The unrest in the village had culminated into an all-time high. Griffons would appear and disappear and reappear all over again during the day without explanation, and now the night watch had reported shadows darting around the forest.
Pony-like shadows.
Gabor hadn’t seen frontline action since his arrival at the village, and in itching to prove himself, volunteered to venture into the dark wood to hunt down the Equestrian trespassers. Scooping up his axe and shield, he marched off into the night.
The estimate was at least five, which Gabor felt he could easily handle. Ponies were weaker than griffons – a known fact. He’d smite them and bring their bodies back to his village to ensure their safety. Ponies were weak, but they could bring reinforcements… and their annoying technology.
The night air was still, save for the chittering of the night insects. Crickets calling to one another, the occasional cicada buzzing on a tree. But there were no hoofsteps, no rustle of the brush. No whispering or murmuring came to his griffon hearing.
He’d heard countless stories how ponies couldn’t be stealthy like griffons. They’d always make some noise that gave them away. Now Gabor was beginning to doubt his fellow griffon’s stories. The last thing he needed was an ambush.
The starry night sky above guided his path with silver light until deeper into the forest. The light abruptly cut short above, so much so that Gabor snapped his head up, shield raised. But it was just the trees.
The forest around him had transformed. The loamy smell of fresh earth and rotting wood hung in the air. The soil was pitch black with nutrients, and as such the shrubs and ferns grew rampant. There were a few logs scattered about, practically covered in mushrooms. Some of them gave off a pale blue light glow, lighting up the forest with eerie, faint shadows.
Above was cause for concern: the trees had grown in such a way that their limbs had grown to form a net with their crisscrossing. It extended all the way up to the lush canopy, where only a few tiny pinpricks of starlight could be seen. It would make escape to the sky impossible without extensive hacking.
Gabor kept his shield raised as he cautiously proceeded. He’d have felt better keeping a low altitude above the forest floor or better yet scan the forest from the canopy, but trees here were intent on keeping him grounded.
A few more yards in was when he heard the first rustling. Perhaps the forest animals felt safer here at night, away from civilization, but it was a thought Gabor quickly squashed. Dropping your guard could get you killed.
He halted, shield lifted in front of him, and slowly turned in a circle. His eyes scanned the shrubbery for any signs of movement, and when he finally saw some, he lunged with a might swing of his axe – and hit nothing but plants.
He whirled around at the sound of scurrying hooves and lunged again – only to find more empty air. Gabor growled angrily and let out a mighty squawk.
“Come on, you cowards!” he bellowed, smacking his shield with the axe’s blade for extra noise. “Come and face me!”
The movement about him stilled, and Gabor forced his ragged breathing into silence. His eyes looked this way and that, straining to see the slightest of movement in the forest’s glow. But the ferns and shrubs stooped moving altogether.
Then, a pair of glowing, pale blue eyes lit up through one bush. Gabor made a move on it before another pair opened to his right and he stopped. Then another to his left. And then another. And then another.
His muscles tensed as he spun around, locking onto each pair of eyes and looking for any movement. He readied his axe and lifted his shield to his chest. Adrenaline coursed through his veins.
If not for the mushroom’s glow hitting it just right, Gabor would’ve missed the first line of silk. Its silvery glint made him swing his axe against it, believing it to be some kind of projectile – and they connected. Just not in the way Gabor hoped.
The thread stuck to the axe’s bladed edge and was followed by two more. Stunned at what he was seeing, he gave little resistance when the thread tugged the axe free from his grip. It flew through the air and vanished into the underbrush.
Just as he was realizing his weapon was gone, another trio of strands latched onto his shield and tugged, but strapped to his forearm, it wouldn’t budge as easily. Gabor yanked back, but the strands held firm, or rather they stretched to accommodate.
Gabor’s eyes widened when he realized he couldn’t control his shield and was completely exposed to… whatever was happening. Feeling he could fight better beak and talons, he slipped off his shield and let the strands yank it away into the night.
