. “It’ll have to do for now.” The Alpha looked over to Sclerite. “I’ll let Mother in now, so make sure that all of the little ones are on their best behaviour. We wouldn’t want a repeat of earlier.”

As if they would at this age, Sclerite thought somewhat cynically, almost expressing it with her glands. She decided that it was best not to rile the nest, so kept her opinion to herself as she went to see the nymphs.

She put on her best smile and put out her best smells. “Alright,” she said in a hopeful voice. “Are we ready to meet mommy?”

It had been several hours since Chrysalis’s introduction to her newest children, and she had recovered from their rejection. At least, that’s what she told herself, because if she had not, then the entire Hive would be feeling the consequences of it. She had to smell fine, lest all of her children joined in her suffering. That was easily the last thing that she wanted for them, so she had to stay strong for them; even if Farris, Lancea and Scape denied Chrysalis her love, she’d soldier through it.

Even if it kills me on the inside, she thought bitterly to herself.

Chrysalis had allowed for Petiole to go before her. The reason went by unspoken but was understood. There was a reason why he was an alpha nurse, and while his own skills with hatchlings and nymphs were a substantial part of it, they alone would not warrant a nurse to be of alpha status. Such nurses, in a manner not dissimilar to those of labourers and those of other professions, had to be able to delegate and lead. This, of course, meant that alphas had to be able to fully understand the Queen’s instructions and commands. The best alphas could infer her demands without so much as a querying smell. Petiole was one such alpha.

So she waited for his all-clear. Much as Chrysalis was steeled this time, the Alpha clearly did not want a repeat of the first encounter. A smile crept up on her features. All of the Hive cared for her, but Petiole seemed to go above and beyond his station. His role played a part in this, no doubt about it.

Still, there had been an undercurrent of tension as the two of them approached the separate chamber. It remained once Chrysalis was left alone to wait. That anxiety offered fuel to the burning questions that had lingered since what had happened, to which she still had no satisfactory answers.

Chrysalis sighed and rolled her shoulders. She felt her plates click and clack with the movements and the stiff muscles relax somewhat. It wasn’t nearly enough to remove the tension that was by then well and truly entrenched in her upper back and withers, but it was something.

“A fresh start,” she said in a hush, barely loud enough to echo in the tunnel. This time things would go far better, Chrysalis decided.

Petiole’s waft arrived before the scratching of chitin upon compacted dirt announced his arrival. There were no words, only an understanding. He bowed his head and stood aside for her to enter first.

There was a lingering smell that made Chrysalis’s nostrils twitch instinctively: apprehension from young nymphs. She immediately felt her neck muscles tense up. This seemed like it would just be another rehash of before. In spite of that, the Queen bit back her fears and dispelled such thoughts from her mind. She would not be caught off guard again, nor would she allow herself to waver as before.

A happy queen was a happy hive, after all.

The sound of skittering hooves was the only thing that reached Chrysalis’s ears that did not perk up her attention; it was the most obvious, but Chrysalis thought that she had caught a faint and hushed call. Lips thinned, she did not like this inauspicious start.

“Your children, Mother,” came Petiole’s measured voice. He was at the right-hoof side of the semi-straight line of the three clutchmates, bowing. The gamma nurse on the left wordlessly mirrored him. Whatever the three little ones had been doing prior to Chrysalis’s arrival, her appearance had stilled them to a terse silence that was both worryingly familiar and foul-smelling to the Queen.

She held back her compulsion to swallow. Chrysalis knew not to repeat the same mistakes as last time.

The large changeling lowered herself onto her belly close to their level. They all drew back slightly to this, especially Lancea, but did not otherwise appear overly distressed. Good, thought Chrysalis. She had kept the usual compassion smells to a minimum so as not to overwhelm them like the last time, but the warm smile, albeit restrained, was authentic this time.

In fact, she felt a certain energy welling up within herself.

“Hello, children.” She spoke softly and slowly, maintaining an even tone in anticipation of the magical beat that was to come. “We have much to discuss.”

There was much running through Karlene’s head. There was the revelation from Vargas to unpack, her want to confront the fact that she had died, and now the newcomer (a male, an inner voice within Karlene had hinted) that was currently busy manhandling the Spaniard. At a glance, it looked as if it was doing the same as the other had done to her. There was no overlooking the lack of care in the display. The way that Marciano was shifted about in mid-air was by no means rough, but there was little concern in response to his rather vocal protests. Even without her Spanish lessons, Karlene could easily infer his demands and defiance.

Despite how so many things called for Pender’s mind, she couldn’t help but wonder why she and the others were being given so much attention to their appearance. The first adult had even done what it could do to comfort her. A voice similar to the one from before insisted that it was simply what siblings did (that was another scary thought to mull over!), but there had to be more to it. Karlene didn’t think that brothers and sisters, even large four-legged bugs, didn’t coax each other into sitting in a line just for the hell of it.

Montgomery piped up. “Why are they dolling us up?”

Karlene felt her throat tense up in an attempt to speak, which was unsuccessful. She wanted to second his question and perhaps add something pertinent. Hell, it didn’t need to be coherent so long as she did something besides standing there like a frightened kid!

“Something's coming,” said Vargas in a mutter.

Karlene sensed Monty turning to argue the point, but the male creature hissed a command that was impossible to misunderstand, and Monty promptly shut up. Following the expectant gaze of the female adult, Karlene looked to the hole that led out of the chamber. She heard it before she saw it.

A slender figure slithered horn first through the threshold, its two front legs articulating in ways that would have fractured had they bones. Orbs of greens momentarily flashed in the dark before they disappeared above a rising veil of mossy hairs and lips that contorted around the fangs within. The body righted itself with the joints clicking as plates moved, and stood towering over Karlene.

It was her again.

In this light, the large female was not as imposing as it had first appeared, even though it was at least three or four times Karlene's size. No, it almost seemed like it had changed appearance somehow. The teeth weren’t nearly as sharp or as numerous; her eyes did not glow like before; the horn was not as menacing; the gangly nature of its figure was now sleek. It had somehow grown less menacing.

More motherly.

Despite the sheer absurdity of the mere notion that the creature could ever have been her mother, Karlene could not suppress it. She still held her own precious memories of her actual mother Diana —thank God that I still do— but the overwhelming instinct threatened to replace them anyway. At least, that was the sensation that ran rampant in Karlene’s mind.

Then again, she did have a tendency to lose control of her basest fears when she was stilled by sheer terror. But there was nothing to be fretful about. She was surrounded by family, in her home and being spoken to by her loving moth—

Karlene’s features twitched. No. None of those sentiments were true. None of them. She was stuck in an insect-like body along with two other people in her same predicament, surrounded by alien beings, all the while in an unfamiliar place and being stared down by a massive being that held too many fangs in its mouth. There was nothing of comfort beyond her body, and there was little of it to find within to begin with. Even the sanctity of her own mind was under threat by these foreign instincts and sensations.

All of these thoughts and more raced in Karlene’s mind, but she barely flinched in response. A small blessing, perhaps.

It was during this panic attack that the creature had approached them, though Karlene hadn’t been able to pay much mind to it. The creature wore what could perhaps be a smile, with eyes shining with a soft warm radiance that she hadn’t seen before. Or was it always there, and had she just not noticed it? It was different this time, yes, but something within Karlene insisted that there was an aspect that had not changed, and was simply in full display now. Regardless of the reason, the large being had switched things up since the last time.

Clicks and soft hisses emanated from it. Karlene noted the significantly lower pitch from the other female that made it sound more adult and regal, were that even possible. A part in her guessed that it was perhaps just because it was a different subspecies.

It’s my mother.

Pender twitched again. She needed to think through the cacophony in her mind: the creature was communicating, but she couldn’t make sense out of any of the sounds. The emotions were more muted, but Karlene thought that she could sense anxiety from it. She tried to guess as to the reason why, though she could not with the dozens of other thoughts competing for her undivided attention.

Then something that was completely unexpected pricked her ears and silenced all of Pender’s thoughts.

It was soft, a background sound that never overtook the, for lack of a better of a better term, ‘words’ of the creature. It slowly built up in volume, and it did not take long for Karlene to recognise it–a violin.

A single violin played a muted tune. Her ears searched for the source of it before her eyes did. Even Monty and Vargas were perplexed by the phantom instrument. The other two smaller adults did not seem to have the same question, fixing a smile on their faces instead as they listened intently to the larger female.

The sounds of her ‘words’, while both pleasant and grating to Pender, flowed in tune with the background music. She didn’t think that it was quite singing, just talking in rhythm. Both it and the soft tunes almost reminded her of slow jazz, just without the typical instruments associated with it: perhaps something akin to some of Louis Armstrong or… or some other artist from the era.

Not that Karlene was pondering on attributing an analogous artist, because she was too baffled to focus on anything other than the fact that creature was quasi-singing with the appropriate instrumental accompaniment that was not physically present. Was it all in her head? It would have been a tantalising possibility were it not clear that her two companions were clearly hearing the same thing that she was.

The violin stopped as did the creature. For a moment the whole chamber echoed with the vestiges of the last note and hissed word and–

What the fuck?

What little light there was faded into nothing. Not even the glow of the creatures’ eyes was visible. For a panicked second, Pender looked about and saw that she was left alone with Vargas and Montgomery in a circle of light. They too were at a loss. Where did that come from? Where had the others gone?

Notes from a piano rang out with a sudden column of light appearing to illuminate the great creature, now standing well beyond where the entrance to the chamber had been. The violin was replaced with what Karlene recognised as a grand piano and a drum base. The timing kicked up noticeably, and when the creature resumed her song, the sounds of her words had taken on a merrier tonality. As she walked in pace with the beat upon a raised platform that hadn't existed until then, Pender was left gaping slack-jawed.

This… this couldn’t have possibly been spontaneous. No, this wasn’t even possible with preparation! There could not have possibly been enough time for her to prepare! How was the chamber larger now? How did the lighting work as it was without the appropriate fixtures? None of this made any sense!

The creature stopped, back facing towards the humans, and looked behind her shoulder in time with the song, eyes wide and…

Happy.

Karlene felt her forelimb unconsciously move towards the large adult. There was a swelling energy that pooled within her heart (or where she presumed it was supposed to be) slowly moving up to her voice box. Karlene had experienced this sensation before, but only when she still had musical aspirations as a young teenager; the joy and thrill that one felt before singing. She had on occasion felt compelled to sing or join in song, but there were no doubts as to whether or not Pender had the final say.

As her mouth opened wide and began to vocalise with the song, Karlene was acutely aware of her lack of control.

She felt her mouth move in manners that she hadn’t yet experienced, as clicks and hisses emanated from her along with something else. Karlene’s body was completely unresponsive to her will, and the horrid experience was all too terribly familiar.

Through it all, Pender kept asking what had whisked control away from her, and how. It was clear that it was something that the creature had done to her. Was it like the… the magic that the other female did before? A part of Karlene supposed it so without putting much thought into it, as she was far too concerned with trying to resist whatever spell had been cast upon her. She wanted to berate angrily; she wanted to wrestle herself free; she wanted to plead for her release. None of her wishes came to fruition, as her limbs and appendages acted on their own accord.

Had she perhaps been an outside observer, Karlene would have seen nothing but a jovial scene. The two small adults provided a chorus to the larger one, and Karlene added a supporting vocalisation that added to the beat of the immaterial song. An impromptu musical—nothing more.

It was a nightmarish memory for Karlene.

Only once had she felt so powerless and helpless. It was something that she had done her absolute best to bury into the deepest recesses of her mind, to never again see the light of conscious thought. Pender’s current situation brought back the painful demons of the past to the forefront. In that instance, she had been the direct cause for her weakness and incapacity to respond as she had to. Current circumstances differed from back then, but Karlene hated her inability to do anything just as much, perhaps even more so. Had she not grown past that shameful moment? Hadn’t she become stronger than that?

