"Let love be felt by all the same as we feel it."
-Central tenet of Hive Love-
*****

Shining Armor stumbled through the hallway of the hospital.

He was unarmored; technically speaking, he was off-duty. Then again, that didn't stop him when he almost-literally blazed through the guards.

He was reminded of something the princesses had said... about the council.

Needless to say, some of them didn't like him, mostly because the guard was always on top of them and their 'pet projects', preventing them from expanding their 'operations'.

Again, needless to say, they swiftly tried to use the opportunity to get the princesses to doubt him and replace him while the dust hadn't even settled yet, hopefully with somepony less competent. Obviously it didn't take, regardless of how much they tried to cast his abilities into doubt by saying how untrustworthy he was, how he had been fooled and controlled.

Princess Luna was quick and oh-so-eager to remind them that they had been fooled themselves, and if -if- that was grounds enough to replace the Captain of the Royal Guard (a position requiring much trust), then it was doubly so for a member of the council (who are supposed to be trustworthy at all times, since they had to make sure that everything that happens, happened for the benefit of the citizenry), and all of them would be replaced as well - effective immediately.

They sang a radically different song after that.

And, since the Royal Guard was so important, having accomplished many great things under his leadership... and even while spellbound, his addled mind was capable of casting the shield with strength enough to repel the invaders right until he was rendered unable to repair the shield... well, he was pretty valuable, and all who pushed so intensely for his removal were (teasingly) accused of having an agenda, or being under the control of the changeling queen, and would be investigated accordingly.

Princess Celestia gauged their responses to her 'joke', and those whose features held despair were actually inspected.

Of course, he already knew who the sleazeballs were - counterfeit articles, mostly art and wines? High Brow. Illegal animal trade, dangerous creatures in particular? Storm Front. And so on, so on; really, the only thing they were missing was an excuse to act.

An hour ago, the idea of those two-faced, backstabbing scumbags saying he was anything less than an excellent example of what the guard aspires to be and a model for the others would have left him in stitches... Now he just wanted to curl up in a corner and- No! He didn't want that! He-he wanted-needed to make things right! He wasn't the same stallion he was that day! He would prove it!

He had to, or his own conscience would drag him down.

Ugh! It was all that changeling's fault! No, he really couldn't say-... ugh! He'd deal with her later!

He needed to send a letter.

*****

Princess Luna rubbed her eyes in a very un-princess-like manner, having remained awake for... she had lost count, and couldn't be bothered to glance at a clock and do math.

Preventing Cadence from freaking out was more important right now, anyways.

Ever since Shining Armor got the message of the capture, he spouted a bunch of - rather gallant, she gave him that- hooey about duty and protecting her and his little sister, then he was off to the hospital they kept her in.

Right! The changeling is a female! Right! She knew that, she didn't forget.

On second thought, maybe letting Celestia go immediately upon receiving word of the prisoner's awakening was a bad idea... she had been very busy hunting Night Terrors that had stirred from the fears of ponies towards changelings, and rest sounded like a marvelous idea.

What had been the period of time between Nightmare Moon's release at midnight and her defeat? Eight hours, ten, tops? How many could she have called in that time? There were still many of her minions loose upon the dreams of ponies, and the stronger of Night Terrors were particularly deadly; thankfully, they were equally obvious. Tough job, sure, but so far she had handled them swiftly; sometimes even before they got somepony - they left plenty of shaken ponies, but not even a close call yet.

Back in the land of the conscious, though, Cadence was holding up fine. She looked determined, but strangely devoid of anger. Maybe her niece had believer her when she had said she saw a mass of changelings fighting one another, or she was that kind, or quite simply did not know what to feel anymore.

In any case, just the same as with her family, she had to remain steadfast in her role as a guardian of Equestria - both in body and spirit. She couldn't let ponydom reduce itself out of fear and hate. Exhaustion or not, she would keep her ponies strong against adversity and kind in the face of conflict.

A scroll materialized in front of her with a 'pop!', causing her to squeak out in surprise. Cadence started giggling a little; since it was a positive emotional display, Luna decided to let it slide without comment.

