The Twin Queens

I awoke with my lungs burning.

I was surrounded by pitch-black darkness, making it impossible to see anything. I tried to move my body, but it felt sluggish and barely responsive.

My lungs approached their limit, and I instinctively tried to breathe. Instead of getting some much-needed air, I inhaled a bunch of liquid. My insides burned as if they were on fire, and the fire rapidly grew in intensity and pain. I started to thrash about violently, my mind becoming flooded with feral panic.

No! Stop! Panic meant death! I desperately tried to reassert control over my own mind. I managed to put an end to my useless flailing, but I knew I only had seconds left before I lost consciousness due to suffocation. I needed to swim upward, immediately!

My thrashing and adrenaline seemed to have warmed up my body, since I had no trouble thrusting my legs to propel myself upward. However, I only traveled for a couple of inches before my head bumped into something.

The panic threatened to overwhelm me again as I realized I was trapped beneath some kind of object, and I just barely managed to force it back under control. I brought my arms forward to try to push the object out of my way, but I was surprised when I made contact with it. It was very soft and squishy.

There was no time to try to figure out what the thing was. The material felt quite weak, so I made the snap decision to try to break through it. I pulled my arm back to wind up for a punch, and I hit the object with all my might.

My arm pierced right through! As I pulled back for another go, I could see the faintest glimmer of light beyond the little hole I had made. My heart swelled with hope and renewed determination at the sight, and I took to repeatedly punching my way through the soft object with fury.

After a few more punches, the hole let in enough silvery light to be clearly visible. But my relief quickly turned to alarm as the light made it possible for me to notice that the edges of my vision had already faded to darkness. The darkness quickly spread toward the center of my field of view. I knew that meant I was on the verge of blacking out.

I didn’t know if the hole I made was big enough to fit through, but I had no choice. I used my legs to thrust myself up and into the hole in an attempt to force myself through it.

The edges around the hole brushed against my sides, but I easily pushed them apart and burst through the opening. I was utterly bewildered when I surfaced within the interior of some kind of wooden building instead of in the middle of the ocean, but I had no opportunity to spare any attention for what I saw.

My body immediately began to cough and gasp for air violently, simultaneously trying to clear my lungs of fluid while desperately trying to take in oxygen. I also felt my body shiver as it lost the protection of the warm liquid and was exposed to the chilly ambient air. I grabbed the top of the soft object for more stability as I continued to choke, and before I knew what was happening, I felt the sensation of tipping over and falling.

I hit the wooden floor hard, and I felt the liquid I had just been submerged in splash all over my back before quickly spreading out on the floor around me.

When I saw my arms laid out on the floor in front of me, I was hit with a jolt of shock even through my harsh coughs. Instead of the fleshy, off-beige, and slightly hairy arms I was used to, my arms were now pitch-black with several holes in them. And instead of ending in my hands, these arms ended in stubs of nothing.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. What was happening?

I decided to focus on surviving first and worry about that later. It was still very difficult to breathe, so I focused on trying to get all the fluid out of my lungs. I spent several exhausting minutes there on the ground just coughing, hacking, and choking, spitting a thick, viscous fluid out of my mouth a little bit at a time. After what felt like an eternity, I was finally able to take in a deep breath of fresh air.

My cough slowly began to die down as I started breathing normally. I felt myself grow relaxed after making it through that whole ordeal—probably from all the adrenaline finally leaving my body. I remained sprawled on the ground, simply breathing and resting.

When I was relatively calm, I figured it was time to face whatever the hell had happened to me. Ignoring it wouldn’t make it untrue. I dared to look and examine myself.

The pitch-black arms with holes in them were still there. They were covered in a thick layer of slimy goop that was starting to dry out and flake. I experimented with trying to move one of the limbs. I managed to do so naturally, as if I had used the limb all my life.

Next, I tried to bend the joints to see how they worked. The joints definitely felt different compared to my proper arm, but they bent easily and provided my new arm with a full range of motion in all directions.

I turned my arm around to look at the end of it. Instead of ending in nothing like I thought, the arm ended with some kind of structure similar to a hoof. Although it wasn’t any kind of hoof I had seen on any animals I was familiar with. There was a hard structure along the top and the sides which surrounded some recessed soft black flesh in the middle and bottom areas of the hoof. It looked very strange.

Shaking my head and moving on, I moved my hoof to poke against my other limb. Surprisingly, I could actually feel sensations through the hard part of the hoof. How did that work?