Her heart faltered, and her past flaws were laid bare for all to see: Karlene was still the scared little lady of yesteryear. Even as the foreign insect sounds finally gained meaning and the song began to make sense, she only scarcely noticed this. She cried back then, and she cried now. Or rather, she wanted to cry now. Among the alien sensation of her body moving without her direction, she felt a wetness welling up in her eyes, and a small tear rolling down her cheek.

It did not appear possible. She wouldn’t be able to break this, just like it had been before, only this time it was that much more insurmountable. It would have been easy to let it end as Karlene had previously; it had been easier, if not particularly graceful of her.

As the song progressed and the words came clearly to her ears, the frightened child within Karlene gazed beyond herself and saw something that brought momentary clarity. There were only four people singing and dancing beside Pender. Vargas, identifiable by his green eyes, was sitting, a good distance away from everyone else. At first, Karlene thought that she was imagining it, but she quickly realised that he was trembling. His wide eyes stared unblinkingly, his hoof-paws jittered, and his jaw tensed, but he was resisting.

Karlene had understood at some point that even Montgomery had been enthralled by the same thing that had taken over her body, and had imagined that if he had not been able to throw off whatever it was, she couldn’t. Seeing Vargas shaking, however…

Her heart flared.

All of her anguish, all of her regrets, all of her ire; they ballooned against the throes of the pall that hung over Karlene. At first, the only visible signs of this defiance was an odd waver to her words and the slight tremor in her dance. As her emotions continued to fight against the forces that had gripped her body, the little imperfections grew ever more evident. Even the two small adults, while they sang something about rising up against a nation or somesuch, cast glances of surprise and concern. The larger one, who was somehow sitting on a rocky formation that resembled an opened oyster shell, hadn’t taken notice as of yet. When she caught wind of Karlene’s break from the routine, Pender was a quivering mess with a voice that kept cracking at every other syllable.

The dam burst, and the puppeting strings were cut. Karlene fell upon her rump and let out a shuddering gasp before scrunching her eyes shut.

The music faded immediately and the chamber was thrown back into the near-darkness from before. Only her soft sobs served as punctuation to the scene of confusion and tangible discomfort. It had hurt, immensely so. Karlene was ashamed that she had to cry as an adult a second time in front of others.

A smile split her face as a quiet heaving that served as a chuckle rang out.

But she was also proud. She had finally conquered that once-insurmountable demon from the past, and in more difficult conditions.

In sounds that were most definitely not English, she said, “If only Anthony could see me now.”

Chrysalis had looked to the winds of music to have done most of the work in easing her children into acceptance. She had perhaps been a bit too trusting in the winds, but as she continued to sing her most intimate feelings, Chrysalis was both surprised and pleased to see Lancea and Scape both indulge themselves along with Petiole and Sclerite. Not just by dancing or humming along, either. They both were forming comprehensive sentences, and not simply mimicking the nurses. Chrysalis’s faith in the winds appeared to have been more than justified. Had a nymph ever learned to speak, let alone sing, so quickly after their emergence? She couldn’t recall such a time, and beamed during her song.

Her grin faltered slightly whenever she spied Farris, however. He was not allowing the winds to guide him. In fact, he was actively defying them. In a sense, Chrysalis was impressed by the display of strong will, but she felt mostly hurt that her child still would not trust her. Despite this pain, she refused to let it spoil her overall good mood; Petiole and Sclerite were enjoying a break from their tedious duties, and Scape and Lancea were finally opening up. Things were finally progressing.

There was, however, something other than Farris that was bothering the Queen.

It had started as a small thing, something that she thought that she had imagined. A watery shine from little Lancea’s eyes. It didn’t take much for Chrysalis to guess as to what it was, but it puzzled her nevertheless: why was Lancea tearing up?

Being such a minute detail, the tears didn’t overly concern Chrysalis, embroiled as she was with her song. As she described the Hive’s destiny above-ground, she decided that they could only have been tears of joy. Of what, she wasn’t entirely sure, but whether they were from Lancea finally understanding her mother or from her learning of her future, Chrysalis couldn’t care less. It was a moment for celebration for everyling in the chamber.

But the nagging sensation did not dissipate. It was a bothersome thing, and Chrysalis had half-a-mind to force the winds to address it. Before she could further dwell upon it, however, the annoyance seemed to become harder to ignore. When she finally spared a glimpse towards it, Chrysalis almost fell to silence.

Lancea was crying, and not out of happiness. The veritable wave of pent up bitterness and indignation washed over her mother, and its size had left Chrysalis aghast and wondering just how she could not have noticed it before.

Four hooves touched the hardened earth with little grace, all joy forgotten, and the magical imagery of victory and utopia faded away into the dimly lit chamber. Chrysalis approached little Lancea, feeling painful stings at every sob. It was a different kind of heartache from earlier; where before the Queen had suffered through a rejection, she now had to bear her nymph’s grief. It was by no means a new sensation, as she had dealt with the pains of their starvation and unfortunate loss of siblings. Their sorrow was not theirs to bear alone, and was one that Chrysalis shared out of a sense of motherly love and duty.

For that was the Queen’s duty: her children were Chrysalis, and Chrysalis was her children. The matters of the warriors, drones and workers were her own matters.

So, she drew close to Lancea to help with the burden. As Chrysalis approached, there was a quiet muttering of almost perfect chirps from the little one. She only caught the tail end of it: something about Lancea being seen. A part of Chrysalis was absolutely thrilled that her daughter had spoken on her own accord —and so well, in fact!— but she was mostly curious about the contented smell about Lancea. It was the sort that one felt after overcoming a tremendous challenge.

Was it Lancea finally speaking as any proper changeling ought to? After a moment of thought, Chrysalis concluded that it wasn’t the case. It was something else that she couldn’t distinguish right then.

Regardless, she continued onwards until the Queen stood above little Lancea. The nymph barely seemed to notice her presence.

“Lancea,” she began, putting on a friendly face and air, but not quite knowing how she wanted to continue.

It was only then that Lancea looked up. Her wonderful soft-yellow eyes shone briefly with tears, and they flicked momentarily away to avoid meeting her mother’s own eyes. Chrysalis was about to tell her not to be afraid, but after tasting something that reminded the Queen of defiance, Lancea met her eyes. She was still afraid, but Chrysalis sensed bravado radiating from the little one.

Lancea’s eyes glimmered again. This time, they were hardened.

“What—” She paused, sounding surprised at the chirp that she made. Her head twitched, and her jaw worked hard as she slowly enunciated. “What did‒ what did you do? Do to me?”

Chrysalis hesitated. The novelty of any of the three nymphs being far more eloquent than they had any right to be had dulled enough that she hadn’t been caught off-guard by Lancea’s formulation of a question. It was the question itself that gave her cause to reflect.

A hum from deep within the Queen’s throat reverberated throughout the chamber. “Do you mean the winds?” she asked, careful with not speaking too fast or using words too complex. When she saw the blank look from Lancea, Chrysalis added, “The winds of music, Lancea.”

The nymph blinked. “Winds of… music?”

“Yes,” Chrysalis said with a nod. Her focus was now only on Lancea, as if they were the only things that existed in the world. “I wanted for you and your siblings to know who you are, Lancea. What you are.”

Lancea’s brow furrowed. Chrysalis feared that perhaps she was too quick for the youngling to understand, but Lancea instead repeated her name, as if tasting it. “Lan-see-ah. Lancea.” She gave Chrysalis a look. “Is that a, ah, is that a title?”

Now it was Chrysalis who looked confused. “No,” she said softly. “It is your name, Lancea.” She looked to both Farris and Scape, as if only then they had come to being. They were flanked by the nurses, but they were looking on with curious eyes. She indicated to them both with a tilt of her head. “Your siblings—your friends: Farris and Scape.”

That earned Chrysalis another bout of curious glances, from Lancea and from Farris and Scape.

“Lancea,” Lancea slowly began, working through the word. “Lancea is not‒ my name is not Lancea.”

There was a sound. Chrysalis didn’t recognise it, nor did she really think that she had heard it to begin with. Despite the seeming impossibility, she was convinced that there had been one. But she did not dwell too much on that.

Chrysalis had a false start. “Not your‒ but Lancea, I named you so.”

“Not my actual name,” Lancea insisted, her fear abating. “I am Karlene Pender.”

Then… then Chrysalis wasn’t sure what happened next.

It was all something of a blur. She recalled hearing Farris and Scape piping up themselves and telling their own names that sounded like no other that she had ever heard: changeling, equestrian or otherwise. But they were emphatic in their assertions of being something that Chrysalis was sure did not exist. There was talk of death, reincarnation and afterlife, and while she caught herself being impressed at the subjects that the nymphs spoke of, Chrysalis did not internalise much of what was said.

Her world was a magical one, and there had been many incredible feats remembered among its inhabitants; if these were not commemorated as history, then they were as legends at the very least. What her children —or whatever they claimed to be— described was not one of these fabled or factual events. She supposed that it wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility, but…

“—name?”

Chrysalis drew a quick breath. She turned sharply towards Lan‒ Karlene Pender, who had just finished asking something. “I‒ excuse me, what did you say?”

“Your name?” the small worker asked, sounding as if she were afraid of having said the wrong thing. “Do… do you have one?”

The Queen almost snorted at the question. “Yes, my name is Chrysalis.” After a moment, she added, “I am Queen Chrysalis.”

It felt almost pointless to her to state what should’ve been immediately clear to any emerged youngling, but with what they told of themselves, Chrysalis chose to clarify. Just because she knew why she felt compelled to do so didn’t chase away the sensation.

The worker’s eyes widened, but she maintained an even tone. “Chrysssalisss.” She flicked her tongue as she digested the word. “Queen Chrysalis,” Karlene Pender finally said before turning to look abashedly at Chrysalis. “And… you are‒ you gave birth to these… bodies?”

There was a deeply uncomfortable silence that was immediately made obvious by the others odorous response, even of the other younglings. It took a second too long for Karlene Pender to realise the mistake and, when she did, she looked and smelled absolutely horrified.

“I-I-I didn’t mean to imply…!” She shuffled uneasily on her hooves. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s alright,” Chrysalis interrupted, not particularly interested in the faux-pas, though she did make a note of both it and their response upon realising what Karlene Pender had done. She instead regarded the worker with critical eyes.

There was nothing out of the ordinary, not at first sight. There were clear signs that marked the nymphs, of course, but they physically appeared like any other nymph. The eyes, the little marks on their backs: they were the only thing that visually differentiated them.

But mentally...

Chrysalis’s stare did not abate. Under her scrutiny the youngling‒ the being squirmed. The Queen felt an almost feral glee upon seeing the guttural fear that threatened to overwhelm the little one. Of equal intensity however, was the nausea that rose from the sight of what was ostensibly her own child writhing with dread. It didn’t matter what this Karlene said, nor what the other two said; these were of her own flesh and blood, and nothing would ever change that.

But…

Eventually the glare ceased as Chrysalis did an about-face and made for the exit. Karlene let out a shaky breath, while the other two wordlessly watched as Chrysalis walked. The two nurses stood behind the younglings and were closest to the threshold beyond. As Chrysalis came close, she stopped to look to her alpha nurse.

He was dutifully silent. Or was he silent because he had no words to describe what he had witnessed? Either way, she craned her neck towards Petiole.

“Keep them in here,” Chrysalis ordered with an edge to her voice, making no attempt of being subtle. “Do not let anyone in, not even any of the other alphas.”

The drone’s eyes widened. “Are‒ not even the other alp—”

“No one else,” she asserted with nearly gritted teeth. The Queen did not bother to wait for a response and continued out towards the connecting tunnel.

Isolating the three was not a motherly thing to do—unqueenly even. Her own heart protested at her actions. Chrysalis needed to think however. She had unexpectedly been given much to mull over, and needed to make sure that she could act upon her decisions once she came to then. It’d take some time, considering the… unusual circumstances.