Still didn't prevent her from pouting.

First of all, she noticed that the scroll wasn't sealed, which was an oddity in and of itself.

She carefully extended it with a hoof...

*****

Only Fluttershy and Twilight remained with the changeling, the others having decided to keep the princess and Shining company. Well, there was a couple of guards just outside, but they didn't quite count.

Twilight wanted to go with her brother, she wanted to hug him and reassure him... but it was his feelings towards her what was hurting him in the first place; she could no more help him that she could put out a fire with oil. He needed to talk to somepony, yes, but that pony could not be her just yet. The whole thing made her want to strike... something in her frustration, but was afraid she would break something even if she didn't use her magic to do so.

All it took for the situation to get out of control was a lone changeling... mare? Whatever the term might be, she managed to break the tension and replace it with something ten times worse.

But she could not blame her, not completely, for telling what she knew. Right now Twilight would have preferred her to be defiant and refuse to say anything like at the very beginning... but fear, injury and hunger are powerful motivators; Iridescence certainly wasn't in any position to do much when her life was in their hooves. On top of that, she implied she wasn't the only one against the plan, but again, fear and hunger limited their options and clouded their judgement.

And now Shiny changed... or would that be, his changes were brought to light? He hated the changeling, enough to kill her, even if he did not quite act upon it consciously.

That didn't sound like the Shining Armor she grew up with. That didn't sound like the Shining Armor that earned his cutie mark defending her from bullies, or the Shining Armor that treated everypony with fairness and respect, be they ponies or zebras or Griffons or whatnot.

And Celestia? She requested to be left alone to think; not that Rainbow or Pinkie were capable of leaving her like that... She would have gone after her mentor and second mother as well, but Celestia had asked her, in such a pained voice that it was impossible to ignore, that she stay with Iris and learn what they could - or prevent her from coming to harm, either by others or by herself. It was obvious that the changeling was scared to death of Celestia, at least before the revelation, and didn't have a positive reaction to the guards either.

She could see the logic - Iridescence seemed to trust the six of them - and even to her it appeared like the best choice, but that didn't mean she had to like having to let two of the most important ponies in her life go away like that.

Iridescence, for her part, was still largely out of it, mumbling about never wanting to leave her hive. A couple of the chains restraining her were removed, and others lengthened, allowing her to curl up to Fluttershy. The way she kept repeating things made it obvious that merely being alone was torture, though nopony knew if it was like this for every changeling or just her.

Fluttershy was... just being herself, letting each whimper cut a tiny piece of her tender heart. The demure caretaker shifted a little, letting the changeling's head rest on her chest; letting her listen to her heart made Iris calm down considerably. She knew things, things that the others either didn't understand, or knew about in an intellectual level but couldn't yet apply like she did.

Fluttershy knew desperation when she saw it.

A cornered animal was very, very dangerous, and the changelings had been driven to a corner in the past years. Not to mention this 'Fall' and the 'War' Iris mumbled about. Coupled with the madness that came hoof-in-hoof with being low on food, Fluttershy did not need further explanations; she was quick to answer to her nature and allow her kindness to flow. She wanted to learn more about changelings.

Funny, first she went along merely because she didn't want her friends to face the scary changeling alo-... well, even with all of the added security in the hospital she wanted to be there for them. Then she couldn't help but feel scared for her when she saw her state. Even Twilight got over her anger rather quickly at seeing what had happened to the insect-like creature.

What Chrysalis did was still wrong, obviously, but it wasn't the first nor the last time desperation lead to extremely reckless decisions.

And, for some reason, Iris was utterly convinced that she would suffer a horrible fate; Iridescence feared death, and only slightly less than she feared turning into a drone.

She covered the changeling's head with a wing, blocking the lights Iris found so harsh, and finally got her to stop sobbing.

Doctor Stable came back shortly afterwards, a jar of honey levitating after him.

*****

The love gathered would hold for six months.

