The weather of the Crystal Empire's lands finally stopped its relatively rapid rise in temperatures and began to cool again as fall approached. At least, in the lands outside of the city. Nothing said ancient magical artefact created to protect a location from threats like built-in climate controls.

Thorax found this to be a bit of a relief. While it was stupendously easy to find the glacial ravine he had previously taken shelter in now, it made for a terrible sleeping space as it tended to melt around in. Not only that, but the sun liked to stay below the horizon for only four hours; he stuck around a clock to make sure one sleepless night. The crystal ponies seemed to take this in stride, however, so it must be just a part of life in the tundra.

Speaking of ponies, the streets were packed for half an hour and now were practically barren of them. He didn't notice where they went, still feeling half asleep. Being able to sleep underground with magical lights that brightened on a schedule was one of the few things he missed from living in the hive, even if the legacy of that has been wreaking havoc on his sleep schedule.

Outside of that, the only variation in his recent life was that time that Pinkie and her friends visited again. He stayed at the train station until he was sure they were gone, not wanting to get chased by Fluttershy again. Not much changed after that, outside of the Guard's training field getting some construction work. Trying to learn why from leftover gossip was ineffective, and as best as he could tell, it was for an 'Equestria Games'. Annoyingly, they all knew exactly what they were talking about, leaving him with nothing to go on.

Well, there is the location. He might as well check it out to see if that's where the populace congregated. He prepped his feathery bird wings to fly but was interrupted by two pegasi zooming past. Out of idle curiosity he checked their emotional states and disregarded most of it to zero in on levels of hunger only found on creatures dying of starvation and changelings. As they seemed perfectly healthy in form, they were obviously the latter. Doing his best to repress his emotions to hide from them should they glance his way*, he took off and gave chase.

*Queen Chrysalis was paranoid enough to realize that any enemy changelings could still detect the emotions of herself and her drones. In order to combat this weakness, she included in the changeling curriculum a lesson on how to hide your own emotions from the sight of other changelings. She was, however, not quite paranoid or prescient enough to realize that later turncoats could use those teachings against her and her hive.

They were heading for the center of the Empire, and it was obvious as to why: while not quite as bright as when it was first reawakened, it was still a literal beacon of love that overpowered any individual source as far away as the train station. Hearing the conversation would probably have made him even more certain about it, but alas, the words lost in the winds of the flight. They eventually landed where he expected them to, and not only could he hear what they were saying, he could also identify them by their voices.

As he transformed into a random crystal pony (plausible deniability and all), he could hear what was almost certainly Damselfly's voice say, "And here we have the biggest source of love we've ever seen, and it's a heart shaped crystal. Really?"

"Well, I guess we 'lings aren't the only ones who know the power of extracted love." The reply came in the entirely expected voice of Mayfly. The two clutchmates were practically inseparable, partially due to every other changeling finding them mildly annoying. They were way worse on their own, and it quickly became policy of the hive that they were always given the same assignments, as not doing so made their superiors (bar the Queen, as they weren't insane) the target of what amounted to psychological warfare.

"They probably stole the idea from us," Damselfly said as she shuffled her light green wings that were folded to her torso. It seemed she wasn't used to feathers yet.

"Inferior species have to use every dirty trick they can to stave off our inevitable victory," Mayfly replied, dismissively waving a light brown hoof. She then squinted at the Crystal Heart and added, "Wow, any changeling that had that much love packed in them could take down Celestia and then level Canterlot without stretching their chitin."

"If they don't explode first."

"True. We'll only take as much as we know we can carry; we can always come back for more, right?" Mayfly opened her mouth to start feeding off the artefact.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Thorax interrupted. The two changelings turned around and sneered at him.

"Well, well, it isn't Thorax the Coward," Mayfly mocked. "Did you blame yourself for the invasion failing and decide to hide away here, because that'd the only good decision you've made."

"Eh, he's such a lightweight, he probably landed all the way here and was too weak to go anywhere else," her counterpart joked.

As the two laughed, Thorax swallowed a barb on what that implied about their weight. Fighting back always made it worse, so it was just easier to keep quiet and take it until he could escape.

Damselfly suddenly stopped and brought a hoof to her chin. "How did you survive out here for so long, anyway? You're too soft to take love from an animal, let alone a pony..." She glanced back at the Crystal and her mouth bent into the sort of predatory smile that never looked right on a pony face. "You took it off of that, didn't you? Scavenging off the dregs of the inferiors' latest ploy because you're too weak to even think about taking it straight from them, huh?"

Thorax winced. Mayfly grinned triumphantly, taking the wrong conclusion from it. "Hah, you have. Your warning's just a way to keep us from stealing your lifeline. Selfish, selfish. Just for that, we're going to bring the rest of the hive here soon to drain it dry. That'll teach you a lesson in neglecting your hive."

In near sync, the two turned to the Heart and opened their mouths to feed. They never got the chance do so, as it immediately launched a hefty plate of pure love energy straight at them, hammering them to distance. Luckily, Thorax had good enough reactions to duck out of the way and turn around, watching his former hivemates vanish into the distance.

He stared in the direction of their sudden departure for while. Depending on what they report when they return to the hive, he might never be able to enter again. He didn't feel much about it until he remembered that likely meant he'd never Pharynx again, giving him a small ache in his chest.

He stood and turned back to the Crystal Heart. He walked to it, muttering, "I wonder if anything's..." He trailed off and stopped when he felt another thin sheet of the Heart's magic shatter to no effect against his form. Nothing's changed.

He changed into yet another tundra bird and flew off towards the training grounds/arena. Maybe those 'Equestria Games' would be entertaining to watch.

The sister changelings slowly woke up, blearily shaking their heads. "What was that?" Mayfly asked.

"Some kind of defense," Damselfly answered.

"Yeah, obviously. How did Thorax get around that?"

"One of the crystal ponies must've taken pity on him or something, he couldn't be smart enough to find a way around it himself."

"You really think he'd be dumb enough to reveal himself or the inferiors dumb enough to fall for it?"

Damselfly simply stared back at her.

"Right, stupid question. That makes him a traitor."

"And that means that if we ever see his sorry face again, we can crush it under our hooves," Damselfly finished with a savage smile.

Her sister mirrored it, then fell back to a more neutral expression. "First we have to return to the hive, though, to ensure everyling's aware of this. To do that, we have to know where we are."

They looked around from their crash-landing site. The area had a patchy dusting of snow, and there were several yurts nearby. The place was ringed with a wooden palisade, and some snow-capped mountains poking over the tops of it.

While already obvious, what sealed the deal was the faint shouts that sounded a lot like, "Yak smash!"

"Of all the inferiors to land near-"

"-it had to be the dumb, smelly yaks, hadn't it?"

Author's Note

Time to throw in (and way more quickly boot out) a reminder of Thorax's past. Most of the changelings in the hive aren't that bad, though, they mostly just willfully ignore and exclude him. Neglect is still abuse, though, if a bit more redeemable than outright bullying.

On the Heart itself: insofar as it's a sentient object (really debatable, but why not), I figure it would perceive things with an emotional sense similar to that of the changelings. Using that, it can guess identity and intent and react to the presence of hostiles and parasites appropriately.

Oh, I forgot to mention: the parts with Sunburst were Act 3. This is the first bit of Act 4.