Upon arriving inside the hive, Spleens, Near Miss, and Long Shot were escorted through a long series of hallways until they reached an elegant door. One of the changelings opened the door to reveal a lush interior, at the center of which was an important looking orange changeling sitting, wings spread, behind an impressive wooden desk.

"Greetings visitors, as always, it is nice to meet new faces," the orange changeling said before glaring at Tessy and quietly yet sharply ordering, "Tessy! A word please!"

Tessy trotted over to the orange changeling, who muttered a few hushed and rushed sentences into the captain's ear before shoving her subordinate aside and announcing, "I apologize, I am Lymph Node, or Liff as most 'lings call me. I'm the leader of hive Epsilon."

"Nice to meet you, I'm Spleens, this is Near Miss, and this is Long Shot," Spleens said pointing to both of her companions in turn before continuing, "But I'm kind of confused, what's with the VIP treatment?"

"Um... We wanted to welcome you back after being away so long," Liff said before quickly changing the subject, "It's nice to meet you Near Miss, Long Shot, and Spleens, how long are you three planning to stay?"

"Just the night," Near answered, "We're really just passing through on our way back to Ponyville. Is that ok?"

"It's fine, just asking for planning reasons," Liff said before gesturing to Tessy, "I'm sure that Tessy would be happy to show you to your rooms. I hope to see you all again before you leave."

At this Tessy snapped to attention, "If you would follow me please, I can show you to your rooms."

The rooms set aside for Long Shot, Near Miss, and Spleens were large and well decorated, each having a small kitchen and a well-appointed attached bathroom. They also adjoined a nearby lounge with a balcony, upon which their caravan sat.

Near Miss and Spleens were settling into the couches of the lounge when the silence was broken by a loud and shrill, "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!" as Long noticed and then pounced upon a fruit laden end table in the middle of the room, on the center of which was a large, perfectly ripe mango.

By the time their ears had stopped ringing, Long had finished her mango and was curled up on a large floor cushion. After a couple minutes, Long then suddenly lifted her head and shifted her wings slightly forward before asking, "What was it like growing up in a unreformed changeling hive?"

"It was how I grew up?" Spleens answered, before continuing, "We were told to take love wherever we could find it, but that always seemed wrong to me. The other 'lings teased and bullied me for not taking love from the pony prisoners stationed at our school."

"Why didn't you just tell everyling that you took the love without actually doing it?" Near asked.

At this, Spleens jumped to her feet, visibly distressed and sobbed, "because it was wrong." She sat down again and looked at the ground as if she was ashamed before continuing, "I just sat with the ponies, hugging them and apologizing for how they'd been treated until my 'feeding' time was up."

At this, both Long Shot and Near Miss launched themselves into hug tackles upon their friend.

Spleens continued, "And then one day someling came in too early and they saw me comforting the pony, and then... and then..."

At this point Spleens passed into unconsciousness due to the overload of sympathy she felt from her two friends.

Author's Note

time and time again it pains me to write Long's grammatical verbal errors.