Eight Days Earlier

The Ochre Hive.

Inside the Queen's cavern, nearly 700 Changelings stood, both on the floor and also hanging along the walls and ceiling, or even just hovering in flight, but no matter where in the cavernous room there were, they all were looking at the two individuals on the stony rise.

I was standing at the front of the crowd that had formed around the raised area that the throne sat on.

On the platform, the Commander of the Soldier caste was bowing with her head to the floor as the Queen sat on her stone throne seeming to look through the commander with her piercing orange eyes.

Just twelve hours ago I had been with the commander as she led a swarm to raid a rival Hive, I was not a Soldier myself, but rather an Atheneum Drone, a living repository of hive knowledge, I was with the raid swarm because I Knew the terrain, things like where we could find water and shelter.

I was also meant to tell the commander what the enemy Hive's most well-known stratagems were so that she could devise counters for them.

The only problem was that the rival Hive had chosen today, my first ever raid, to start acting different, the Emerald Hive is known for its head-on charges and use of raw strength to overwhelm rather than over clever strategy.

Not today though, today they set up an ambush and caught us completely off guard, in just ten minutes we had already lost a full half of the Soldiers in the raid swarm and a good number of the back-line Workers had been picked off too, at that point the commander had called a retreat, but we lost several more Soldiers as they protected the fleeing swarm.

We lost 35% of the Worker sent on the raid and a full 60% of the Soldiers, this was a defeat on a scale the Hive had not suffered in my lifetime, and I was partly to blame.

I can’t believe the raid went that badly, I thought, as I tried not to draw any more attention to myself, why am I not up there with the Commander?

In truth, I was very glad I wasn’t, the Queen had made this a mandatory Hive meeting and the only thing the entire Hive ever had to be present for was punishments.

As I was nervously musing on this the Queen stood and walked forward until she was only half a bodies length from the commander, as she stood there, she looked out to the rest of us and began to speak in her reverberating voice.

“My children, what is the most important thing we each must do?” She said in a dangerously calm voice.

Almost instantly an Attendant Drone stepped out of the crowd, "fulfil our role in the Hive, my Queen,” he said and then with a bow stepped back in line.

“Very good my child,” The Queen said with a small nod of her head, “fulfil your role in the Hive, it’s not that hard, is it? For us all to do our part, so that the Hive can grow and survive,” her gaze roamed over the gathered Hive, looking for any sign of disagreement.

After finding none she turned her face to the Commander, “but for some reason, this Changeling has failed to do her part, she has failed so badly that one hundred and nine of my Changelings are dead," the Queen said as she gazed into the Commander's eyes “Why did you fail to do your part, commander?”

With her head still to the floor, the commander replied, “my Queen, I failed to anticipate the ambush we were caught in, I expected the Emerald Hive to use their normal strategy of a head-on attack rather than setting up an ambush.”

“So, you failed because of ignorance and a because you lack the ability to adapt? Because you weren’t prepared for a change to our enemy's pattern of attack?” The Queen asked, turning her head to the side slightly, almost like a nymph might when they are asking a question.

“Yes, my Queen,” The commander said, still with her face on the floor.

The Queen sighed deeply and picked up the commander in her magic.

“It can’t just be that you’re stupid, you have done your job before just fine, the only explanation I can think of is that you are broken somewhere, that is the only reason you wouldn’t be able to adapt like you are meant too, like all Changelings are meant to," The Queen said, as she gestured out to the gathered swarm.

Refocusing on the Commander, the Queen continued, "but, I can’t see any wounds on your body, it must be something inside you that’s been broken,” she said with a nod, “do not fear, Commander, I will find out what went so terribly wrong inside you and make sure such a tragedy never happens again,” she said in a calm tone.

Then, with a flick of her magic, she ripped the commander’s chitin chest plate from her body and dropped it to the floor next to her.

The commander shook in the Queen's magic but was unable to move a muscle as she floated Infront of the Queen, she wasn’t even able to scream, only letting out muted wails from her magically closed mouth.

I was thankful the commander’s back was facing towards us so I couldn’t see exactly what was happening, but I could certainly hear it.

The sound of cracking chitin, bone, and tearing flesh would be in my nightmares for many days afterwards.

After dropping some rib bones and torn chunks of flesh onto the chitin plate by her side, the Queen leaned forward and seemed to peer into the Commander’s now open torso.

