As she did most days, she did not expect to wake.
And yet she did. And waking meant her duty was unfulfilled. As it would ever be, until she passed on and she was replaced. Hers was not a duty that could be completed in full, only going well or poorly, for there would always be more to be done.
But she did not expect to see another generation. She had not expected to see this one through. A replacement had been prepared for her expected demise, and had been uncomfortably serving alongside her, two drones doing work that only required one. Even if she had slowed down. Had fought to rise, every morning. But she could never do otherwise, no.
The little ones needed her.
It had been her duty for as long as she could remember. Longer. She knew that at one point she had still recalled being a nymph. Had still recalled training to be an infiltrator. The Queen had made her something else.
How the Queen had been so right, she did not begin to guess. But she had never faltered, never regretted the task she had been given. But of late... of late, rising was becoming more and more difficult. Her limbs, once strong enough to dissuade even a maulwurf, now quaked at her own weight.
But the little ones still needed her. She steadied. It was time for her duty. She did not think of herself as a Nursemaid, though she was, but as a protector, sure as any warrior drone.
The morning went as they usually did in the Hive. Gather food. Collect love. Bring it to the little ones. Perhaps just a bit more than they were to be allotted. She didn't need so much, anymore. It... hurt, to try to feed too much. It reminded her of how hollow she felt.
Her replacement was already tending to the little ones. Not so little now, she had to admit. Soon they would become part of the hive. Take their roles. Become workers, infiltrators, gatherers. She herself only left the hive to allow the little ones fresh air, and for training. It was good for them, she had decided, so long ago.
Not that all of them enjoyed the trips, and her replacement had been firmly against the idea. But, as in all things for the good of the little ones, she'd been implacable. This was how good drones were made. And, when you were chosen by the queen and had as much experience as she had, and as fine a turnover rate, it was understood that you knew what you were doing.
Not that she'd been sure of that, at the time. She'd tried to raise the first batch as infiltrators, all of them. And the second. The third, she recognized that many of them were simply not a good fit. She tried to ensure they'd be placed where they would best fit, and she knew vaguely that this was not the way some others did. Some others simply assigned roles based on whatever the hive needed, and the young who failed would be reassigned. But sometimes the hive needed more infiltrators than it thought, and sometimes it needed more gatherers. Some drones died quite suddenly, and some refused to do so, long beyond expectations. The numbers were always in flux, planned or not.
Sometimes, the old had to make way for the new. She knew that, all too well. Standing aside and merely assisting her replacement did not come easily to her, but then... that was fine.
The little ones had been practicing. One was shifting into various animals. A waste, but an impressive one. Ponies would gush over something 'cute', and such love would sustain well enough, and allow one to investigate without suspicion. Well. Maybe not as a bear. Bears weren't suspicious but any smart pony knew that a bear cub was not a thing to coo over and cuddle. Though in the case of this one, the ears had a very fin-like quality; that one would not be infiltrating. Not that she'd expected it; that one was to be a Gatherer. The nymph-turned-bear had found the radishes the Nurse had 'planted' in the days before and was delightedly sharing them with the others. She took a moment to bask in his pride, for it was hers too. She'd known he had potential. The other would have just assigned him a role, succeed or fail. Those she expected to be excavators... Well. They certainly had a hole over there. A bit of mining could be relaxing in a sort of repetitive way. It wasn't for her, though.
The infiltrators were being more classically trained. Ordered to take specific forms. Match ponies based on photographs and other infiltrators. Most were close. One or two were terrible. And then the last... the last was... being hauled to her even as she thought about it, head covered in flowers. The silly thing.
She'd punished the nymph herself the first time. She'd get herself found and captured. She had to fix such little mistakes immediately. And the nymph had been better than before, a fine attention to detail, a swiftness to assume a new form... and then failure, again.
It wasn't a solitary detail. It wasn't something she could shrug off as something ponies would miss.
