“This is an Emergency Broadcast Network; Warning. Warning. All citizens are to remain quarantined indoors at all times. A viral infection has begun to spread causing uncontrollable aggression. If you encounter an infected individual, please, contact the Royal Guard immediately.
“The Crown thanks you for your cooperation.”
Silence. Not a breath was heard, not a hair was stirred.
The many, many tunnels of the changeling hive were deathly waiting. Every twist and turn, every hole and burrow you peered under and through was 200 feet of blackwater, even in the safety of the shallows, fetlocks still lighting up with motes of light, you can’t see the end.
Bzzt
“This is an Emergency Broadcast Network; Warning. Warning.”
Hundreds of tiny radios littered all over, some tucked away in cupboards, under beds, tuned to a hush, hardly even a hum in the air from fear or otherwise. Some sit proud and unshaken. No longer bothered or caring on their countertops and restaurant tables. Their Queen had no longer been able to stop them after all.
They’re all tuned to the same station, the only station, playing, repeating the same message. Buzzing like gnats to a grave, only minor changes as you walked, so as you trudged along you could hear it like one long continuous play on all those tiny radios. A choir of ghosts.
They were in their quiet reprieve, tapping loose patches of songs out of the emergency announcement, when the door slowly creaked open.
Ah. They wanted a quiet exit, lonely, but still themself, but the inevitable had come anyway-
A mint green pony galloped into the room, immediately sealing it shut behind them. The loud banging didn’t matter, no one on this level had been able to even fly, let alone open the door for days.
They were still under another’s skin, wide-eyed and shaky-limbed. Clearly fresh from some pony town when the stars started falling. Only the chipped edges of their hooves and the thin branch pupils showed what they truly are. Perhaps they were learning how to feed when this all started.
“There’s no point staying like that now,” their voice breaks, betraying a hint of their own age. “All of the windows are closed.”
Deep grasping breaths try to take in as much as the room as possible. The downy peach fuzz of their mane stirred with the wind of the newcomers anxious head shaking.
With shudder and green sizzle in the air, their partners form shifts into a comfortable worn cool chiton.
They beckon them close, letting them into their mawkish comfort, raising a blanket up to share what little body heat they could provide.
The blanket was stale. The whole room was stale, quite frankly. Thick motes of dust caught on their eyelashes like snow making their eyes so heavy with every blink.
They felt like a very old tree in winter, one straight out of those sepia-loved story books, one that would probably cradle its roots and protect the woodland creatures all throughout the forest.
They were together, ribs brushed against each other’s, hearts poking into one another’s sides. They watch the stars fall, one at a time. Grinding, sliding down, down, down the hive walls melting, chitons ooze night leaking into their bodies. Most of the hive is pure black now.
A hoof in theirs, a name never spoken, never given, never needed. What use was a name for a worker to a Queen?
Some rebelled with the quiet hush of ‘Mane Doe’ newspaper clipping identities. Others were content in the quiet. They were safe in the droning silence of the hive.
At least, at one point they thought they were safe.
Still, they had to be strong. Nevermind the carnage from before, still shaking in their hooves. The half-grown grub before them needed someone now.
“We only have to be here ‘til the hive is safe.” The vertigo from using what little was left of their magic gave the world a soft-edged after-image.
“Will it ever be safe?” It was a half-heart mumble, more cotton than tongue.
They could feel the weight of their fellow workers on their back. They could feel the weight in their eyes. How their partner traced the fig bruise blue like lines in a black out poem.
“I don’t know.”
How relieving. How heavy. Heavy enough for two graves they assumed.
“I wonder when they will stop screaming.”
“When they’re dead probably.”
The wails in the distance fill the silence, just far enough that you have to strain to hear it, but close enough to be mistaken for the buzzing of wings.
“Do you think we’ll die?”
“I hope not.”
The stars are falling faster now. The screams fester like an open wound.
“If one of us gets sick-“
“Don’t.” They whispered as quick as glass breaking.
They were never met to be alone, not like this. Never like this. They always left in dense groups, thick buzzing canopies of swarms so pitch black you could get lost in it.
In the swarm there were no singularities, you were one of many. Death was similar. Death was kinder. You were never alone, always part of the larger swarm.
They lean further into each other, seeping into each other’s bodies like summer dissolving into a small cherry pit stain on winter’s shirt.
“If one of us gets sick,” a horrible wracking cough shook through them, the crooked edge of their partner’s rib digging into their throat. “Can we stay here? I don’t want to die alone.”
The words were a hot piece of coal that dropped into the pit of their stomach. It immediately gurgles and bubbles, hissing and snapping like a feral cat with the sun drooling out of its mouth.
“Ok.” A thick and syrupy gargle twists and gnaws on the tree bark thin bile rising in the back of their throat.
“I’m so tired.”
They are exhausted, with a liquid sadness reddened by cough-syrup death disguised as kindness.
Tucking their head into the question-mark crook of their chest and neck, the still of their heart rocking them back and forth to sleep.
“I’m here.” They whisper in uneven tongues. The empty hive echoes back the loudest parts of all;
Here. Here. Here.
Author's Note
Credit for the cover, the dialogue, and the wonderful person behind this au is mrsgendered over on Instagram. Again, please go check them out!!
