"May love fill us and our desires.'"
-Central tenet of Hive Charity-
*****

A little filly was playing in the sand next to her parents. She had found a flower! It was really pretty, all blue and glowing and it made her just so happy!

Mommy said it was a really special flower called 'spellbloom' that held magic inside it! And dad said she could keep it! He used a spell to make a pot for it, and she hugged it.

Dad warned her of the desert rose, saying that they couldn't keep those because the wild ones were explosive.

It was rainy season in the forest, so it's border with the desert was safe, clear of Scorpans; it also was the start of Salamander breeding season, so they were waaaay over there by the volcanoes on the other side of the Desert of Glass Sand. It was provably the safest time in a decade or two to get close to the remains of the Central Hive.

The brave parties of explorers had found old spells and such - sadly, the really good things of the court mages, like controlling swarms of bugs and how to 'enhance' them, likely were in the library of the castle smack dab in the middle of the city proper. Much too dangerous.

But other things, less regulated, could be found in the outer parts of the city. Slowly but surely, they would retake the castle... they were getting closer.

Queen Concordia herself had been there to encourage the parties when they set out. She was currently high above, on top of a cloud, while the greens tended to the other visitors and their own Queen.

She liked the greens, they had their hive in the Badlands, that craggy strip of desert between the forest and the desert, just so that the things inside would stay there!

Scorpion stew was surprisingly yummy, too. Dad and mommy got to go to many places!

'Run!' She heard the call from one of the search parties. 'Scorpio! There is a Scorpio!'

The Star Beast was so large, even from where she was she could see its stinger peeking behind the rock and dunes. The yellowed, star-speckled appendage was swatting at the air, and a thin blue streak could be seen weaving to and fro. The great majority of Scorpios were mindless animals, following mere instinct, very unlike most other stellar creatures... she knew it had to do with the significance of the constellation and the representation of the scorpion... but she wasn't sure.

Dad wasted no time in grabbing hold of her and taking flight, as the soldiers quickly took to the air in formations - some landing on the huge outcroppings of rock jutting out of the sand. Mommy was somewhere out there.

Queen Chrysalis must have ordered her troops on her own, because she didn't hear anything. The green queen advanced until she was on top of the tallest dune, and began casting her spells - the blue streak popped out of existence in a green flash, only to wink back in behind the line of soldiers.

More and more changelings popped into being behind the soldiers and, once they gave the signal that all of them were safely away from the creature, she heard the call of her own Queen.

'Lend me your strength!' She said, and thanks to the height in her dad's flight, she could see that Queen Concordia was much higher than she had ever seen a changeling fly!

She could feel how her dad was directing his magic to Queen Concordia, and it was filled with his love for her. She wanted to help, too! She loved her dad, and her Queen too! She closed her eyes, letting her tongue poke out as she scrunched her face and sent a trickle of her magic; she could feel her flower, firmly in her grasp, leaking some magic into her for her use.

It was... a thing of beauty. She could feel all of the others right next to her, even when safely in her dad's embrace and so far away from them... like... like the stars... yes! Like the stars in the night sky, hundreds of dots lit up all around.

The clouds began to swirl, gathering around a black dot glowing a hot red. Queen Concordia allowed herself a smile; her subjects had absolute trust in her, and that was the reason she could protect them. Countless tiny sparks dancing like a sea of stars, filling her beyond fullness. She reached out gently, taking a little bit of what was offered and fueling her spell.

The clouds began to gather, darken, crackling with power as what should have been an ordinary thundercloud spell was taken to its utmost limits by hundreds of changelings working in unison. Concordia merely directed the energy, shaping it and just letting it flow.

Lightning split the skies, and the air sang with thunder; all according to the rhythm of a ghostly orchestra of arcane energies permeating a blood-red changeling. Her whole body encased in a crimson aura of power, she began her next spell.

The hole in the clouds let the sun shine over the rampaging Star Beast, a mere baby, but no less dangerous from it; a single eye was larger than Queen Phantasma, and she was the tallest of the changelings.

Lightning arced and danced around Concordia, and her spell was ready. Chrysalis gave the order to shield up.

The clouds discharged their power towards the queen of Hive Love, but suddenly bent towards the ground before reaching her, taking a red coloration.

The little changeling could see the red even through her eyelids, and the titanic peal of thunder would have knocked them out of the sky if not for dad's speed with the shield spell. It didn't matter; she knew she was safe.

The Scorpio had a hole blown clear through it, and began to dissolve into stardust. A bright sphere of light shot off into the sky, as the golden powder drifted away into the red and green queens, absorbing the stellar magics and sending it back to their subjects.

It took a small army to kill one, even if it was just a baby, but it just so happened that there was an army of changelings, and a pair of queens that took their strength from them.

*****

"Magic does require a sacrifice, but it must be a carefully-chosen one." Queen Concordia said, eyeing her subjects as they stood in line for the next part of their training in magic. "You have made me proud, discovering the point of this test."

The previous test had to isolate the changeling being tested; Queen Phantasma had offered to keep her eyes on a certain changeling - she had the convenient excuse of wanting to present Concordia to her youngest daughter, Laque. However, the changeling under observation, though she passed the test, had declined further advances; she felt magic would not be her strong suit, what with all her troubles.