It would be at least twice as long before Morphosai stopped yelling at her at full-blast at every opportunity.

"Would you have done any different!?" Chrysalis yelled back, fangs bared, and the purple queen finally stopped scowling.

She'd like to say 'yes'. She really, really would... but knew that it would be impossible to predict her own reaction. Morphosai couldn't, for the life of her, know how she would act had she been inside Chrysalis's carapace. She just couldn't say she would stick to the plan no matter how delicious, nurturing, filling- oh... that love just had to be so good, didn't it? And since her changelings were more combat-oriented than the greens... she might have made a greater mess of things. She was, after all, just as much of a fighter as Chrysalis.

Covering tracks, defensive spells, toughness, magical interference... the green changelings were not quite as suited for a direct invasion as mixed-range offensive abilities. Yes, she knew that, without proper support from the other hives, hers were the better choice of the two for an attack.

"I don't know." She finally answered, shaking her head, now less... heated with anger. Physically, she wasn't that different from Chrysalis save for the color and mane-cut - hers was straight and shorter.

"Still, Chrysalis's actions have put us all at risk." A white-haired changeling queen said, the uncertainty making her voice unsteady as her posture - and with her lighter build, it appeared a stiff breeze would be enough to make her tip over. "The ponies are largely xenophobic, and might start to hunt our kind in retaliation."

"That... that's not all there is." The youngest of the queens said, causing the white queen's blood to chill further. "I've been told the ponies have captured a changeling that crashed in a town close to Canterlot called 'Ponyville'."

Chrysalis gave a start. She and her forces had been blown back to the Badlands, why had a changeling stopped at such a small fraction of the distance?

"What?!" The others vocalized their surprise, the feeling of static coursing their bodies.

Wait... Chrysalis remembered that she had stationed a spy there - nothing big, just to receive letters quickly and relay the orders contained therein to the rest of the hive so that she could remain inconspicuous posing as the bride. If the shield hadn't just pushed them out, but rather did so to the place they came from... with that kind of force, the changeling should have died.

"What I said. And it's likely that he or she has or is in the verge of starving, since they say it's of a different color from the invaders."

Chrysalis and the others fell silent, knowing the full meaning behind the implications. There were some ways in which a changeling could lose control of their disguise, but the base color was more than just the sign of affiliation - it represented the queen's influence and power! It symbolized the queen's duty to protect those in her charge the same way they would her!

"If-if they captured..." Queen Joy tried to voice the thoughts, but had a hard time of it, the lilt of her voice vanishing quickly. The heavy, bland taste of sadness had that effect. "Do you think the prisoner is already... a drone?"

A dark, heavy mood fell upon them, each picturing that last moment of a starving changeling when their eyes glazed over and their voice forever lost to the hives; they all have had to turn the colors around the barrel black as a mark that... that they had lost a light. Even young Laque had had to... brand drones.

Chrysalis struggled to remember which changeling had that been without having to ask the swarm; she knew there was something out of the ordinary about that one.

"I think I know..." She finally said. "I think it's a spy I placed in 'Ponyville'. I remember her because it was so unusual; a memory witch-"

"What!?" Laque was surprised - it was very irresponsible of Chrysalis to ask a spy like that to join a battle, since the finer points of illusions and indirect confrontations were lost on the straightforward (for a changeling) green queen.

"Calm down, she packs a mean bolt." Chrysalis snorted, and Morphosai just glared at her, the previously-forgotten anger started to warm back right up. "Get this - she can use plenty of force even for a red, but her magic isn't very good outside of manipulating pony memories, she's good at spinning tales, but she just wanted to stay in the hatchery!"

Concordia let out a scream of frustration, knowing just who she was talking about.

The other queens reeled back from the wave of emotion.

"I told you to keep her safe!" Concordia yelled, the eldest queen placing great power in her speech, and the others were brought to their knees, clutching their heads. Chrysalis gasped from the intensity of the wrathful heat.

Chrysalis tried to get back on her trembling hooves, but had to be physically aided by the one who had previously been screaming at her.