The nymph just couldn't get her colors right. And, more to the point... she couldn't tell when she was wrong. She would sit there, in front of other infiltrators, proud as can be, and be shocked when they told her she was wrong. What they thought was as plain as it was unpleasant.
Something was wrong with this nymph.
"This one shirks her lessons again." The younger Nurse snapped. "Makes mock of them."
She did not sigh. Sighing was not a thing a proper changeling did. But she did wish, briefly, that her young replacement would not be so bitter at the change in her role.
Had she been bitter, once? Perhaps. But like most of her emotions, those had been lost somewhere in the swarm of little ones. She regretted that, if only because she knew the little ones should not have had to strain under the weight of such an emotion. Her replacement would learn, in due time. When she became solely responsible, she'd have to.
"Attend, nymph," She demanded, firmly. "We shall repeat training, whilst the others play. Without distractions." She gestured towards a room to the side, where the little ones typically only went for meals.
The nymph looked up at her, hurt. "But I'm trying-"
"No excuses. Come!" The sharp snap of the nurse's voice was not hurtful; it carried no anger, no disappointment, only a sense of urgency. The nymph jolted, then darted along, shying away from the younger Nurse as the elder watched.
The younger looked to the senior. "The Queen will not accept her. This... excess is foolish and wasteful."
"And that is my decision to make. For the good of the hive." The younger looked taken aback. Such... declarations were unseemly. But the Queen allowed such things, when it came to the young and the caretaking of such.
She found the nymph by the opening to the underground stream, staring at her flower crown with dismay, changing color seemingly randomly. "And what are you doing now?"
"I thought... if I could smell the colors, I could do them," she admitted, dismayed. "But... they don't smell orange..."
Something twisted in the nurse. A faint hint of disgust, crushed immediately. "Those are tulips. And they are yellow."
Betrayal. "You said tulips were orange!"
"Some are." She allowed. "There are yellow and orange tulips in the forest. And color has no smell, little one."
The flower crown tore in the nymph's hooves. So, the little nymph had tried to cheat to bypass her instructors. Pride again surged, and the Nurse tamped it down.
"Maybe I should do something else..." The nymph murmured, holding the broken parts or her crown. It had been cleverly done. One of the other infiltrators must have picked it up from the ponies and shown the nymphs. Useless trivia, but spoiling the nymphs was one of the few things the Queen did not explicitly forbid.
She couldn't stand the idea of this nymph being reduced to a laborer. Of not being allowed to see the world that had been lost to her when she became a Nurse. Of those tiny, nimble hooves being worn down by years of excavation, of manual labor, wasted when she knew, knew this Nymph had the talent to be a true boon to the hive. If she was even allowed to be that, flawed as she was...
"So. Where are we going?" The nymph asked, trotting behind her, to the side. They had left the hive long ago, under the explanation that the nymph needed corrective training without distraction. It was unheard of, bordering on unthinkable to provide so much focus on one of them, but there was an excess of Nurses. The suggestion that this training would be vastly unpleasant, and should not be experienced by the other nymphs was the final sticking point.
How she had kept her plan from the hive, she could not begin to guess. What was one flawed nymph?
A nymph to be perfected, if she had any say at all. "We are going to practice until you will be worthy of your place in the Queen's eyes," stated her protector. "You are unprepared. We will return when you no longer are."
'You should go back.'
The Nurse flicked an ear at that. She would go back, of course. But this Nymph only needed a bit more practice. Perhaps whatever flaw her eyes held could be rectified, given time and more ample amounts of love than the hive could provide.
But that would require assistance that neither the Nurse nor any infiltrator for the hive could be expected to offer. So what was the alternative?
"But... where?"
She thought. Pony settlements. Somewhere to supply. The other infiltrators talked about a town... it was a good start.
