Reclamation

Reclamation

Chapter 2

A Queenly Finding

“Farewell my faithful subjects, and remember, wherever you are, the hive will always be with you.” With said words, the queen of the changelings lowered her lengthy, jagged horn to level with the little changelings standing nervously in front of her. Like every changeling before these three, the rite of passage consists of leaving the hive, blending into foreign civilization and gathering power for their siblings back at home. A lot of tradition and rituals were deemed “impractical” and were abolished after Chrysalis’ “accidental” ascension to the throne, and among the myriad new inventions of the queen, very few came with a ritual like the Pilgrimage did, much less involving the queen herself.

She watched her subjects became tiny dots in the sky, then turned from the cave entrance with a sigh. They were to return only after a full cycle of seasons, and she hated to send away the young ones on such fickle journeys, but power was everything in a changeling’s life, and they come in the strange form of “love” which the growing hive was forever finding itself in need of more. So every changeling had to do his part.

Chrysalis came eye to horn with one of her observer from the Griffin Kingdom. She rolled her eyes, of course she knew she meant it when she said the hive will always be with those outside the hive, but the appearance of an observer rarely herald good news. “What is it?” She asked, a little distraught from parting with the young ones just before.

“There was a rogue,” answered the observer in his dry, cracked voice, he paused for a moment, then lowered his head and braced himself. “and it may have entered Equestria.”

The drone was wise to have taken the necessary precautions, and was only knocked on his back by the queen’s outburst of energy.

“Then why are you here without it?!” Chrysalis was livid, she had just reluctantly sent away three of her children, and now? As if having a rogue wasn’t enough, the little critter dared to venture into Equestria, the forbidden ground declared by her herself?

No changeling disobeyed her.

“It, it attacked us and got away. We went after it but it slipped north to the borders. So I, I have come to inform your highness at once.” Fear was evident in his voice.

Assaulting her subjects? That’s just one more crime to be condemned. Chrysalis must see this “rogue” for herself, but first she would have to deal with the trembling figure before her lest he died from panic. She calmed down a little, regaining her posture, then lifted her observer to his hooves with magic. “Well then, it seems I shall have to deal with this myself, you are dismissed.”

The little changeling stared incredulously at her, still taking in what had happened, then just when understanding begun to sink in and he was about to mouth his infinite gratitude, Chrysalis added: “And we will discuss your incompetence later.”

The expression change on his little face was so dramatic that the queen had to stifle a chuckle.

==========

According to the observer, the rogue was last seen to the west of the changelings' domain in the Badlands. It came in undisguised, assaulted a group of gatherers in one griffin settlement and ran off north into the mountains on Equestrian-Griffin Kingdom border, a line no changeling was supposed to pass. Chrysalis never did found out the reason behind this, she had not ventured into Equestria herself and enforced the order only because it was the old queen's sole wish for her and her subjects. However, she was not troubled as much by the rogue's probable passing into Equestria as she was by its insubordination and the fact it attacked her subjects, for which she would chase the little traitor into Equestria even if it meant forsaking the old queen’s will, she was doing this for her race after all.

The queen and her personal guards landed on a gently sloped mountainside, a day's journey had taken them to the region where the rogue was supposed to be. The vegetation was heavy, but that was not a problem to the queen, as every single changeling was tied to her, and she did not need her eyes or ears to know their whereabouts when they are in her general vicinity. Concentrating her senses, she found that the traitor was currently . . . above them?

With a snarl a white, zebra-like creature leapt off the tree at them, abandon in its eyes. That was a changeling all right, but she was not familiar with the form it took. Her guards flinched a little, startled to see such a grotesque creature coming at them, but they quickly recovered and, horns aglow, erected a shimmering green force field around them and their queen. The creature bounced off the shield to slam into a huge spruce five meters away, sending a shower of needles and cones down on its head. The guards looked to Chrysalis for their next move, maintaining their stance and the shield.

“Your queen can handle this, stand down." She ordered them.

The guards obeyed her command without a word, they stood behind but never took their eyes off the creature as their monarch slowly cantered towards her assailant. It was still dazed from the impact and was fumbling about its head with holeless whooves. Chrysalis sauntered around it for a while before stopping by its side and pressing a hoof on the traitor's chest.

"What is your name, my beloved subject?" The queen asked with mock motherly love and caressed her hoof across the downed creature’s body. It gave no response, Chrysalis was starting to worry if the impact had cracked its skull, that would be no fun at all. With a sigh, she squeezed her hoof down, hard.

This jerked that thing out of its trance and it begun thrashing wildly about, losing its disguise in the process. It had every common trait of her changelings but one thing was amiss, its eyes, they lacked the spark of a sentient being. It looked as if it had its soul taken apart and reassembled in some peculiar way so that the creature felt like one of her subjects but was at the same time alien.