"I told you that she had a good bloodline." Concordia's emotions quickly dropped in temperature, as if she were made of and surrounded by nothing but ice. "Her magic is great for teaching hatchlings, or she could give a boost, or many other things away from the ponies."

"S-she- those s-same qualities make her a good spy." Chrysalis gasped as the oppressive presence of the large red queen receded with her emotions. "Like she has some yellow in her."

"Well, she is not. She most definitely is not. She has a severe case of Hive Separation Anxiety Disorder."

Chrysalis only muttered 'typical'; after all, she was born and raised red. In a hive. Most changelings, if not linked to at least a small ring, suffered from it; the separation causing their minds to turn against themselves after a long period without the reassuring feeling of the hives. Frequently. Only trained yellows had less than a fifty percent chance; for them, probabilities took a sudden plunge into just a couple of individuals out of a hundred.

"How 'severe'?" Morphosai asked, referring to the time before the isolation and lack of feelings of safety gave way to whatever insecurities the changeling had.

The red queen kept silent, eyes fixed into the ground, her muted emotions distant and bordering on melancholy.

"How long? Two weeks? One?" Flitter tried to guess, only to be met with silence. "Less?! Days?!"

Concordia, Queen of Hive Love and greatest spellcaster of the Six... hung her head and sighed.

"... Hours."

Once again the queens were shocked. They knew how bad a changeling forced into silence could get, being surrounded by enemies who would be merciless should they discover them, but breaking down so quickly?

"As soon as I learned of her ability, I tested her on her creativity. Imagine, one of mine, so proficient at altering memories! I still had to test her wit, but it had to be hers and hers alone. She did well, making a quick, consistent story, or making explanations, or justifying an absence, or even explaining how it would be possible for some pony to be seen twice, however... she quickly grew distracted, anxious; it got to the point that she started banging the walls of the chamber of silence after three hours."

'Help! Help! Please, the walls are getting closer! Help! Queen! I can't feel anything! Help!' Concordia bit her lips at the memory.

"Then started trying to break through them with her magic shortly thereafter, screaming."

The wards shimmered and groaned as bolts of force impacted the walls they were bound to, each hit preceded by an unearthly wail of pain and fear. It was too dangerous to open the chamber... it was supposed to prevent her from forming a connection and cheating, not drive her insane.

"Only to break down and bargain a way out of her 'punishment'." Concordia recalled the small changeling curling into a ball and crying among scattered papers, promising to do anything if it meant never being alone again. "She was a wreck, willing to debase herself to the status of a drone just to never experience that level of loneliness again; I had to ask Phantasma to erase her memory of the event."

Laque, youngest of the Six, went silent at the mention of her mother.

"I personally gave her the exercises, taught her the mental techniques, the self-distractions... but they will not hold."

"And now she's stuck with ponies! It's been days!" Joy trotted in place, dread chilling her to the core. "They don't even have to torture her, she's doing it herself! What do we do? What can we do?"

Chrysalis didn't say anything; her mind had nothing to say. The Queen of Hive Unity slumped in an absentminded stupor, in the tiny, soundproofed 'conference room' of her hive. She turned towards the Queen of the purple hive, sitting next to her, sending a trickle of determination for support... Morphosai was the only queen aggressive enough to go yell at her in person.

Right now, she appreciated it. Right now, she didn't want to know what it was like to not be able to feel a changeling physically next to her. Right now, Morphosai's heart sent little pulses through the ground that meant so much more than just information.

*****

*Pop!*

The scroll was sent.

*Pop!*

Pinkie Pie jumped, apparently, from within the cushions of a seat.

Princess Celestia felt a tug at the corners of her mouth. The experience repeated itself when she heard Rainbow Dash's hooves on the floor.

Pinkie didn't even have to do anything, her smile and her eyes spoke for her. To Celestia, with so much experience reading expressions both in court and out of it, even the guards were but open books.

Comfort. Support.

Love.

Well, the Element of Laughter understood that there wasn't much she could do, other than being there. She had made her mistakes, and she had to learn from them, and... and...