Besides, they refused their names, so I can refuse to be their mother, can’t I? a petulant voice within her declared resolutely. Fair is fair.

Her heart ached just that bit more as she crawled into the tunnel.

The Art Show

The blue eyes of the two adults glanced on occasion towards Monty and the others. They were opposite of both him, Karlene and Vargas, conveniently standing in between the exit. They chirped, hissed and clicked in hushed tones after the absolute shitshow that had happened just then. Somehow, what audible bits that he did catch made sense now, but he didn’t need to understand bugspeak to know that they were discussing what to do next.

Vargas, on the other hand, was busying himself, giving Karlene a full dressing-down. Monty was unhappy as well, but he had decided against joining in. She had suffered through enough already, and asides perhaps offering Monty a way to vent himself, it would have only been detrimental. He instead focused on how Vargas was not using English. Oh, Franklyn correctly understood the bugspeak (again, he wasn’t sure just how the hell he had suddenly learned a new language so quickly). Still, he wondered why it came so easily now. In the few words that he had spoken after the… well, the mindfuck, they were the same bugspeak that Karlene and the Queen had used.

Had he lost the ability to talk in English? It didn’t feel like he did, as he was definitely thinking in English. It was almost as if something were substituting his spoken words as he talked. Monty didn’t even want to begin figuring how that was possible.

“Shit,” Monty uttered in a bugspeak hiss. He scowled slightly at that, and he concentrated on what he was going to try to say. “Montgomery.” Right, that came out as it should have, apart from the odd reverberation to his voice that everyone carried—nothing too surprising. He got a curious sideways glean from Vargas, but Monty ignored him as he continued experimenting.

“Secret.” A set of clicks. Franklyn felt his face twitch as he tried again: “Secret.” This time the clicks came out haltingly. Focus, he told himself. Need to say it in English—in English. After drawing a breath, he tried once more. “Secret.”

The others reacted before Monty did. He said it in English that time! The adults’ frowns were telling, and their quiet words gained an air of wariness. Karlene blinked dumbly while Marciano looked on with surprise.

He approached Monty. “How did you do that?” he asked in bugspeak, pouting after speaking.

Monty opened his mouth to speak before closing it as he focused. “Thinking… hard,” he managed to say in an echoing voice after a false start. That earned him narrowed eyes from Vargas. “J-just think—” Chirp. “—think real—” Click. “—h-hard.”

“You’re joking,” Vargas said after giving Monty a once-over. A few seconds passed as both he and Monty didn’t break eye contact. Then Vargas’s eyes widened. “Wait, it’s really that simple?”

Franklyn grunted from the effort. “It isn’t—” Hiss. “—as easy a-as you —ack— think.”

Marciano maintained his disbelieving look for a while longer before a hissing sigh escaped his fanged lips. “What sort of Dantesque—” He paused as the latter word came out in an accented and reverberating English. His following words came out as bugspeak: “That’s, uh, really odd.”

Monty flashed him a smirk. “Understatement of the fucking millennia,” he said, not bothered enough to try English that time. The man decided to ignore the nasty glare from the male adult.

He watched Vargas shift his jaws momentarily, and his brow scrunched in concentration. “You—” He shook his head in a quick movement. “A-apestas,” he managed to say before letting out a snort. Interestingly, even Vargas’s Spanish echoed in the odd two-tone reverb. Though he hadn’t understood the word, Monty smiled at Marciano’s success and looked to Karlene. Curious, why was she snickering?

Regardless, Franklyn was genuinely glad to see her having recovered. “How’re you doing?”

Her good mood shifted immediately. Ear-tubes wilting, Karlene sighed. “I was happy that I could finally understand the others,” she said dejectedly, not attempting to switch over to English. She glanced towards the adults, who had finished their conversation and were looking at the trio with judging eyes. Another sigh: “I really screwed up.”

Yeah, you did, Monty immediately thought. He instead said, “Hey, whatever that Queen did to us, it messed with our minds.” He again ignored the male adult’s attempt to melt the man with a death-stare. “I don’t think I could’ve done much better were I in your place.”

She gave a small smile, but her emotions were far more mixed, at least as far as he could tell. “Still doesn’t change the fact that I’ve probably just handed down our solitary sentence.”

Monty was about to respond but was instead interrupted by a barely-audible ‘go’, from the male adult. Turning to face the adults, he saw the smaller female spare one last look at the humans before slowly walking away towards the threshold. Almost immediately, the male approached them, head held aloft, and wings splayed.

Franklyn wanted to gulp, but a low and timid purr emanated from his throat instead. He thought that he heard something similar from Karlene, and the spontaneous action made him wonder whether it was a natural reaction or another case of mind-fuckery.

Not that he had much time to think about it; the adult’s nostrils flared as he stood tall above the three. His eyes scanned them all, silently critiquing in the stead of his voice.

Then his eyes settled upon Karlene. “How could you have said such a thing?” he finally demanded, prompting her to shrink before him. “She is our mother!”

Upon seeing and feeling her grief and self-loathing, Monty sensed his old confrontational attitude rise along with his need to help. He took a step, a bit shaky perhaps but still determined, and placed himself between the big bug and a rapidly-blinking Karlene.

“Leave her alone,” he said defiantly. “We've‒ that queen was controlling us like fucking puppets! So back the hell up.”

In retrospect, antagonising the big insect with sharp fangs that could levitate him was not one of his better ideas. In the heat of the moment though, all he saw was a bully and a victim, and Monty loathed bullies.

Fortunately for him, the adult blinked as if he were trying to process Monty’s words. “Controlled?” His brows furrowed. “What are you‒ Mother would never do such a thing. Not to her children.”

“Well, she did,” Vargas finally piped up, coming to Monty’s side. “I was fighting her the whole time while she cast her spell! Where my colleagues” —he pointed to Karlene and Franklyn— “succumbed, I resisted her voice! Had I not, we would all be little pawns for her to command!”

While a bit disgruntled by Vargas’s willingness to make himself appear better than either Monty or Karlene, Monty could appreciate him growing a pair and standing with Monty against the bug.

The bug, in response, stared dumbfoundedly for a second longer before he sat on his rump and brought his two forelegs up to his muzzle. A slow, deep groan filled the chamber. “That was a Heartsong,” he said in a rumbling tone as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “It is one of the most powerful and magical things in the world that can happen spontaneously.” He rested his forelegs back to the dirt. “The Queen was singing from her heart, and you‒ you brain-addled idiots didn’t realise it!”

That last phrase had come out as a menacing shout that was accompanied by an air of frustration that Monty had not felt before. It was powerful enough that both he and Vargas stumbled back by the ferocity of the shout.

“She poured her love out for you,” the bug continued, voice hitting a high note but sounding more subdued, almost remorseful. “You could have done nothing, and the winds would have left you untouched.” A foreleg sprang up to jab accusingly at the humans. “Do you have any idea how rare it is for such a song to bless a changeling?”

There was a… well, not a guilty silence, but something that approached it. Franklyn himself felt more at a loss for words than being remorseful. Remorse was, however, what he mainly sensed from Vargas and Karlene—especially Karlene.

So that’s what the Queen was. What they all were. The sound was nonsensical to a human’s ears, but it carried an inordinate amount of meaning. It took Monty a second to realise why, after a brief image of seeing a goddamn human head on the body of one of these things. If the female adult hadn’t thought it overly strange, that must’ve meant that probably any one of them could change body parts like that, right? Despite the lack of evidence, a voice in the back of his head vehemently agreed with his assessment.

Still, he had to make sure. “Changeling?”

Monty felt his ears tilt upwards automatically as he spoke. The word —the name, really— it had something that gave him several sensations: comfort, familiarity and something that came close to pride. There was context to the name that Monty didn’t recognise but could acknowledge. It made him feel, for lack of a better word, safe.

“That’s what you are, yes,” the adult replied. “That’s what we are.” His eyes looked over the trio, somewhat softened from before. When he next spoke, so too did his tone soften. “She loves you. Like she loves the rest of us.” There was a tug at one of the corners of his lips. “The Queen wouldn’t admit it, but you’re her favourites.” That smirk quickly turned sour. “Or at least you were.”

Monty spared a glance at his companions. Karlene’s ground-bound gaze hadn’t shifted, though Franklyn suspected that what he was sensing from her was a pang of even more profound guilt. Vargas, in contrast, stared back, steely-eyed, at the adult.

What do I feel, though?

In a sense, Monty was pissed, much like Vargas. Mindfucking was a helluva weird way for someone to show their affection. But if what the adult said was correct —and Monty couldn't spot the dishonesty in his words— then was their abrupt declaration of not being what she thought they were the right call?

Franklyn was not God's gift to the world, he knew that much. Acting on impulse, while useful at times, caused him headaches more often than not. One thing that he was good at, however, was responding appropriately to slights that he had given upon others, imagined or otherwise. It wasn't even that hard; once his head cleared of whatever dumb impulse he experienced through, all he did was place himself in the other party's shoes.

So, that is what he did. What if, once in the crib, his baby daughter Ruth suddenly began to speak in tongues and told both Monty and Charlotte that she wasn't her daughter, but something entirely different?

Well, it didn't take too much imagination to guess how this queen was feeling right then.

With one last look at the others, Monty drew a breath and, like a scorned child confronting a disappointed adult, turned to face the bug.

Petiole was a very unhappy nurse. He had had his fair share of testy nymphs and younglings, but never ones that drove their mother away. Oh, sure—Mother would never have admitted that, but he knew her too well. There was a strong hint of cynicism in both her tone and smell when she left. It didn't happen too often, but whenever Petiole sensed that bitter smell, Mother would always end up in her chambers to sulk.

The nurse was reasonably sure that never in changeling history had there been a case where nymphs had irritated their queen to such a level. No self-respecting queen would have let it get to that point, and the sources of this trouble sat before him, each one with a different self-evident emotional attitude and problem.

And he was supposed to handle them? If Mother couldn’t, how could he?

A conversation with Mother from weeks before resurfaced, and he found it almost prophetic. I've done as experience has taught me and followed my intuition, Petiole heard her voice say. Have I been wrong to do as I have done countless times before?

He logically recognised the dilemma, but he only truly understood the problem that lay beneath the surface when faced with the situation himself. It was no wonder how Mother had gotten distraught then, and Petiole was left to wonder how she could handle it. He certainly didn't see how one could do so without losing their patience.

The air thickened with unpleasant moisture. Petiole's nostrils twitched to this, and he made a note to let the tunnel workers know about this infiltration. It wouldn't do for his little siblings to catch a nasty infection after all of this trouble.

Okay, that was a decent return to form. If all else fails, just focus on their health, he told himself.

This line of thought slowed as the tiny warrior approached. Petiole carefully regarded Scape, watching for any bit of body language to decipher. All he saw was a sense of bravado masking his sibling's genuine emotions which Petiole couldn't immediately recognise.

Scape promptly spoke when coming to a stop. "I apologise."

The Alpha blinked slowly. That was unexpected.

"I apologise for myself and the others," Scape continued, sighing softly. "We've been through a lot these past, ah, days."

Petiole's glare softened as he allowed a subtle nod. "That you—" He grunted as he caught himself. "That we have. Do not think that excuses you from the consequences." Petiole said that last bit while shifting his focus over to Lancea. Her dejected aura and look were telling.

"Yeah," said Scape, his lips tugging downwards. "We're all adults —least I think we are— and we gotta own up to it."

The Alpha almost scoffed at the notion but decided against doing so. Instead, he chose to indulge his little sibling. If nothing else, it was a new angle for Petiole to approach the nymphs. And to properly discipline them, he added to himself.

He walked past Scape, prompting a questioning look from the nymph, and placed himself in between Scape, Farris and Lancea. A sly application of pheromones got them to close in, though Farris's wrinkled nose made it clear that at least he had noticed it. At least he hadn't made a fuss about it this time.

