It was good to be free of the burning cold of the far north. Here the land was mostly covered in subtropical jungle, warm and wet with thick undergrowth that would have impeded the progress of a smaller animal.

Chrysalis planned to run through the night. If the ponies were planning reprisal they would likely wait until daytime, spending their time now fussing over her ex-captives.

She was surprised to find that her cragadile form was versatile and resilient in this terrain, which was much closer to what it had been built for. Her flat body squeezed through undergrowth and her stubby, hard claws kept her footing even.

If she tilted her head to the side she could see the lowland swamps to the north of her and the mountain ranges to the south. Mountain ranges were a good sign; lots of free rock and grit for building a hive with.

Hives fared best on dry, flat ground where they could create a pest-free zone around them. Chrysalis had to hope she would find someone like that as she trotted west.

She could feel her body grow hungrier the longer she ran in the night, and despite her control over them her grubs started to fuss, wanting to be fed. She found that new place within herself that was fiercely protective over them and willing to do all of this ridiculous nonsense just to let them grow up safe and sound. They calmed a little, but it wouldn’t last. Once she got hungry enough she would have to try and find some local creature to feed on to gain enough energy to push forward.

The jungle got lighter as the subalpine area stretched down to meet the swamplands. Soon it would peter out and she would be exposed to the skies. She opted to take a break and go to hunt now while it was still dark and while she could still hide her young.

She turned back into her natural form and found a hollow log that she could coerce them into. Like all babies they had no idea that they could ever be in any danger, so Chrysalis knew that she would have to put them somewhere they couldn’t get out and cause trouble.

Once she had them settled she took to the air and started browsing the foliage around her. Her night vision was much more keen than a pony’s, and she soon found a family of monkeys sleeping together in the canopy of a tree.

When she returned to the log, her grubs cried out for her, and she dropped the skinned corpse of a monkey down to them and told them to eat. When she heard the squelch of their mouthparts on flesh she went to the stream to wash the blood off her face and hooves.

Their first solid meal, so early. She was happy they were eating so vigorously.

The rosy fingers of dawn were creeping over the horizon back the way she’d come. Back towards Equestria, and pony civilisation. Chrysalis would return there one day a fully powered queen, but for now, the light of dawn brought only a feeling of vulnerability that she didn’t enjoy.

She returned to cragadile form, where her rocky back would camouflage her from the skies, and once again began her interminable march west.

As the sun rose she caught movement in the corners of her eyes and saw royal pegasus guards flying overhead. With them were blue-costumed pegasi, including the rainbow one that was friends with Twilight Sparkle.

Suspicious behaviour would be to react. Chrysalis steadily left the jungle, following the downhill slope to the wetlands that filled the bottom of this enormous valley, and kept walking as though she wasn’t being watched. She took time to pause and to swim like any normal cragadile would, always watching the pegasi to monitor them, until around midday they finally peeled away and left her be.

They might be back, but there was no way they could search this entire peninsula just to find her once she had traveled far enough. Eventide or Lightbulb might still give her plans up, but she felt confident enough in saying that Eventide had shown that he wasn’t one to deceive her.

The valley slowly rose under her feet, and the wetlands transitioned to grassland divided by a meandering, wide river. She was walled in on both sides by the sloping mountain ranges; ahead of her the mountain ranges came together, leaving only a narrow pass with which to continue west. Here the grasslands were surrounded by a bowl of mountains that would protect her and her grubs from any foot soldiers.

It was perfect.

Excerpt: Royal Guard Notes on Changeling Defector

Notes recorded from an interview with Sepal, a changeling who left Queen Chrysalis’s hive in the months following the changeling siege of Canterlot.

Sepal is forthcoming about the poor conditions in Chrysalis’s hive, describing a culture of fear and intimidation which begins with childhood bullying and progresses to a strictly controlled society. Sepal is uncertain as to whether this is considered ‘normal’ changeling behaviour due to unfamiliarity with any other kind of changeling social structure.

Sepal describes the paranoia experienced by the hive queen which has led her to become overly vengeful against ponies to the detriment of the health of the hive, which has periods of going hungry as a result of Chrysalis’s inactivity during periods of plotting against Equestria.

Sepal is a younger changeling (hatched within the last four years) and has no insight as to how far into Chrysalis’s history this behaviour extends.

Sepal describes himself as loyal to his fellow changelings but disloyal to Chrysalis due to the harm she has caused the hive. He states that if conditions in the hive were to improve, with Chrysalis showing care for her subjects, then he would be more than happy to return.

Note: When Thorax became the changeling leader, Sepal repatriated to the changeling hive.

In a glacial valley in the unexplored west, a cragadile stops, spits out a hundred or so grubs from its mouth, and then transforms back into an insect queen.

The queen checks on her grubs, patting each one on the head, and promises them they will have somewhere to shelter by tonight, just in case it gets cold. She pulls the saddlebag off her back and takes out papers and a few books left to her by a strange unicorn, and goes through them. Minutes later she transforms into a maulwurf, using the mole-like body to dig out a hollow for her grubs to rest in.

She flies away as a bugbear and brings back rocks and logs to position over the nest, protecting her grubs from the skies, then climbs inside the shelter and lets her grubs curl up with her for comfort.

Her love feeds them. The queen finds herself wondering if she would have been capable of these acts years ago when the hive was something to be taken for granted, an extension of herself incapable of having needs of its own.

A glow begins in her horn and starts to spread down her body. She lets out a cry of purest despair, and her grubs move away from her, fearing for their safety.

There’s no need; their queen is merely transforming.

The queen fights the process the whole way until the light dissipates. She looks over her limbs, desperate to make sure she hasn’t lost the black lustre of her carapace, but she is instead what she used to be; whole, without the voids torn through her.

The perforations which had covered her body for the last millennia have faded away, leaving her body smooth and complete.

She lets out a sigh of relief, flutters her newly repaired wings, and returns to caring for her brood.

Author's Note

Thank you for reading!