Limbs swaying about, the creature's horn also lit up and several feeble rays of green energy shot out. Chrysalis gave a yelp of surprise when one of the beams caught her mane, but was even more surprised to find it barely left a mark. Only now did the queen realize its thrashing was also powerless, it was weak, possibly the result of a week's absence of feeding. It matched the observer’s description of the rogue, but now it appeared to be more of a victim than an offender.

Suddenly the urge to make a horrific example of this poor thing didn’t seem so prominent, Chrysalis’ anger now finding a new focus. Whoever conducted this atrocity would pay, and they would pay dearly. . . .

“Take him back to the hive and have Moor look after him, tell her I’ll be back in a few days.” Chrysalis motioned to her guards. The hive could do a few days without its queen, and she was absolutely sure her chief advisor could take care of the well-being of her subjects. As for her, she had something to reckon with the monster that did this.

==========

The Equestrian side of the border was largely uncharted on the maps from other civilizations that her minions were able to gather, and it took the queen almost a whole day to find something resembling a settlement. Since the griffins had magical prowess the level of a changeling infant, the culprit who manipulated her subject’s soul must have resided in Equestria. It was a land of mystery in Chrysalis and her changelings’ eyes, but she would brave any danger if it meant justice for her children, just as she would to punish those who disobeyed her orders.

The settlement she found was shabby even by zebra standards, consisting of a few ramshackle huts around a small train platform. More of those zebra-like creatures were busy taking some boxes out from a train. If these creatures used trains as well as most civilizations the changelings encountered, they might share a common language, so this looked like a promising start.

Fluttering her wings harder, Chrysalis sped towards the settlement. One of those creatures saw her approaching, froze, and then let out an ear-slitting scream, an instant later the entire camp exploded into chaos. The creatures begun running about crying at the top of their lungs while bumping into each other now and then, their fear so thick that Chrysalis almost crashed into an invisible wall made of it. She can’t help but pity these poor frail things, with their soft furry bodies, no wings, no horns and no holes, no wonder they were so easily scared.

As the queen made her descend she noticed not all those creatures were screaming about, four of them were shouting for the others to keep calm and not panic. They had stubby horns on their heads, marking them as leaders of some sort. The horned creatures’ valiant efforts succeeded partly in easing their fellows, as most of the other creatures stopping running and went for cover behind a pile of boxes, from which heads of different colors poked out and eyes blinked here and there. It kind of reminded Chrysalis of her servants when they absent-mindedly spilt her favorite honey on the polished obsidian floor and caused her to slip on her rump in front of a not-so-small “audience”. She shook her head and a smile crept up to her face. Then a call from one of those horned creatures brought her back to reality.

“Hey you, can you understand me?”

Crude just like any other soft-hides. “Of course, and I’m fairly certain that I’m better-read than most of you peasants.” She took some time enjoying their shocked expressions before continuing. “And you will tell me what you are, and you shall address me as queen, queen Chrysalis of the changelings.”

At hearing this, the four’s eyes widened so much that they threatened to bulge out. For a moment they only stood and gaped, then the tallest of them with a broken horn recollected itself and with a false start, it said: “We humbly welcome your presence your majesty, I’m Shade of the Equestrian Intelligence Service, and these three are my colleagues, we are here to -” he suddenly paused, cast a glance around and then went on in a lower voice. “- investigate rumors of changeling presence around the area.”

Well that was suspicious, none of the other races knew of their existence before their first encounter, how could these. . . . What were they again?

“I’m asking what you are, not what you do.”

The supposed leader, obviously confused by the question, hesitantly answered: “We are eh . . . ponies?”

Ponies? A suitable name for such frail creatures.

“And you ponies know of us how?” She pressed, if this one was here to “investigate” the changelings, she might well be able to get some information on her query from it.

The head pony seemed strangely relieved by this question, it turned around and called out to its hiding comrades: “It’s all right everypony, we’ve got the situation under control, her majesty here means us no harm, you may return your work.” Chrysalis made a mental note to remind the insolent pony never to make promises on her behalf if it did that again later.

The coward ponies were clearly not reassured by this announcement, but the leader ignored this and with a wave to its three companions, turned back to the queen and said: “This really is not a place to talk, if you majesty would please follow me.” Chrysalis had never been one for etiquette, considering those “hindering”, but decided to humor this self-claimed pony-in-charge for the moment.

“Very well then, lead on.” She said with an indication of her head.

==========

They went into the woods around the camp and came to a halt at a clearing among the trees. Chrysalis wondered if these ponies’ have the same sense of “hospitality” as those of the zebras, be one with the nature or something of the sort, then the head pony, whose name only now registered to Chrysalis as Shade, produced a black orb out of somewhere and laid it on the ground at the center of the clearing.

“Please come closer your majesty, so I may teleport all of us at once.” Shade called.

Mass teleportation? Maybe these softies were not as weak as they appeared.

After Chrysalis strode to his side, shade lit up his horn, closed his eyes and concentrated. Glowing black veins crawled out from the orb to the perimeter as they merged to form a circle around the five, then a dome of darkness rose up from the lines to engulf them all, the darkness followed by a sensation of falling. It felt all too familiar, much like the changelings’ own tunneling spell. These ponies continue to amuse her.