Heyyu was not a complex pony. He showed up for work in the morning. He did his duty. He ate his allowed allotment of cherries with a bit more relish than most, but the sweet little things remained a delight. And, every so often, he'd join the rest of the town at the salt bar. To keep up appearances, he'd have a cherry sour, heavy on the cherry and light on the sour. And, when someone inevitably made a joke about it, he'd start the brawl that let the whole town work out their aggression, sure as clockwork.
He loved this life. He wasn't even sure when it happened, but he did. Dodge Junction was his home. But he couldn't imagine a better place to live. Even the winters tended to be mild here, not like the north, where the pegasi still brought around snow.
No, Dodge Junction was the only place for a changeling to live. Though, come to think of it, Sweet Apple Acres might not be so bad to visit. Unfortunately, the only way to work that farm was apparently to marry into it, and Heyyu knew better than to try that. Besides. Everypony knew cherries were the superior fruit. Apples were just a big stupid variant.
They weren't even all that sweet.
Still, it didn't surprise him much to sense another of his kind in the town. He'd felt the questing emotions, the faint draw of a hungry 'ling. It was plenty obvious, he decided. This was either a fresh infiltrator, sent to this small town as a scout, or a lost exile. Here or Appleloosa, they always seemed to end up. He wasn't sure how the ones in Appleloosa managed. But here, he'd do them the favor of giving them a good start when he found them. The Guard... that one was strange, even by exile standards. Heyyu had changed forms in the off season the first few years. Established himself as a traveler doing field work for a few extra bits, but he'd 'come back' as Heyyu after the third year, just to see what ponies thought.
They'd been delighted to have him back. And he'd never left again. Not that he'd ever actually left in the first place, of course. But he liked being Heyyu. Even some of the ponies he hadn't gotten along with in his other forms seemed glad that 'ol Heyyu' was back. Even Miss Jubilee had a surprising bounce in her step to see him, and didn't that beat all? Maybe the Guard was on to something.
His crystals rarely went empty, anymore. Never as bright as the Guard's, but enough that Heyyu certainly never felt too rough about it. But the newcomers... he'd give them a charge, send them up to Canterlot, and the Guard would get them on their way. Was only neighborly, after all. And he'd decided that if the Guard could help him, he'd help others find the Guard. Maybe not the same... but it felt like he was doing the right thing. Not every 'ling could do whatever it was that one did.
And so, he finished off his drink, and slid off his cozy stool, and started heading in the direction of his room. Wasn't much chance of finding the newcomer tonight, and they always did better after a day to calm down and start thinking of what to do now that they weren't in immediate danger. Was rare that one of them didn't have enough energy to start. He'd been worse off than most, had panicked and decided to go somewhere with a lot of ponies, instead of a small town where everypony knew each other. He'd heard some decide that Manehattan was the spot for changelings; there was a strange combination of camaraderie and anonymity in the city. But city ponies were the worst.
Maybe he'd gotten a bit too comfortable in Dodge Junction, he thought ruefully. The only city ponies he knew had been downright decent.
He didn't even register the door opening until the female drone had the sharp edge of a hoof to his neck.
"You are an exile?" she asked, and Heyyu's world shook. None of them asked like that. None of them announced their presence with that much disgust. This was a hive 'ling.
"Y... yes'm," He acknowledged, swallowing hard. This wasn't where he'd expected to die. He hoped he wouldn't bleed much on Cherry's nice floor. She'd probably never guess what in Tartarus the mess was.
The drone sniffed, then drew back. "Good." She began looking around the room, and Heyyu could sense distaste growing in her. There was nothing really wrong with the room. A little messy. Not much there, a bed, a few shelves, the little plush bull he got during some carnival game at the rodeo he'd gone to a year or so back. Tyrone the Terrible or some such. He'd found the bull to be surprisingly eloquent, when he wasn't working the crowd. Bottle of cherry liqueur, and a half-eaten box of cordials- well darn. He looked a right slob, didn't he?
