The Twin Queens

Other queens were the enemy.

That was what my instincts were screaming at me when I woke up that day, lying broken and vulnerable on the slime-covered floor. The other queen was leering down at me as she stood over my weak body, with her forehooves holding me down to prevent my escape and her posture proud and dominant. She was no doubt ecstatic at having chanced upon such easy prey.

I knew she would kill me momentarily, and I also knew there was nothing I could do about it. Fighting her would only delay the inevitable and cause me more suffering. With any luck, she would kill me quickly.

When I saw her raise her foreleg, I knew it was coming. I tried to curl up in a pointless attempt to protect myself, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. I couldn’t help but wonder how she would do it. Would she snap my neck with a kick, or maybe pummel my barrel until it came apart?

The answer was way worse than anything I had come up with. After attempting to communicate with me in a way I did not understand—I assumed she was trying to brag—she did something more heinous than I could have ever imagined. She invaded my mind and ripped out some of the precious love within me.

I knew right then that this queen wasn’t just an opponent in the game of survival. She was worse. She wouldn’t kill me quickly. She would take pleasure in torturing me to death and savour my despair as she slowly sucked me dry. She would kill me for fun, not just because it was advantageous to her. She was evil.

I sank into despair. I gave up on pretending to be anything resembling strong or tough. I showed her how weak I truly was, breaking down into tears and silently pleading for her to take mercy on me.

What the queen did next would define my entire relationship with her.

But that was how things were with Thysbe. I often felt like I could barely keep up with her. Every single thing she did went against what I knew on an instinctual level to be correct. Every day was filled with more surprises than I could wrap my head around when she was with me.

It took me a while to learn not to listen to those instincts. My instincts told me never to allow another queen to get close to a vulnerable part of my body, like my wings or my soft abdomen. But every time I let Thysbe touch those parts of me, she’d shown nothing but gentle care. I didn’t know what to believe. Were my instincts wrong?

On that first night, after Thysbe communicated that I should go to sleep, I was convinced that the whole thing was somehow still a trap. She was just waiting for me to fall asleep—and then, for sure, she would get me. Because other queens were the enemy, so why wouldn’t she take the opportunity to get rid of another queen in easy reach?

I spent the whole night lying awake, my adrenaline pumping as I waited. I was always so sure she would come in the next moment. But when that next moment came, there was never any sign of her, and then I’d convince myself that she’d actually come in the next moment instead. Before I knew it, it was morning, and I was forced to face the reality that she hadn’t come at all.

I got up to go check on her. Since she didn’t come to kill me, I was certain that she had left in the middle of the night. After all, there was no way two queens could occupy the same territory. I was expecting to find her gone by the time I got to her side of the room.

Instead, I found her standing near her bedding and doing some stretches as if she didn’t have a care in the world. When she spotted my approach, she greeted me with a smile and a wave. I felt her happiness at my presence.

I was utterly shocked. I had no clue what was happening, or how I should have been reacting.

Even more unbelievable was the fact that she spent the rest of the day teaching me useful skills. I went through those lessons in a daze.

By the second night, my instincts had switched to telling me that Thysbe was weak. If she was unwilling to get rid of a threat to her territory and future hive, then she was a soft and naive fool who deserved to be tricked and backstabbed. I had my doubts—she seemed plenty strong to me. So I decided to conduct a test to see whether or not my instincts were correct.

When it was time to go to sleep, instead of sensibly sleeping as far away from each other as possible, I decided to barge in and rudely intrude on her sleeping spot. I was expecting to be angrily shouted at and commanded to go back to my own spot. Perhaps I would be sporting some injuries as well. Surely no queen was stupid enough to allow another queen so close while she was sleeping, right?

Instead, Thysbe put up only a token amount of resistance. She never actually tried to seriously get rid of me. I was in disbelief. On a whim of madness, I decided to up the ante and go all out. I wrapped my legs around her and pressed our bodies together. My fangs were poised just above her neck. With a simple bite to puncture the chitin right in front of me, I could end her easily.

What was Thysbe’s response to my threat? She nuzzled the top of my head.

That single action froze me solid. I was suddenly filled with uncertainty. What was I doing?

I decided to pretend to fall asleep and wait to see what Thysbe would do. After all, even though she was extremely vulnerable to me at that moment, I was also extremely vulnerable to her. If she was ever going to attack me in my sleep, this would be her chance.

Rather than take her chance, Thysbe fell asleep for real. As if I wasn’t right there, ready to bite her throat open whenever I felt like it. After I nudged her and tested her to make sure she wasn’t faking it, and I realized she really had just fallen asleep, I felt like my mind broke.

Was I misunderstanding Thysbe’s strength? Was she so strong—so confident in her abilities—that she could fall asleep right next to a rival changeling queen and be assured of her own safety? That no matter what I did, she would easily stop me?

Or was Thysbe actually insane? A changeling queen with zero self-preservation instinct. I struggled to comprehend such a thing.

I figured I would worry about such questions later, and decided I would get some real sleep too. Maybe her insanity was rubbing off on me, but I was too tired to care about how vulnerable I was. If I ended up not waking up from my sleep, then well… she tricked me good. I’d deserve it.

In the morning, I did wake up, and Thysbe acted like nothing at all had happened. Like I hadn’t threatened her life. She even continued teaching me those useful skills. I once again went through the lessons in a daze.

Strangely enough, we continued to sleep in that vulnerable position from then on. Thysbe was way better than me at a lot of things. She was smarter, stronger, she always knew what to do, and I felt like she was much more mature than me. For some reason I didn’t understand, she deigned to share her valuable knowledge with me without expectations of anything in return. I was sure that if she wanted to, she could beat me in a fight with little effort, even now that I was uninjured and at my best.

So sleeping in that position, with my fangs at her neck and with the power to end her at any time I wanted, made me feel safe. Like I was her equal. Sure, she was giving me that power by allowing me to sleep there, but still—once I was in that position, I had that power. No one else. I didn’t understand what kind of incomprehensible mind game she was playing by putting herself into that situation, but I felt strangely thankful towards her nonetheless.

