//------------------------------// // Gatherers and First Discussion // Story: Hive Diplomacy // by Kinni //------------------------------// Aqua's horn glowed, and she brought a folder from behind herself (Cadence was sure the room had been bare before) opened it and brought several sheets of paper to float in front of the Princess. Cadance saw that every file had the name of a city or other similar region, together with pictures and a big number of annotations in too small a script for Cadance to read without getting closer (but she did learn that the Changelings used standard equestrian, at least for this kind of thing), and some of the regions were rather far afield. "Gatherers," Aqua started, in a lecturing tone of voice, while returning all papers to the folder "are the members of the swarm with the mission of travelling to love rich areas and collecting love, for it to be taken back to the hive for distribution. "Collecting love can be done in many ways, but the gatherers are encouraged to be as circunspect as possible to avoid drawing undue attention." She was pacing in a circle around the Alicorn, before stopping and turning her head to look at her while speaking the next part "It is quite easy for a Changeling to feed on someone to the point where they become a living zombie, but this kind of thing leaves traces." She then returned to her pacing. "Different gatherers have different strategies. Some will do voluntary work and charity, others will work in the service industry or anywhere they will be in constant contact with ponies." The Changeling stopped pacing and faced the Princess directly "And some will take a more direct approach, seeking those that are looking for the confort and warmth of another in order to receive their love." The last few words had adopted a more somber tone. "Regardless," her tone returned to normal, and she walked towards Cadence, but wasn't focusing completely on her anymore "often they will have to adopt short-term disguises, but most of their work will be done by maintaining a few continuous roles." She stopped next to the Alicorn and looked at her wings "The system is set in such a way that a new gatherer comes to assume the role whenever the previous gatherer has to go back to the hive make his deposit." Then her head raised "My title was obtained by setting up an entire network of fake identities, even if things didn't go entirely according to plan. Tell me, do you remember this person?" Aqua turned into a young, yellow unicorn mare with a blue mane and a whirlpool cutie mark. Cadance suddenly remembered a strange case that became very famous when she was a filly "Of course, that's White Falls, who was accused by that Red Aura of being part of a secret organizaaa..." Her brain finally caught up to her mouth. The princess understood at that moment about the feelings the literary researchers had when they discovered that the popularly known last 40 chapters of Mares of the Red Chamber were written by another author, and that the original climax of the story was supposed to be very different. "That..." She managed, before being cut off. "You don't need to pity him." The Changeling's voice was annoyed "He had always been planning on betraying me to get some financial compensation. It was the only reason he agreed to help manipulate the records." Then she sounded amused "Too bad for him, I had the help of dozens of Changelings to act as the ponies he 'invented', and their families. And there was also some document manipulation and a bit of mind magic but everything turned out all right." She smiled, before turning back to her true form. "I understand." Said Cadence, in a tone that carried all sorts of hidden meanings. Aqua took to the air, then turned to Cadance "Let's fly." She said before taking off without waiting for a response. Cadance took off after her, and saw that the high chief was going straight towards a wall. She expected some kind of last minute double back, but instead she flew right through the wall, now revealed to be an illusion (or at least, that part of the wall was an illusion). The Alicorn followed after her, but was unable to avoid the instintive flinch when running into the wall, despite putting the lamp to go through first. They came out in a cilindrical tunnel, with Aqua waiting a bit for Cadance to catch up before flying forward. "Of course," She started, even though they were still flying relatively fast "This also means that the gatherers are the biggest and most reliable source of information about the outside world that the swarm has." She suddenly dropped down through another illusory wall, forcing Cadance to scramble to keep up. "The reports sent by the gatherers are first read by other gatherers in standby, since the smallest change being overlooked could lead to serious consequences." Her tone was remarkably casual for the kinds of maneuvers she was pulling off "But the general news is then shared to the rest of the hive." They had somehow gotten back to the kind of corridors that she usually went through walking. Aqua landed in front of a divisory arch and entered the room indicated by it as soon as the princess landed behind her. "This is the report room. Where the reports of the gatherers and others come to be sorted, copied and filed." She explained when they both could see the contents of the room, a bunch of bookshelfs and tables full of paper scrolls, together with three Changelings working. Without warning she went back out of the room and took flight again, with Cadance managing to keep only due to already having predicted something like that. This set the tone for the next half hour. Aqua would fly around until they got to a specific spot, give a short introduction, and then fly away to the next spot, like she was trying to set a speed record for showing the hive to somepony new. "This is acting class, where the Changelings learn how to control their actions and reactions to pass without being discovered or cause specific impressions on others." She showed a room full of big and detailed images of ponies on the walls, and Changelings practicing their forms. "This is the main workshop, where the Changelings learn small crafts to gain money and obtain jobs. Specifically, here they learn about the various jobs and requirements, and the other workshops are where the actual job learning happens." She indicated a room with a Changeling behind a counter and a table full of small leaflets. "This is the psycology room, where Changelings learn about pony personality, and how to take advantage of it to fullfil their missions." She presented a room full of Changelings reading scrolls and writing in them. And during the whole thing, she kept talking while flying about how each of those things was important for gatherers, about how some of it was also important to some of the other orders of Changeling, about how the courses