While Thorax gave Chrysalis a tour of the new Hive, I was sitting across from Pharynx. I was offered a cup of tea by the changeling, which was shocking, given how he was earlier. Blaze was laying her head on the table, while trying to steal some cookies that were on a plate in the middle. Several other drones were behind Pharynx, staring up at me. “So, how did you get Mom to actually fall in love with you?” The bug moose asked. “Mom went from cold and heartless, towards ponies at least, to happily cuddling and bedding one shortly after she lost her crown. What did you do to her, or what did she do to you?”

“Your mother’s been stressed out for the last thousand years, Pharynx. And while she clearly loves you guys, she’s barely been able to interact with anyone, or even be social. So she comes along, tries to get me killed, and then I hug her and cuddle with her.” I shrugged. “From there, we just traveled together, and she showed me loyalty where my ex could not; I appreciate that.”

“...Say what you want about Mom, but I suppose she’s loyal; most of us ‘lings will happily follow whoever is willing to feed us. Wait a second… you were actually feeding Chrysalis for her to be so loyal.”

“We also basically only had each other. I was alone, being manipulated at every turn by Equestria’s wonderful rulers, and Chrysalis was a criminal. We stuck together, through all the bullshit we had to endure, and she let it slip that she’d give dating me a chance. With… How loyal she’s been, I took that chance, we’ve been going at it for the last month or two. She loves me, I love her, we’ve got a few boundaries to iron out, but I’m loving everything about her. She actively nursed me back to health after I'd nearly been killed by a dragon.” Pharynx nodded.

“Well, know that Chrysalis is still our mother, Ostri,” he warned. “If you hurt her, we will all come after you.”

“She’ll probably break my neck if I hurt her,” I chuckled. “Seriously, that woman is sexy as fuck when she gets mad or takes charge of a situation.”

“So,” one of the other drones raised a hoof. “How is Mom in bed?” He asked.

“...That is your mother,” I said flatly. “Why do you want to know about her sex life?”

“...Uh…” That drone tilted his head. “I don’t know, that’s what ponies do when they hear somepony is mating with a cute mare,” he said. “I didn’t really think about it.”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Stinky, sir!” A portal opened up, a pink hoof grabbed the changeling, who wasn’t reformed by the way, before pulling the poor bug into said portal. The portal closed shortly afterwards.

“What… The actual-”

“Sorry about that Ostri,” Pinkie Pie sprung up out of nowhere. “I was just saying ‘hi’ to Pinkie Pie!” I’m just going to go on the wagon and drink alcohol until I pass out. That sounds like a good idea. Unfortunately for me, Thorax and Chryssy came by, Thorax was blushing bright red while Chryssy got on him for finding somebody named Ember attractive. By the time she had reached the table, Thorax was burying his face into Pharynx, who rolled his eyes.

“Mom, you just had to tease him about his crush, didn’t you?” The Bugmoose asked.

“It’s not my fault that my child brought up this interesting dragoness, talking about how pretty she is,” Thorax squeaked. “How tough she is.” Another squeak. “How assertive she is…”

“Mom! Stop!” Thorax shouted.

“Thorax, I am a thousand, one hundred and twenty three years old. My entire life was spent wooing stallions and figuring out what they do when they find a certain mare, or stallion, attractive. You, my son, are suffering from puppy love and it is adorable!” She clapped her hooves. “If you two have grandhatchlings, you must send me a letter so I can come see them!”

“Mom!” Pharynx was now laughing at his brother’s misfortune.

“...Okay,” I got out of my chair. “That-” Thorax’s horns lit up and I was suddenly brought over to him by his magic. “What?”

“C’mon! You’re my adoptive father, and the father to everyling in the Hive. I know we buried you in a changeling pile, but I figured…”

“You just wanna get away from Chryssy so she stops teasing you for finding a dragon’s ass to be nicely shaped, don’t you?” I smirked.

“Ugh! Not you too!” I hopped up on my hind legs and noogied the bug moose.