“No, everything looks to be working in here too, it’s not any of your organs, that can only mean one thing, the problem is up here, commander,” the Queen said tapping the suspended Changeling on the forehead, “and I’m afraid there is nothing I can do to fix that, it's such shame, I guess that means you’re useless now,” the Queen said, starting to turn away.

But then she stopped and slowly turned back to the Commander, “well, maybe not entirely useless,” she said with a rather unsettling smile.

We all watched as the Queen leaned her head into the commander’s open chest, the commander shuddered as the Queen roughly pulled her head back with something clutched in her maw, I instantly recognized it as the commander's Affectus Ventris, her emotional stomach.

The Queen tipped her head back and swallowed the energy-filled organ down in one go, giving a little shiver as her eyes took on a little more glow.

Right before our eyes, the commander's body began to rapidly deteriorate, her limbs quickly started to develop holes and her once smooth chitin started to become pockmarked as her body tried to pull energy from her extremities to keep her alive.

“Ok, that’s enough of that," the Queen said, almost lovingly caressing the Commander's cheeks with her grasping hands, "if I leave you too long, you’ll be nothing but bones and chitin."

Then with a sharp movement and a crunch, she roughly jerked the commander's head up and sideways before releasing it and letting it drop to hang limply down the Commander back, her wide-open eyes looking out into the crowd.

The growing holes in the now-former commander’s chitin slowed and then, eventually, stopped forming as her brain shut down and was no longer sucking the energy from the rest of her body.

As I looked at her face, her once bright orange eyes were now shrunken in and dulled just like a starving Changelings eye would be.

I guess she was technically starving, in the end, I thought to myself.

The Queen cleared her throat and looked at us all before saying, “ok, the rest of you know your roles, get back to them and remember what happens when you fail the Hive.” she said in a cheerful voice as she walked back to her throne, the corpse of the commander still in her magical grip.

I left the throne room as quickly as I safely could, it was unfortunately not quick enough to save me from the sounds of crunching chitin and chewing.

I quickly trotted back to the Drone sleeping chamber and went to my rest cubby, only to see some other Changeling laying in my designated sleeping hole, “h-hey, what are you doing? That’s my sleeping place,” I said.

The other Changeling opened his eyes, his pupils were oval slits like my own, and sat up, “no, this is my sleeping place now,” he said, calmly.

“What? No, it isn't, this is my cubby, it has been mine since I became an Atheneum Drone, now get out of it,” I said, standing my ground.

As the other Drone and I locked eyes I heard several hoof steps from behind me, breaking eye contact with the other Drone, I looked back to see a group of Soldiers had walked into the chamber.

“Atheneum Drone 23, Coreid, you will come with us,” the lead Soldier said, in a tone that brooked no refusal.

“What? But it’s my rest period, I just need this interloper to get out of my sleeping hole,” I said, lowering my head slightly but still trying to argue my case.

Gesturing to the Drone in the cubby the Soldier said, "this is your replacement, you are being reassigned, you will come with us.”

A chill ran down my spine and I stammered out, “r-reassigned? But that, I can’t, please don’t,” I said, taking a slight step back.

The Soldiers fanned out and took a step towards me, “this is your last chance, comply or you will be compelled to obey.”

I took a deep breath and then let it out slowly, “ok, I understand and obey,” I said in a defeated tone.

I was surrounded by the Soldiers and then they escorted me out of the room and down through several tunnels, after about 10 minutes of walking we arrived at a room I hadn’t seen since my hatching.

“By order of the Commander, you are to be resigned to Worker caste,” the lead Soldier said.

“By the Commander? But the Commander is- the Commander was punished by the Queen,” I said.

Seeming to almost be ignoring me, the Soldier continued, “the Queen has not yet decided on your punishment, in the meantime, a new Commander has been chosen, and she does not want a potentially defective Atheneum Drone at her side and has ordered your removal,” she explained as an Attendant Drone carried over an ochre orange cocoon, already filled with metamorphic gel.

“Please climb in,” the Attendant Drone said, in a calm voice that had a hint of multiple layers, like a lesser form of the Queen's voice, “and there’s no need to worry, a regression takes less time than an elevation would, so you should be out and ready to work withing two rest cycles.”

With no real choice in the matter, and knowing any stalling would only make things worse, I slowly climbed into the cocoon, the metamorphic gel raising as it was displaced by my body, I sank down until I was entirely submerged within the warm gel and within seconds my thoughts slowed and then ceased altogether as I was forced into unconsciousness.

Two days later

As I regain my ability to think I felt the instinctual need to break free of the egg-like structure I was in, using my horn I stabbed at the wall of the cocoon and split it down the side, falling to the warm floor in a deluge of gel.

