Drones are free because they do not think
Author's Note
Have a jaunty tune to listen to while you read. :)
Drones are free because they do not think
The loud white glow; the non-blinding, ever-hypnotising sun; the bright light of death yet to come — it was like Ocellus transferred to another dimension when she stared into the bright bulb of a white sun. A silver thread of saliva dripped from her mouth, favoring gravity over her own body.
The table and the textbook lying on it was gone; the chair she sat in was gone; her friends and the entire room with books was gone; darkness screeched like the banshee of the night, submerging her eyes in the oncoming mass of oblivion.
Her brain returned to conscience again and her bulbous eyes blinked fleetingly, a line of frothy white dripping down her chin and the crag sucking in the silver strand of saliva. Ocellus looked around the dark space, wondering where in Tartarus she was and where Tartuarus itself is.
Ocellus
She swiveled around, poised to run away. Her heart thumped and goosebumps prickled against her skin like a million pinpoints tearing their way out from the inside. There was the buzzing.
It was like a hum. Not like how one would vibrate their jowls to a jaunty tune, nor like when a thin metal bar strikes against another: her brain itself was whistling. There was the feeling: it didn’t feel like it was entering her ears — it was exiting.
Ocellus
A blink and suddenly a statue appeared before her. The buzzing intensified, obliterating her skull from the inside and digging through the back of her eyeballs — her eyes — her eyes were vibrating, oh dear sweet Thorax her eyes were actually vibrating!
Ocellus didn’t want to look at the statue. Whatever it was, she knew it wasn’t worth the effort to lift her face up and look into its eyes. Whatever twisted reality she was currently living, she was smart enough to know that simply looking up would be like glimpsing into the eyes of Lord Tirek himself.
Her stomach howled. Another silver line dripped from the crag in her mouth, this time mixed with a little bit of bile — a little bit of bile — a little bit of bile.
Now she was vomiting. She never even had the urge to do it, her insides had simply decided to eject her stomach matter out. It fell past her legs — her legs that were heavy and prickly and itchy and achy — down, down and way down into the darkness.
OCELLUS!
A screech like the banshee she didn’t realize as her own; the black crag of the statue’s jaw wide open and snapping at her, its long, thin and sinuous tongue stretched out for a quick taste; the mere demonic presence of death yet to come: Chrysalis, in her most peaceful form could never look more terrifying.
Even through the blinding tears that stung her cheeks, she had the perfect view of the statue in its entirety. Chrysalis stood tall and proud, lingering over the corpse of another changeling of her size and stature. She was encircled by a herd of smaller statues that she recognized as drones, cheering her on in all her glory.
Wiping the tears away, she looked down. A plaque was etched into the rock at her feet: HERE LIES OUR FAITHFUL & THE GENERATIONS.
Suddenly, the glow of the statue no longer seemed domineering, but godly. The statue grew in size; the drones shrunk down until they were mere pebbles.
Ocellus realized through the painful haze her body was currently endearing, that something was off with the statue — no not the growing, but the tongue! It was wiggling.
Queen Chrysalis’s head snapped down. A sound followed the movement like there were actual bones beneath the alabaster surface; something that could only be described as the crinkling of paper and silverware forcibly scraping against a plate.
The eyes terrified Ocellus the most; in their place were two deep black holes of nonexistence. If she took one step forward or if the statue stepped forward, would she get sucked in?
“OCELLUS!” it screeched. Her body vibrating throughout, her insides squirming, her head near-exploding. “OCELLUS, WAKE UP!” Silverstream’s voice. “OCELLUS, SNAP OUT OF IT!” Gallus's voice. “OCELLUS, YOU CAN DO IT!” Starlight's voice, and something sharp stung her cheek.
Ocellus no longer felt intimidated by the beastful statue; she felt brave. Her heart surged at the voice of her friends, coursing her veins with a newfound hope that this reality could be broken.
The statue lurched, and Ocellus evoked her horn in a a domineering. The universe became still as the statue hovered in midair, jaws open and ready to snap just over Ocellus's head, Ocellus ready to shoot a powerful blast of magic down its throat. The darkness whisked away and resettled, taking the form of a library.
Gallus screamed, the monster raking its meaty talon down his arm. Bloodsoaked feathers lined the floor from where it had dragged him across the carpet. Red ichor dripped down his arm in long strides, splotching the floor.