“Hey, you’re technically my child now; I’ve always wanted to tease my son for staring at a girl’s ass. Guess who fits the description of you being my child?” Thorax groaned. “C’mon, you know it’s all in good fun. Hell, if you need help, send me or Chryssy a letter, and we’ll turn our wagon right the buck around and help you… Just a tip of advice,” Thorax slowly looked at me. “Don’t get too cuddly with Luna or Celestia should your taste in ladies change.”

“...This is because of what Mom told me, isn’t it?” I raised an eyebrow. “She told me why I shouldn’t make my relationship with any of Equestria’s Princesses more than professional. Luna really threw you out because you weren’t needed anymore?” I nodded. “Because fighting wars is a thing of the past for ponies… I can tell that that’s messed up. Mom is treating you better, right?” He asked as we waved to a couple changelings that were passing by.

“Oh yeah. She makes damn sure that I’m happy, and I’m trying to hopefully work her back into somebody sane… That time alone, from all of you guys? That drove her mad. You, after getting your Hive together should’ve gone out and got her, by the way. She shouldn’t be given power, especially since she won’t see a reason to need it if she no longer has a Hive to look after, but she’s your damn mother. She broke her ass seven ways from Sunday just to make sure y’all had some love in your bellies.”

“...Yeah,” Thorax rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t know if finding her again would’ve been a good thing. Especially now that she knows that I have a crush on Ember.”

“So… how nice are dragon thighs?” Thorax summoned a newspaper and hit me in the face with it.

We stopped by what looked like an adolescent changeling, who was teal in color, and had matching eyes. On the floor around her looked like a bunch of textbooks. The room we had walked in was full of younger changelings, all doing their own little thing. “This is Ocellus, she attends Twilight’s School of Friendship and is home for the summer. Ocellus,” the little changeling looked up. She is adorable. “Say hi to Ostri?”

“You mean the weird pony that thought dating our Mom was a good idea?”

“…Why would dating Chrysalis be a bad idea?”

“You’ve heard what she did, didn’t you?” The young changeling asked.

“Kiddo,” I sat down in front of her. “Do you understand just how much your mother had to go through just so you can ‘reform’ and learn about friendship? Because while all that happened because she was overthrown, that doesn’t negate everything else she did for you and your Hive for a thousand years.”

“Like kill ponies?” She asked.

“Kid, she did that to get love for every single drone in this Hive. For a thousand years, after she took that crown, she did her best to feed all of you. That woman watched hundreds of thousands of drones starve to death because she couldn’t get enough food for y’all. What’s worse? Chrysalis had a last ditch effort, that last ditch effort ended with a lot of her kids dying. And she tries to avenge them, and what do y’all do? Kick her out of her own damned home because she’s ‘evil.’” The young changeling’s jaw dropped.

“On top of that, she tried, didn’t succeed, but tried to get to know every drone individually; she loves all of you. She probably remembers bits and quarks of changelings from the last century, she definitely misses those changelings, and yet she pushed on for y’all. She pushed on for me, and she’s in a much happier position now, Ocellus. Chrysalis did some fucked up shit, I’ll give you that, but at the end of the day, she was a struggling mother of thousands of changelings. Don’t you dare say she deserves what she got handed.” I took a few deep breaths.

“Sorry about getting mad; Chrysalis is my marefriend, I know what she’s gone through. I know how close she is to being insane, and I would’ve gone insane if I were under just as much pressure as she was.”

“I-I… Chrysalis watched how many changelings starve to death?” Ocellus looked about ready to cry.

“Not just changelings, all of you guys, surrogate or biologically, are her children. She, from the very moment Celestia casted her out, until the moment she got casted out of here, she watched children starve to death, because she couldn’t get you guys a stable source of love.”

“That… isn’t what I was taught at school. We had a recent history class, and one of the subjects was on changelings… It didn’t paint her in a good light.” The young changeling sighed. “Can I come see you and Mom before you go back to exploring Equus?” She tilted her head. “I know Mom isn’t a good changeling, but… she was trying to be a mother and help us…” I patted the kid on her head. “I wanna give her a hug.”