As I lay there shivering, an Attendant, the same one as before, walked up to me and began rubbing me down with a rough cloth.

As he did, I realized how much bigger he now seemed, almost half again my size, whereas before we had been almost the same height.

I looked down at my new body, not only was I smaller but I had become more compact, stockier, less elegant in form.

As the last of the old gel was wiped off my chitin the Attendant spoke in his calm, multi-layered voice, “there we go, you won’t be dripping gel through the tunnels now,” he then went to the remains of the cocoon and began to clear it away.

“Wait,” I noticed my voice had become scratchy and less clear, “what do I do now?” I said, feeling lost.

He looked over his back to me, ”you have been assigned to the mushroom farms, go there and talk to the lead Worker,” he said, before turning back to his work.

I left the hatching cavern and walked down several tunnels, after several twists and turns I got to the floor hole that led into the farm cavern.

Spreading my new, and smaller wings, I flew down into the cavern and looked around.

The cavern floor was broken up into growing beds and walkways that separated the substrate-filled indents.

I sent out a pulse through the Hive mind to search for the highest-ranking Worker, lamenting the loss of proper mind-to-mind communication that came with my Worker body.

After only a couple of seconds, I got a return mind pulse from near one of the substrate beds and flew in that direction, I gently alighted on the walkway to the side of the bed and looked at the Worker before me, she was dirty from working in the soil and her chitin was marked with signs of old damage and mild starvation holes.

After enduring my stare for a couple of seconds she glanced up at me, “are you going to get to work or just stand there like a hatchling?” She asked me in a gravelly but definitely feminine voice.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what I’m meant to do, I’m not used to working the farms,” I said, mentally lamenting the loss of my much nicer role that I would never see again.

The Worker seemed to take a proper look at me now, “Huh, a male worker? That’s not something you see every day, anyway, how can you not know what to do, weren’t you given you jobs with the rest of your hatch-mates?” She asked with a slightly confused look.

“I’m not a new hatchling,” I replied, hating the words that were coming out of my mouth, “I was- I was regressed and reassigned.”

She looked at me for a few seconds before bursting out in laughter, “oh that’s a good one, one of you well-fed higher-ups getting tossed down here with us? Priceless,” she said, still chuckling at my expense.

“It’s not funny!” I shouted, and then instantly dropped low and bowed my head, “I apologize, Leadling, I was out of line, I beg your mercy” I said, expecting my punishment to be swift.

“Leadling? Really? Wow, the upper Hive must really suck if it’s that formal,” she said with a last chuckle before slipping into a more serious tone, “you will call me by my designation, Planter 01, and you won’t raise your voice to me again, do you understand?” She said.

“Yes, Planter 01, my name is Coreid, I understand and await instruction,” I said, head still bowed respectfully.

“Coreid? No, you are Worker 427, and your designation is Field Mister 41,” Planter 01 said, “now go to the water vats,” She pointed with a grasping hand to some circular pools on one side of the cavern, “drink your fill and then go the fruiting mycelium fields and start regurgitating the water, it must be a fine mist or you will damage the mycelium, understand?”

“Yes, Planter 01, I understand and obey,” I said before making my way over to the pools and drinking down as much water and my new body could hold, then I went to where I could see other Workers spitting water in a continuous fine mist onto the mushroom fields and went to join them.

The rest of my day went on like that, my rest cycle came up and that is when I learned Workers don’t get sleeping cubbies, the Worker dorm was a bare room with a smooth floor, there was already a great many Workers sleeping, so I quietly found a space and went to sleep.

The next morning, I woke up followed the other Workers on my cycle out into the cavern again, they all seemed to just be going back to their work, so I asked another field mister walking next to me, “are we not going to get love before work?”

She looked at me strangely, “Feedings not for another two days, why are you complaining? You look like you’ve been well fed already,” she said before continuing towards the water vats.

And so that’s how my next 3 days went, wake up, get water, spray water, repeat till rest cycle, over and over.

It was horrible, I was used to taking in knowledge and giving it out, not doing the same thing repeatedly in mind-numbing monotony.

On feeding day an Attendant Drone flew down into the large farm cavern carrying a storage cocoon, and a full twelve Soldiers came with him.

All the Workers got into orderly lines and one by one approached the Attendant and were given a single cup of love gel which they drank down before giving back the cup.

As I was waiting in line the Worker behind me quietly asked the one behind him, ”why do you think there are so many Soldiers today?”