A bright pink blast and a sharp sting in Ocellus’s back, the feral changeling swiveled around, frothing at the mouth. Headmare Starlight stood across from her in front of an overturned table with torn rope bindings. A desk lamp was turned on its side and lay directly behind her. The shadow that protruded acted as a bridge between the two, moving as Starlight moved.
Starlight’s horn crackled with white sparks, a small ball of light forming at the tip. The monster dropped the unconscious griffon and faced its body toward the light, pupils wide, a silver strand of saliva dripping from the crag that was its mouth. It stepped forward, becoming a blurred silhouette amongst the light.
Twenty-five minutes earlier, Ocellus took her turn to pour the hot tea from its thermos. The steam wafted away from the paper cup, hitting her face with a warm, relaxing feeling. Picking it up in both hooves, she brought it toward her lips and took a cautious sip, the bite of the heat making her limbs feel heavy in a delightful sense much like a tranquilizer would put one to sleep. Now her brain felt focused.
Silverstream reached through the blanket that she had bundled herself in and took the thermos, screwing the cap back on. “It’s my dad’s recipe.” she said. “It’ll help us focus.”
“It’s good.” Gallus admired. He placed his cup down next to the textbook, already finished.
“Do you want more?” Silverstream offered, lifting the thermos out from the blanket.
Gallus waved a hand away. “Nah, it’s quite the tranquilizer. Any more and I think I'll be too relaxed to want to finish.”
Ocellus adjusted the desklamp over her textbook to get a better examination of the text. They were studying Starswirl's research essay on evolution for tomorrow’s exam, something they wouldn’t be having to do if Gallus and Sandbar hadn’t neglected it until the last minute. It was Silverstream who suggested they should all have a study session together in the library. Ocellus knew she didn’t study for the exam either.
“Looks like you’re next, Ocellus.” Smolder poked the changeling in the shoulder, prompting her to continue with the reading.
“Oh, yeah, sorry. I’ll start.” She leaned her head over the book, giving it enough space to make sure the light of the lamp didn’t cast a shadow over it. “Here lies the faithful and the generations: like drones, generations were forced to adapt to the beliefs of the previous, each new generation keeping something out of each. At its base is violence; since the dawn of life, creatures scoured the Earth in search of blood to spill. This had to do with the base desire to eat, and in later generations it evolved into the desire of power. Sociology and religion: these were things that evolved alongside it until the constructs became what we know today…”
There was a light hum that wasn’t in the room before. Ocellus lifted her head to see what it was and the first thing she set her eyes on was the lamp. White light spilled out through the funnel shade, but she could make out a small horizon of yellow layering the surface of the inside. Suddenly, Ocellus became infatuated with it. The humming intensified.
“Uhh… Ocellus.” Gallus was the first to inquire. Everyone at the table gave her a confused look.
“I just…” she began. “I just have to take a look real quick.”
“Ocellus?” Gallus inquired again.
Reaching a hoof over she tilted the light her way, entranced with the loud white glow; the non-blinding ever-hypnotising sun; the bright light of —
“Death! I sentence you to death!” Ocellus thrashed. The back of her head banged against the table. She felt no pain, all she felt was anger and another force inside of her. “All of you will die and your Queen will live on through this puny changeling!”
Ocellus’s body convulsed upward, yanking on the rope bindings holding her down. Claws and hooves of many sorts held her down, keeping her still while Headmare Starlight read from the book.
“Bat pony mind control… hypnotization… I don’t see anything in here about changeling possession!”
Silverstream grabbed the changeling by the chin and forced it to look at her. “Ocellus, wake up!”
Ocellus secreted a thin blast of green fluid all over Silverstream’s face. The hippogriff wiped the bile way from her eyes and gagged as she brushed away chunks of food, spitting whatever lucky goo made it in out of her mouth. It would have been a joke to say she was green in the face. Silverstream was green in the face.
Gallus grabbed the changeling by the shoulders and shook her, slapping her face even. “Ocellus, snap out of it!”
The changeling tilted her head back, making Gallus miss her face by a notch. She bit his finger. Gallus screamed as her teeth sunk into his flesh, filling her mouth with blood as she attempted to jerk the tendons apart.
Yona wrapped her hooves around Gallus's abdomen, and then Smolder, and Sandbar. Silverstream held down Ocellus head, and together then began to pry Gallus’s hand out of her mouth.
The five of them fell backwards, Gallus grabbing Silverstream to keep from falling and Silverstream only being dragged with him, becoming the cherry on the dog pile. Ocellus used this as the opportunity to rip away the bindings holding her down.