I decided not to worry about it.

The surface of my other limb felt hard and smooth to the touch, not at all like the soft and bouncy feeling of the skin that I was used to. I didn’t really know much about biology, but the substance seemed similar to insect chitin. The drying slime on top gave it a nasty feel and appearance though. I would need to find a way to clean it off.

Seeing these features jogged some long-buried memories. There was a TV show I had greatly enjoyed watching back when I was a teenager and in my early twenties. I had stopped paying attention to it after the show ended, and I had slowly forgotten about it as I focused on my career. But I was quite the intense fan back then, and those memories were quickly brought to the forefront.

I pushed my hoof against the floor to roll myself over onto my back. From this perspective, I could get a better look at the rest of my body and the… egg I just came out of. I shuddered slightly at the thought, but that confirmed it. I was a changeling from Friendship is Magic.

I laid there for a while, desperately trying to make sense of things. Why? How could this be possible? How could this be real? Was this real? Those thoughts and similar ones spun pointlessly in my head, all of which I could come up with no answer for.

My mind slowly fell silent as I recalled my last memories before I had woken up. In the cockpit of my airliner, my captain and I desperately fought against the control column in an attempt to save the aircraft. But it was no use. Our plane suddenly entered a steep 75° dive while we were at cruising altitude, and the sink rate was too high for us to have any time to properly go through checklists or do any thorough troubleshooting. The last thing I remembered was watching the aircraft’s nose slam into the surface of the ocean through the windshield as the GPWS blared.

We hit the water at a very high speed. I was certain there could’ve been no survivors.

Did this mean reincarnation was real? Why did I get reincarnated, out of all those people on the plane? I started to feel a sense of crushing guilt at my inability to save the lives of those hundreds of people who had put their trust in me as their pilot.

I laid my head back on the floor and closed my eyes as I tried to push all the self-loathing and guilt out of my mind. There would be time for blame and mourning later. I was currently in an unfamiliar and potentially dangerous situation. I had to pull myself together until I knew I was safe.

One thing I noticed about my new body that I couldn’t ignore was the painful pit where my stomach should be, as if I were constantly getting muscle cramps in that area. Was this what changeling hunger was like? I could put it out of mind for the time being, but something told me the pain would only get worse with time. I would need to find a source of love sooner rather than later.

For the moment, I figured I should finally get to examining my surroundings. I opened my eyes and stared up at the ceiling. Despite the darkness in the room—I hadn’t seen any windows—I could see the detail in the wood of the ceiling very clearly.

It had obviously seen better days. The wood was stained with splotches of mould, and some sections were rotting away with decay. It was bad enough that I was a little concerned about the ceiling coming down on me.

I rolled myself onto my abdomen and placed my hooves flat against the floor. A little shakily, I slowly extended my legs and pushed myself up until I stood for the first time. My hind legs felt very weird with their backwards knee joints, but standing up felt easier than I thought it would. My four-legged stance also felt a lot more stable than the two-legged one I was used to.

I continued my examination of the room, but there wasn’t all that much to see. The wooden walls were in the same state as the ceiling, all rotting and mouldy. I confirmed that there were no windows, but one wall had a beat-up wooden door within it that seemed about to collapse from a strong wind. There was no light coming through the gaps between the door and the frame, so perhaps it was nighttime.

I couldn’t see anything that looked like a light switch, and there were no light fixtures mounted on the ceiling or the walls. It seemed like I was stuck in the darkness for now.

I looked down at one of my forehooves as I carefully lifted it and then placed it down further away to the side. I didn’t feel like I was struggling to hold my balance while my foreleg was lifted, which was good. I cautiously continued the motions with the rest of my legs, slowly turning myself around to face the other side of the room.

This side of the room had a whole bunch of stuff in it. Most of it seemed to be broken and otherwise ruined wooden furniture such as desks, chairs, dressers, torn drapes, and various other things. They were all piled on top of each other in one corner of the room. The tower of junk almost reached the ceiling.

Was this place some kind of abandoned storeroom, then? I had expected to be in a changeling hive. Was I not? Why would a changeling put my egg here?

Either way, it didn’t look like I would find anything useful around here. Might as well go try that door.

As I was about to start turning myself back around, I thought I saw something move in the corner of my eye.

I froze. I stared at the spot within the junk pile where I thought I saw it, searching for any further movement. But it was even darker in the depths of the junk pile than it was out here, so it was hard to make anything out other than vague shapes and silhouettes.