“I don’t know, we’ve never tried to make trouble, I don’t see a reason to bring more muscle,” was the hushed reply he got back.

The line kept moving till I got to the front, just as I was about to take the cup from the Attendant, one of the Soldiers stepped up to me, “Worker 427?” he said, not that he could have mistaken me given the Hive link.

“Yes, Soldier, that’s me,” I said, lowering my head in respect and fear, Soldiers had been big when I was a Drone, but now they were truly huge compared to me.

“You will come with us, by order of the Queen, you have been reassigned to scouting, you will join scouting group six, they leave shortly,” the Soldier said.

I glanced over to the Attendant and the cocoon of love gel, “you will get your rations from your group leader, now follow me.”

The Soldiers led me out of the farms and upwards towards the outer tunnels of the Hive, as we entered the scout's chamber, I saw a good number of other Workers moving around bundles of collected resources from outside the Hive by the scouting groups.

The Solider walked me over to two other Soldiers that were already in the room and said, “This is the new Worker, they are the one the Queen has granted you personally, do not disappoint her Majesty,” as he gave me what to him was probably a gentle shove but sent me stumbling forward, barely catching myself from falling flat on my face.

The new Soldier, who I assumed was to be my new scout leader, looked down at me with an expression somewhere between annoyance and disgust, “understood, for the Queen and the Hive,” the scout leader said.

“For the Queen and the Hive,” the other Soldier replied before turning around and leaving the chamber.

“Get you Love ration from the Attendant at the back of the chamber and then return, we are leaving in ten minutes,” the leader said, turning back to his tasks.

I quickly went and got my love ration; it was bigger than what the farmers were getting but still barely half what I got daily as a Drone.

After drinking down my gel portion I made my way back to the leader and a group consisting of another Soldier and four more Workers.

With all of us assembled the leader nodded and we made the walk to the Hive entrance before taking flight into the hot desert air.

Three days later

We had flown all day for the last three days, resting the nights in caves or under rocky overhangs, the mountains had been getting steadily closer as we flew so I knew we were flying to the West and seemingly a bit South.

That morning we had been flying for a couple of hours and although I couldn’t be sure, I suspected we had left our Hives claimed territory sometime yesterday and were now in either unclaimed land or possibly another Hives territory.

As we flew I saw a shimmer in the distance, it appeared to be an oasis of some kind surrounded by trees, it was fed by a small river running from the hoofhills of the mountains, it was the first body of water I had seen the entire flight and we seemed to be heading right for it.

After another thirty minutes of flying, we landed and the soldiers took turns to drink and then stood guard as my fellow Drones and I took out own drinks from the lake.

After drinking for half a minute I walked over to the scout leader and asked, “so um, Soldier, scout leader, sir, what are we scouting for this far out? We must be past the Hives borders by now.”

The soldiers turned to me with a slightly annoyed expression and in a deep voice replied, "we are on a special assignment, one given by the Queen herself.”

I took a small step back and nodded, “understood, sir, I beg your forgiveness for asking.”

He looked at me as the other workers came over to hear the conversation, “no, I suppose it’s good you asked really, the assignment is about you after all.” He said with a nod

Barely a second after his nod I felt each of my legs get pulled out from under me, and I fell to my stomach with a thud, I instantly tried to stand back up but each of my legs was being held by one of the other workers.

“What’s going on, let go of me!”

I said as I struggled in their grip, I quickly stopped as I was kicked in the face, hard.

“Stop struggling Worker,” the Soldier almost spat, “don’t make this any harder than it already needs to be.”

“Whatever I did, sir, I’m sorry, I beg your mercy!” I said, panicking, fearing that my question had offended the Solider.

The Soldier leaned closer to my face and said, “the assignment we are here to fulfil is the removal of a traitor to the Hive.”

“T-traitor?” I stammered out as my eyes widened realising he meant me, “no, I’m not a traitor, I live to serve the Queen and the Hive!”

“Your failure to properly inform the previous swarm commander about the possibility of a change to our enemies strategy contributed to the deaths of 110 hive mates, 61 of which were soldiers, it will take considerable resources to regrow what has been lost, and for contributing to that loss, you are a traitor.”

No, this can’t be happening, I thought as I began to understand what was happening.

“It wasn’t my fault, sir, I gave the commander the information she asked for, noling could have expected the Emeralds to change strategy so dramatically, I couldn’t have warned her of a danger that shouldn’t have existed.”

