The dark dungeons were properly full of gunge and other unnecessary liquids. The changeling drone cried softly in the corner, keeping to herself and away from the barred walls.

For the first time in her entire existence of being a changeling, she was alone. Alone not only in physicality, but also mentally. Only her own thoughts drifted pointlessly through her brain. The swarm had decided she was a lost cause, being captured by the Equestrian Royal Guard for participating during the Canterlot siege. The swarm had cut her off. The swarm expected her to die.

And so she would. She was loyal to her Queen… Right? The Queen that almost got her killed during the love-shield blast. The Queen that will now get her killed after taking away her only supply of love, via the residual energy in the hive mind.

In the dungeon, she couldn’t taste love. Not here, not anywhere in Canterlot. Everypony always looked through the bars with a disgust riddled on their faces. The only energy emitted from those ponies were anger, or disgust. Neither of which she could eat, and neither of which she could survive on. They weren’t even particularly good tasting.

As she laid curled up in a ball on Canterlot’s patheic excuse for a bed, she felt the cold grasps of forever sleep liquidating the last remnants of sanity as she slipped deeper into the end.

Starving was such a horrible way to die. For anything, not just Changeling. The guards didn’t even spare her a second glance as their shadows danced across the flickering flame-light, most likely unaware that she was dying. They gave her food in the form of colorless glop each and every day, three times the day. But Changelings couldn’t eat pony food. That was a lie. They could, but only to fit in. A mere disguise mechanism to properly fool anypony. They didn’t gain any nutricional value from eating food.

Which made her mad. Angry, even. Angry at her own bio-chemistry for being so useless. Perfectly good food going straight through her system. Perfectly nutritional food being turned into unescesarry waste.

Her mind drifted back towards her Queen. Why couldn’t they be like any other hive? Why did they have to steal love? The other eastern hives traded love. ‘Let us feed on your love, and we will pay you!’ Those purple-maned changelings didn’t even need to leave their hive, ever! Ponies willingly walked in!

Then there were other hives. Smaller, illegal hives all thought Manehattan. It was the same concept as the previously mentioned hives, but instead of feeding on love, they feed on…

Well, lust.

Hence why they’re illegal.

Right now, the dying changeling wished so purposefully that she belonged to one of the other hives. Any other hive. Any other hive that didn’t attack Canterlot because their way of feeding on love was shit.

Who said changelings can’t produce their own emotions? Because right now the changeling laying on the torn cot was producing an unhealthy amount of rage. She would give anything in order to switch hives. Switch her predominately blue highlights to something purple. Something red. Fill her black holed hooves. Change her chitin to white. Replace her pheromones to the neighboring hives. It had been done before, so why.

Why was her Queen so utterly incompetent?

Why was her Queen willing to sacrifice her enitire hive for what, a temporary boost in love? There’s only so much love you can extract forcefully before a pony becomes… well, less-than-pony. The other hives functioned on willingly giving love. Forcing love drained ponies of their life energy, something not every creature has in abundance.

Capturing the entirety of Canterlot, then making ponies forcefully love them?

That was the problem with their hive. Replacing ponies was something lone-wanderers did. Lone scavengers. In the Changeling political world, it was unheard of for a massive hive to still predominately replace ponies. Yet Chrysalis did. Was she stupid? And even more importantly, how did the hive get so damn big?

The only logical conclusion the changeling could come up with was the hive was a hand-me-down from an older Queen. No way in Celestia’s hooves could Chrysalis form a hive that large with only replacing ponies.

It was madness!

It was madness…

It was death. She was dying. She was starving.

Changelings could, in theory, live forever. With a strong enough source of love, even the weakest drone could live for hundreds of hundreds of years.

It was such a shame she was only six.

The average life-span for a changeling in the Chrysalis hive was twelve.

They were starving.

She was starving.

And the changelings forgot to mention death was this painful.

Her head was throbbing. Lack of food. It hurt to breathe. Every breath only made her headache worse. She squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the golden light. She only wanted a release. Starving was slow. She wasn’t sure if she would die now, or live for another two days. In all honesty, she wished for death now. Atleast then she wouldn’t have to put up with this pain.

Maybe it gets dulled after a while. She wouldn’t know. She hasn’t died before. Maybe you get used to the pain… Who said anything about an easy death?

...Huh? Nopony said anything about a painful death.

Or- Not painful. Easy. It was an easy death.

No no- I wasn’t a painful death. It was a painful death. It was an easy death where she went-

Wrong.

Wrong wrong wrong wrong.

A warm glow seemed to eminate throught the cell as she laid in her own little ball. The sounds of shuffling keys jingled through the changelings ears as an unfamiliar clicking sound signaling the latch had been lifted subsequently lifted her hopes.

“Your Majesty… I highly suggest not approaching the prisoner!”

“Please, Lieutenant Brick. Every creature deserves to be treated with care.”

“But she’s a Changeling!”

“And you are a Unicorn. I fail to see the problem.”

“They attacked Canterlot-”

“By saying ‘they’ you imply all changelings. This is untrue. I have many diplomatic relations with the other hives, and they all discourage what Queen Chrysalis has done. This matter is nothing different than if a tribe of Pegasus attacked Canterlot, or a tribe of Unicorns attacked Manehattan. Would we disgrace entire tribes just because of the actions of a small group? Please, let’s not have a repeat of the Thesterals.”

“But-”

“Hello? Can you hear me?” She asked kindly. The changeling kept laying in her own ball, barely having the energy to focus on the confusing godly voice passing through her ears. “I want to help you. Can you hear me- Lieutenant Brick, how long has she been in this dungeon?”

“Oh- Uh-” The sounds of shuffling papers filled the cell. “About eleven days.”

“E-Eleven days?” The mare sputtered. “Eleven days without food?”

“We’ve been serving her the prison slop-”

“Changelings don’t eat food. They eat love.” She explained. “Quickly, send for the royal doctor. Tell him it’s an emergency!”

“Princess, I highly recommend-”

“Now!” She shouted. The Lieutenant seemed to get the message, hooves shuffling quickly out of the shell. The changelings ears had barely perked up at the word ‘Princess,’ but due to her current incapacitated state, she could barely give the energy to care.

“It’s going to be okay.” She heard an uncommonly soothing voice.

A hoof touched her back. A soft, delicate hoof stroking her hard chitinous surface. It’s fur seemed to radiate the sun itself as it retracted, restarting it’s course.

A feeling brewed within the Changeling as she felt the soothing hoof. A feeling she shouldn’t have ever felt if she had been anything loyal to her previous hive. But her hive had left her for dead eleven days ago. That didn’t matter.

She felt her loyalty change. What was once an undying loyalty to Queen Chrysalis had now shifted onto this new pony.

She also felt a familiar feeling. A feeling she was absolutely convinced she would never, ever feel again.

She started feeling love.

It was barely a trickle. Just the uneven drops of a leaky joint spilling out. But it was enough to keep her going. It was enough to keep her conscious. It was even enough to let her fall asleep without the immense fear of never waking up.

And so that is exactly what she did.

Author's Note

First time writing something dark- kind of. I think I did a piss terrible job. If I ever finished this one, I was gonna scrap this chapter. I hate it.