"Very well," Petiole began as he sat comfortably, looking over the trio. "Since we're all adults, then explain everything." When only an exchange of looks between the nymphs came as a reply, Petiole added, "What were you in your supposedly previous lives?"

At first, the nymphs looked at each other, prompting a smug smile from the Alpha. No cover story, eh? he thought sarcastically. However, Farris soon spoke up.

"I'm an actor," he said, looking rather smug himself.

Petiole looked him over. "You're a drone," he deadpanned. "A drone who can't act would be ashamed of himself."

"No, you a-bee-see-de-ree-un!" Farris blurted out. "I mean that I was an actor before I came to in this place!"

The Alpha wondered for a brief moment as to what in the Hatcher's name Farris called him, but he was more interested in the latter claim. "You can act?" he asked in a curious tone.

"Yes," Farris immediately replied, looking momentarily pensive before clearing his throat.

"Hence!" He spoke in a loud and booming voice, dramatically thrusting a hoof to the side. "Home, you idle creatures! Get you home!" Farris walked two steps, looking at nothing in particular. "Is this a holiday? What! Know you not, being mechanical, you ought not walk upon a labouring day without the sign of your profession?" He looked expectantly at his siblings.

They were just as baffled as Petiole was. Farris groaned dejectedly. "I expected better from you two," he muttered in a chitter.

"What was that supposed to be?" Petiole interjected. "Who were you trying to impersonate?"

Farris shot him an odd look. "I was playing the role of Fla-vee-uss from Shake-spear's Jew-lee-uss See-sar. He's an interpretation of a historical character."

Petiole blinked slowly, not understanding. This elicited another groan from Farris, who threw up his forehooves in frustration. “I might as well draw what I am, for a load of good that my words are for you!” His irate petulance melted immediately upon seeing Petiole’s bared fangs and bristling frill that were suddenly right on top of him.

“Do not speak ill of your elders in front of them, whelp." His voice was low and menacing, taking a cue from Mother's prior disciplinary actions. "You may be Mother's favourite, but you will respect your standing in the Hive, Farris."

Farris, to his credit, did not speak out; not even to insist that his name was something else.

Lancea, sitting to the left of Scape, hummed. When both Scape and Petiole took notice, she started slightly, but did not otherwise recoil.

"I, I think that Vargas has a good idea," she said, mumbling softly. Before the Alpha could loom over her like he did with Farris, she quickly added, "W-we could draw! We could draw what we looked like before."

Appeased for the moment, Petiole relaxed his stance and asked, "Draw?"

"Do you not know about drawing?" she asked, taking a step forward with a surprised look.

"Of course I know about drawing!" Petiole said with a roll of his eyes, indignant. "There's just no way you can draw or write. There is no ink or quill to be found in the Hive. Unless you want to simply draw upon the hardened gravel—" he stomped on the ground multiple times "—with your bare hooves, then you're not going to be drawing much of anything."

Lancea's thin ears wilted at the nurse's growing impatience. However, she immediately perked up as she asked, "Do you have graphite? Maybe charcoal?"

Graphite? Petiole wondered quietly as he felt Lancea's pinkish eyes on him. He didn't know anything about it aside from it being a type of rock. Maybe a tunneler would know more, but as of right then, he didn't see what good graphite would do. As for charcoal...

"We have some charcoal," the nurse said, trying to remember where it was stored. "What do you need it for?"

Lancea’s features lit up. It wasn’t quite a smile, but her interest was evident and, Petiole was sure, was the first time she was this enthused. “You can use it to draw on paper or parchments. There’s a whole style based on charcoal sketches.”

“Really?” Scape asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Of course,” Farris said, as if starting to understand where Lancea was coming from. “Why didn’t I think of that? We could do it easily, even without hands.”

Petiole, however, was nowhere nearly as excited as both Farris and Lancea over a drawing exercise. Never mind the useability of charcoal as a substitute for paint or ink, paper was already scarce as it was in the Hive. This idea baffled him, so much so that he barely paid any mind to the comments about hands. He wasn’t even sure if there were any sheets left asides from the few archiving what little of their written history still remained. What would allowing these three to use what precious paper the Hive still held do for them?

No nymph, be they a warrior or drone or worker —Or even queen!— had ever wanted to draw in their youth. What point was there in it? Only drones could eventually learn the craft of scribing and copying. Still, even then, it was only adults with the affinity towards the profession, and Petiole was sure that they never used charcoal. Didn’t it smudge more so than ink? This was a waste of time and of valuable parchment.

But…

His eyes met Lancea. No matter the absurdity of her request, she was more sure of herself than she had previously been; he could see it in her glowing, pink eyes. Over damn charcoal and paper, no less! The mere fact that she was this certain over what felt like a trifling matter spoke volumes, and the sceptic in Petiole, though still loud and determined, was at least curious to where this would lead.

If nothing else, this could prove as an outlet for his siblings. Perhaps to see if their imagination held up after all. Or maybe they really are alien, he thought to himself.

The scraping of dirt brought Petiole out from his thoughts, and he spied Sclerite hurriedly scurrying through the threshold.

“It’s done, Alpha,” she reported with a soft pant: she had run all the way. “The other nurses have been notified of the situation.”

Petiole nodded an affirmative, still pensive for a brief moment. Then, he addressed Sclerite: “Get some sheets of papers and some charcoal.”

Her quizzical expression was as immediate as it was expected. “What for?”

The Alpha did not reply immediately. He eyed the three nymphs. A worker, a drone, and a warrior all drawing with lumps of coal. That image was almost too comical to not leave it to the imagination. He even chuckled.

“For art, of course.”

Monty was never the artist. At least, not the visual arts kind. The occasional doodle that took up the corners of some papers at ‘the office’ was not enough to make him one. He never graduated from notebook sketches in junior high. All of this made him unsure of what Karlene was hoping to achieve. They didn’t have hands, how the hell could he even hold a lump of charcoal without them? He told Karlene as much.

“We’ll manage,” she said tersely. “We’ve got to prove to them what we used to be.”

Franklyn understood her end goal, but he wasn’t sure that drawing stick figures would do much to prove their point. At least the big bug wasn’t angry anymore. That was some good news at least.

Vargas, rather unsurprisingly, had a few choice words regarding Karlene and Monty’s ignorance of ‘a Shakespeare classic’. By this point, he’d learnt that Vargas would be one of those people that he’d tune out whenever he started talking about inane shit. Who the hell even thought of Julius Caesar when someone mentioned old Shakes? At least if Karlene recognised Vargas’s act, Monty could chalk it up to his own ignorance in ‘the arts’.

The second in command bug returned not long after, a small stack of sheets and chunks of charcoal following her in mid-air. Like the first time she performed her magic trick, it didn’t fail to impress and shock. Seeing the green aura emanating from the horn, Franklyn idly wondered if it was something that he and the others could do. That question returned in force once he had a sheet placed neatly in front of him with a bit of rough charcoal on the side.

Looking to the expert among them, Monty asked, "Aren't these a bit too big, Karlene?"

"This... this is just a piece of raw charcoal," she stated in a hushed tone, poking her rock-like charcoal. "I've only worked with charcoal sticks. This is way bigger."

"Miss Pender's right, Hackett." Vargas tried to grab his charcoal with his foreleg, only for it to slip his grasp. "How are we supposed to do this with rocks and no hands?"

Didn’t you just say that it’d be a cinch without hands? Franklyn wanted to say, but opted not to aggravate the situation. Instead, he looked to the big bug who was now wearing a smug smile. Hackett wondered what he was smiling for when it hit him: he was expecting them to fail and wanted to see them struggle.

The big 'changeling' craned his massive head closer. "The Epsilon and I are waiting." That stupid little smile never left his face. Oh, you’ve just made it personal now.

This realisation invigorated Monty. He wasn't in on the idea of trying to draw, but dammit, now he wanted to just wipe that shit-eating grin off of his damn face.

He grabbed his charcoal with both of his forelegs as if they were forceps. While awkward, his grasp was solid enough that Monty was sure that he could get work done now. A dirty canvas, probably the size of a page of a typical notebook, was waiting to be filled.

The question now was what would convince the smart-ass bug that he was once a human? The easy answer was himself, but the details weren't as obvious. A mugshot? Maybe him in his firefighter uniform? How well could he draw, especially with a rock instead of a pen and with stumps instead of hands?

First the face, Franklyn finally decided, carefully moving his charcoal to the paper, and drew it towards him. The sheet immediately crumpled with the movement.

He hissed out in frustration, flattening the paper, only to see the line become smudged. "Shit." Charcoal was nothing like a pencil and, if Karlene was any indication, raw charcoal wasn't typically used for drawing.

Further attempts to draw resulted in further crumples, and made a clean sketch now impossible. To prevent other crumples, Monty had to scoot himself closer and laid his two 'free' legs over the edges of the paper. Smudged as it was, drawing anything other than a stick figure or a —what's it called?— a silhouette wouldn't look right.

When he looked over at his companions, they both had figured out how to handle their charcoal and had gotten to work. A quick peek at Vargas's drawing gave Monty an idea for his. Vargas's movements were deliberate but brisk. His image looked like an elegant silhouette doing... what was that, a basketball dunk?

Focusing on Karlene's work immediately put every doodle that Monty had ever done to shame. Her lines were rough but stylised, and while it was still nowhere near done, Monty could easily recognise the beginnings of a face. Karlene's lines were slow and prudent, and she would not have finished quickly. It wouldn't win any awards, but damn if Monty wasn't interested in the end result. Basing his sketch off of hers wouldn't work at all.

As he wondered as to just how Karlene was managing this, he noticed that the charcoal in her grasp wasn’t a lump. It looked like it was a thin, slightly irregular chip. Looking to her side, Monty spotted her original chunk of charcoal. Damn, that was smart. A quick check over at Vargas, he too had done something similar, though his small chip of charcoal wasn’t as fine as Karlene’s.

Monty decided to try something similar. He placed his charcoal to the side and, remembering just how sharp his solitary ‘toe’ was, he began chipping at his piece, gingerly at first. Then, as there was a clear indentation, he went hard at it until a quick movement split the piece in two. Whoops.

His chip wasn’t so much a chip as it was just half a piece of charcoal, but at least he now had an edge with which he could work well enough.

Carefully moving his chip back and forth, Monty adopted a sort of cross-hatching style, slowly giving form to a firefighter wielding a fire axe. Well, at least a very rough approximation of one. More than once, he ripped parts of the paper, crumpling it further and smudging the drawing even more. By the end of it, the sheet looked like it had been a dog's chew toy that had been placed inside of a dirty chimney.

At least Franklyn had drawn himself. Okay, something that was meant to represent him. Eager and somewhat satisfied, he turned to see the others' work.

Vargas's sketch was the same in nature: a basic form of a man doing some sort of theatrical pose that had been smudged with some intent to help define some of the finer details like the hands and head. Had Monty wanted to, back when he was still human, he probably could have easily sketched something similar.

"What's he doing there?" he asked, curious.

Vargas bristled. "This is a chironomic posture as depicted by Gilbert Austin and François Delsartes," he explained in an irritated voice and side glance. "It's a classical form to display exaltation and expansion."

"Uh-huh." Monty nodded dumbly. This was way, way beyond his knowledge from his drama classes. There was no point in disputing or questioning Vargas, so he went along with it.

Vargas's green stink eye and emotional waves from him were apparent. At least he didn't reply with a snarky comment.

Turning to peer over at Karlene's own work, Franklyn was surprised to see both of the changelings looking on from above her. The two were watching with wide-eyed curiosity and, in the male's case, with no small amount of bewilderment. Approaching to get a look himself, Monty too was impressed.

It was still being worked on, but it was a stylised bust of a smiling woman with long and somewhat straight hair. The style reminded Monty of a high-school sketch that was on the higher end of quality with the amount of effort displaying the artistry. Oh sure, there was some unintentional smudging here and there, but it was far cleaner than either of Vargas or Monty's pieces. The paper, he noted, was also far more pristine with almost no crumples. Even Vargas had torn slightly into his sheet, but Karlene's lines were drawn with a soft and caring touch. Considering the less-than ideal working conditions, this was a hell of an achievement. She was still working on adding some details to the partial shirt; it was probably the nametag and patch.