“You were meant to expect the unexpected, that was part of your role, and you failed,” he said as he placed his sharp horn against my shorter one, “the Queen decided she was full after her last meal, so instead of being executed, like you deserve, you are going to be banished instead.” The soldier said as he put a forehoof on my head right next to my horn, “Banished?! But that means!” I didn’t get any further in my thought as the leader pulled his horn away in a twisting motion with an ocher line of magic snapping away with him just as someling grabbed my head crest and pulled it up and back with a jerk, ripping it from my head.

The burning from the loss of my crest would have been this worst pain I had ever felt if I hadn’t also just been forcibly ejected from the Hive mind, that was a new and entirely different kind of pain, like a part of my mind and soul had been ripped out.

I was struck dumb in blind agony for what felt like forever before reality came crashing back to me and I started screaming.

Ignoring my screams, the Soldier began to speak in a calm tone as he held my head down, “traitor, by order of the Queen, I strip you of your colours and your place in the Hive.”

As he said that I felt my tail frill being ripped from my body, adding to the already unbearable pain I was in and the Soldier continued, “from now until the day you die, you are Banished, should you ever return to the Ochre Hives territory you shall be considered a feral and be treated as such, ” his speech went on, as I felt the other soldier take hold of my elytra.

As I felt the pressure on my wing casings start to become more forceful and the joint start to tear from my back, I heard a sound that terrified me more than even the soldiers pulling my body parts off, the sound of an angry Queen.

I looked up and through my tear blurred vision, I saw a large, red Queen charging at a full sprint towards us.

The Soldier let go of my wing casings and moved to intercept the oncoming threat as the leader commanded the other workers to return to the Hive and tell the Queen this land had been claimed by an unknown rival.

As the workers fled, leaving me lying limp on the ground, the red Queen had already got to the first soldier and jumped on top of her, forcing her to the ground with her larger mass, she then proceeded to smash a rock nearly the size of my head into the side of the soldier face with a sickening crack-squelch, it only took one hit to smash the chitin and deform her head grotesquely.

The leader let go of my head and took an aggressive stance, walking forward he tried to blast the Queen off his comrade with a kinetic bolt spell, but as it impacted the red Queen it only cracked the thick chitin on her chest.

The feral Queen let out another horrific screech and, from a standstill, leapt the six body length to the lead Soldier, as she landed on top of him she grabbed his neck and the back of his head with her grasping arms and brought half his head sideways into her wide open maw, then bit down, her large fangs and front teeth going in just ahead of his ear frills, the Soldiers body briefly spasmed and then went still as the Queen snapped her head back, ripping the front half of the Soldiers head off in the proses leaving his lower jaw and the back half of his skull.

I whimpered at the sight of the large Soldier's quick and brutal demise, I then quickly regrated making a sound as the Queen's head snapped in my direction, the front half of the Soldiers face still in her maw.

As she saw me, she dropped the grisly thing and started walking in my direction, looking at her face I could see the Queen's red eyes, the normally oval slit pupils were just a line of black in the sea blood red of her iris.

I don’t know if it was the blood loss or the fear of being eaten alive, but I started to blackout as she stepped closer.

As my vision started fading to black, sounds became dull and feelings numbly muted, I could almost swear I saw the red Queens eyes return to the normal look of a Queen, and as my vision left me entirely, and the world became a black void, I thought I could hear the sound of some-ling throwing up.

Huh… I guess the stress was finally too much for me…but... I haven’t eaten in days… I thought as I slipped into unconsciousness.

Author's Note

Ok, chapter 2!

Not going to lie, this chapter has had about 2k words added to it and I'm still not 100% happy with it.

Originally there was a time skip from the end of the execution straight to flying with the scouts and there was just a 3 paragraph recap of poor coreids regression and time as a worker, but I felt like it was just too much of a jump and that I needed to flesh it out a bit so it would flow better.

Also, I know it got a bit heavy gore wise in there at parts but, I wanted to really show that Changeling life is not all that nice or even all that long in some cases.

I do want to clarify that not every chapter will have something nasty or gory happen, just in case some are afraid of that becoming a trend, but I'm also not going to shy away from how cruel some of the Queens can be or how horrible melee fighting with natural or manufactured weapons is.

I'm aiming for next Saturday to release the next chapter, but with it being so near to Christmas I can't guarantee I will get two chapters a week out every week, but I will do my best, and if it comes to that, I might do it as two smaller chapters rather than one big one.

Once again, I'm sure there are things I've missed in the editing, even after running it through both Word and Grammarly so do let me know if you see any errors.

And one last thing, to everyone that's done it,
Thanks