“I’ll make sure we stay here long enough for Chrysalis to reconnect to all of you guys. She said otherwise when we first reunited, but she’s your mother; she can’t not at least love you guys in some capacity.” I chuckled, and picked the kid up. “Wanna join me and Thorax on the rest of my tour of the Hive? It’ll probably end up with us meeting back up with Chrysalis and Pharynx.” Ocellus nodded. So I placed her on my back, since she was clearly an adolescent, but she was tiny enough to comfortably curl up and lay on my back.

The tour ended up at some hot springs that had been dug into. I got shown dancing changelings, a bunch of other pastimes changelings have picked up now that they aren’t struggling for food, and a changeling that was happy that their soup had cooled down. That changeling was my favorite because he was so happy to have room temperature soup. I couldn’t help but give that one a brohoof and tell him ways to cool his soup down better.

A few hours later, we were sitting outside of our wagon, Occellus was hugging Chrysalis while the two of them were crying. Twilight and her friends soon came out of the Hive after chatting with Thorax a bit more. “Yo Thorax!” I used my hooves to help direct the sound. “Lemme know when you wanna hook up with Ember, lemme know! I’ll be your wingman!’

“Ostri! If you say I anything about my crush on Ember, I swear I will-”

Something crashed into the ground right beside him. The dust soon cleared up and… A female dragon, standing upright, and pretty small for a dragon; even the teenager I fought was larger. She had feline-like legs, was light blue, and admittedly, kinda adorable. If she weren’t a dragon that could set me on fire, I would probably ask her who’s a good girl. “What was that, Thorax?” She asked. Tilted her head. “Who are you…” Her eyes fell on Chrysalis and I. I happily waved while Chrysalis slowly put the adolescent changeling that she was hugging down on the ground, before jumping between Occellus and the new dragon. Her horn lit.

“Chrysalis,” the dragon snarled.

“Hey!” I shouted. “If you two murder each other, I am going to beat your asses!”

“Shut up, pony! What’s your name? Lighting Flash?” The dragoness asked.

I chose to ignore her. “...Hey, Thorax,” I, in a single flap of my wings and a leap, landed right next to the changeling. “This is Ember?” I asked.

“Ostri… If you tell Ember, I swear to Celestia-”

“Hey, you’re Ember, right? Dragon Lord Ember?” The blue dragon tilted her head.

“...Yeah, why?”

“Thorax thinks you’re pretty,” I said flatly. “He’s probably gonna kick my ass for this later, but uh… he wants to start dating you and doesn’t know how to profess his love for you.” I got hit in the back of the head with a newspaper. “So…” The dragon froze up, her expression was blank as she slowly turned to Throax. The Changeling King, the strongest Changeling, the Changeling that looked his Mom in the eyes and challenged her rule… was blushing and hiding behind his translucent tail.

“You have a crush on me?” Ember asked.

“...Yeah,” Thorax’s ears drooped. “If you-” Ember snagged Thorax by the neck and pulled him closer. They stood muzzle to muzzle.

“You… Where did my assertive lessons go? You could’ve told me at any time!” She yelled. “I was waiting to see if you were going to ask me out!” She pulled back and punched the changeling in the shoulder and huffed.

“Hey now, he thinks you’re very attractive. Most dudes,” both rulers looked at me. “Tend to see a pretty girl and assume that she’s out of their league. He was terrified that you would turn him down.” I shrugged.

“I hate you,” Thorax whispered to me. Then, Ember snatched the changeling and pulled him in for a kiss. As soon as the two of them pulled away, Thorax fell flat on the ground while Pharynx snickered behind his fallen brother.

A few days later, we were traveling back to Manehatten so we could hook up with the rest of the Elements. Rainbow Dash was taking a nap, while using my shoulder as a pillow. Pinkie was playing with Blaze, and was giving Blaze a run for her money in terms of energy. Chrysalis was reading a book while Twilight was glaring at me and Rainbow. “Okay Ostri, tell me why Rainbow and Pinkie Pie are having such an easy time with becoming your friends, but I, the Princess of Friendship, can’t befriend you?”