The dark veil vanished some time later and Chrysalis had to squint from the sudden appearance of light. The first thing she noticed after her eyes adjusted was not the fact they were in some tower with strange contraptions and parchments lying about, nor was it four zebra-like creatures’ wobbling, it was the overwhelming smell of, of love and of power, if the spring of love that had sustained the changelings for almost a millennium would be compared to a stream, then this place was like an ocean, a truly endless source of power. She bolted for the window, ready to leap out into this sea of joy.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, you majesty.” came the annoyingly calm voice of the pony Shade.

Chrysalis cursed, how could she had completely forgotten the presence of these “lesser species”. She turned around to face the audacious pony.

“And why should I listen to you, pony?”

“Because this is the capital of my country, the seat of power of the tyrants who call themselves goddesses and who rule Equestria with iron hooves. And they don’t take kindly to outsiders.

“Is that a threat?” said Chrysalis as she scowled and defiantly charged up her horn.

“No, it was merely the situation my beloved country currently finds itself in.” The pony stated matter-of-factly and begun pacing around the tiny room while his three followers stood silently to the sides. “If my assumptions are correct, your highness went to Hope to look for one of your subjects?”

Chrysalis did not say a word, instead keeping her eyes fixed on the pony.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then. In fact, as I said earlier, we were looking for the changeling too, they would occasionally occur as a result of our princesses' hunger for power, and we would be there there to. . . deal with them, on the very tyrant's orders.”

“You are a terrible liar pony, you reek of fear.”

Shade sighed. “So it was true you changelings can read emotions of others. Then I guess there’s no use holding anything from your highness now.” He trotted to a window and put his front hooves on the windowsill. “I only ask that you hear my reasons before wiping my insubstantial existence off the face of the world.”

Not waiting for a response, he continued: “The changeling you were after was actually a pony, and he was . . . close to me. He volunteered in our experiment with the magic of love and suffered the consequences of our ignorance. We did everything we could to repair the damage but haven’t even managed to salvage a bit of his sanity.”

Chrysalis winced at the stench of sorrow. Sentimental ponies, just as she was beginning to respect them. Still it was a shame she wasted her affection on that thing which was not even from the Hive. This would have to be addressed later, but the pony didn’t have to know that.

“He escaped from us and was not heard for several months, and when we learnt of a changeling presence on the borders, we decided to investigate and if necessary . . . end his suffering.”

“And you brought me here so you may atone for your crimes?”

“No, what I did can never be forgiven. I just don’t want his sacrifice to be in vain. We have lost too many trying to master the magic of love.” Shade turned away from the window to face the changeling queen again. “The royal sisters, rulers of our country, forbid the study of the art, stating that it could ‘lead to catastrophic events’. Only recently did we discover the nature of such ‘event’: Them losing their power. From our research on the subject, love is an immensely powerful source for magic, much stronger than regular unicorn magic, so it must be the power of love from their countless subjects that sustained the immortal royal sisters and gave them power over all of us, and they forbid its study for fear of someone who’s also well versed in the magic of love threatening their rule. They withhold the knowledge of such a scale out of their selfish needs and are therefore not fit to be called our ruler. We’ve been trying to show the truth to the public and bring down their tyranny, but the number of their blind followers was simply too large, and they are reluctant in accepting the truth. So we need you, your highness, surely you and your changelings can help us put the sisters down to where they belong.”

The changelings were not well-received by other civilizations, and this pony, on his first meeting with the queen wanted her to help dethrone his own rulers?

“How much do you know of us to think we can help you?”

“You are beings of love, and the only ones capable of harnessing the magic of love to match up to the tyrants of our country.”

“Suppose we are, then why should we help you? We are not known for our generosity among other species you know.”

“Because if you do, we will gladly offer our love to you and your subjects.”

Chrysalis pretended to muse at this bold claim, as she knew all too well love can only be taken, not offered, but decided it would do no harm to humor his pathetic request, she could use him to learn more about the land and its denizens to make up her own plans.

“As much as I despise plotting behind your own monarch, I deem your cause to be just and therefore I, queen Chrysalis of the changelings, hereby declare alliance with the pony Shade. We will aid in his quest of liberation and he and the citizens of Equestria shall offer their love to us in return.” She finished with a toss of her disheveled blue mane and cast a leer at her beneficiary. “Well?”

To her surprise, the expression on Shade’s face was not one of astonishment and gratitude, and she suddenly couldn’t feel his emotion. The pony was clutching his head as if in great pain and incoherent whispers escaped his mouth now and then.

“What’s wrong with you?” She inquired, though not out of concern.

“I’ll never-“ Chrysalis thought she felt a burst of anger.

“Come again?”

“I’m, I’m fine your highness. Word, words can’t express my gratitude for you and your race.”

“Hmm. Yes, I think I can see that.”