Maybe… I was even beginning to trust her? My instincts rebelled at that thought. She was a rival changeling queen. The last thing I ever should’ve done was trust her. But my instincts had always been wrong before.

So maybe it was okay to trust her after all. I didn’t know. But I was sure I’d figure it out sooner or later.

I ran into the open after the ball.

The guard pony spotted me immediately. I felt his unease spike at my sudden movement, but that quickly evaporated when he saw only a little filly playing around with a toy.

Of course, that wouldn’t be enough to turn him away. I would have to play the game.

This would be my first time playing for real, but I understood what I needed to do intuitively. I was a queen, after all.

I pretended to notice the guard for the first time and perked my ears excitedly as I looked at him.

"Hey, mister!" I called to him eagerly. I bounced the ball between my forelegs as I galloped up to him and greeted him with a large grin. "Wanna practice basketball with me? I’m gonna be the best in my school!"

I made sure to position myself in his way so he couldn’t walk any further without shoving me aside. If he made it around the corner, he would no doubt find Thysbe.

I didn’t expect him to be willing to forcibly remove me from his path, and sure enough, he stopped in his tracks and looked down at me. I felt his surprise at my presence, and his fluster at being badgered so strongly.

"Where are your parents, little one?" he asked, his voice calm but slightly concerned.

I stopped bouncing the ball for a moment to point my forehoof up at the apartment building behind me. I made sure to point to the one that had the back door leading into this alley.

"Don’t worry," I reassured him. "They know where I am. I practice out here all the time."

I resumed my dribble and gave the guard a confident smirk.

"So wanna play? I bet I can beat you. I have a hoop set up around the corner we can use."

Naturally, saying such a thing was dangerous. Not only did I not have a hoop—the lack of which would make my entire story of practicing basketball out here instantly suspicious—but having the guard follow me around the corner was exactly the opposite of what I wanted to happen.

But he obviously had no interest in playing. He was in the middle of a chase. So I considered it a bluff with an acceptably low enough risk to make.

The guard gave me an amused smile.

"Not today, squirt. Maybe some other time," he said.

His face became serious again.

"Actually, you should finish your practicing for today and head inside," he said. "A monster showed up out of the blue on the next street over and scared everypony into a stampede. My partner and I chased it this way, but we lost sight of it. Have you seen it?"

I gasped, my eyes widening. "A monster? Cool! What does it look like? I wanna see you beat it up! Oh! Can I help you catch it?"

I felt the guard’s fluster at my enthusiastic reaction. He had expected me to react with fear at the news, not with excitement. But keeping him off balance was the goal.

At the same time, a large part of me wondered what I was doing. The ‘monster’ was hiding around the corner right behind me. It would be so easy to point her out to the guard, and then the ponies would get rid of a rival queen for me with no effort on my part. Why was I protecting her?

Especially since the entire situation was her doing, and she had greatly endangered my life by refusing to listen to me. Her actions were utterly baffling. She seriously thought she could just walk up to ponies undisguised, and they wouldn’t react the way they did? Where did she even get such an idea?

Thysbe’s behavior today confirmed to me that she actually was insane. She didn’t care about her own life at all, and she was completely unpredictable. She was a danger to be around. Continuing to stay near her would only expose me to more risks in the future. The smart thing to do would be to let the guard have her.

So why did I feel an inexplicable sickness in my gut at the thought of actually doing it?

Was it because she was willing to protect me without even a moment’s hesitation? When we became trapped within the dead end, her first instinct was to get me to a hiding spot while she volunteered to act as bait. I would have expected any other queen to use her rival as bait while she herself got to safety, not the other way around. But it seemed that thought never even occurred to Thysbe.

Seriously. She was willing to protect another queen’s life at the cost of her own. Something was incredibly wrong with her.

And now her wrongness had apparently spread to me too.

I was brought out of my thoughts by the guard waving his forehoof in denial.

"No, you’re way too young to help," he said. "Be a good little filly and leave this to the professionals in the Royal Guard, okay?"

"Aww," I whined, staring up at the guard, my big eyes filled with disappointment.

He turned his head to look behind him nervously.

"Look," he said. "I gotta get going. If you didn’t see the monster come this way, then it must have gone the other way. My partner’s probably already caught it, so I gotta go help him out."

"So you really won’t play with me?" I asked, letting my ears droop.

He shot me an encouraging smile and ruffled the top of my mane with his metal-clad hoof. I felt greatly offended—how dare he touch me?! Thysbe’s mane pats were a million times gentler and more pleasant than this loser’s. I wanted to smack his hoof away, but I forced myself to bear it.

"Hey, chin up," he said. "I’m sure you’ll be an awesome basketball player. Just keep at it."

When the torture finally ended, I nodded.

"I will," I said. "Thanks."

"Now promise me you’ll go inside for the rest of the day," the guard said as he firmly looked into my eyes. "I don’t want to see an innocent filly such as yourself get hurt."

I nodded again. "Okay. I promise."

"Great. I’ll see you around, then."

With that, the guard turned and began trotting back the way he came. I stood there watching as he went down the alley.

Before he turned the corner, he looked back one more time.

"Stay safe!" he shouted.

I smiled and waved a foreleg, and then he disappeared out of sight.

After waiting a couple of moments to make sure he was gone, I spun around and cantered the few steps back around the corner to the alley’s dead end.

As soon as I came around the bend, I was jumped by Thysbe. I briefly considered that she was attacking me, but that seemed very unlikely after everything she’d done. She wrapped her forelegs around the back of my neck and rubbed her cheek against mine.

"Nephila!" she cried in her strange language. "I’m so glad you’re safe! I thought I was going to lose you when you ran out there."

It was still quite difficult for me to understand her. Although she had been teaching me her language, it was slow going, and I didn’t have a very large vocabulary yet. It always took some thinking power for me to figure out the meaning of what she was trying to communicate.