Pinkie placed a hoof over hers. Rainbow Dash looked at her with a sad smile, and something more in her eyes.

Loyalty. Hope.

Celestia sighed and laid down on a nearby seat, letting her weight fall since she wasn't in the mood to be delicate.

The guards at each side of the doors at each end of the hall made a small twitch. A flick of the tail, a trembling of the cheeks, flare of nostrils.

Worry.

*****

"Come now sugarcube, yah can get thru this." Applejack ignored the hoof-wave of dismissal from the white stallion before her. She placed a hoof juuust a little closer to him, watching how his ear flickered, but his eyes remained glued to the scroll in front of him.

She wanted to keep an eye on him. He had been told something ugly about himself, and the shock and denial wouldn't continue forever.

When he crashed, he'd come down hard.

Rarity knew that, too, and was trying to - not help with his letter, no! Merely... provide auxiliary consultation about who he shou-could see and speak of his problem. His parents, Cadence... she wanted to hold off suggesting Applejack and herself for a little while longer - they had little sisters of their own, after all- but the choice was, ultimately, his.

The guards unnerved Rarity a little, but she understood their presence.

Oh, how had things changed! And they gave no sign of stopping.

Author's Note

A small run-down of changelings and the differences between them. As ponies have the three basic races, so do changelings have a distinction between broods. A changeling can, and in fact, many do, have a talent or interest for an ability of a different hive - some transfer to said hive, or place their skills to the service of their current queen directly. Of course, an average changeling has plenty of skills, it's just that there are certain tendencies within their hive.

Love changelings tend to have high magic power, reserves, and can usually reach further with their spells than other changelings. They can technically use that strength for other things, like flight, but those things are usually better left to blue changelings. Concordia is the most powerful spellcaster of the six queens, and has the greatest distance in her spells. Rumor has it that she killed a baby Scorpio from so high up that no changeling could see her, and the thing never suspected it was in danger.

Positivity changelings are the fastest in general, though of course some prefer flight and others prefer hooves. They are excellent scouts and very dangerous up close and personal. Stealth, short-range spells and melee combat are right up their alley. Joy is the most agile flier of the six, is so fast and quick as to be untouchable and well-armored if a hit lands, and is deadly with hooves and knives.

Charity Changelings are good with illusions, mind magic, and other indirect methods of getting the upper hoof. Diplomacy and deceit alike are wielded with great efficiency to get what they want, making them great negotiators, spies, manipulators and actors. Laque is still young, but the art of disguise is second nature to her and is the best actress, and her skill with illusions is undeniable and so is her ability to cast complex and delicate spells.

Trustfulness changelings are great warriors, good at both ranged and close fighting. They can adapt quickly to changes in the flow of battle and can be just as cunning as any yellow changeling. Morphosai is a warrior queen and good with strategy, her fighting ability honed to the point of appearing precognizant, and her grasp of combat magic is very solid. Morphosai also encourages teamwork and group maneuvers, and are great support for any kind of team of any combination of changelings.

Unity changelings are really tough and good with defensive magic. Shields, counter magic, interference, and basically anything that prevents the enemy from harming them or their teammates. They have some good healers as well. Chrysalis is also a warrior, and is very, very tough; her magical abilities for combat are just as good as Morphosai's, and supplemented with strong healing magic. Chrysalis is also skilled at the time of getting the changelings together, and her hive is very tight-knit even when compared to the others.

Empathy changelings tend to have average abilities, save for something they specialize at. One could seem to be mediocre at fighting, but then could reveal that he or she is actually a really fast flier on par with a blue changeling with skills to match, while another might be hiding strong mind magic or an affinity for healing spells. Flitter might be seen as frail, but she is very fast at the time of casting spells, most of them either mind spells or healing spells, and her ability with disguises is also very good.

Changelings whose only colored portions are the eyes and the saddle-shaped portion of their backs are drones, though all teams choose a single color at time of deployment for the sake of uniformity, and may disguise themselves as drones or the drones as normal.