Servant of the Queen

Silver Rose sat on her bed, looking despondently at her Crystal Prep uniform on the end of the mattress. Normally it was just another set of clothing, another part of the disguise. But now she almost couldn’t bear to see it. Not only had the meeting with the Shadowbolts gone catastrophically badly, but now it seemed as though all the connections she had painstakingly made during her time outside had all been severed, thanks to Sugarcoat and Silver’s mother.

“How am I supposed to face them at school now?” Silver wailed to herself. Not for the first time did she feel a rush of sympathy for her aunt. Being the level headed half of the two sisters, Aunt Psithyra had often expressed a sense of frustration at Chrysalis’s more impulsive and explosive nature.

Now, Silver Rose was at a complete loss about what to do. The Shadowbolts wouldn’t be willing to come back, not after Silver’s mother had tried to kill them. She didn’t like the idea of what school would be like now.

“Maybe I should just drop out…” She mumbled sadly.

“Drop out of what?”

Psithyra pushed Silver’s bedroom door open a little bit and peeped in. There was a bandage on her arm where Chrysalis had bitten her during the fight.

“Oh. Hello, Aunt Psithyra,” Silver Rose sighed. “I meant… you know what, never mind.”

“I know, sweetie. It’s your mother, isn’t it?”

Silver Rose slumped over even lower. “It’s that obvious?”

“It’s the curse of our race,” Psithyra stepped into the room and sat down next to her niece. “The strongest leader of us is always an impulsive, brash, and self-serving type. I know what’s going on through your mother’s head because at one point, the same thoughts were going through my head.”

“They were?” Silver Rose was confused. Her aunt was the polar opposite of her mother, at least she had been for all the time she had known her.

“I’ll wager your mother wasn’t this bad before I came along, am I right?” Psithyra asked.

Silver thought back. It was true that Chrysalis had been a lot calmer and less prone to anger before Psithyra had shown up. In fact, now that Silver thought about it, the angry outbursts and self aggrandising tendencies had not really been part of her mother’s personality when Silver had been growing up.

“I don’t know…” Silver leaned against Psithyra. “Why is mother acting like this? I want her to go back to the way she was.”

In response, Psithyra simply exhaled slowly.

“What I’m about to tell you is conjecture, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it may be the truth. You know how changeling hierarchy works, yes?” Silver nodded. “Then you know that in order for changeling society to work, there has to be a queen. The changeling queen is supposed to be the strongest, toughest, and most powerful member of the race. Under the changeling queen is what your mother calls a Reaper, on account of my first human kill. I told you about that one.”

“Mmm.”

“Anyway, your mother wasn’t quite as bad back then as she is now, but she was still very headstrong and self confident. Maybe a bit too much. But to her credit, she took charge of things when it all went wrong, and was one of the major reasons the changelings survived this long. And she did it out of sheer determination and viciousness and love.”

“What’s this got to do with how mean she’s become?” Silver pouted.

“The way your mother’s been acting is… kind of my fault.”

Silver Rose cocked her head to the side. “Huh? How? You didn’t even start living here until a few months ago.”

“That’s right, Your mother and I were apart for about a hundred years. I don’t know the details exactly, but there seems to be a failsafe of some kind built into your mother and my genetic code. If we’re apart for too long, we start to take on the traits of the missing sibling. In the last few years apart from your mother, I could tell that I was becoming more impulsive and short tempered and reckless. Your mother, I’m sure, was more calm and collected during this time, I’m willing to bet. I was turning into a queen so that the changeling race could continue to thrive, in the case that your mother was no more. Your mother took on my traits because she was missing her tactician and advisor, so she had to change to compensate for the loss.”

Silver Rose took a while to think about this.

“This all sounds like magic or sorcery to me,” She frowned, not happy with the way the conversation was going.

Psithyra sighed. “We are the offspring of witches. You might not be too far off.”

“So the reason mother is acting like this is because you came back to live with us?” Silver Rose said quietly. She looked over to her aunt.

Psithyra exhaled and nodded. She looked tired, more tired than Silver Rose had ever seen her aunt display.