My fight-or-flight instincts were primed and ready to jolt me into action as I continued to stare, although I had no confidence in my ability to do either of those things in my new body.

There! I saw it move again! I tensed as I waited for it to come leaping out at me.

But several moments later, nothing happened. What was it doing? Better yet, what was it?

Another movement. Still nothing. Was it just sitting there and wiggling?

Could I still talk with this body? One way to find out.

"Hello?" I asked, my voice hoarse and raspy as if I hadn’t used it for years. But then again, it was technically my first time ever speaking, so that made sense. I could also hear that distinctive changeling two-tone quality to it.

I gave a slight cough to clear my throat before trying again.

"Anyone there?"

No response.

A few moments later, there was another movement.

I was tempted to just turn around and leave, but a thought stopped me. What if it was one of the intelligent creatures of this world, like a pony or a changeling, that was trapped in there, couldn’t talk, and needed help?

I knew it was stupid. It was much more likely to be some dangerous animal. But I didn’t want any more blood on my hands. I couldn’t handle that. I decided that if I could help somebody, then I would.

I shakily lifted my foreleg—half out of fear and half out of unfamiliarity with my body—and began slowly making my way towards the wiggling thing in the junk pile. I kept my eyes trained on that spot the entire time. Thankfully, walking seemed pretty easy, and I took to it naturally. The stability of my four-legged stance helped me get used to it quickly.

The thing made a few more wiggling movements as I approached, but nothing more than that. When I got to the base of the junk pile, things were set to get a lot more tricky, as I would have to climb on top of the busted tables and navigate my legs around the various things lying around. I also lost sight of the wiggling thing, which was obscured by all the junk above and in front of me. I really hoped it wouldn’t suddenly jump out and get the drop on me.

I struggled to come up with a path forward as I stared at the big table in front of me. I didn’t have a clue how I would get on top of it until I remembered from the show that ponies could apparently grab things with their hooves.

I decided to give that a try.

I pushed myself onto my hind legs so I was standing upright and placed my forehooves flat onto the surface of the table. It was very difficult to keep balanced while standing on my hind legs like that, but I used the table to stabilize myself. I was just barely tall enough for the tips of my hooves to reach the top of the table. I then willed my hooves to grab on by thinking about it really hard. After that, I experimentally tried to tug at the table. I wasn’t strong enough to move the table, but I also didn’t go falling backwards. I had successfully held onto it, but I had no clue how that actually worked.

Satisfied with my grip on the table’s surface, I tried to pull myself up with my forelegs, but that was way more difficult than I had thought it would be. Imagine if a person never worked out and then they suddenly decided they wanted to do pull-ups—that was basically what I experienced. My foreleg muscles were very weak, and I grit my teeth and grunted with torturous effort as I slowly pulled myself up.

When I got to the point where my chest was above the table’s lip, I desperately tried to swing one of my hind legs over and onto the surface as I panted heavily. That was also more difficult than I thought it’d be because of the backwards knee joint, but I somehow managed it after several failed attempts.

I then used the leverage I had to roll my body up and onto the surface.

I lay there on my back, panting and feeling the burn in my forelegs as I rested. I hadn’t expected that to be such an ordeal, but I guess it made sense since my new body had never done any exercise before. I briefly wondered if it was worth it to continue, but that was an easy question to answer. If someone was in trouble up there, then it was.

I had a sudden curiosity overcome me—did changelings sweat? I didn’t feel sweaty. I brought one of my throbbing forehooves to feel my forehead for any dampness, but I didn’t feel anything except dried slime. Was the slime absorbing my sweat? If so, it would be wet again, wouldn’t it?

How did changelings regulate body temperature if they didn’t sweat?

Whatever. Not the time to be thinking about any of that.

As I was moving my forehoof away from my head, it softly bumped against my horn. I winced. The horn felt very sensitive, and even that small bump was enough to be a little painful. I would need to be extra careful not to injure it on anything in this junk jungle.

Honestly, I’d almost forgotten I had a horn. The prospect of eventually getting to do magic filled me with a type of childish excitement I hadn’t felt in years. But I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind as I rolled onto my hooves again.

I surveyed my path forward. Luckily, it didn’t look like I had to do another vertical climb like that again, which I was very glad for. The various pieces of broken furniture formed a kind of precarious staircase leading to the nook that the wiggling thing was located in. I should’ve been able to make it up there with some careful footwork and balancing.