Not that he'd see the finished product because the paper was suddenly engulfed in an all-too-familiar green aura. Karlene jumped slightly before eliciting an irritated 'hey!' as the sheet floated away from her. It rose to eye-level with the two adults, turned slightly towards the male who was holding it with his levitation trick.

After some time and an exchange of looks with the smaller adult, the male asked, "What is this?"

Karlene rose to her feet. "It's me," she said before deflating a bit. "Well, it's sort of how I look. I can't really draw faces from memory."

The adults' eyes focused back on the image. The female drew closer to the other changeling. "Doesn't look like anything that I've ever heard of," she said in a mutter, eliciting a soft chittering sound from the other.

Monty saw the big boss bug shifting his jaw as he came to the uncomfortable realisation that the humans were, in fact, not making shit up. It made him all sorts of giddy, and he couldn't help his own smug smirk. Sure, it wasn't his drawing that was earning this reaction, but that didn't diminish the sense of self-satisfied pride at the sight of the adult squirming at his own defeat.

Eventually, the male shifted his icy blue eyes over at Karlene. "What creature is th‒ what are you supposed to be?"

"A human woman," Karlene stated resolutely, not showing any uncertainty. "A bipedal mammal descendant from primates."

The bug turned to face his colleague. She tilted her head, and her shoulders slumped in a shrug. He let out a low hiss.

"A minotaur but without the bovine features?" It sounded like he was saying it more to himself, though Monty heard it clearly.

Minotaur? wondered Monty. He hadn't enough time to ponder on it when the adult walked over to Vargas's and Monty's drawings.

"And these are supposed to be—" He paused, working his jaw. "Hue-mans?" Funnily enough, he had said the latter word in English.

Karlene replied for Vargas and Franklyn: "They are." She took a look at Franklyn's work, and raised an eyebrow. "Though that one looks like an axe murderer."

"It's a firefighter," Monty muttered under his breath.

...although, now that he observed it again, it did look like an axe-wielding maniac with a wide-brimmed hat. He could have definitely done better.

Again the two adults shared a look. After a conversation based entirely on eye contact, the male's horn glowed brighter as both Vargas's drawing and Monty's rose up to accompany Karlene's sketch. He made for the exit.

"Hey!" Karlene called out. "Does this mean that you believe us?"

There was no response, nor did he pause, as he left. The remaining adult's gaze followed him until he disappeared from view and shifted back to the three former humans. She looked uncertain, opening her mouth once before closing it. After another false start, she said, "Would you..." She blinked and looked over to Monty. "Could you explain what you were, exactly?" A moment passed before she added, “Please.”

Monty's eyes widened momentarily before a ghost of a smile crept up his face. Progress.

Work.

Chrysalis listened halfheartedly to her alphas' report. It was more of the same: the food stores were still on the decline; the Hive required additional space for the growing population; there were encroaching tatzlwurm incursions, and the outposts at the Hills pointed to intrusive pony settlements to the North. The only bit of good news from this was that the new colonies brought another opportunity for sequestrations. Perhaps that would help somewhat the food situation.

Oversee.

Alpha Carapace's words were the last ones reaching Chrysalis's ear, though many of them weren't committed to memory. There was little point to it; the overall scents and meaning did not change. She was reporting the increasing strength of the warrior pods. That was good, at least. They were the crux of the Queen's answer to the Hive's many challenges.

Protect.

The old ways were no longer sufficient. Chrysalis's mother had started the path that Chrysalis herself had continued to tread upon. The time for indirect actions and subterfuge was coming to an end, and the Hive would have to adapt to the new conditions of the world. It was a war footing, one that was mostly anathema to a hive, but a necessary one. Chrysalis loathed the idea of having her hoof forced in such a manner, even if it was in the service for her own children. Even Scape, Lancea and—

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes and grimaced, frustrated. Were she any more so, her gaze could have pierced right through any of her changelings. Good thing that she was currently staring at an artificial stalactite.

Lead.

Yes, she would have to lead them through these troubling times. It would not be easy. A painful twang resonated within the Queen at the thought of the inevitable losses. She'd already lost many, and each loss had cut deeply. Every single one was a subject, friend, and child all rolled into one. Every single one: lost to the cruelties of the world.

Inspire.

It was a pain that she would have to bear for her brood. They needed Chrysalis as much as she needed them. What was a queen without her hive? And, to the same extent, what was a hive without a queen? However, she knew that she would have to bear this weight alone. All of her children, from the mightiest alpha to the lowliest zeta, would follow their mother into Tartarus if it came to it.

Not Farris, the damned disobedient little—

She shut her eyes. She couldn’t think about them, not now.

Prosp—

"My Queen?"

Chrysalis took a sharp breath and snapped open her eyes, focusing on the alpha that had spoken to her. The golden-eyed Trapjaw looked on, not showing any direct concern, though her questioning tone was evident.

The Queen shifted on her throne and rested her head upon a hoof. She sighed. "Speak, Trapjaw."

Trapjaw's shoulders slackened slightly. "It's about the new nymphs, my Queen," she said, betraying nothing.

The chamber grew empty. Or, at least that's how Chrysalis perceived it. It was cavernous enough to begin with, and though no less frugal than most other chambers in the Hive, the throne chamber was still moderately populated at all times. Despite this, it felt empty to Chrysalis. Only she and the alphas before her existed as of right then.

The warrior had clearly noticed the shift within her Queen. "I apologise if I speak out of turn, Your Highness," she said as she bowed her head and stared at the ground in deference.

"You do not, Trapjaw," Chrysalis replied with a wave of her hoof. She wanted to sigh, but she felt that doing so again so soon would reflect poorly in the warriors' eyes. Despite this, she regarded the Alpha with a furrowed brow. "What about them?"

At last, she looked somewhat hesitant. Trapjaw briefly glanced up from her bow and to her closest peer before slowly rising to her standing height. "It's just that—" She hummed thoughtfully. "It's that we have neither seen nor heard from the nymphs." A few nods and affirmative smells from the other four alphas followed her statement. "I think that I speak for all of us in saying that we do not presume much from you, but surely seeing our siblings would be a concession that you'd grant us, Mother."

Chrysalis's eyes narrowed further, quickly sweeping over the five alphas. "And you all believe this?"

There was another round of affirmatives. Alpha Carapace straightened up slightly. "We've been told that they're marked," she spoke with a firm yet respectful voice. "Shouldn't they be introduced to the whole Hive? If nothing else, they could be something that the drones and workers can aspire to." This too gained more decisive nods.

Chrysalis considered Carapace's suggestion. Her slow exhale was barely noticed, but her contemplative eyes were more evident. Not that she really cared that much. She just wanted to distract herself for a few hours, but none offered her that small mercy—not even Chrysalis herself.

The matter of her newest children —they were hers, no matter what they said, much to her chagrin— was bound to arise at some point, of course, but she had still hoped that it wouldn't have. Chrysalis hadn't had time to really consider how to tackle the issue that...

...that I dumped upon poor Petiole.

Her eyes focused again, lips tightening. "They are not ready," said the Queen. That was truthful enough.

The alphas did not break their stances, though Carapace shot her a questioning look. "Hasn't it been almost two days since their emergence?"

"Is something– is there something wrong with them?" Trapjaw asked, smelling worried.

Chrysalis raised her head and rested her hooves. She stared down the two alphas. "They, my dear alphas," she began with an overly saccharine tone, "are not ready. Until you are otherwise informed, they are not ready to be introduced to the Hive, and you will not question this."

An eerie silence followed. Carapace's expression did not harden, but Trapjaw's eyes widened slightly. The other three, Mandible, Squama, and Tornus, reacted in their own subtle ways. The Queen craned her neck to highlight her fanged grimace.

"Am I understood?" she said with a long, menacing hiss.

Carapace closed her eyes whereas Trapjaw momentarily averted eye contact. Neither of them responded.

Chrysalis scoffed and sat back, running her tongue along her teeth. "You are dismissed, alphas."

"Your Highness," Squama said quietly for the group. As one, they all bowed their heads and turned. None of them looked back except for Trapjaw who almost snuck a glance back towards the Queen, but didn't otherwise linger. Chrysalis recognised that look: We're here to help, Trapjaw seemed to say.

Chrysalis did not reply; it hurt to not accept their help, but what could they offer? They were not queens, but they came close. Admittance of weakness to her alpha warriors would be tantamount to surrendering her position as queen. No changeling would think to challenge their own queen, but the impact on her status would still be devastating.

She would resolve this, one way or the other.

A sigh escaped her as she slumped into her throne; there was no avoiding this. It had to be taken care of immediately. Much as I don't want to, she whined internally.

"My Queen!"

Chrysalis groaned—she couldn't help it. "What?" she asked tersely.

It was Petiole. His slow approach stopped at her irritated voice. "My apologies, Your Highness," he said with a respectful head bow. It was only then that Chrysalis saw that he had three sheets of paper in his magical grasp, each in various states of wear and tear.

The sight slightly abated her annoyance, and her curiosity was piqued. Reports were strictly oral. Why would the drone have precious paper? Chrysalis beckoned him over. "What do you have there?"

Petiole tried and failed to respond as he drew close. It was only when he was before her that he offered the sheets. Puzzled, she reached out with her magic to bring them over.

She couldn't tell what she was looking at. They were all some sort of sketch (though she couldn't tell what tool was used), but that was all that they really shared in common.

Only the first two, some sort of two-legged figures, were somewhat recognisable. The first was moderately cleaner than the second, and the thin body was better defined. Chrysalis could distinguish arms and hands, though she couldn't find other features that would go with the hands. Were this a minotaur, it lacked the distinct horns and tail, and the body was far too lanky. She couldn't tell what that pose was supposed to indicate.

The second came closer to something minotaur-like, but the artistry was left wanting as evidenced by the damage wrought on the paper and the smudges. It held something in its grasp and had some sort of headgear? Honestly, with the chicken-scratch quality, it was difficult to tell. This figure was also missing its horns and tail.

The third… the third was the most intriguing.

Unlike the first two, this drawing was a bust of something that she couldn't identify. She could make out the eyes, the mane, and the mouth—that was easy enough. Everything else, however, left the Queen perplexed: the mane fell down to the thin shoulders, and the head and face had an overall oval shape with a pointed chin. It had a relatively short neck and wore some sort of blouse with something underneath that. A round protrusion on either side of the front torso was evidenced through the clothing. Long, spindly limbs ran down the sides to Hatcher-knew-where. And—

Is that supposed to be a nose?

Chrysalis studied the last drawing for a long time; she didn't really know or care, the sketch was almost that mesmerising. Gleaning nothing new from it, she finally regarded Petiole. "Where did you get these?"

Petiole drew in a breath. "Your, hm, your newest children. They drew them, Mother."

She stared dumbly until it finally clicked: the hue-mans.

It really should have been obvious. Now that Chrysalis knew, these could only have been representations of what those nymphs had claimed to be. She had not paid it any mind since then because... well, she really did not want to, though now, as the descriptions were repeated in her mind, it all began to make sense.

They fit their description, but she still couldn't picture them as these 'hue-mans', and in a way, that was a bad sign. A changeling who couldn't form a mental image of a being for a disguise was one doomed to fail.

The Queen sniffed. She had to admit: were these the imaginations of egg-addled nymphs, they were rather creative.

Enough! a voice in her chastised. They are not mad, they are not addled, they are real and need your help. They are your responsibility. It sounded eerily like her mother’s voice. Chrysalis didn’t like that.

A scowl found its way on the changeling's snout. Responsibility. That word echoed in Chrysalis's mind. She had heard it plenty when she was but a nymph herself. Mother would always repeat and insist on it. Like it or not, 'hue-man' or not, they were hers to take care of. Chrysalis could not shirk this duty.