I squirmed as I tried to get some space from Thysbe’s overbearing physical affections, but she wasn’t having it and kept squeezing me. I sighed softly as I stopped resisting and accepted it.

"No. I am okay," I responded in Thysbe’s language, trying to communicate that there was nothing to worry about in my broken fluency.

Thysbe often expressed worry or concern for me. At first I had thought that this was part of some laughable scheme to get me to let my guard down around her. After all, what queen would be stupid enough to fall for such transparent and blatant lies?

But as she kept saying such things—and more importantly, not just saying so, but actually acting on those words by showing me her concern and care in little ways—I began to believe she was honestly being genuine.

When I made that realization, I found the concept absurd. A queen genuinely caring about a rival queen’s well-being? I couldn’t understand it, but I had given up on trying to make sense of Thysbe’s insanity by that point.

Thysbe finally pulled back to look me in the eyes.

"I had no idea the ponies wouldn’t speak English," she said. "You can speak their language? And you seemed pretty fluent too, from what I could tell."

That was a lot of words. Uh… was English the name of Thysbe’s language?

"I can speak," I said.

Thysbe frowned and bit her lip.

"I didn’t see you learning how to speak the ponies’ language while we were in the storage room," she mused. "How did you learn it?"

I tilted my head, confused. I wasn’t sure what she was asking me.

"I can speak," I repeated, hoping that somehow she would understand.

Thysbe let out a chuckle. "Yes, I saw. But how? You hatched a few days ago."

I blinked, trying to figure out how to express myself properly. But I didn’t have the words I needed, so I gave up and shrugged.

"Just can," I said instead.

Changelings needed to infiltrate pony society to survive. New queens were especially vulnerable when they first hatched, with no hive around to support them or drones to teach them anything. If young queens didn’t know anything about how to infiltrate pony society and gather love when they hatched, there was no question that they would all die.

So I’ve had all the basic knowledge I needed about pony society since I woke up on the first day. That included fluency in the Equestrian language. I had never seen a basketball before, but I knew what it was for and the correct way to use it. I had never been to a school, but I knew what the purpose of it was and that young fillies were expected to be attending.

The thing that bothered me was that Thysbe was acting confused about all this. My eyes widened slightly as I realized the implications. Did she not know?

I leaned in towards Thysbe’s face.

"Can you not?" I asked.

Thysbe didn’t hesitate in shaking her head. "I can’t," she said.

I shrunk back as if struck. I had thought all queens would have that knowledge from birth. It was literally ingrained in our biology—genetic memory. It should have been impossible for Thysbe to not be able to speak Equestrian. And for her to admit it so readily…

My instincts were telling me that I should feel revolted at her presence. Thysbe was worthless. Less than useless. She was a dead queen walking. Without the ability to speak Equestrian, Thysbe wouldn’t be able to replace a pony’s loved ones and steal their love. Of course, everypony could speak and understand when they were spoken to, and if she couldn’t, then that would be a dead giveaway that something was wrong in her disguise. She would always be found out immediately.

"Are you okay?" Thysbe asked, looking concerned. Her emotions felt slightly worried for me after I suddenly flinched back.

I was caught off guard. Did Thysbe seriously not realize the significance of what she just admitted to? She should’ve been more worried about herself at a time like this.

"Yes," I said, in what was more or less an automatic reply to get her to drop it. If I didn’t answer, she’d just keep annoying me until I did.

Thysbe gave a large sigh and brought up her forehoof to scratch at the back of her head.

"Well," she started. "I’m sorry for wasting your time by teaching you English. I thought I was teaching you how to speak from scratch, not teaching you a useless language. I guess I’m probably the only person in this world who speaks it, so it won’t do you any good to learn it. I should’ve been learning the ponies’ language from you instead. So… sorry."

I paused. "From scratch?" I asked.

"Err…," Thysbe replied. "From nothing."

She thought she was teaching me to speak from nothing? If she truly believed that I couldn’t talk at all, then why would she do something like that? Why would she expend as much effort on it as she did? A queen who couldn’t speak was defective, and the only thing that awaited her was death. Why would she try to save such a queen?

And what did she mean that she was the only one in this world who spoke English? How could there be a language that only a single creature knew?

Ugh, there were too many questions. Things were getting too confusing. I should have known better than to question Thysbe’s nonsense by now. I pushed all the pointless thoughts out of my head and turned my focus to the important bit she had said at the end of her apology.

"You want to learn um… pony language?" I asked, lacking the word for 'Equestrian’ in English.

"Yes." Thysbe quickly nodded. "I’d really appreciate it if you’d teach me, Nephy."

"I have idea," I said.

An incredibly reckless idea. To a queen, knowledge was power, and oftentimes made the difference between her hive’s starvation and prosperity. Knowledge of the locations of the most abundant feeding grounds, how to integrate within those feeding grounds, and how to stay hidden from the prey were all jealously guarded secrets. A queen would never share any of her knowledge with a rival queen. That included knowledge of any local languages required for successful integration.

If I were to teach Thysbe Equestrian, I would be giving another queen the key to invading the feeding ground I currently had access to. I’d be rolling out the red carpet and saying ‘come take my food from me.’ Doing something like that would be spitting in the face of everything my instincts told me not to do.

But… Thysbe had started teaching me English with no questions asked, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to teach another queen a language. And she didn’t demand anything in return after the fact. Even now, she wasn’t demanding that I teach her Equestrian to return the favor. There was no aggression in her emotions. She was simply asking.

So… I was left feeling unsure as to what the right thing to do was. Thysbe’s tendency to give me things unprompted, and for free, always made me so confused.

Hence, my idea. To make things make sense, we would trade. She would continue to teach me English, and I would teach her Equestrian. A simple exchange of equal value. Easy.

And it was not at all an excuse to stay with Thysbe despite her worthlessness. Definitely not.

"What’s your idea?" Thysbe asked.

"You continue teaching English, and I teach pony language," I proposed.

Thysbe tilted her head, feeling mildly confused and surprised.