"Remember this: Magic used without love is a waste. Treasure all bonds and never forget them, even should you find yourself having to reduce their influence over you, even should you find yourselves having to wield your magic in negative emotions."

She faced each of her subjects, and proceeded with the one old tale that everyone in the hives knew.

"Queen Amor, before she was queen and made the first hive as we know them, had very weak magic. After saving the one male she loved, the only one, the one she was madly in love with, she realized that magic used for the heart's desire was the strongest. Her preparations became the first Trials... to properly reach an understanding of magic, not merely learning spells; she discovered that holding certain things into her heart impeded her, and overcame them through the Trials. She wanted to help her kin, and would not allow anything to stand in her way, not even herself; she decided then, that to learn the proper ways of magic, she had to sacrifice her ignorance as to the state of her fellow changelings; giving us our deep connection with one another. In order to reach the highest level of magic use, she sacrificed her selfishness; this is the origin of our capacity to feel what others feel."

The ones to continue their training well beyond the basic education would spend... quite some time in deep thought, reflecting about their lives and what direction would they wish to take.

*****

Iridescence stepped out of the bathroom, the amiable mental 'buzz' of the other changelings in the building joined in a sort of mini-hive soothing her mind just as much as the warm bath.

"Feeling better?" The owner asked, setting a cup of tea for her. He was a changeling, so was his wife; they were from families that had chosen to live outside of the hives.

"Plenty! That last mare really irked me, though." She sorted, walking to the table as she returned to her changeling form. "She wasn't here even for a lay! She just wanted somepony to humiliate! Ugh, she should know that that was way out of line."

The green-coated 'stallion' nodded, frowning.

"She just... gah!" Iris shook, her silky red mane would need some styling, but she would take care of it later.

"Say... you said you were a Carrier, right?" The shift in topic would be jarring by pony standards, but the red changeling could tell that he intended for the conversation to turn to that long before she stepped out of the tub.

"Oh? Ready to take that big step?" Iris's eyes widened in anticipation. "Yes, I am. A reservoir is not something that just goes away, you know? And neither does a bloodline, but that's neither here nor there."

"I still can't wrap my head around how somepony with that much depth isn't a ranked spellcaster." He scratched his lemon yellow mane in confusion.

"Right! you are one, no? Facing fears and making journeys... What did you give up on the last Trial?" It was a personal question, sure, but being among changelings...

"An old pendant; it was just perfect, you know? It didn't even have any good memories, being just... just a reminder of difficult times - similar times." He had a neutral look on his face, which brightened slowly. "A little connection to the world, one I invested in, but held me back instead. Now? My will extends through and beyond that loss... and I found her."

"And now you intend to request my service?" She nudged his hoof, waggling her brow. "I figured Carriers wouldn't be considered much outside of a hive."

He tapped his hooves together nervously. "We... well, neither one of us can quite match your reserves, and any others that could that we know of have settled for other things and would be quite difficult to get on board the idea."

"Well, we just have to go get her. Too bad there aren't any Spellblooms around here... I still wonder what caused that many to just up and wilt like that."

*****

The additional weight of the moon and its seal had, those first few years, been a torturous, draining affair. She had gotten used to it through the centuries, to a degree - mostly by slowly changing the structure of the government and reducing stress born from nobles abusing their powers and having to deal with the resulting fallout...

It was getting close to the prophetized time... 'close' by her standards, in any case. Still years to go, but, sadly, she was starting to feel the strain once more.

She needed a strong plan in reserve, one that could catch anything that Nightmare Moon might try to sneak past her in her debilitated state. She... didn't think she was that affected, but she was not going to take any chances; too many variables, too many places and events that could get things spiralling out of control in the in-between.

She twitched near-imperceptibly as she listened to the two stallions locked in heated debate. They missed her stressed gesture. One of them, Starfall, was against his student taking one of the guard's tests, while the other, Silver Sword, having caught wind of Starfall's intention to ask Celestia to intervene, tried to demand that the colt take his duty as guard before his studies in magic.

Starfall had tried to get her to revoke the test before (assuring that it was not worth it), but this was the first time the teacher had something, rather, somepony, of personal interest in the thick of things.

She managed to placate Sword by saying that studies in magic would serve the Guard well, and Starfall had time and time again proven that he was more than capable enough to make important choices... and his students were always impressive.

But... she would not remove the test, allowing the instructors to do as they deem fit. If the instructors wanted to keep it, they could.

The plan she had to save her sister was... not as delicate as one would think without knowing the full scope of things, but she still needed as many reliable guards as she could get in time. She thought it was a bit of a mean test, but she couldn't risk any of the guards freezing up if any creatures of fear decided to... eugh! The sheer deviousness of their deceitful tricks made her heart ache...

It was just a test. She didn't see how it could be as bad as Starfall made it out to be - well, it conflicted with the way he taught, yes, but he was most likely exaggerating when he spoke of repercussions.

Author's Note

Amor means 'Love', if it wasn't clear enough.