“Pinkie is genuinely really nice, even if she is a bit hyperactive, and I can tell she has moments of calm. I can’t fault that mare for wanting to try and make me smile,” I chuckled when Pinkie managed to successfully puppy eye her way into getting Blaze to turn herself into a puppy again. “She does a good job at that, it’s a nice little reprieve from the rest of the world.” I patted Rainbow, who admittedly, looked really cute while asleep. “Rainbow is a bit weird.

“On one hand, I didn’t like her at first, since she kept trying to get me to race her. After we started traveling though? Rainbow’s a bit cocky, rightfully so, she’s amazing at flying, and she has her moments. Though playing tag with her probably helped a lot with me liking her. She’s competitive, but she’s a good sport, and actually… pretty nice. Loyal as hell too; I can fully respect anybody as loyal as Rainbow.”

Twilight nodded. “Me and Starlight can be nice, and you liked Starlight while she was a filly-“

“Starlight was pretending to be a filly. I have a soft spot for kids, especially recently orphaned kids,” I leaned back and pointed at Twilight. “You told her, for whatever stupid reason, to do that. Fuck you for that, by the way.” Rainbow lifted her head and yawned at the end of our little conversation. She smacked her lips a couple of times, and Chrysalis… Actually offered the cyan pegasus a canteen. She took a swig, before sighing.

“Your shoulders are really comfortable,” she sat up with a stretch. “Of course, you can’t beat a cloud, but that was a good nap.” She tossed the canteen back to Chrysalis, who caught it, and put it off to the side. “What were you two talking about?”

“Twilight really wants to befriend me for whatever reason. She’s doing a bad job at that,” I sat up as well. “Try not to cuddle with me too much; Chryssy may get jealous.”

“Rainbow isn’t into stallions, Ostri. I have no worries about her, and if she was, I’m still not opposed to starting a herd should you want to, and Rainbow would be more than welcomed to join us should we start one,” Chrysalis purred. “I do like how fit she is, and I’m sure you would too, if you were not dating me.”

“H-hey now… I don’t want to date a changeling. Not one that’s already taken at least,” Rainbow chuckled nervously. She took a deep breath before turning back to me. “Why don’t you like Twilight?”

“For starters, she’s heavily influenced by Celestia; I don’t trust Celestia, and by extension, Twilight: So far, I’m being proven right if that little stunt with Starlight is anything to go by.” I patted Rainbow on the head with my hoof, which was a bit awkward since she’s actually taller than I am. “She also didn’t like what I did at the Friendship Festival, which I admit, was awful, but it saved a lot of ponies.”

“I’m sure you’ll like Twilight eventually,” Rainbow shrugged. “Not everypony is without a skeleton in their closet, and… Oh jeez, I sound like Egghead over here with this sappy stuff.” We both had a good chuckle at that.

“I might. Though on the friendship’o’meter in my brain, she’s well under zero. Mostly because of her trying to use her student to manipulate me.” I eyed Twilight. “Also, Blaze knows you’re trying to do some shit with Chryssy too, you hurt Chryssy, and you’ll be looking a little less prissy.” I paused. “And probably dead.”

“Hey! Don’t threaten… well, if Twilight does hurt Chrysalis, I would get why you’d want to hurt her back. But you shouldn’t seek vengeance!” Rainbow punched my shoulder lightly.

“Hey, if Chryssy and Blaze get killed, I have no reason to keep living. So I might as well throw my life away at an overpowered, purple horse that can erase me from existence.” I yelped when a puppy Blaze tackled me and started showering me with love and affection…

“You will become my friend, Ostri, mark my words!” Twilight declared… I think. I don’t know, I had a wiggly, extremely cute, energetic little baby kitsune in my arms and I didn’t give a shit about anything else.

Author's Note

Will Rainbow join the herd? I dunno.