Queen

"I have called you forth so that I may inquire upon matters that will not leave this room, under threat of strict punishment." I begin, addressing the changeling infiltrators before me. "You are among the changelings tasked with exploring the world and acquiring the necessary energies so our survival is... More likely. If you are beholden to the belief that ponies are our lessers because they are our prey, you are dismissed. My apologies for wasting your time summoning you from whatever task you may have been occupied with."

I give the five drones before me a firm stare, and without a word, two of them give a bow and quickly exit the room. I don't speak until they have left the room.

"Excellent. We're headed in the direction I'd like to go with this meeting, I feel. To be clear, you three believe that ponies are not our lessers; they are more than that. Correct?"

"Whatever our queen wants, she will get." Two of the three drones before me piped up simultaneously.

"Oh, you must have misunderstood me. I'm referring to your personal, private feelings about the ponies, not what you think I want to hear. Again, what are your opinions on ponies in relation to us as changelings?"

"Ah, this is isn't the kind of meeting I thought it'd be. Give me a task and I'll do it; but this is not within my interests to continue this meeting with the rest of you. My queen." Another changeling bowed to me respectfully, and turned to leave.

"Thank you for participating. I will ensure you have as many tasks as you desire, as soon as I'm done with these two." I respond. I then look back at the remaining two drones. They both looked slightly uncomfortable, but for different reasons.

"Please forgive Pharynx for his attitude. He's always been highly motivated and task-driven, though he isn't always the best at polite conversation." The left drone spoke up. I focused on him.

"And he's an infiltrator? With that attitude?" I asked with a little skepticism.

"Well, not exactly... But he did better than most of the hive thought he would when he did go out to gather Love."

"Ah, not really the intimacy, but the business-like attitude, I think. He knows what he wants, so he aspires to get it. A go-get-'em attitude... But what about you? What are your thoughts on the ponies?"

"Well... It's kinda difficult to explain. Pardon my partial failure to do the job of gathering Love I had been given under Chrysalis... But I was also gathering intel on certain ways that ponies do things. And I've been... experimenting."

"Ooh, do we have a researcher on our ha- er, hooves?" I grin. "Well then, little researcher...What have your experiments discovered?"

"W-well... So far... I-its only a theory... But... I've taken a pony as a mate..."

I gag slightly at the use of such a word. "Eugh, we need a better term for that... Calling someone your 'mate'... It doesn't sound-... Its too informally formal. 'Boyfriend' and 'girlfriend' were so much easier where I think I remember being from... 's dumb." I then chuckle sheepishly. "Oops, sorry for the interruption. You may continue."

The drone is momentarily perplexed at my interjection, but regathers himself and continues. "The intensity of Love gathered was... Immense, to say the least. Though... That pony may now be a security risk at some level. He knew I was a changeling before we attacked Canterlot... I... I kept this information from Chrysalis, and she didn't question where I got such massive stores of Love. Up to that point, I was probably the least-successful Infiltrator in the entire hive."

"You son of a bitch." The right drone remarked, staring at him. Her tone wasn't angry, it was impressed. "We all wondered how the hell you could have increased your effectiveness essentially overnight. A lot of us older drones were glad you were simply able to pull your weight."

Apparently the right drone suddenly remembered whos presence she was in and quickly blurted out an apology. "A thousand pardons, my queen. Its just... too easy to be casual around this... new you."

"Ohmygosh you're adorable. You're even blushing. Augh, you're all just so cute!" I gush without thinking, putting my hooves up to my cheeks. "Shit, sorry. I... God, you guys really are so adorable how you admire me so deeply. I'm so not used to such open reverence. So weird to me. Buuuut-"

I remove my hooves from my cheeks and point them at left drone. "Again, back to you. Sorry."

"W-well... I've done the math... And with at least 4 more infiltrators turning to permanent relationships with ponies instead of one-night stands or... frankly, undesirable outcomes... we'd be gathering enough love to easily thrive on, instead of having barely enough to survive off of. Though, our now-reduced numbers makes that relationship requirement be..." The left drone seems to think for about ten seconds. "Two drones. Really only one, but Its good to have some extra insurance"

"So that means we need to get you, specifically, back out into the world, and back to your boyfriend." I smile. "The others, though? Well... the first two that left... they need either to be 'shown the right way' or... well, I'll deal with it when I deal with it. But I can assure you, until their mindsets about ponies are improved... They ain't leaving the hive as infiltrators."

I turn to the drone on the right. "So... what about you? How do you see the ponies?"

"Permission to respond with a short anecdote?" She asks, and I nod. "Well... I was out on a rather strange sub-mission while tracking down my primary target. I had been disguised as... a pegasus, yeah. A griffon had approached me and asked if I'd like to work for some bits and had a stronger stomach for death than the average pony. I asked if we were fighting anything, and she responded with 'no, we're going hunting.' She just wanted someone to watch her back to make sure the more hostile wildlife wouldn't get her by surprise. Her reason for hunting? Irrelevant to me until later. Skipping forward to the first kill of the trip... She was... Strangely respectful of our prey. She appeared to comfort the animal momentarily, before efficiently dispatching the beast with a single thrust of her hunting knife while continuing to comfort it until it perished. It was there that I learned my lesson."

She seemed to be deep in an older memory of the past, and looked a little shaken by what she had been told by the griffon. "She told me that those who live off the land like herself always respected their prey, because the prey was the only sustenance they had. Without it, she, and others like her, would not survive. A sacrifice of something great... to something greater."

With that, the right drone bowed her head. "With that lesson, I changed how I gathered Love. Before... I tracked them, subdued them, used them... and left them, as I believed they were less than us. But now? Now, I do it right. All we need to fix the infiltrators... Is the right lesson."

"Oh, I can assure the both of you... Infiltrator reform is coming. Along with a much-needed name change. By the way, what are your names?"

The left drone spoke up first. "I'm Thorax, and this is-

The right drone cut thorax off. "Ocelia. I was the best damn Infiltrator in the hive until this guy started cheating." She chuckled.

"Well, Thorax and Ocelia... The two of you are now Heads of the newly-formed Collector branch of this hive. And henceforth, the Infiltrator branch has been dissolved. Unfortunately, Ocelia will need to stay in the hive until the panic from the Canterlot invasion fades some more. Thorax, you are free to depart for your boyfriend and assure him you survived and maybe even try to convince him changelings have changed. If he still wishes to have you, continue with your job of Love collection so that we may continue to thrive in the near and far future. You are both dismissed."