Granted, I still wasn’t too confident in my ability to control fine movements in my body, but I didn’t think I could do another pull-up. At least the obstacles ahead seemed possible to overcome.

I also still couldn’t see the wiggling thing from my new angle. All I could do was continue to hope that it stayed where it was and didn’t come at me.

I started slowly working my way up the pile, placing my hooves carefully and only moving forward once I was sure I was balanced properly. I took my time to make sure I was safe and did everything I could to avoid a fall. An injury was the last thing I needed right now.

There were a few close calls where my shaky legs almost slipped, but a few minutes later I finally made it to the flat surface of a large table inside of what I could only describe as a small cave made out of broken chairs. This should’ve been the spot where I saw the wiggling thing.

I looked around and quickly spotted what could only be the darkened shape of a changeling egg hidden behind some chair legs. It seemed to be quite well hidden, but the movement I saw must have drawn my attention to it from afar.

The egg was taller and wider than I was. I could have easily fit inside it myself, which made sense, since I hatched from an egg just like it not even half an hour ago.

But this one was not broken open like mine was. It was still intact.

The egg had to be the wiggling thing. I watched it for a few moments, looking for movement to confirm my guess.

Yet no movement came.

Why? Was I wrong?

I craned my neck to look around for anything else that could’ve been moving.

There was nothing. No, the egg was the only living thing around. It was the only logical thing that could’ve moved.

I watched it some more. But still nothing.

Was it some sort of defence mechanism after sensing my presence?

I hesitantly took steps forward until I was within touching distance.

The egg was not covered with a hard shell. It was made of some kind of dark green goo that seemed firm but malleable. I knew from my own experience that the material could be broken through with some force.

A chilling thought hit me. When I woke up, I felt like I was drowning, and I had to struggle to punch a hole through the material. Was that what the wiggling I saw was? The occupant struggling to get through? Except… they failed? And now the egg wasn’t moving because they drowned?

I leaned in close, trying to see through the outer material and into the egg. But I couldn’t see anything. The egg was too opaque, and with the almost pitch-black darkness in the room, it was impossible to make anything out inside the egg other than blackness. Maybe if I had a powerful torch I’d be able to see through it, but I obviously did not.

I swallowed a lump in my throat. If the occupant failed to break through, I should try to help them. But then again, what if I was completely wrong? What if the egg wasn’t trying to hatch, and I broke the egg prematurely? Then I would be directly killing them.

And… I remembered hearing from somewhere that people shouldn’t try to help animals hatch from eggs. Something about animals needing to be strong enough to do it themselves and natural selection.

Except… this was an intelligent being, not an animal. Did they deserve to die just because they weren’t strong enough to break an egg? That didn’t sound right to me.

So what should I do? I squeezed my eyes shut. If the egg was not trying to hatch and I broke it, I’d be murdering somebody. But if they were trying to hatch, I’d be saving them. It all came down to whether or not they were trying to hatch. Which was correct?

I didn’t know, but I had to choose immediately. If they were drowning, they didn’t have any time to waste. If they were drowning, maybe… it was already too late to save them, since they stopped moving.

No, I couldn’t think like that. Life or death. Choose.

Why would the egg be wiggling if they weren’t trying to hatch? They were trying to hatch.

I snapped my eyes open and grabbed the opposite side of the egg with one of my forelegs. I made sure to hold it firm with my hoof’s gripping power so that it couldn’t move. I then pushed myself up onto my hind legs and used my grip on the egg to balance myself as I pulled my other foreleg back for a punch.

I hoped I wouldn’t hurt the occupant of the egg with my punches, but there wasn’t much I could do about that. All I could try was to penetrate as shallowly as possible.

I punched with about two-thirds of my strength, holding back some to try to control the penetration depth, but my hoof bounced off. I didn’t remember the details of my own hatching super clearly due to all the panic, but it felt like the egg’s material was a little harder from the outside than it was from inside my egg.

I pulled my foreleg back again and decided to go for broke. I gave my next punch as much strength as I could muster.

My hoof broke through the surface! I felt the warm slime of the egg’s innards with my hoof, but I knew that there was no cause for celebration yet. I pulled my hoof out of the egg with a squelch, and slime started running down the face of it from the hole. I lined my foreleg up again to widen the hole with more punches.