She rolled off the table, practically crashing to the floor. Tongue lolling out, fangs poised, Ocellus hissed, as the desk lamp spun in place, her face becoming the hypnotic narcotic of death and terror. Starlight flashed between them almost immediately.
“Rebil tse sinac!” she screamed. “Sulunnam mine non!”
The room exploded, imploded, and whisked away by a strong gust of desert wind. Chrysalis staggered into the cave. The changeling of young propped herself up against a stalagmite and let out a weak breath. Her stomach emitted a deep howl within a sunken rib cage. Her skin had rashes all over and her body was battered from the storm outside.
“Chrysalis!”
Edifice ran over and stopped her from falling. Chrysalis looked up into the changeling eyes, one who had the same appearance as her, and looked down at the ground. “I failed the hunt.”
“It’s okay, we can just wait out this storm and try again before the queen notices your return. Here, you can hide in my room.”
His “room” was a simple hole in the cave wall that could only be reached by flying to it. It wasn’t much of a hiding place, but it would help Chrysalis blend in with the rest of the changelings before the queen noticed that she returned with nothing but a bundle of something wrapped in a makeshift sash that wrapped around her neck and abdomen.
“No,” she said. “I have to confront Queen Tiran and show her what I found. It’s something that could mean the Hive’s future.”
Edifice noticed the makeshift sash Chrysalis was wearing and gave her a wary look. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? She won’t be happy when you come in without something that could feed the tribe.” The part he didn’t add was, Or mostly her.
“If she sees this, it could feed the hive for generations. Trust me, Edifice.”
Although Chrysalis wasn’t the most respected among peers, her ambition was almost inspirational. The young changeling always talked about finding ways to improve the state of the tribe, most ideas being shut down by Queen Tiran almost immediately. But, if Chrysalis had something to offer… could there really be a way to get out of this famine?
Edifice and Chrysalis entered the Throne Room. Against the far wall on top of a rock slate sat Queen Tiran in all of her domineering glow. She looked down at Chrysalis with fury.
“How much love have you returned with this time?” her voice was low, but it still echoed in the wide chamber. It was the kind of voice that no matter how quiet it got, it would follow you to the ends of the Badlands and back.
“None.” Chrysalis said.
“None?” Queen Tiran bellowed. “What do you mean none! Have you no shame for the state of the tribe?”
“But my Queen, I’ve brought a compromise from the ponies!” Chrysalis offered.
“A compromise?” the Queen laughed. “The ponies want to compromise? What could they possibly offer that would be compromisable?”
“It’s… well…” Chrysalis looked down at the ground, not sure how to admit it. Sitting on her haunches, she swinged the satchel in front of her, taking out the object that was bundled up inside. Unraveling it, she revealed it to be a flower of white plumes with its roots still hanging on to a moist clump of soil.
“A flower?”
A shot of pain ran through Chrysalis’s head as something pressed against her brain. The presence of the queen seemed all the more domineering. “A flower! Of all my years of being queen, I have never felt more insulted by something so arbitrary as a flower! To what use would I have with this that the ponies thought this would be compromisable?”
The pressure on her brain intensified like a migraine. Wincing, Chrysalis screamed, “Sic semper tyrannis!”
The pressure on her brain was relieved and the Queen looked down at her with a godly glare. “Oh?”
“Eh-it’s a pony phrase! It means ‘May the world be at peace.’ It’s what the pony that gave me the flower said.”
“And what did the pony think could be done with this single flower?”
“It’s a symbol of peace! It was the Sun Goddess — she told me they could send us more and could have crops so that we could feed off the love of the flowers. It’s a compromise so we can leave the ponies alone!” More pain ensued and Chrysalis fell to the floor.
The Queen continued to glare, but she switched her view to the flower. “Sic semper tyrannis?” She looked back at Chrysalis, who was writhing against the floor in pain. “An eternity is a long time from being born yesterday. What ‘Sic semper tyrannis’ means is not, ‘May the world be at peace,’ but, ‘Death to tyrants.’”
Queen Tiran hovered the plant before her, brushing a hoof against its white petals. “It is foolish to trick someone so wise such as myself. If the ponies think I would be so foolish as to accept an obscure trade deal, they have much to learn.” the bundle of flowers split from the stem, the clump of soil falling down to the rock slate.
Her maw hung open, a pink aroma leaving the petals and traveling down the void of her esophagus. Soon, the bundle was reduced to a wilted massacre. Queen Tiran dropped it before Chrysalis. She looked at the bundle with bloodshot eyes, red ichor flowing out of her nostrils and splotching the cave floor.