"You want to keep learning a useless language?" she asked.

"Yes." I nodded. "Trade."

That was all the explanation I could offer her.

She shrugged. "Sure. Works for me."

"Good," I said. I was glad that she accepted my offer so readily. It would have been annoying to try to illustrate to her why I wanted to trade with my limited English vocabulary.

Thysbe took a moment to look around the corner into the alley.

"But before any of that, I think we should get out of here before any of the guards come back," she said.

I nodded. That was good thinking. And while we were at it, I needed to secure a source of love for myself. The amount Thysbe had given me had lasted so far—I still had no idea why she had done that—but it was starting to run low. It would be smart to start looking for a pony to replace as soon as possible in case any complications came up.

If Thysbe had no knowledge about pony society, she probably had no idea how to go about replacing a pony. So I figured it’d be best if I had her follow my lead this time.

It was a little amusing. Usually, she gave off a strong impression that she knew what she was doing, and I was always following her instructions. But on this topic, she would be clueless.

I lifted a forehoof to point at myself, still in my pony filly form.

"Change, then follow," I commanded.

I began to walk off, but Thysbe interrupted me.

"Change?" she asked. "You want me to shape-shift? I don’t know how to do that."

As soon as I got her meaning, I froze in my tracks. But I must have misunderstood her.

"Huh?" I asked, hoping she would clear up my mistake.

She pointed at me with a forehoof. "I don’t know how to change into a pony."

I stood still for a moment, and then I suddenly burst into laughter. A changeling queen who couldn’t change! Hilarious!

I thought her lack of ability to speak Equestrian crippled her enough, but this took the cake. Thysbe was truly broken.

I felt a flood of embarrassment come from Thysbe’s emotions as I laughed.

"Hey," she complained. "It’s not nice to laugh at someone when they can’t do something."

She frowned at me as I struggled to get myself under control. Eventually, I managed to push my hilarity down and stop laughing. I wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes with the back of my hoof, and then faced Thysbe with a grin.

A changeling queen who couldn’t change. What was even the point of that? There was no hope at all for her. She was unable to get any more love, period. The love she had now was all the love she would ever have, and once that ran out, she was dead. To make matters worse, she had even given most of the love she’d had to me, like she didn’t care at all about the gravity of her situation.

I didn’t even have to do anything to get rid of her as a rival queen. All I’d need to do was sit back and wait for nature to take its course.

But… I was again forced to ask myself if that was what I really wanted. The logical answer was yes, absolutely. And yet I felt a pit of dread in my stomach at the thought of seeing Thysbe die like that. I didn’t understand why I was feeling such sympathy for her and why I was allowing myself to give in to such weak thoughts. I recognized that I was already unreasonably attached to Thysbe, and it was frustrating.

"I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you laugh," Thysbe pointed out. "Even though you were laughing at me, which was mean, it was a pretty laugh."

Thysbe lifted a forehoof and gently stroked the top of my mane back and forth. I could immediately tell the difference between her caress and the guard’s from earlier. Thysbe’s emotions always overflowed with fondness for me whenever she did stuff like this, which was the most surprising thing about it. It was impossible for me not to see that she genuinely felt that way, and wasn’t just faking it.

Her touching was very annoying at first—and sometimes it still was when she went overboard—but I had grown to enjoy it. I stood still and let my mind empty as she patted my head.

Wait. Was she rewarding me for making fun of how worthless she was?

"I’d like to hear you laugh again later," Thysbe said. "But next time not at someone else. Let’s laugh together at some harmless fun, okay?"

"Okay," I said dumbly. What nonsense was Thysbe spouting?

She finally pulled her forehoof away from my mane.

"So do you think you can show me how to change?" Thysbe asked.

I blinked owlishly. Show her how to change? What? Changelings could change. There was nothing to show.

The sheer ridiculousness of what she was asking made me want to laugh again, but I bit my lip to keep it down. She’d probably get annoyed if I made fun of her again.

"It’s fine if I’m not good at it," Thysbe continued. "I just need to be a pony so we can get away from here, right? If you help me do it just once, that’ll be good enough."

I really had no idea how to show her how to change. It just came naturally to me, as easy as breathing. I didn’t know any of the theory behind it or anything. I vacantly stared at the cobblestone ground as I tried to think of some idea that would help.

"Nephy?" Thysbe asked.

I looked up to gaze into her slitted green eyes, watching expectantly.

"Wait," I said. "Thinking."

Unbidden, I remembered those eyes staring down at me as she held me against the floor on the first night. She had done something horrific on that night. Maybe… could that work?

I felt sick at the thought. My instincts told me that invading another queen’s mind was the highest form of taboo. Something not to be done to even one’s worst enemies. A queen’s powers were meant to be used on prey, not on other changelings. I did not know what the consequences would be if a queen ignored this taboo and used her mind control to freely wage war on other hives, but I knew nothing good would come of it. Would all the other queens band together to punish the rogue outlaw?

Regardless, there was a possibility I might be able to help Thysbe change if I invaded her mind. But I was very reluctant. Every part of me was yelling at me to not even dare try. If another queen ever found out, I had no doubt she’d come after me with even more hostility than was typical for a mere rival in the game of survival.

Except. Thysbe wasn’t my worst enemy, was she? Actually, what was she, even? A rival queen, right? I felt like I was kidding myself by continuing to call her my rival. Rivals didn’t do what we were doing. But other queens were supposed to be rivals, so it was difficult for me to break away from that mindset with her.

Was she my… friend? I scrunched my muzzle in distaste at that. Ponies were all crazy about friendship, and we were certainly no ponies. Friends were lame. We were not friends.

Was she my ally? Maybe. But ally didn’t feel strong enough. Allies used each other when their goals conveniently aligned and then backstabbed each other later. Perhaps I was just being stupidly gullible, but I couldn’t see Thysbe ever doing that. For whatever inexplicable reason, I thought her feelings felt too genuine for her to be a mere ally.