A thought came to her though: "How did they draw this?"

"With uh, with charcoal, Mother."

Charcoal? The Queen pouted pensively. This was the first she'd ever heard of a charcoal drawing. She chuckled ruefully. That was all she needed to hear.

"They're really not changelings," Chrysalis said in a whisper.

"My Queen?"

She scanned the drawings for a bit longer before rising up from her throne and descending from it with fluttering wings. She set them aside upon a rudimentary rock slab as she spoke to Petiole.

"Let's go, Petiole," Chrysalis said, putting on an authoritative aura. "I want to meet them. Properly this time."

Conscription

"How often do they happen?"

Hackett tilted his head in an approximation of a shrug to the adult's question. "Often enough for us to be needed, unfortunately. Big cities tend to house a lot of people, and the more people there are, the more likely a fire will break out."

Karlene only paid half a mind to the regaling of his tale at the changeling —Sclerite, she reminded herself— who listened in, wholly enraptured. It wasn't because Karlene thought that she didn't need to know, but because of the subtext underneath it. It was worse with Vargas, but Monty's need to display his value was bothersome. She supposed that it made sense to do so, to avoid the possibility of either the nurse or the Queen would find no use in the three of them. Karlene had died once already, and she had no intention of going through it again, especially if it meant suffering through another period of being a helpless fetus.

She took a moment to observe the scene of the diminutive insect speaking to a fascinated and larger insect, both of whom were far too big for her liking. Karlene still couldn't quite shake the feeling that the sight was a fictitious one: something that would fit in a movie or a comic book. It shouldn't have been real, had the world that she knew made sense.

The now-very-much-not-a-woman let out a forlorn sigh. Karlene was, to quote a certain girl with a dog, not in Kansas anymore.

"How many of you are there?" Sclerite asked.

Montgomery mulled over his response. "If we're going by how many there are in my rescue squad excluding me, twenty-one. We're six in my own squad company." His ears wilted. "Well, we were six. I've got no clue what happened to my company."

This brought on a weight upon Karlene's mind as she was reminded of her own colleagues. Anthony, Grace, Matthew... with how things were, they were as good as dead. Or rather, I'm the one who's gone. With a deep breath, she extinguished the thought immediately lest she let herself wallow in a pit of grief. Doing so once in an egg was plenty enough.

"If they died with you, they'd be with us," Vargas said neutrally. "They were lucky enough to be spared from our nightmare."

Hackett looked offended, and Karlene could feel the waves of irritation radiating off of him. Sclerite too appeared hurt, though there was a pang of disappointment rather than outright annoyance.

"But this is the safest place for you," said the nurse insistently, slightly indignant. "We've done everything to comfort you and make you feel at home."

Vargas snorted, while Montgomery muttered something under his breath. Karlene didn't have to guess the meaning to agree with the sentiment; somewhat at least. Fair enough, their caretakers and 'mother' hadn't intended for any of their distress. But the road to hell and good intentions and all that, she thought bitterly to herself.

This sentiment wasn't lost on Sclerite, and she became more muted. "Please. I am sincere when I'm saying that we really did mean you no harm, physical or otherwise!" She lowered her gaze. "You were supposed to have the best of the Hive provided to you, and I, I think that you still will be given your due care and affection."

As the changeling said that, her way-too-big blue eyes gained a shine that accompanied a series of guttural chirps that was worryingly familiar. It made Karlene's heart pulse in her neck, and she mentally swore. Before she could fall under the effect, Vargas made a sound that didn't carry any meaning, but his anger was easy to understand.

"No!" he almost shouted with a stammer. "That! That-that thing that you are doing, that's exactly what is tormenting us! You-you-you're trying to change how we think directly! That's, that's not right!"

The chirping ceased immediately, and it was as if a veil had lifted and Karlene could think straight again. She too stared with plenty of ire herself, but the pathetic way that Sclerite’s whole form seemed to shrink at their outrage gave her pause. Sclerite seemed almost to be on the verge of tears —it was still odd to think that she had tear ducts— and her eyes fell further lower than before.

"But I didn't mean to...?" Sclerite said in a barely audible whisper, unsure.

Vargas huffed. "Well, you fucking did, whether you mean to or not."

The chamber grew uncomfortably quiet, though not for the reason that Karlene had anticipated initially. This was the first time that she'd seen him this directly vile, and she wanted to agree but...

Looking back at Sclerite, she looked about as pathetic as a kicked puppy, ears drawn back and all. Karlene knew that Vargas was in the right, though every fibre of her being screamed out in agony. It was not right to scold the nurse, she was just doing as she was taught.

Karlene caught herself and blinked profusely. Where the hell did that come from?

"Aw jeez," came Montgomery's voice. He approached the nurse and placed a limb upon her in a hesitant show of comfort. "It's fine, it's fine." His tone was conciliatory, though his own apprehension was evident through his stance and distant 'hug'.

Another scoff escaped Vargas's lips. "Oh come on, Hackett! Don't tell me you think that it's actually sorry."

Even Karlene dropped her jaw in shock. Justly angry or not, she wasn't so abusive to just treat the very adult and very big changeling who was in distress as a dumb beast. Even if Sclerite was an unthinking one, antagonising her was the last thing from Karlene's mind. She wanted to say as much, but she didn't need to thanks to Montgomery.

"For once, could you shut up and think before spewing shit?" he harshly asked, looking behind his shoulder at Vargas. "I'm angry as well, but for fuck's sake, we can talk it out like adults! The adults that we're supposed to be!"

Vargas visibly seethed and appeared ready to retort, but Montgomery cut him short with a hush. "Don't you get it?" he asked, turning more to better face Vargas. "We're not human anymore—not in body. Haven't you noticed the smells, the weird things that you knew but really shouldn't have known about? Fuck, man, we've talked to each other with emotions!"

"But the mind cont—"

"Then we'll ask!" Hackett looked up to Sclerite. "What you did just now, was that supposed to manipulate us?"

The breath that she let out was sharp but short. "I– no!" she said resolutely, appalled. "I would never! That's not– I can't do that directly! You're not supposed to be influenced like that at all!"

"What do you mean by 'influenced'?" Karlene interjected, taking a few steps forwards and keeping a steely gaze at Sclerite.

The adult drew in a shaky breath. "I was trying to make you feel belonged. I-it's another way of telling you that. It’s how I treat nymphs like you." Then, quite curiously, she let out a lamentful chuckle. "But you're not nymphs. I mean you are, but you are not." Sclerite brought up a limb and began knocking it against her forehead. "It's honestly maddening."

"Hey, hey," Montgomery redoubled his efforts to comfort her, lowering his voice. "Don't beat yourself up." His smile twitched upwards. "Neither figuratively nor literally."

That got a good-humoured laugh and a grin out of Sclerite, brief as they were. At least she stopped tapping at her head. It was only then that Karlene realised what Hackett knew. Well, perhaps not what he knew, but what he suspected.

In a quiet voice, she asked, "Sclerite, just how old are you?"

Sclerite shot her a funny look. "What does—" Sclerite sniffed. "What do you mean by that?"

"How many years have passed since you were a, um, a nymph?"

Montgomery looked up to Sclerite, curious about the answer. Even Vargas from his spot emanated interest. The changeling blinked, her gaze growing unfocused. "How many years?" she murmured as if wondering that herself. "I wouldn't know exactly. Four, five years since my emergence."

A chill ran down Karlene's spine; Montgomery closed his eyes and scowled; Vargas stared agape. So it was true.

"Jesus, you're just a child." Karlene's mutter was hollow with the dread of what she'd just learned. Sclerite seemed to bristle at the declaration, but Karlene cut her displeasure short. "A-and the other nurse? The one who's always with you?"

Sclerite's simmer faded, though Karlene could see just how upset she still was. "What does it matter?" she asked irritably before letting out a sigh. "Alpha Petiole is likely two years my senior," she said after a moment, "though I don't see how that makes the Alpha or me 'children'."

"Oh man," Montgomery said with a deepening scowl, "this is messed up."

"No, wait! That– that doesn't make any sense," Vargas insisted, though his tone had gotten noticeably less confident. "Perhaps years are longer here, or maybe the days last for longer, because..." His words fell as his eyes met Sclerite's. "...because otherwise, you– you are emotionally immature," he said in a shaky breath, as he seemed to just understand the implications of it all. "You all are. Oh, Lord. But I didn't think..."

The glare from Montgomery was just as pained as Vargas's words. "No. None of us did."

Was that it then: the root cause of all of their misunderstandings? Karlene raised one of her limbs in an attempt to hug herself. It now all made a frightful amount of sense. These changelings had to baby each other because, in essence, they were still children. It must've been what they were used to. With this, another doubt crept up in Karlene's mind.

"How old is the Queen?" she asked hesitantly.

Sclerite finally snapped. "Older than all of us—than all of you!" The outburst caught Hackett off guard and sent him recoiling backwards from the nurse. "You will not ask her that," she hissed fiercely, "and you will show her the proper deference that she is owed!

"And what's this about age?" Sclerite huffed. "Who are you to call young or immature when, by your own admission, are not changelings?" She rose to her feet and loomed over Karlene and Montgomery. "You are not younglings, fair enough, but do not treat us nurses as such! Or any other adult, for that matter!"

Whatever confidence Hackett had displayed evaporated under the verbal onslaught if his expression was anything to go by. Vargas wisely stayed quiet and did not take the opportunity to sneak a jab at Karlene and Montgomery's hasty presumptions. As for Karlene, well. She'd made a fool of herself. Again.

Her head hung low. How could she have overlooked this? Sclerite's mood swing should have surprised Karlene, but it was only fitting and, ultimately, justified. Things weren't as they were before. Gotta get that through your thick head, Karlie, she scolded herself.

Suddenly Sclerite's ears perked up, twitching towards the exit. She eyed specifically Karlene when she gave a quiet and hurried warning: "No mention of this before Mother or the Alpha, understood?" Sclerite didn't bother waiting for a response as she straightened herself and relaxed her overall stance. Her smile, it was easy to see, was forced.

Karlene let out a breath that she didn't realise that she was holding. This wasn't the time to dwell on it; though it didn't mean that she'd rather face through another meeting with her again.

Courage, Karlie, said a voice as the Queen crawled through, you're made of sterner stuff.

Chrysalis scrutinised the three nymphs. Their all-too prophetic blue marks had begun to fade into the typical grey, and their chitin was gaining a healthy sheen even in this dim chamber. At least they were developing well enough. Physically, she had to remind herself.

Chrysalis hadn't worried about putting on her 'nymph face' (as she's heard some of the nurses call it), but she did keep in mind to try being diplomatic. A bit of a problem, as she had never been in a situation where she had to be that. Understanding, perhaps; friendly too, but never diplomatic.

The nurse before her was putting on an act, though she couldn't quite tell why. She suspected —no, Chrysalis was sure— that the 'hue-mans' were the root cause, but that would have to be addressed later. She instead focused on the little ones.

There was a lull, as none of those present wanted to be the first to put their hoof forwards. The hush annoyed the Queen, and she flicked her head upwards.

"I do not like repeat performances," Chrysalis declared, somewhat callously. "I would like for this third round of introductions to be the final one, so let's start at the beginning." Her eyes wandered between the three nymphs, and arbitrarily nodded her head at the warrior. "You may start, Scape."

Scape's nostrils twitched at that. "To start off, the name's Monty," began the hue-man, decidedly less forward than before. That was a bit of a surprise, though it didn't garner much more than a raised eyebrow from Chrysalis.

This 'Mon-tea' continued to speak how he was a firefighter for what was supposedly a nation's capital. Chrysalis didn't wholly understand every word or name that he spoke of, but she was able to follow the overall meaning, giving her an image of someone who, in a past life, was dutifully heroic, enjoyed a perilous existence, and worked well in a team.