“But Queen… you don’t understand…” Chrysalis raised a hoof in an action that indicated she would wipe away the blood furcating around her mouth. Instead, she used it to hide a smirk. “You’re the foolish one.”
The pain intensified and Chrysalis winced harder, falling to the cave floor. “What!” the Queen bellowed. In the darkness that surrounded the cave, the luminous eyes of many curious changelings appeared.
Chrysalis spat out blood. “That flower…”
“What about the flower!”
“That flower… my Queen, the flower is hemlock. Hemlock, the flower is hemlock!” Chrysalis couldn’t hold it back any longer, even while she was lying with her face against the floor, even while there was blood spilling out of her mouth. She snickered.
“The flower is hemlock — hemlock, hemlock!”
The Queen looked down at the wilted bundle, eyes wide in shock. “No…”
The pressure on Chrysalis’s brain relieved, but she remained on the floor. Instead of standing, she laughed. Hysterically. Her crazy echoes bounced around the room, evoking the interest of more changelings behind the dark walls.
Queen Tiran looked at her in terror. “Y-you lie!”
Chrysalis laughed.
Queen Tiran began to shake. A deep growl emitted from her stomach. It would be like one was about to pass gas in an eruptious flare, but that proved not to be the case when a waterfall of red bile came from her mouth in a strong spurge.
She looked back at Chrysalis, up from the ichorous pile before her. Her pupils were wide, her entire body was shaking — she fell with resounding Splash! into her own blood bile.
The Queen convulsed as she frothed at the mouth, choking on her own saliva. Her body kicked out, fighting an invisible force like a puppeteer making its subject dance for his own amusement.
Chrysalis kept laughing.
Queen Tiran’s body finally stilled, the cavern filling with silence. Changelings gathered around the rock slate and the squirming form of Chrysalis looking on in a mixture of awe, wonder, and confusion.
“Sic semper tyrannis!” Queen Chrysalis bellowed through gurgles of her own blood. “Sic semper tyrannis! Sic semper tyrannis!
“Hold her down!” Starlight screamed. She fumbled with a multitude of ingredients, pouring each item into a glass cup. She crumbled a petal of dry hemlock into the black liquid and stirred until it turned green. Enveloping it in a pink aura, she ran to Ocellus, who was being held down against the floor by all five of her friends again, a needle stuck in her arm.
“That’s quite the tranquilizer, Gallus deadpanned, white in the face.
Setting both hands on Ocellus’s face, Silverstream pried her mouth open, careful to make sure the changeling wouldn’t chomp down on her fingers. rushing up to her, Starlight practically splashed the potion in her face, aiming toward her mouth.
Ocellus gurgled and splurged, trying but failing to spit up the horrendous-looking liquid. She forcibly swallowed it.
Ponies are not free because they do think
Ocellus took a long sip from the paper cup, savoring the flavor and the warmth of the tea. She snuggled deeper into the blanket, using it as a coat of security. Circular ripples formed in the brown drink as the paper cup shook in her hooves.
Starlight placed a comforting hoof on Ocellus’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Ocellus nodded her head, not looking away from the ripples.
“So…” Gallus inquired. His arm was still bleeding and soaking through copious bandages, but thankfully, the damage wasn’t dire. “Weh-what was that?”
Everyone in the room was recovering from the shock. Even Yona, the toughest of all of them, was trembling from the chaos that had ensued. “Is bug friend okay?”
Ocellus opened her mouth. She wanted to say no it wasn’t — it was, guess who: Chrysalis, or more so the spirit of her that had entered her body and tried to taking it over. But she couldn’t. All that came out was a high-pitched squeak.
Starlight looked around the room, seeing the traumatized look on everycreature’s face. “I… think it’s best if we all sleep on this. Ocellus, you can sleep with me tonight. You can explain everything to me tomorrow if you’re up for it. We’ll also need to write to all of your families and let them know what happened tonight and that you’re… safe.” she eyed Gallus’s bandages. The griffon simply nodded at her.
“Okay, so… let’s head out, I guess.”
Ocellus wasn’t listening. She was too busy looking down at the floor, looking down at the lamp, looking down at the white funnel it was casting across the room. The humming — it was humming. It was calling for her, beckoning her.
Picking the head of the lamp up and ignoring the incredulous looks her friends were give her, she stared into the white bulb of the white sun — the loud white glow — the ever-hypnotising sun — the bright light of death yet to come —
She flicked the button at the lamp’s base, the library filling with darkness.