Even without armor, Gabor squawked ferociously at the glowing eyes, ready to lunge at the first one who moved. Those pretty little eyes wouldn’t be glowing for long.
And then a trio of strands locked onto his arm, and at first he thought they had made a mistake.
With all his griffon strength, he pulled at the strands, determined to pull his attackers into slashing range. But the strands would hear nothing of it – they stretched like taffy at his strength, with hardly any tightening to show he had budged their owners.
Strand after strand shot out of the underbrush and landed on their target. Gabor’s arms, legs, chest, wings, back, neck, head all became ensnared. He squawked angrily and thrashed about, but his captors didn’t budge – until they emerged from the bushes and started running around him.
Gabor could make out the flittering of some kind of wing, but it wasn’t the flap of feathers – it was a chittering buzz, as if they were giant dragonflies. The shadows were smaller than him, and vaguely pony-like, but all had those unblinking, glowing eyes of the same color.
With horror, Gabor realized he was being cocooned in the stretchy webbing. It went taught around his legs and he crashed to the forest floor. He stretched his arms, legs, and wings as much as he could, but the webbing stretched to accommodate and didn’t let go.
Exhausted, he looked up at his captors, just in time for the forest glow to be consumed by darkness.
Terror filled the blind Gabor as he felt his captors—whatever they were—drag him. He felt every bump of small rocks and exposed roots as they carried him across the forest floor. He could hear a faint sweeping sound coming from behind them, and he quickly realized they were covering their trail.
The glowing mushrooms they passed played lights across the cocoon he was in before everything suddenly went dark and the path underneath him sloped downward. Naturally as an airborne species, Gabor panicked when he realized he was most likely underground, and his terror renewed his efforts against the web.
Even his talons didn’t seem sharp enough to slice through the web – it was sticky and slick to the touch, and clung to his feathers and fur. It tugged at both painfully as he tried to move, and he was forced to quit.
Then his captors stopped and sat him upright. The webbing wrapped around his face was unwound, but the unwinding stopped at his beak, which remained trapped. He blinked his eyes as they tried to adjust to the darkness before him.
Torches lit up along the wall, flickering unnatural blue-green flames that hardly brought any light to the expanse they were in. They lit up two at a time before stopping where they met in front of him – and in-between them opened a pair of blue-green eyes. Unlike his captors, these had slightly darker pupils and irises, which focused in on the griffon.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here,” purred a feminine voice. “A little bird has strayed from the nest.”
The light intensified enough to outline shapes around the room, and Gabor quickly realized that not only was the being before him seated on a throne – she was also as big as him.
She was incredibly pony-like, except her body was made of a black chitin exoskeleton that cast a faint reflection of the torchlight about the room. Her body was sleek and smooth, without a blemish to be seen.
The creature rose to her feet and stepped off the throne, making her way over to the captured griffon. More features came into view: in place of a mane or tail was a thin membrane-like material, blue-green in color and as neat as if it were hair. Down her back was a beetle-like shell, and a ribbed section spanned around her middle, each a shiny blue-green color. A pair of transparent wings shaped like those of a luna moth flared out behind her, the edges and intricate line patterns on them glowing a faint blue-green.
As she towered above him, he could make out the fangs in her mouth, a blade-like horn, and a small protrusion like a crown atop her head, with each tip having a glowing blue-green orb. She studied him with a stoic face, as if waiting.
He growled, and tried to lunge at her, hoping one good jerk would free at least a paw, but to no avail. She gave a mocking laugh.
“Thorax, please free his beak,” the creature said to Gabor’s left.
In the presence of the creature, he had forgotten his captors. With his eyes free and in better lighting, he could make them out better. Each was identical: pony-like creatures with black chitin exoskeletons. Their eyes glowed a pale blue without pupils. Their “ears” were in fact horns, and each possessed short, membrane wings, the same color as their eyes.
One of them approached and worked with his hooves to free the griffon’s beak. The lesser creatures covered what would’ve been their ears and cowered away when Gabor let out a loud screech. He bit and chomped in the creature’s direction furiously, but she just stood there and laughed.
