Altered Visage Chapter 13 · 7:41pm Feb 18th, 2016
In which I drone on and on about chapter 13 of the story: "Princess of the Hive". Spoilers and such after the page break.
edit: I fudged the chapter numbers for how many are in the story and which one I was working on, I had gone based on the numbers before I split up the original chapter 10 into 2 chapters. Fixed now.
So, as you can see, I have delved right back into using the "______ of the Hive" chapter titles after only a single chapter away from it. There will be one more chapter that follows this convention before I break from it for the rest of the story, not that there's much left at this point. There will be 17 chapters, so that means only three left. Well, sixteen chapters plus a potential epilogue. We're in the home stretch of this story, it's nearly complete. I've nearly completed writing chapter 16, and I doubt 17 will be a particularly difficult chapter to write as it is mostly going to be wrapping things up. But I should probably talk about those when I get to them.
First thing....If you ignore the side chapter (which was actually written after this one), it's the first time I've introduced the idea that there's a land called Minoa (named after Minoans of Crete, where King MInos ruled and had kept the Minotaur in Greek Mythology). It's the second time that I've put forth the idea of other changeling hives, this one being in the land of MInoa. Much like with the the land's name, I gave the Queen of the Minoan hive a name inspired by the mythology of Crete, Queen Minas, what I consider to be a feminized form of Minos. Admittedly, that name would probably be more suitable for the leader of the Minotaurs, but oh well. There's also the implication that Chrysalis may not be on the best terms with this other Queen, seeing how she didn't like her son wooing her daughter, though obviously not so much so as to be hostile, as she hadn't worked very hard to prevent the relationship even if she didn't like it.
Also, we learn that Pupa is actually a prince of this foreign hive and actually came to this hive with the express purpose of wooing Visage, likely in an effort to gain some kind of political alliance with the Equestrian hive. Honestly, it's not that surprising that Visage's lover had been a changeling of importance, and a foreign prince certainly fits the bill of being important.
Now that leaves me with Drymanid. In the previous (main) chapter, Chrysalis' words of "Perhaps in different circumstances..." to Drymanid was meant to imply that she supported him as a suitor for Visage It's rather blatant in this chapter, thanks to Pupa's accusations, that Drymanid had feelings for Visage as well. Does this mean that Drymanid might be some other foreign prince? Perhaps from the land of the Griffons? Well...no. I realize I've never stated it, but Drymanid is very much a changeling of the Equestrian hive. In my mind, even if not made explicit in the story, he is from a respected family in Chrysalis' hive, likely a family with a decorated military history. While I don't think that the hive actually has nobles, his family could be considered to be of similar social status thanks to having the favour of the Queen.
It's also explicitly stated that Chance is more or less seeing the memories of Visage in her dreams, though I'm sure most of you probably had figured that one out already. Every single dream she has has some relevance to the story, though admittedly not all of them have something to do with Visage's past. In this we get to see a bit of the history leading up to Visage's imprisonment by Nutcase, including just before and during the Canterlot invasion, Nutcase discovering them and Nutcase snapping when Visage tried to leave, though how much of each segment is memory and how much dream is intentionally left fuzzy. Did Visage really attempt to leave peacefully only to be brutally attacked by Nutcase, or was that just a dream Nutcase responding to her waking up and inspired by Chance's fear of her? Who knows? Anyway, it shows that Nutcase wasn't always as bad as she was shown as during this story, not to say that she was a good character. The power she had over the changelings definitely twisted her into a complete monster, but she was still a horrible person. It was certainly not my intent to try and get anybody to like her or sympathize with her by showing that she wasn't as bad at the start, or showing that she was really lonely after the death of her husband. Chrysalis may be a character in the grey, but Nutcase if firmly in the vile category.
Let's see....what else is there. Oh right, "royal essence". Gee, I wonder what that could be? Anyway, though it is probably quite obvious what's going on with that, I'm not going to state it explicitly here because it hasn't been stated explicitly in the story yet, either.
I think that's enough rambling for this chapter. Hope you enjoy what I've put out there.
Wow. That's really in depth. Good for you. I'll hafta check it.
Hey, it was a very good chapter. Do you plan on having other changeling hives? If so you could pm me what kind of ideas you have for other hives and if you want use my hive at some point.
3762760
I'm sorry, but I don't plan on putting your hive into my story, nor do I intend on having the Minoan hive (or any other) playing a major role in this specific story outside of Pupa's presence. As I've said before, I can put in a sort of reference to your hive as kind of Easter egg (which was the intent with giving Chrysalis' personal guards emerald armor, since your hive has such an affinity for that gem), but I'd rather keep my story separate from other peoples' works.
3762777 Oh. I don't see that reference you did about my hive. Thanks!
3762793
It's a fairly subtle one, I admit.