A few punches later, a good amount of the slime in the egg had made a big mess on the floor, and I could clearly see a big black mass floating in the slime that remained in the egg.

It wasn’t moving.

I wasted no time. I dove into the hole head first, reaching for the changeling with both of my forelegs. After curling my legs around their body, I used my hind legs to pull myself back out of the hole and take them with me.

I hurriedly lowered the changeling onto the slimy ground when we were clear of the egg. I put my ear up to their snout to listen for breathing and watched their chest for any rising and falling, but there was nothing.

Shit.

I pulled back. I observed their features while, in the back of my mind, I was busy thinking of what to do. The changeling looked sort of like a small version of Queen Chrysalis from the show, with a teal mane and soft abdominal section. A young queen changeling, then?

CPR. I was trained to do basic CPR, but I had never actually performed it on a real person before. Plus, I had no idea how to perform CPR on a person who had drowned. The airway had to be clear to perform proper CPR, but her lungs were filled with fluid. I didn’t know how to clear them. And her biology was completely different from a human’s. Would it even do anything useful?

Whatever. I knew it was over by that point, but I had to try something, or I’d hate myself even more. I got into position beside her and placed both my forehooves on her upper chest.

I started chest compressions, pushing down hard and counting them in my head.

One, two, three, four … thirty.

I stopped and quickly moved over to her head, sliding one forehoof underneath the back of her neck to tilt her head back. I used the other forehoof to open her mouth, after which I tried to pinch her nose closed. It was hard to pinch anything with a hoof, so I probably wasn’t successful, but screw it. I placed my lips to hers, trying to ensure a good seal, and then I breathed a deep exhale into her mouth. I turned my head to the side, took a deep inhale, and then gave her another rescue breath.

I quickly moved back to the chest compressions. One, two, three…

I wasn’t feeling or hearing any ribs break. I was told during my training that if you’re not breaking ribs, you’re not doing compressions hard enough. But I was pressing as hard as I could, and I didn’t know if changelings had ribs anyway. They probably didn’t, so I guessed I was doing it properly.

… thirty.

Two more rescue breaths, and then back to another cycle of compressions.

I was already starting to get tired. CPR was well known to be exhausting, but I’d already decided that I wouldn’t stop until I literally dropped, even though I knew it was hopeless.

I continued doing cycles, and I’d lost count of how many I’d done at some point. I was quickly getting weaker from fatigue, which made my compressions less effective as time went on. That certainly didn’t help anything.

In the middle of my latest set of compressions, the changeling suddenly started coughing violently. I was so shocked I stumbled backwards and fell on my ass, unsure of what was happening.

My eyes widened as I realized, but there was no time to process things. I scrambled back to my hooves and rushed back to her side before using my forelegs to swiftly roll her over onto her side and hold her there. If she stayed on her back she would choke on the fluid in her lungs as she tried to spit it out. On her side, the fluid could drain to the floor.

The feeling of intense fear hit me like a ton of bricks, causing me to recoil. I didn’t know what was happening, but I suddenly felt utter panic, terror, and hysteria. My body shook violently as I turned my head back and forth in a frenzy, looking desperately for any threats.

I didn’t see anything, but I wanted to sprint out of there immediately regardless. I looked down at the coughing changeling as I thought of abandoning her and running, but I kicked myself when I was reminded of her condition. Miraculously, she came back to life. I had to make sure she survived now.

I shifted to stand protectively over her, one hind leg on either side of her body while my forelegs still held her on her side. I continued to swivel my head around, scanning for threats.

As I slowly got used to the surge of fear, my clarity of thought began to return. Why was I so afraid? I didn’t remember anything dangerous that could have triggered such a reaction. If anything, I should’ve been relieved and joyful.

I glanced at the little queen with a questioning look.

It had been such a long while, I definitely didn’t remember all the lore of Friendship is Magic. But… I thought there was something about changelings being able to sense emotions. No… I didn’t think that was ever mentioned in the show. Or was it? Maybe? Was it a fan theory? I wasn’t sure, but it made sense, since I knew they fed on love. I was certain I remembered that fact correctly.

Either way, there were many reasons for her to be terrified out of her mind at the moment. Was I feeling her fear?

After adding to the puddle of slime on the floor with the stuff from her lungs, her coughing had finally died down. She slowly turned her head to face me. She stared up at me with beautiful eyes of brilliant jade with slit pupils in the middle. I felt the fear intensify sharply.

Wait. Was she afraid of me?

Huh?