Whatever. Thysbe was not my enemy, and I wouldn’t be using my mind invasion to harm her. So maybe it would be an acceptable use? Yup. I tried to convince myself of that.

Would she even accept that excuse, though? I couldn’t imagine any queen would willingly allow her mind to be invaded. But Thysbe was weird, so I might as well ask her.

"Idea," I said.

"Oh?" Thysbe asked, a smile coming to her lips. "You figured out how to teach me? Great. Let’s hear it."

The only problem was that I had no idea how to describe what I wanted to do in English.

"Um…" I used my forehoof to point to my forehead, and then I pointed to Thysbe’s forehead. "Join minds… and change."

I was pretty sure I sounded like a total idiot.

Thysbe furrowed her brows in thought. "Er… I think I get it. You want to use our magical connection to show me how to change in my mind, right?"

Sure, whatever she said. I nodded.

"That’s a smart idea," Thysbe said. "I actually wouldn’t have thought of that myself. Nice job."

She smiled at me, and I felt her appreciation towards me. I was unsure if she should really be so appreciative of a queen who just suggested invading her mind, but whatever.

"Alright, go ahead," Thysbe said. "I’m ready."

And of course, she agreed with no consideration whatsoever. I should not have been surprised.

Well, there was nothing left to do except give it a try. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and activated my mental magic to target Thysbe’s mind. I plunged into her psyche extremely easily. She had no defences up at all.

I shuddered involuntarily as I realized how much power I had over her at the moment. I could easily make Thysbe a mindless, drooling slave who would obey my every command. I could order her to end herself, or to gallop into the streets filled with ponies again and let herself be captured. I could also just knock her out and put her into a sleep she would never wake from.

I even felt the love within her, stored in a little pool that powered her life essence. Like a siren’s call, that small amount of love drew me towards it. I eyed it hungrily. It would be so easy to rip it all from her and leave her an empty husk.

I mentally slapped myself. Yes, it would be so easy. But I didn’t want to do that to Thysbe.

Why not? I wasn’t sure. I just didn’t feel like it.

I forced myself to remember what I was doing here in the first place. I needed to make Thysbe change into a young pony.

Using my magic to change Thysbe wouldn’t work. A changeling’s transformation magic would only work on themselves. So what I needed to do was quite logical. Since Thysbe was too incompetent to use her own magic to change herself, I needed to use Thysbe’s magic for her.

At least, that was the idea I came up with. I had no clue if it would work in reality.

Ever so cautiously, I connected my mental will to the magical flow in Thysbe’s body. I needed to be careful, because a changeling’s magic was powered by their stored love supply. If I let my instincts get the better of me, I could still easily take all of her love for myself by draining it through her magic. So I had to resist what my body naturally wanted to do to prevent that from happening.

After spending a few moments to stabilize myself, I felt like I was ready to use Thysbe’s magic for her without sucking her dry.

"Okay," I said out loud. "Think of a pony."

It was important for Thysbe to picture the pony she wanted to change into in her mind. I couldn’t do that for her.

I waited for her to tell me she was ready.

"Got it," she said.

I pushed my will into Thysbe’s magic and triggered the change.

A surge of green flame wrapped around Thysbe’s body, and I excitedly pulled back out of her mind. It worked!

Before me stood a young pegasus filly with light gray fur. She had a two-tone mane and tail, with the stripes of color alternating lengthwise. The colors were a bright yellow—almost like gold—and a navy blue. Her eyes were a light pink, similar to my own form’s mane and tail. I stretched my neck to glimpse at her flank and saw that she had also given herself a cutie mark. It was a simple stylized light blue pegasus wing.

"Very detailed," I muttered. It was much more elaborate than my basic form with its simple cream coat and pink mane with no cutie mark. I was actually kind of impressed. Considering the fact that Thysbe was unable to change herself, I was expecting her to come up with an absolutely terrible pony form. But instead, she came up with something quite good.

"Thanks," Thysbe said as she curiously examined her new form and experimentally ruffled her feathery wings. Then she smiled at me happily.

"And thank you for helping me shape-shift," she continued, and I felt her gratitude flow at me. "I really do owe you one."

Unsure of how to respond, I simply nodded.

"Now we should really get out of here," Thysbe said. "You wanted me to follow you earlier. Do you know somewhere safe to go?"

I did not. I had spent just as much time in that storage room as Thysbe had, and I never went out to explore the city. Did she forget?

But I knew what we needed to do. We needed to find love as soon as possible. That meant we needed to find a young filly or colt to replace and then milk their parents as much as possible.

I beckoned to Thysbe with a forehoof. "Follow."

We spent most of the day sitting around in a park within the city.

Thysbe was confused, and she tried to ask me several times why I had led us to the park and then did nothing but sit on a bench to watch ponies for hours.

I didn’t know how to explain to her what we needed to do. Parks were a great place to find young ponies playing, but we couldn’t just go after the first filly or colt we saw. Ponies were generally very good at keeping an eye on their young, and trying to grab one while their parents were nearby was unacceptably risky.

So our only option was to sit and wait until we happened to come across a young pony who was isolated from its parents. I kept watch for just such an occasion.

I had also briefly considered taking the place of an adult pony, but that was more risky for a couple of reasons. Firstly, an adult pony had a higher chance of successfully resisting an attempt to subdue them. I was confident in my ability to knock any pony out with a single hit of my stun spell, but there was always a chance things could go wrong. If that happened with an adult, they would be much more capable of fighting back than a young pony would be.

Secondly, both Thysbe and I were obviously very young queens. Our bodies were currently similar in size to young ponies, and thus we were more suited to take their forms. It was certainly possible to take the form of an adult pony, but it would drain much more love over time to maintain such a form due to the difference in size. The increased maintenance cost would mean that we would need a greater return to make it worth it, making the bet inherently more risky.

Plus, a parent’s love for their child was usually greater than everything except the most potent of romantic relationships, and those were difficult to find on short notice. I estimated Thysbe had only a couple of days at most before she was completely out of love, so we didn’t exactly have the time to conduct thorough scouting missions and investigations of the most promising local relationships.