The drone scowled at all of it. "This is not going to work." She peered at the walls, with their posters of planting seasons and reminders of things to do, ponies to see, and various knickknacks with disdain, though he bet a bottle of the good stuff that if she tried one of the cordials her tune would change. "I require food and energy for two."
"Got a pantry. Help yourself," he offered quickly, wanting this interaction to end as soon as possible. He couldn't even imagine leaving this place, all of these things. Tartarus, he couldn't even imagine carrying off the potted cherry tree Jubilee had taught him to care for. And he couldn't just leave The Duke. The tree liked a little sugar water now and then, what pony would ever treat it like that?
"I've got", the drone corrected, frostily.
Heyyu tilted his head. "Ain't how ponies talk 'round here." He frowned, paying more attention to her form. She was old. Older than any drone he'd ever known. Infiltrators were younger, usually. The shells of workers never developed the ridges and whorls. Even her movements were stiff. But... what kind of drone- she hissed, and he noted that his box of cordials had gone missing.
A tiny head poked out from behind the desk. Heyyu stared. The last time he'd seen a nymph, he'd accidentally poisoned them. There were no nymphs outside of the hive. His mouth became very, very dry. "...What have you done...?"
The Nurse, for she could be nothing else, scowled. "You were not to touch anything or leave signs of your presence."
"...Was hungry, and he said we could...!"
"You have no idea what those are, they could be dangerous. Who knows what an exile would have-" The nymph, daring as ever, popped one of those little mud-colored balls into the Nurse's mouth. At first, she tasted only the bitterness of dark chocolate, and she moved to spit it out, when the shell cracked and the sweet nectar within touched her tongue. The Nurse staggered, her vision blurring. How long had it been since she'd eaten something sweet, and not given it to the nymphs...? Since that joy of experimentation? Since... it was gone, quick as it came. She'd put all those feelings into her charges, over the years. She'd forgotten how much she enjoyed tasting new things... this even had something of a bite to it.
The Nurse shook her head. There was no time for that. "Perhaps this could work. How much love do you have?"
Heyyu shook his head. "Not near enough for three. Two, sure, but barely enough for one and a nymph." He opened up a door in the floor, where he kept his bits and his crystals, glittering, if not brightly. "Take it."
The nurse blinked, looking up at him, seeing him in a new light. This exile was offering... all he had... for her? For this nymph? It was unexpected.
It was also not enough. The nymph alone would drain these dry in days.
"How long does it take you to fill these?"
"Reckon a week or two, to this point," Heyyu admitted. If there were tourists, less, and during winter it was assuredly more.
Well. That was that, then. The plan was failed. She didn't know why she thought an exile would be able to sustain a nymph long enough for her to grow out of this... strange affliction. But this one could barely provide enough for her to survive, and she'd be less well-fed than the hive. Still, she motioned for the nymph to take her fill. The worker drone approved, and the Nurse's estimation of him improved, slightly.
"But... the Guard does it faster. And completely full, many as you have."
The Nurse stared. "Ludicrous. The Queen would never exile a guard drone." The idea of it was... terrifying. She'd seen the... things the guard drones could turn into. Remembered seeing one of the nymphs who could turn into one of the things. She'd taken him to the Queen herself to have him reassigned as a protector. He remained one of the few guard drones who had a name, but he was better suited for that than infiltration. That had been a fool's errand.
"Worker drone. Pony guard."
"One of his forms is as a guard of the pony hive?" She repeated, incredulous. It was an impossibility.
"No," Heyyu insisted. "His only form is of a pony guard. In Canterlot."
The Nurse hissed in dismay. But... "You are sure of this?"
"He feeds every exile that comes to the city. Sets them up. Helps them find somewhere to settle," Heyyu preened a bit. "Found this on my own. Been here for years."
Disbelief. "How have they not discovered him?"
"Wait until you see him. You will know him."
The Nurse scowled. Unlikely.