the Changelings had to go through were decided and scheduled... It was almost too much, so the Princess became glad when she was taken to a small break room for the two of them to have their lunch. And yet Aqua still managed to fill the empty space by explaining about how the Changelings needed both food and love to work properly. Cadance almost regretted saying "As much as you can teach me." Almost. It seemed like the high chief of the gatherers was taking the notion entirely too seriously. However, after the food, things seemed to calm down. Aqua took Cadance back to the same places where she had been before, but instead of just an introduction, they actually got to stay for a while. The acting class performed a short play, the psycology teacher did a quiz on several general aspects of the coursework, and the various workshops got to show the visitor exactly what they could do, even making a few gifts for the Alicorn Princess (They were all sent to her room). She also got to meet all those Changelings personally. Cadance finally felt like she was in a true diplomatic mission, and it was a great feeling. The hours passed, and the time came. Another Changeling had come to call the Princess for her discussion with Queen Chrysalis, and she gave a goodbye wave to Aqua before flying after the guard, who went through the same kinds of routes Aqua had been going, except without the same kinds of sudden turns. The guard(not Armor Hide, it was a different one, and she was worrying too much about the upcoming discussion to think about learning his name) stopped by the side of the door leading to the meeting place. This time, it was already well lit when she got there, and Cadance approached the waiting Chrysalis purposefully. "So," Chrysalis started, when Cadance got close enough to her "you have learned about the gatherers today. What do you think is the greatest problem the Changeling horde faces currently?" She looked down at the princess with a certain eagerness. "Nothing surprising, it is a lack of love." She answered, with a frown "Their system is efficient and clearly well put together, but there was always a feeling of insecurity whenever they talked about the love gathered." She breathed deeply and looked at Chrysalis "And the new members are almost too dedicated, it feels like they are under a big pressure to perform well." The princess then adopted an expression of concern "I don't know the specifics, but things aren't going well, and there's no expectation of them getting better." Chrysalis looked at her, admiration at how easy it was for this diplomat to understand things so perfectly warring with sadness due to the mention of the problems plaguing her Changelings. Both emotions showed on her face before she managed to school it neutral again. "Indeed. You are exactly right." She walked to Cadance and stopped right beside her "In the last decades, it has become harder and harder to keep the Hive working." This time the feeling she gave off was unmistakably guilt "I have had to make sacrifices, and consider options that I would have never done before. Insane, reckless options." She approached Cadance a little more "In fact, if that were not the case, I would have never considered allowing an Alicorn inside of my hive." She then looked to the side before returning her eyes to Cadance "So, what do you think I should do?" Now her voice had lost all emotion. "The best way to significantly increase the amount of love you can gather would be actually moving most of the horde to the love rich areas, so that they wouldn't need to depend so much in a limited number of gatherers." Cadance said in a straight tone, already knowing what the answer would be. "Too hard to do in secret." Chrysalis said in an amused tone, as if that was an old suggestion she had heard hundreds of times. Perhaps it was. "And that is exactly the problem." Cadance said, willing herself to maintain a level voice "I can think of no plans that can save the Changelings without necessitating that they break that secrecy that seems to be ingrained into their very bones." Her tone somehow had become apologetic "You will have to consider actually revealing the Changelings to the world." Chrysalis' face scrunched up, like the mere thought was enough to make her sick, but she managed to overcome her distaste to ask: "And then we would just become a normal part of society?" "It would take a lot of work, a lot of projects to educate the ponies about this new race they've never heard off, but..." Cadance had lifted a front leg and was delineating points with its movements "The gryphons did become a normal part of society." This had probably been a good call, Chrysalis actually seemed to be seriously considering it. But it still took quite some time before any response was forthcoming. "We should probably shelve this discussion for now." She finally said "There are still more possibilities to be explored, and this kind of extreme solution would need a lot of guarantees. Do you have any special questions?" That wasn't entirely sucessful, but there was still time, so Cadance asked something that had been bugging her for a while: "Why can't Changelings feed off love from other Changelings? From what I understand about love, this makes no sense. And I know they love just as much as any non-Changeling." She asked in a way that Celestia would classify as very similar to Twilight Sparkle. "There are actually many theories." Chrysalis looked down, as if trying to remember something "But I think the most plausible one is the 'restriction'. Basically, you know how there's very few spells that deal in love?" She was acting more like a scholar. "Yes, there is actually part of the reason I was so eager to meet you." Cadance looked at her in interest. "Sometimes, a mage can apply 'restrictions' to their own magic, in order to make it stronger. In the same way, it's possible that love magic is so powerful, that for an entire race to be able to use it would take pretty heavy restrictions. Like actually needing love to survive, and not being able to use the most easily available love." She finished and looked straight at Cadance, as if daring her to get into a theory argument. Celestia would also classify that as similar to Twilight Sparkle. "This is..." The princess didn't know what to think "Possible...?" "Indeed." Chrysalis instantly recovered all of her ruler poise, in a way that would be funny if she wasn't so charismatic "Any other questions?" Cadance remembered there was something else she could ask: "How did you get your title?" Chrysalis smiled. It was a mysterious smile with an edge of danger. "I'll answer tomorrow. It has to do with the order you'll learn about next on the schedule." She said with that smile still on her face. "I'll hold you to that. Then I'll see you later." The princess did a small bow of respect and started walking towards the exit.