Funnily enough, though not a one-to-one translation, a firefighter could fit into the role of a warrior were one determined enough, and Mon-tea was undoubtedly that—Chrysalis could see it. Despite everything, Mon-tea was masculine in his tone. That was undoubtedly an intriguing detail.

It was then Lancea —'Car-lean', Chrysalis pointed out to herself— who told of her career as an 'emergency medical technician', again in the same capital as Mon-tea. In less fanciful terms, it was clear that Car-lean was once a healer. While notably more varied in terms of function compared to a warrior, workers were not typically healers. That duty usually fell under the purview of drones who had an affinity towards the art. It didn't mean that workers were exempt from that task, however, and the Queen could easily see this former healer take up the mantle once more, and perhaps contribute to other jobs as well.

Lastly, Farris: that hue-man with the stupidly long name was nigh on insufferable, and it took plenty of patience for Chrysalis not to snap at him or make a sarcastic comment. All she had gotten from him was that the drone was an actor. At least that was something, though it was doubtful that his experience made for a good infiltrator. That was something to be seen afterwards.

But beating the arrogance out of him takes precedence, Chrysalis thought fiendishly with an impish smile.

So, a somewhat stalwart firefighter in the guise of a warrior, a scaredy worker who's supposedly an able healer, and a drone claiming to be an actor. Chrysalis's mind went back to the text that she read weeks ago, the explanation of the prophetic marks. The more she thought about it, the more she grasped just how correct it was. The only issue is that it's too dead-on, she deadpanned inwardly.

A sigh later, she regarded the hue-mans for a moment longer, taking a few steps to the side in the vain hope of spotting something that she'd missed in the new angle. Of course, there wasn't anything else to them, much as Chrysalis wished otherwise.

"What am I supposed to do with you?" she wondered loud enough to get Farris —she refused to call him by his own name— to sit straighter.

"Can't you get us back?" he spoke up, somewhat humbled compared to before.

Chrysalis stopped and stared at him. "I am many things, Farris, but I am not omnipotent."

"I said that my name is—" Farris's interjection immediately died in his throat when the Queen came eye to eye with an intimidating display of her teeth.

"I do not care," she said in a hiss. "You will go by Farris because I declared it so." Chrysalis kept the glare for a moment longer, then stood back up. "I cannot do what you've asked. I don't hold power over either death or this strange 'alternate dimension'—" She glanced at Mon-tea. "—that you spoke of. Much to my disappointment."

The hue-mans didn't pipe up to that last bit. Good, Chrysalis didn't want to slap down any further misconduct. She continued, "So, while I might just be rid of you because you are not my children..."

The Queen stopped; she felt something from the Gamma nurse. It was disdain, and she was sure that she could also smell it from Petiole, though not as strongly. This gave her pause because it puzzled her. Were they disapproving of her latter declaration? She supposed that she was technically wrong, these nymphs were hers, but their minds were not their own, and thus not those of her younglings. Was that what gave the nurses umbrage?

Chrysalis reconsidered her words, if not to put the nurses' minds at ease, then to calm down the now frightened hue-mans. "I will not do so, because, despite everything, you are my offspring."

A look from Farris indicated that he wasn't in agreement, and even Mon-tea did not seem convinced with her statement. Car-lean was a bit harder to read, but there was a hint of mild disgust emanating from her. Chrysalis harrumphed. "There are no two ways about it."

"So, what are you going to do to us?" Mon-tea spoke up.

The Queen snorted. "I'll treat you as I do my children, provided that you serve the Hive and me."

"But that's—" Car-lean's objection faltered before Chrysalis had to intervene. Whatever she was about to say, the looming form of the Queen silenced any further comment.

"The Hive provides, but you must work for its betterment, Car-lean." That damnable name was far too similar to the barks in Equesh and whatever hodge-podge of words that canids called a language. Her ears did not find it agreeable. I should just insist on their real names and just be done with it, Chrysalis thought bitterly.

She continued, circling the hue-mans in a manner not dissimilar to a predator circling its prey. "You will be educated in our ways, work for the Hive, integrate yourselves, and—" Chrysalis allowed herself a lopsided smile "—if you prove yourselves particularly diligent and obedient, you shall be rewarded with long and rich lives."

It wasn't a lie, but she did not expect to have to fulfil the promise. Even from her limited interaction with these hue-mans, Chrysalis could tell that they would chafe at the prospect of a life of servitude—especially Farris. She was sure that, if given the opportunity, they'd refuse to perform the tasks necessary for the wellbeing of the Hive.

"However," she added, her smile growing predatory, "I shall not tolerate slacking or repeated failure. Not even my true changelings are spared from punishment for their inadequacy."

There, instilling the fear of the Hatcher would have been enough. Chrysalis could see Mon-tea and Car-lean's eyes widen. Farris merely tensed up. His horror was palpable, though a part of her baulked at the fact that it came from one of her own.

The Queen put on an overly sweet grin. "Are there any questions? You'd best ask them now and not risk looking foolish later."

There was a beat, and just before she was about to dismiss them, Mon-tea said, "You didn't answer my question."

Chrysalis stopped to regard him, her grin faltering slightly. "I believe that I did, but I shall clarify." She hummed exaggeratedly, tapping her chin with a hoof to underscore her tone. "For right now, you will be assigned to your respective caregivers and be taught by them as nymphs are taught." As she thought it over, Chrysalis then addressed Petiole: "They can forgo the base language education considering the circumstances, and perhaps most of the other simple socialisation except..."

Chrysalis's grin gained a mischievous edge as her eyes fell upon Car-lean. "Except perhaps those lessons about how their bodies function," she said playfully. "I don't want them losing control of their bowels and bladders," Chrysalis added, now fully facing the hue-mans. "Especially since you're adults."

Farris's heated response was expected, and, pleasantly enough for Chrysalis, mostly silent. Car-lean and Mon-tea's respective reactions played out differently from what she had expected: Car-lean's head drooped, and she averted her eyes, ashamed; Mon-tea instead maintained eye contact and deepened his scowl. Funny, Chrysalis said to herself, I thought that—

"So we are introducing them to the Hive, my Queen?" Petiole asked.

Roused from her inner thoughts, Chrysalis hummed again, never taking her eyes off of the hue-mans. "No," she replied after a pause. "No, not yet. Keep them known to just the caregivers and whatever younglings are under their care."

"Younglings are talkative," Petiole pointed out, still keeping a respectful tone. "The Hive will learn from those tattle-mouths."

"Yes, but they will be kept apart from the adults as much as possible. Hopefully," Chrysalis said, once more circling the hue-mans, "by the time any of the adults who are not involved will see you, you will be good, contributing members of our glorious Hive."

Again Farris stewed in his displeasure and clearly wanted to talk back. The sight made her smile just a bit wider before it immediately turned into a severe frown. "No ifs, ands or buts," Chrysalis stated resolutely, stopping in front of them. "Your first lesson, graciously offered by yours truly, is that my word is absolute and true. When I say that you will work for our Hive, you will ensure that my statement stands, otherwise..." She smirked. "But it won't come to that, will it?"

Farris actually seemed to stifle his indignation if his widened eyes were anything to go by. Car-lean's neck plates clicked softly as they twitched with unease. Only Mon-tea, surprisingly enough, did not immediately react. His purple eyes did not break contact and stared unblinkingly.

"Yes, ma'am," he said after a few moments.

Chrysalis's nostrils flared, her eyes narrowed, and a growl rumbled from deep within her throat. She drew closer to him until she was face-to-face. "That's 'your Highness' or 'my Queen' to you, grub," she said in a snarl, her voice dangerously quiet. "You have my blood, but you are not my true kin. I shall not extend to you the courtesies offered to my brood, not with that gall of yours. You must earn my respect. Am I understood?"

Mon-tea suffered under the scrutiny but, rather irritatingly, did not break. "Y-yes," he finally stammered out, hastily adding, "y-your Highness."

The Queen kept her glare for a few moments longer. "You will have to work on giving your due deference. Do not disappoint me, Scape." She stood back up. "And you will also be referred to by the names that I have given you." She glanced at Car-lean. "Lancea." She didn't bother looking at Farris. "And you already know your name."

"I—" Farris's response immediately died upon receiving the icy stares of not just Chrysalis but those of both nurses too. Defeated, he bowed his head and said in a small voice, "I uh, I understand, my Queen."

The sight of the irreverent Farris grovelling before her was pleasing. "Excellent, Farris. You are a quick learner," she said amusingly, letting out a short and appreciative chuckle. "You may yet become a real drone."

Farris said nothing, though he did look rather glum now. Good.

Drawing in a sharp breath, Chrysalis put on a smile. "Very well, I have other duties to attend to, so if you have any further questions, posit them to your nurses or caregivers. Their word, much like mine, is law, so you must obey them and follow their instructions. Do you all understand?"

Hesitantly, each one of the hue-mans either nodded or vocally affirmed—with the appropriate honorific too! she thought gleefully. They're quick to learn. Satisfied, she closed in towards the Alpha nurse. Chrysalis was about to speak normally but thought better of it. The hue-mans didn't need to eavesdrop on this conversation.

"How is your Equesh?" she asked Petiole in the ponies' tongue. A quick look at the hue-mans revealed piqued eyebrows. Good, they couldn't understand.

Petiole looked a bit surprised but responded in kind with his dual-tone voice. "It's passable. What do you wish to tell me, Mother?"

"Spread the smell to the alpha nurses and caregivers: only betas and gammas may interact with them," Chrysalis ordered, "None of the warriors must know yet. The younglings are to be told to keep silent about these hue-mans, and be sure to encourage disciplinary actions against those who do not follow these instructions."

Petiole's brow furrowed in concern. "That seems unfair to the younger nymphs," he murmured. "But I will let the alphas know, though I suspect the warriors will not sit by idly if they suspect something."

"Leave the warriors to me, I'll handle them. You just take care of these three."

After a moment, the nurse nodded and gave an affirmative smell. "I understand, my Queen."

Chrysalis stood straight, shooting a side glance at the three hue-mans and said, in her usual tongue, "That will be all. I expect to hear nothing but good things about the three of you!" There was a slight bounce in her trot towards the threshold of the chamber.

It couldn't be helped: it had been a long while since the last time that she was able to flex her power and authority over those too weak to fight back. It felt good.

Even against your own children? asked a traitorous little voice in her head.

Suddenly the bounce in her step disappeared, and the glee was sapped out from Chrysalis as she crawled out of the chamber.

Karlene's gaze upon the bowl of water before her was a forlorn one. Petiole had left not long after the Queen, returning to drop off the water bowls for them and leaving immediately after.

Sclerite remained to supervise them and had been notably less amiable than before, though she did not belittle Montogmery when he had to... well, when he had to discharge. In that, Sclerite was as professional as any nurse that Karlene had known and helped him through the embarrassment quickly and proficiently. Karlene knew too well how Hackett must have felt. Vargas was thankfully quiet about it. Perhaps he must have realised that he'd have to experience a similar mess soon enough.

There was a sense of academic curiosity from Karlene about the process —ideally, she wanted to know just how her new body functioned— but she elected not to poke and prod. She would have to ask the nurse afterwards in private.

Montgomery was a trooper, despite how uncomfortable he was with the whole thing. He did nothing except ask some minor yet relevant questions, to which Sclerite responded politely and to the point. The waste was discarded in some sort of mucus that she excreted from her mouth, using a process that both fascinated and disgusted Karlene.

Both Vargas and Hackett were put off by it, and so was Karlene, but only to an extent. There was an instinctual response from her, and at one point, she felt something like the beginning of bile forming at the back of her throat though far less unpleasant. It wasn't bile really, but the sensation was no less unpleasant. Karlene suppressed the urge to throw it up, lest she accidentally made a mess of things.

It was then, as she observed the water before her and the creamy pink eyes which stared back that Karlene began to appreciate the situation that she was in. She and the other two men had essentially just been drafted into a society that they would have to grow up in. Their 'mother' saw them as alien creatures that had hijacked her real children and held no love for her.