The Nurse knew him, as soon as she laid eyes upon the Guard. And stared at every other pony in armor. It couldn't be. Her eyes slowly traced back. But it was.
The Guard was a pony who looked like a changeling. It was so mindbogglingly stupid, she couldn't begin to put it to words. There could be no possible way that worked.
And he had done it for ten years. She felt offended on behalf of all infiltrators, everywhere. He made mockery of their duty to feed the hive. And if the gatherer drone was correct, he did it better than most. She hated him.
'You should go back.'
She ignored the strange thought again. Hating this parody of infiltration was irrelevant. If he could feed the nymph, it didn't matter in the least. She did not believe the gatherer about the exile's largess, of course. Such a thing was impossible.
The Nurse could only stare, dumbfounded, at the wall of life before her. It was a collection of love, vast and varied, and to her emotion-tuned, near-starving senses, it shone like the sun.
And the Exiled Guard offered her all of it. She couldn't fathom how he did it. Couldn't comprehend the sheer wealth he offered. She started drawing upon it immediately. That might be enough to satiate even the void within herself- No! The nymph. Only for the nymph. The flow of energy faded, only a lick of it having touched her.
"I cannot." She whispered, and the words burned her. She should. Drain all of this. Share it with the nymph. Return to the hive. Reveal. The nymph was unimportant compared to the fountain of power this drone had apparently discovered. What matter if her flaws led to her destruction...?
It mattered.
"But... you must?" The exile was poor at hiding his emotions. Shock was evident on his pony features.
"...Bring these with you," the Nurse demanded. "And I will explain your new duties."
The guard frowned, but followed, stuffing as many of the crystals into his saddlebag as he could manage without damaging them. "I cannot promise to fulfill duties beyond those I am sworn to," the drone informed her.
Good. This 'Idol Hooves' understood duty, even if his priorities were skewed. Perhaps he could manage her nymph.
She had placed the Nymph somewhere safe. There would be more time for her. The Queen would demand an accounting, of course. She would demand to know where the Nymph had been lost. Undoubtably, she would be furious at the Exiled Guard for hiding her away, but Idol Hooves would deserve that fury. The Exile was willing to abrogate the Queen's will. The Nurse wasn't. She was only delaying it.
In the meantime, the Exiled Guard would feed her, care for her, protect her, and take all possible effort to prevent her discovery. It was not a perfect solution. But it would work for now.
'Go back...' the voice coaxed. And she would. There was no alternative. She had duty.
The Nymph would be found. Her flaws revealed. The Queen would destroy her. The Nurse would be questioned, her mind scoured for the information that would allow the Queen to resolve the matter. But her duty was to protect the little ones.
Her little ones needed her. She just needed a moment to rest.
'Go back...' came the voice, more insistent than ever. She took a step, but her body shook. She would return. As soon as the pain eased. As soon as her strength came back. Why hadn't she fed? She'd stopped feeling the hunger, at some point in this trip. It had only come back when she'd been confronted with the Exile's larder.
She made herself a little hole. Nothing a pony would notice, even if they bothered to look. She nestled into it, remembering how it had felt, when she was small and had a protector, instead of being the protector.
She rather liked the Exile, despite herself. Protecting was in their blood. Damn them both for not knowing their place, then.
'Go. Back.' It was an order. She was powerless to resist.
But she was powerless to obey, as well.
'I will rest now,' she thought, lowering her head into the depression, coating herself with a shell that nopony would ever assume to be anything save a rock on the side of the road. 'And when I rise, I will go to the queen. I will reveal everything.' she promised the voice.
There was silence. As there always had been.
She closed her eyes, and gradually, the pain went away. Her last thoughts were of the Nymph, and her hunger abated again.
The Nurse did not wake. But then, she did not expect to.
Author's Note
Sorry to start you guys off with something sad, but you all wanted to know where the Nymph came from, and who the Nurse was.
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