All that was why I decided we would play it as safe as possible and aim for a young pony.

Thysbe complained a couple of times about us wasting time and that we should be doing something useful, but I tried to explain to her that this was the way to gather love. It didn’t seem like she was convinced, but she followed my lead and let me do my thing anyway.

It was frustrating how useless she was, though. As she sat on the bench beside me, I watched the ponies in the park for any good targets, but Thysbe didn’t help me out at all. She was clearly bored out of her mind, and when she wasn’t persistently annoying me by trying to have a conversation with me—which usually didn’t last more than a few sentences because I kept brushing her off, as I was trying to pay attention to my surroundings—she just stared blankly out into space.

I guessed it felt good to finally be superior to her at some task, but I would’ve appreciated it more if she actually pulled her weight. Did she expect me to share the love I gathered with her after I did all the work while she did nothing? If she was expecting such charity, she was in for a rude awakening.

"Ughh," Thysbe groaned.

I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. She was sprawled out on her side of the bench, slouched against the backrest and had her head tilted all the way back as she stared straight up at the evening sky.

I rolled my eyes at the sight, ashamed of even being near her.

"Nephyyy," Thysbe whined, dragging out the last part of my nickname. "I’m sooo bored. Can we please leave?"

"No," I deadpanned.

Thysbe hit her head against the backrest in response. I tried my best to ignore her.

"I think you like parks more than my dog does," Thysbe complained. "But at least my dog actually ran around and played fetch. How can you be satisfied by just sitting on this bench?"

What? "You have a dog?" I asked.

Thysbe groaned again. "Not anymore."

Anymore? I never asked Thysbe’s age, but I was pretty sure she wasn’t more than a couple of days older than me.

"Whatever. Be quiet," I said. I tried to concentrate on watching for any isolated young ponies.

"That’s rude," Thysbe muttered.

"Don’t care. Quiet," I snapped.

Thysbe huffed, but thankfully she did fall silent after that.

For all of five minutes.

"How much longer do you want to sit here?" she asked.

I grit my teeth. "Told you. Until we find a pony."

Thysbe lifted a forehoof to weakly point at a random mare nearest to us. "There’s a pony."

"No!" I snapped. I had to restrain myself from full-on yelling at her. "Told you! Not that type of pony!"

Thysbe let her foreleg drop limply. Again, she fell silent.

I let out a long sigh, trying to push my frustration and irritability out of my mind. Doing something as dangerous as capturing a pony while distracted by anger was just asking for disaster, so I reminded myself that I couldn’t let it get to me.

After I calmed down, I noticed that Thysbe’s latest silence had lasted much longer than usual, to the point where I was beginning to feel an irresistible curiosity as to why she hadn’t yet annoyed me again.

I turned my head to look at her. She was lying on the bench on her back with her hind hooves facing towards me. Her eyes were closed, and her body was motionless except for the slow rising and falling of her chest as she breathed softly. Her lips were slightly parted and there was a tiny bit of drool at one corner of her mouth.

I tapped her belly with a forehoof. There was no response. She had fallen asleep.

I pursed my lips as my frustration threatened to return to me, but I suppressed it. No, this was fine. Thysbe sleeping was better than Thysbe bothering me.

As I turned my attention back to my surroundings, I knew one thing for certain. There was no way I would be sharing my prey with her.

Speaking of prey. Finally, after all the hours of waiting and watching, I managed to spot something promising. A young earth pony colt entered the far side of the park opposite from where my bench was, and as far as I could tell he didn’t have any other ponies with him. He had a light gray coat—similar to Thysbe’s current pony form—a dark blue mane, and no cutie mark that I could see. He was also wearing a pair of small saddlebags.

He didn’t interact with any of the other ponies in the park, and instead quietly made his way to the shade of a large tree in an area of the park with few ponies in it. When he got to the tree, he nestled up beside it while sitting on his haunches. He then opened up his saddlebags and pulled out a book from one, and what looked like a wrapped sandwich from another. He placed his book on the grass and began to read it while taking slow bites from his sandwich.

I felt an excitement build within me. He might be the one. The first prey I ever got to hunt.

But I couldn’t get ahead of myself, and I forced myself to back off from my excitement. There was still a possibility another pony could show up to join him. I would have to remain vigilant for that.

I continued to watch him silently as I stayed sitting right where I was. A public park was no place to make any moves, after all. It was also important to keep my distance and make sure he didn’t know I existed. I needed to remain just another regular face in the crowd right up until it was time to strike.

The colt read his book under the tree for at least an hour. In that time, the sun had begun to set, and the sky became full of pale oranges and dull purples. Luckily, no ponies had come to join him, and the park was quickly growing empty as all the other ponies headed home for the night.

My anticipation grew as time wore on. It looked like this might actually happen!

Finally, the colt ended his reading and put his book back into his saddlebag.

I tapped Thysbe’s belly with my forehoof urgently. "Thysbe! Wake up!"

After a bunch of prodding, Thysbe’s eyes blinked open groggily.

"Ugh," she groaned as she rubbed her eyes with a forehoof. "I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I feel like crap."

"Whatever. No time," I said hurriedly. The colt was standing up and stretching his legs after sitting for so long. "Gotta go."

Thysbe blinked at me, clearly still half asleep. "We’re finally getting out of here?"

I hopped off the bench as the colt began his leisurely walk out of the park. I kept one eye on my target as I grabbed Thysbe’s free forehoof and began pulling her.

"Hurry, hurry!" I urged.

"Jeez, Nephy." Thysbe chuckled obliviously as she slid off the bench with my help. "Where’s the fire?"

"Just hurry and follow, okay?" I started trotting after the colt. "Follow!"

I looked back to see that Thysbe had listened to my instructions and was trotting right behind me. Great. I would’ve been so mad at her if she had made me lose my prey because she wanted to ask too many questions.