“Why am I here?” Gabor demanded. “What is this place?”
“You should know,” the creature replied with a bemused tone. “You’re the one who wandered so close.”
Gabor growled. “If you are to end me, end me now! Don’t play games with my fate!”
The creature laughed. One of her servants cleared his throat softly.
“Queen Chrysalis, are we… to kill him?” he asked.
Chrysalis smiled fondly at him, and shook her head. A smirk played across her muzzle as she stared down Gabor. “You are not dead, for that is the power I hold as queen,” she simply said.
“What even are you? You don’t look like a pony,” Gabor said, looking Chrysalis up and down.
At the word “pony,” the smile faltered. Chrysalis turned her back to Gabor with a great sweep of her tail and seemed to stare at the ceiling above. “No,” she said softly. “We are not ponies.”
“You had better kill me, Queen Chrysalis,” Gabor snarled. “If you release me to my village, we will track you down for what you’ve done!”
The smirk returned. “Ah,” she sighed. “Such empty threats from a griffon. They taste like candy. I can sense your loyalty for your brethren, your fellow griffonkind. Such a delight… that is why we’re here, after all.”
Gabor’s eyes widened when he realized the lesser creatures were smacking their lips, as if tasting what Chrysalis was describing. It sickened his stomach. He steeled himself, but the thought bugged him.
“You griffons threaten to destroy all that oppose you, ponies chiefly of all,” Chrysalis continued. "But tell me something…” She frowned and turned to him. “What’s your name?”
“It’s Gabor, the great, the mighty, the proud—“
“Thorax, you may web his beak again. I only need his hearing.” Chrysalis turned away dismissively.
Gabor barked in protest as Thorax spat out a short strand of webbing between his front hooves and wrapped it tightly around Gabor’s beak.
“Tell me something, Gabor. Have you or your destructive brethren ever seen the world burn? Seen life scrubbed off the earth, all emotion and feeling becoming a dark void where once there was a thrumming like a heart?” She turned to him, one eye boring into his. “Because I have.”
She turned to him, resolve in her voice. “I witnessed what many have not: the destruction of Equestria at the hooves of its very rulers! With such power I could not comprehend. I fled for my life, and the lives of my changelings.” She began to approach. “I live for my hive, and to keep myself from doing what those ponies did. Because I love my hive, and I will do what it takes to keep them safe.”
Gabor’s eyes widened as the horn atop her head glowed with pale blue light, sparkles like fireflies dancing and swirling around it. Her eyes seemed to glow in turn, turning brighter and brighter until everything in Gabor’s vision went white.
Gabor snapped awake, jumping to his feet and whirling around. He leveled his axe this way and that, then his shield, before slowly lowering both. He shook the sleep out of his head and realized he was but yards away from the settlement.
He ran back over his thoughts: he’d been sent out to search for possible pony intruders and had scoured the forest for them. He’d spent hours in the underbrush, but ultimately came up empty. He must’ve been so tired he fell flat on his face asleep just shy of his settlement.
Grumbling, Gabor dusted himself off and walked to the gates, upset he hadn’t encountered anything worth fighting.
In the brush behind him, a familiar pair of blue-green eyes watching him leave, and a fanged smile spread across a pitch black muzzle.
“Yes… I think that will do for now… now to await the next one.”
And with that, the eyes shut, and the queen retreated back into her shadows.
Author's Note
Date of Creation (D.o.C.): 04/15/20
When I first heard about Lover of the Moon, one of my first thoughts was the state of other creatures in this scourged Equestria. And, as usual, one of the first ideas to form was for the changelings.
The sheer obliteration wrought by the princesses changed Queen Chrysalis before she had a chance at Canterlot's throne. She and her changelings have since adapted to new food sources - as described in the subsequent chapter.
The song I listened to for this one was "Entangled" by JT Music.
-yours truly,
The Legendary Bill Cipher, Equestria Enthusiast