“That’s not fair,” Silver mumbled, feeling more than a little bit cheated. “I love you, Aunt Psithyra, and I think that you coming to live with us is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. But if you stay, then mother is just going to get worse and worse?”

“I don’t know about worse,” Psithyra said sadly, wrapping an arm around her niece’s shoulder. “But she definitely won’t get better. But please, don’t hate your mother for her behavior. She can’t help herself.”

Silver Rose looked downward at her feet. It really wasn’t fair. Either she had to lose her aunt to get her mother’s old self back, or she could keep her aunt and live with her mother’s new firebrand personality.

“I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” Silver sulked. “Sometimes I think you were right, Aunt Ivory. We are cursed.”

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” Ivory stroked Silver’s hair gently. “It’s my job to keep your mother in check. I just didn’t think she would react so violently to Sugarcoat’s words.”

“Sugarcoat never did know when to keep her mouth shut…” Silver said with a sigh.

“No, she doesn’t,” Ivory Wings agreed. “Honestly I was a bit surprised by her refusal of your mother’s offers. Typically we’ve learned that humans are willing to do anything for a little bit of positive recompense, but only two of the Shadowbolts actually took the bribe.”

“Took what bribe?” Sonata’s voice came from the open doorway.

Silver Rose looked up to see all three sirens watching her from the entrance to her room, their crimson pendants glinting in the light like tiny fireworks.

“Let me guess,” Adagio said, coming into the room. “Your mother tried to buy someone’s loyalty with money and goods, and they didn’t take it.”

Silver Rose was astounded. The sirens hadn’t been there when her mother had organized the luncheon with the Shadowbolts.

“How did you know?”

“Because that’s a tactic she’s used numerous times in the past,” Aria sighed. “Sometimes it worked. Other times, not so much. I take it this was one of those times?”

“More or less, yes,” Ivory Wings nodded.

“She should have invited us to the lunch as well,” Aria ran a hand through one of her twintails. “Bribing people works better when they can’t think properly. Now that we’ve got our singing voices back, we’re ready to retake our positions as magical backup.”

“She’s probably grown used to not having us around to help with her schemes. More’s the pity,” Adagio lamented. “If we’d been around, we could have helped.”

“Yeah!” Sonata beamed. “It’s like you used to call it, Ivory, a ‘two-pronged attack’? So even if the first shot misses, we can score a hit with shot number two!”

“You remembered,” Ivory Wings looked mildly impressed.

“Well, yeah, it was in one of your books, Ivory.”

“Wait, you can read?” Aria asked skeptically.

“Of course I can-! Oh, har har har,” Sonata said grouchily. “I’m not completely useless, you know.”

Aria reached over and patted her sister on the head twice. “Just messing with you.”

Ivory Wings gave Silver Rose a reassuring smile and stood up. “You know, I had forgotten about your magical powers as well, to be honest. Amazing what a hundred years apart will do. But you three are right. We can still salvage this if we’re clever about it.”

Ivory Wings paced around the room, back and forth, muttering under her breath to herself. Finally she stopped and her face lit up with a bright grin.

“I have a plan,” She declared. “Assuming the Shadowbolts haven’t gone public about today, and we would know if they had thanks to my sister’s PR agents, we can still get them on our side. All I need now are some earpieces, a pinhole camera and a mic, and three Crystal Prep uniforms.”

The three sirens’ faces grew smug. Now this was the changeling tactician that they knew and loved. Silver Rose wasn’t quite sure what to think, but she trusted her aunt’s judgment and knew that she was better off listening to Ivory Wings’ plan.

Ivory Wings gestured for all of them to gather close. “Now, here’s what we’re going to do…”

Later that evening, just after dinner, Ebony Wings was standing on her bedroom balcony, looking out over the city and her own property. She was still feeling sour about how lunch with her daughter’s classmates had gone, but over dinner her sister had assured her that she had a plan to fix it up. Ebony trusted her sister to do the right thing for her dynasty, and left it to Ivory to do her thing. In the meantime, she was going to stand here alone and brood about what a mistake it had been to let her daughter out of the house without supervision.