When I caught up to the colt enough to be sure I wouldn’t lose him, I slowed down to a normal walk. We were at least five or six pony lengths behind him as we reached the cobblestone street. He hadn’t noticed our approach, so now all we had to do was act like regular ponies on a regular walk who just happened to be going in the same direction as him.

Thysbe came up beside me and shot me a questioning look. "Are we done hurrying?"

"Yes," I said. I wasn’t worried about the colt overhearing our conversation. It was normal for ponies to talk while walking. If anything, it would reinforce our presentation as nothing out of the ordinary to pay any attention to.

Plus, we were speaking English, not Equestrian. Even if he did overhear us, he wouldn’t be able to understand what we were saying.

"Okay…" Thysbe drawled. "But we didn’t go anywhere."

I rolled my eyes at her stubborn obliviousness. "Just keep following."

Thysbe shrugged. "Alright. But I think we should really focus on finding a place to sleep. I don’t think it’s safe to go back to the shed, but I’d like to get at least some kind of roof over my head."

"Yes," I agreed. Definitely something to consider, especially if we wanted to keep the colt’s cocoon hidden, but hardly the highest priority at the moment. "But later."

"Later when?" Thysbe asked. "It’s already night."

"Soon," I replied.

Thysbe hummed skeptically in response, but otherwise didn’t say anything further.

We continued walking in silence, the stillness of the night only broken up by the steady clopping of our hooves on the cobblestone. The colt never looked behind himself once, and never made any indication that he had noticed us following him. His lack of awareness was greater than I could have expected.

We occasionally passed another pony or two on the street, presumably on their way to their own homes. But the intervals between encountering those other ponies got longer and longer as we made our way out of the city’s more central areas. I knew, at some point, there would be no others around save for the colt and the two of us.

That would be our time to strike.

"So where are we going?" Thysbe asked after some time had passed.

"Almost there," I said. The sun had set completely by this point, and the sky was a dark black. The only major sources of light nearby were the amber streetlights and the occasional lit-up window casting its light onto the street.

We were coming up to an empty narrow street surrounded on both sides by tall buildings. It seemed like a perfectly secluded place.

As we entered the street and began making our way down it, I swivelled my head to check the area one last time. Not a single pony was around. It was clear.

I took a moment to steady my aim before I made any moves. Satisfied that I wouldn’t miss, I decisively pushed my magic into my horn, causing it to glow a pale green. Then I swiftly released a bolt from my stun spell. The bright green projectile lit up the area as it flew through the air at great speed before impacting the back of the colt’s head.

He didn’t even know what hit him, and he fell face-first onto the cobblestones as if his strings were cut.

I felt a surge of shock and disbelief from Thysbe at my side. No doubt she was surprised at how perfectly I pulled that off. I turned to her with a large grin.

Instead of praising me with a ‘good job’ like she usually did, Thysbe was staring at the collapsed colt with wide eyes and her jaw dropped open. Even I felt as if she was overreacting. Was she really that impressed?

"W-what the fuck did you just do?!" Thysbe shouted.

Without waiting for me to respond, she sprinted the short distance to the colt’s side and looked down at his prone form. I felt an immense amount of panic and fear start to flow from her, and I frowned as I watched her. I didn’t understand what she was freaking out about.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, he better not be dead," Thysbe babbled to herself, but I didn’t know the words she was using.

Thysbe lowered her head with her ear pointing towards the colt’s face and stood still. My curiosity as to what she was doing spurred me to approach her to get a better look.

Thysbe exhaled sharply and stood up. "Alright, he’s still breathing."

I felt her fear recede considerably, but her panic and distress were still on the verge of hysteria.

It was hardly befitting of a queen to lose control of her emotions like Thysbe was doing in a stressful situation, especially since Thysbe had always seemed so collected before. My opinion of her couldn’t help but decrease.

Thysbe reached out with both of her forehooves and delicately rolled the colt over so he lay on his side.

"Crap, he’s bleeding," she muttered. I didn’t know what ‘bleeding’ was in English, but Thysbe felt more distressed after seeing the trail of blood coming from the colt’s nose. He must’ve hit himself on a cobblestone when he fell, but that was nothing to worry about. It wasn’t a serious injury, and wouldn’t impact his ability to produce love for us.

On the subject of producing love, we needed to get a move on before a random pony happened to walk down the street and spot us. We had to get the colt to a hidden place, safely store him in a cocoon, and then look through his memories to find out where his parents lived in order to take his place. And we had to do all that quickly, before his parents caught on that he was missing.

I looked around quickly to make sure the area was still clear. Satisfied, I reached out with my forelegs to lift the colt onto my back, but before I could even touch him I heard Thysbe gasp. Then she slapped my hooves away from him.

"Don’t touch him!" she shouted. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

I looked up at Thysbe’s face. Her teeth were clenched, her brows narrowed, and her eyes stared at me with a fierce intensity. Now that I had caught her attention, all of her fear and panic had transformed into terrible fury.

This was the first time I had ever seen Thysbe angry, and it was all directed straight at me. I couldn’t help but shrink back.

Thysbe stepped forward. "Why the hell would you attack an innocent kid out of the blue?!"

I stepped back as Thysbe stepped forward again. Her irrational anger at me was causing me to feel panicked and afraid of her. More than anything, I desperately wanted her to stop shouting. Any ponies nearby would no doubt be attracted to the loud noise.

I knew I had to say something. I gathered my courage.

"Be quiet!" I told her firmly.

"Fuck no!" Thysbe continued shouting, and took another step towards me. I stepped back again.

"You’re going to explain to me right now why you thought it was acceptable to blast a random kid with your magic!" Thysbe demanded.

My fear of her irrational rage started to transform into anger in turn. What was her problem? I was the only one trying to do something to make sure we didn’t starve, and instead of being thankful when I’m successful in capturing prey, she flies off the handle about it? Buck her.

I pointed to my forehead.

"Use your head, stupid Thysbe," I snarled. "I’m getting love!"