Hell hath no fury like a mother scorned, Karlene thought bitterly to herself. Or was it a woman? Regardless of how the saying went, Queen Chrysalis definitely qualified as a scorned woman. A strange bug woman, but a woman nevertheless. Were Karlene to survive, she'd best fall under the changeling queen's good graces.

Karlene brought up her hoof (Sclerite had mentioned it to Montgomery during his accident) to rub at her face. Both were utterly alien: the chitinous structure; the hole-riddled stump of a limb; she missed having hands. She missed being able to pinch her nose. Hell, she missed havingproper skin.

The soft, somewhat pleasant sensation of chitin rubbing on chitin brought some comfort. This body knew what was right for itself; Karlene did not, and that was the crux of the problem. It was only now that the inevitability of it all came crashing down upon her. She would have to live and grow in this form for the rest of her existence. Under the rule of a despot no less! Suddenly whatever criticisms that she had of her hectic life as an on-call EMT didn't seem to hold weight in comparison. Would she ever grow used to the strange sensations? Would she forget her old life?

It would have been easy to let her emotions spill again. It would probably have been healthy. But to do so again in public? No. She was strong, she had to be for the life that she once had.

An image threatened to form in her mind, but Karlene immediately quelled it. She would not think about it. She'd overcome it before, she would overcome this too.

She let out a sigh and resumed drinking. It was a quiet affair: neither Montgomery, Vargas, nor Sclerite piped up, with the latter keeping a scrutinising eye over the three. The air was thick with tension, and, oddly enough, Karlene literally could almost taste it; another changeling quirk, she supposed. The sensation only helped underscore it, and though difficult, she did her best to ignore it.

Karlene wasn't sure how much time had passed when Petiole returned. She had finished drinking long ago, and so had Vargas. Montgomery was still busy licking the water from his lips when his ears twitched to the sounds of shifting dirt.

"You will follow me," the head nurse said in a hiss, nodding towards the exit. "Do not stray."

Both Hackett and Vargas rose wordlessly. Well, almost wordlessly: a dejected mutter could be heard from the latter. Karlene, however, hesitated. Peering at the dark tunnel gave her a sense of foreboding. This chamber had been the centre of her new life. As absurd as it was to admit it, it was almost a second home to her old one. What lay beyond it?

Karlene felt something nudge her from behind. "Come on, get up." Sclerite's tone was quieter than Petiole's but no less strict.

The woman did so carefully. Her legs shook if she focused too hard on the actual act of standing. Just as she felt as she was about to fall over, she stood firm. Don't think too hard about it, she told herself. Just let the body do the hard work. The three silently followed Petiole with Sclerite bringing up the rear. There was a momentary pause just before Karlene crossed the threshold, but she swallowed her fear and stepped forward.

Unlike the adults, she and the other two humans didn't have to stoop their heads or splay their legs to traverse the tight crawl space. In fact, Karlene saw that it wasn't nearly as pitch-black as it had seemed from the chamber. It was dark, but she could see forms and shapes quite easily, even though there was a slightly fuzzy aura on everything. Nothing too unusual there, it was comparable to her old night vision as a human but notably sharper.

Karlene didn't have long to ponder on that as what appeared to be a wall suddenly shifted, and light flooded the tunnel. The abrupt illumination didn't hurt, but she was caught off guard and stumbled, tumbling into Vargas in front of her. He let out a wordless sound as he too staggered forwards. Montgomery barely had enough time to jump to the side and avoid joining in the pileup. They crashed a few feet forwards and bumped in Petiole's rear.

"Watch it, woman!" Vargas immediately snapped, struggling to untangle himself from the mess of limbs.

Before Karlene could apologise, Petiole groaned loudly as he pulled himself out into the light and turned to glare. "Are you quite finished?" His horn glowed, and both Karlene and Vargas were separated and brought out of the hole.

She reacted poorly, wanting to thrash against his grasp, but the sight before her quickly settled her down.

It was cavernous—rough platforms chipped out of a variety of blue stones stood perched at different levels above and below the chamber, connected by crudely sculpted staircases and by jagged spires. The latter jutted out at random both above and below the platforms without rhyme or reason. A few even seemed to go on forever from where Karlene stood. All over the walls, the semi-natural floors and the steeples were other dark holes that led into other tunnels that lay just beyond sight. Some of these holes... they shrank and disappeared into the stone, whereas others would randomly form only for adult changelings to crawl out from.

The sight of these tunnels, opening and closing tunnels, illogical as it was, was mesmerising. It was something akin to watching the entrance of an anthill, but with exits and entrances forming and disappearing randomly as needed by the individuals moving about. This was all in full view, thanks to the lighting. Just how the light was as bright and intense as natural sunlight defied explanation and was a question that was impossible to ignore.

And yet she did; Karlene was left speechless with the sight. Was this the whole hive, or only a part of it?

There weren't many changelings moving about, likely no more than five asides from Karlene and the others. Their sizes denoted their adulthood, and their fast movements suggested that they were focused on their own tasks. A few did appear to take notice of Karlene's group, pausing for the briefest of moments before continuing their commute. One even decided not to climb a staircase but took off with a buzz and blur behind its back.

Karlene again stared, dumbfounded. She had seen the insect wings on the adults and the fledgeling ones on Vargas's and Montgomery's back before, but their size implied a vestigial set of appendages. She was no biologist, but wasn't the wingspan too small to lift these creatures? How was that changeling flying?

The woman would have continued to drink in the scenery, but her legs found the floor. "Come along now," came Petiole's voice, as Karlene felt her form being turned towards him. The glow from the adult's horn went out, and he proceeded to go up a nearby set of stairs.

No other words were exchanged as she, Vargas and Hackett followed the nurse. The steps were a challenge for their short legs, but with some prodding and help from Sclerite from the rear, they managed to reach the second floor. Or whatever floor this is, Karlene wondered.

Petiole walked towards a nondescript face of the cavern walls when a tunnel opening opened from nothing. He indicated towards the threshold. "This way."

"How is– how's any of this possible?" Karlene heard Vargas say in disbelief. Neither nurse took the trouble to answer him.

Montgomery inched closer towards Vargas. "Beats me," he said in a mutter. "It's a helluva sight, though."

"Inside." Petiole jabbed a hoof towards the opening.

Karlene watched anxiously as Montgomery took a breath and moved first, saying something under his breath. Strange, it almost sounded like he was humming a song. She followed his lead, heart pounding hard. She sensed Vargas and the adults following from behind.

Unlike the first, this tunnel was short, and there was an exit visible from the start. Looking past Hackett, Karlene could spy something beyond that glowed a green that both reassured and troubled her. It was definitely bigger than their original chamber, but nowhere near the size of the... common room? Connecting chamber? Hell if she knew.

It wasn't empty: there were a few adults that stood over a group of —oh Lord— ten, maybe twenty nymphs. They were larger than either Vargas or Montgomery, so they must've been older than Karlene or the others. Biologically speaking, that is, a voice in her head clarified. She saw that there were some variations in eye colours aside from the artic blue: a pair of yellows, one with green eyes, and one with a pair of purple eyes.

The newcomers soon were the focus of fifteen-plus pairs of eyes, and a terribly familiar want to freeze threatened to take over Karlene's senses. Steeling her breath and swallowing down the heart that had migrated up to her throat, Karlene trudged forwards. The stares didn't cease, and the nymphs began to audibly react. They were too quiet to hear correctly, but Karlene caught one snippet in particular.

"What are babies doing here?"

Her ears folded automatically, and for some reason, Karlene felt the rising urge to cry. She blinked profusely; why was that, out of everything, getting to her? She'd seen and been called worse. Why the hell was the kindergarten name-calling provoking that reaction?

Their procession continued until one of the adults present approached Petiole. "Greetings, Alpha." She offered a nod towards Sclerite. "Gamma. Are these three the nymphs?"

"They are, Gamma Clava," Petiole said curtly. He turned to the humans and beckoned them closer with a hoof. "You've been forewarned from your alpha about their...?" Petiole glanced towards the Gamma.

Her lips tightened. "I have. She deemed my lesson the best place for them to start." She faced Karlene and the others and offered a smile. "Let's assign you to a pod, shall we?" The caregiver stepped to the side and waved an inviting hoof.

Montgomery was the first to accept the invitation to follow; Karlene and Vargas trailed their companion in short order, while both of their nurses left. All the while, the hushed conversations and snickers from the older kids did not diminish. Only a pointed glare from one of the other caregivers hushed the hubbub.

They were led to one side of the crowd, farther towards one of the few corners of the chamber, where two nymphs remained sitting. As they closed, Karlene gleaned some more details of the two. Both were about the same size, though only one of them, the one with the purple eyes, stood tall and was infinitely more prominent. The smaller one lay prone behind the other, watching curiously with eyes of a vivid opal. The latter looked about the same as most of the other nymphs in terms of colouration.

The former was visually more intimidating. Besides the dark violet eyes, this nymph had a matching shell on its back, unlike the navy blue that every single other changeling had. This one —he, Karlene realised— also had a coloured frill; a deep crimson ran down along the back of his neck from the top of his head. He was easily the most eye-catching out of everyone present.

Questions swam in Karlene's mind. Was he a special kind of changeling, a warrior perhaps? Or was he maybe the direct successor to the Queen? Did that even make sense? When his narrowed eyes seemed to focus on her, she also wondered if he would be dangerous.

"Come and greet your new podmates, little ones," Clava said.

The purple nymph immediately scoffed with a hiss. "Why do you keep giving me babies, Gamma?" he said grumbling.

Clava's harsh chitter made everyone nearby recoil except for her intended target. "You must learn to work with your siblings, Pharynx," she chastised. "Your clutchmate needs you, and these nymphs—" Clava pointed to the humans "—are very special."

The sound that the nymph, Pharynx, made was a strange one, but it reminded Karlene of a groan. "Thorax is already a handful!" The head of the nymph behind him drooped closer to the ground. "And now I gotta watch three more wusses?"

Karlene would have been surprised by his very human vernacular had she not felt her eyes moisten. Why the hell was she tearing up over this? Had she... had she become a child in mind as well? Was that it?

"Oh, fuck off, you bully," Montgomery snapped, bringing Karlene out of her reverie. The response was immediate. The nymphs in the room chittered, confused by what he meant. Pharynx said nothing, though he did raise his eyebrow.

The caregiver, on the other hand, looked furious.

"Scape! We do not speak like that to our siblings!"

Hackett shrank slightly upon the withering gaze. "But he started it," he mumbled.

"As if that matters!" Clava huffed. "You will apologise to your podmate right now!"

He didn't immediately do so, preferring to instead stare at the rocky floor. Moments passed, and Karlene could feel the ire rising within the caregiver. She had to intervene.

"Just apologise, Montgomery," she whispered harshly. He turned to look at her with a furrowed brow and was about to speak before Pharynx interrupted.

"Mon-go-merry?" he parroted, making an odd sound that was similar to a chortle. "That's a stupid name for a girl."

"Pharynx!" Clava berated, immediately lifting him up with her magic. He was unphased and still making the same sound as if he were laughing. "You stop provoking your podmate this instant, or Hatcher help me—"

"Girl?" Montgomery interjected. "Who are you calling a girl?"

The irreverent changeling stopped laughing and blankly stared back at Hackett. Clava also gaped at him, her annoyance extinguished for now. "Uh, are you stupid or something?" The nymph asked, making both the caregiver and Hackett bristle. "I’m calling you a girl. You're a warrior: all warriors are girls."

Karlene could see the gears in Montgomery's mind working behind his eyes. It didn't take long for him to realise what exactly Pharynx meant. She'd been hoping that besides their birth, she and her companions could get through without drawing any more attention.

She could only sigh as Montgomery broke down with an identity crisis and cemented the fact that their new lives would never be out of the spotlight.