Oh sure, Ivory Wings shadowed her outside, but that wasn’t quite the same as always being at her niece’s side to protect her from any unsavory influences.

Unsavory influences.

Ebony Wings spat over the edge of the balcony, the spit laced with changeling venom. Chrysidea was too young, too malleable, too impressionable. She didn’t have what it took to be a strong ruler and changeling. Ebony’s frown deepened. The bad genes must have come from Crescentlane, curse him. Introducing weak human traits into the changeling royal family; if she hadn’t already killed him eighteen years ago, she would have murdered him right then and there for what he had done to her bloodline. Watered it down to this pathetic display of wanting to be like the prey, the humans. Absolutely despicable. Deplorable and shameful, even.

Still, Ebony Wings reminded herself, all hope was not lost. All she had to do was convince Fast Bender to breed with her and she could have another child, pureblood this time. The idea of rebuilding her family made Ebony smile, and she closed her eyes and breathed in the night air.

Her nostrils caught a vaguely familiar scent on the wind. It was coming from the main entrance.

Reaching for a pair of binoculars that she kept on the balcony for overseeing her kingdom, Ebony Wings put them to her face and twiddled the focusing dial on top.

“Oh, not you again…” She breathed. She put down the binoculars and went into her room to pick up a device that she had been wanting to use for a while now. See if this didn’t tell him he wasn’t welcome here.

Home Run was a man on a mission. He pedaled his bike out to the end of the city where the Wings’ Estate stood, against his friends’ better judgment.

He knew that if any of the Rainbooms knew about what he was planning to do, they would talk him out of it. So he hadn’t told anybody where he was going, not even his parents. All they knew was that he was going to visit a friend who wasn’t feeling that well. Not technically a lie, all things considered. Moonglade was his friend, wasn’t she? And she hadn’t been answering his texts or calls, so she might be sick. Was it possible for changelings to get sick? There was so much he didn’t know about them.

After a short while, the Wings’ Estate came into view. The lights were still on, and that gave Home Run some degree of hope. Maybe if he just explained why he was here, they would let him in. Surely Queen Chrysalis would let him see his girlfriend?

Stopping his bike at the gates, Home Run hopped off and walked up to the intercom built into the side of the gate. He reached out and pressed the button. A cheery piano piece played for a few seconds before someone picked up.

“Hello, what do you want?” A female voice asked impatiently.

Home Run cleared his throat. “I’m Home Run, you might know me, I’m a friend of Moonglade’s. Can I come in and see her?”

“Moonglade isn’t accepting visitors right now,” The voice snapped. “Go home.”

“Do you know when she will be available?” Home Run persevered.

“No. Now leave.”

“Come on, please? I just want to talk to her for five minutes.”

“No means no. If you don’t go away, we’ll take drastic measures.”

Home Run looked nonplussed. “Look, I just want to speak to my girlfriend. Could you just tell her that I’m here?”

The intercom shut off with a click. Home Run pressed it again.

“For the last time, go away. If you don’t, I’ll call the police.”

“You can’t call the police,” Home Run told the voice. “I’m not even on your property. I’m doing nothing illegal.”

The intercom voice growled and clicked off again.

There was a flash of movement on Home Run’s shirt and he looked down, alarmed to see a bright red laser dot dancing around on his chest. He had played enough video games to know what a laser sight like this meant.

“Okay, okay! I’m going!”

Home Run scrambled back onto his bike and pedaled away as fast as he could, swerving left and right to throw the potential sniper’s aim off. He did not look back until he was three blocks away.

“Aw man…” He groaned. Another plan defeated.

This was going to be harder than he thought.

Back on the balcony, Ebony Wings lowered the laser pointer that she had used to scare Home Run away. She had promised not to kill the human boy until her sister figured out how he had survived the poisoned knife, and Ebony Wings reluctantly admitted to herself that she was interested in the reason as well.

She stayed on the balcony for a few more minutes, making sure nobody else was lurking about.

Then she walked back into her room and slid into bed. She had a male to seduce, and she needed to look her best for such an ordeal. Let Ivory Wings and the rest of them worry about the human children for now.

With luck, soon she might have another child of her own.