That actually seemed to give her pause. Her angry expression was replaced with confusion. But that only lasted a few moments before her eyes widened and feelings of horror and disgust were added to her emotions alongside her anger.

"I think I get it, but I want to be sure," Thysbe said shakily. "Explain what you mean by that."

"What don’t you get?!" I shouted, fed up with Thysbe’s random mood swings and cluelessness. "Take pony, get love!"

"Absolutely not," Thysbe growled. "We are not doing that."

What? What the buck was she saying? I’d already done all the hard work of subduing the prey. There was no way I’d just walk away from it now.

"Yes we are," I countered, staring right back into Thysbe’s eyes.

"Hell. No." Thysbe punctuated both words by stomping her forehoof against the street.

"I caught the pony!" I argued. "So he is mine! You can’t tell me what to do!"

"I don’t give a shit," Thysbe spat. She stepped forward again, but this time I refused to give ground, so her muzzle ended up nose-to-nose with mine.

"You’re not touching that kid," Thysbe stated firmly.

I should have seen this coming from the beginning, but I guess I wanted to live in a fantasy world so badly that I kept deluding myself. Of course, Thysbe was just pretending to cooperate with me until now, and of course, she would betray me the first instant she had something to gain from me.

Why wouldn’t she? She was a changeling queen. That was what we did. I knew queens could only ever be enemies, but I foolishly convinced myself that Thysbe was different. But now that she had the opportunity to take something real from me, she didn’t hesitate to exploit my naiveté to try to steal my prey, just like any other queen would have done. She wasn’t different at all.

Honestly, I shouldn’t have been angry at her for this. This was completely expected behavior. I should’ve been angry at myself for believing anything but the obvious to be true. My own stupidity almost made me laugh.

I didn’t forget that Thysbe was physically stronger than me, and earlier I had believed that meant I had no hope of beating her. But my assessment had changed since then. I’d since learned that Thysbe had no idea how to use magic, and no idea how to do the most basic things with her body like taking on a disguise. She was a broken queen.

As long as I kept my distance and attacked her from long range, she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. I felt reasonably confident I could beat her.

So if she was expecting me to be cowed by her strength, back down, and let her take my prey all for herself, she was sorely mistaken. And if she wanted a fight so badly, I’d gladly give her one.

We’d have a good old fight in the game of survival. Winner took all, loser died.

I gave no warning as I suddenly flashed with green fire, shedding my pony disguise in order to make full use of my powerful and nimble changeling body.

I knew the unexpected flash would momentarily blind Thysbe. I planned to take the opportunity to follow up with a headbutt attack to keep her stunned while I created distance between us.

I smashed my forehead into Thysbe’s face, which sent her reeling back, but she had already reacted before I had even started moving for the headbutt. Her forelegs wrapped around the back of my neck and kept my face pinned against her own. I struggled to free myself, but her hold was strong.

Evidently, she had intended to grab me the moment I made a move, and so had already started reaching for me the moment I began changing my form. My decision to headbutt her had actually helped her out with that, as I brought my body much closer to her to attack her. I had thought my actions would be too fast for her to react to, so I didn’t pay any attention to her hooves, and because of my carelessness she now had a grip on me.

I could feel Thysbe’s footing become unstable after my attack, and since she was using her forehooves to hold onto me, that left only her hind hooves to touch the ground. With the added weight of my body struggling against her, Thysbe lost her balance. I could see her try to compensate by flaring her pegasus wings out of the corner of my eyes, but she obviously had no clue what she was doing with them because she just flapped them wildly.

We both fell onto the hard cobblestone street on our sides, facing each other. I didn’t feel much pain thanks to the protection of my chitin shell, but Thysbe was still in her soft pony form, so I knew that the fall would feel a lot worse for her. I took that opportunity to intensify my struggle against her, thrusting my forehooves into her chest and trying to kick her stomach with my hind legs.

"Ow, fuck!" Thysbe gasped.

I was obviously causing her pain, but Thysbe was desperate to hold on to me and strengthened her grip even further, so I couldn’t twist free. The only strategy I could think of was to keep hitting her until she couldn’t take the pain anymore and decided to release me.

"What the fuck’s wrong with you?!" Thysbe grunted out as she tried to roll on top of me to pin me down. I did everything I could to resist her, and I somehow managed to keep her at bay with my flailing limbs.

"Stop fighting me and calm down, Nephila!" Thysbe shouted.

I responded by sinking my fangs into the tip of her muzzle. I felt my teeth plunge through her soft skin.

Thysbe screamed and pulled her head away from me as she recoiled in pain, but she still didn’t let me out of her grip.

I knew I couldn’t win a close-quarters match with her. It was only a matter of time until she overpowered me. I had to end it right at this moment, while Thysbe was still in shock.

My horn glowed green as I charged it with power. I wouldn’t be using the stun spell I had used on the colt. The spell I was preparing was designed to burn a creature’s flesh until there was nothing left. It would be a powerful stream of emerald fire.

Thysbe managed to recover from her daze before I could finish casting the spell, but there was still little she could do to stop it. She didn’t know how to cast a shield spell. So I redoubled my efforts in getting it ready as fast as I could.

Thysbe took one look at my glowing horn and her eyes widened. She let my body go with one of her forehooves, and I felt smug satisfaction at my imminent victory. Now that her hold on me was so weak, even if I missed with my attack spell, I’d be able to escape her grip easily and try my magic again.

I was so assured of my win and so focused on casting my spell, I forgot to pay attention to what Thysbe was doing again. She thrust her free forehoof towards me, and before I could react, the hoof crashed hard into the base of my horn.

An intense, unbearable agony instantly speared into my brain, as if an iron spike had just been hammered into it with a sledgehammer. I probably shrieked from the pain, but I honestly couldn’t tell what was happening around me anymore. All that existed was suffering and anguish.

Naturally, there was no way I could’ve kept hold of the spell I was in the middle of casting. I let it flicker out without resistance, as if it were merely an afterthought.

I felt a light-headed dizziness mix with the agony, and then I felt nothing.