//------------------------------//
// The Ambassador's Homeland 
// Story: Common Ground 
// by LunasCaptain 
//------------------------------//

	Pain.

That was the first thing it noticed.  An aching, crackling agony in its neck, throbbing from the top of its shell to the back of its head.  It was hot and dull, as nauseating as hate.  It grimaced.  Its fangs pressed into something thin and dry.

"Carapace."

Feeling was beginning to creep past its shoulders. It fel a gentle touch on its shell, and weakly twitched its wings.

"Breathe, Carapace."

It opened its mouth and inhaled.  Its neck protested, but its chest expanded.  Organs that had lain dormant for hours began to thrum and pulse again.

"Can you hear me?  Stay still."  The touch moved up its shell, then migrated to its chest and the bands of its belly.  Probing, checking.  Presumably making sure that everything was working right.

It moved its hindlegs and flicked its tail, then wiggled its forehooves.  Everything felt so...weak.  It felt, but it could barely move.

"It will take awhile.  Just try to remember to breathe."

The voice was even and emotionless.  It found it soothing.

Hours might have passed (or maybe just minutes) while Carapace focused on bringing itself back.  It was awhile before it could open its eyes.

The world was blurry and unfocused, but its gaze immediately flicked to a fuzzy red something in the corner of its field of vision.  The something reached down and pushed its mane out of its face.

"Elytra," Carapace croaked, raising its head with some difficulty.  Fire arced in a spiderweb pattern across its neck.

"Your exoskeleton is cracked," Elytra replied, gently pushing its head back down.  "It'll heal soon."

"You killed me."  Carapace spread its wings experimentally.

"I induced hibernation."

"And that severed my link to the Queen?"  It raised its head again and blinked rapidly, trying to clear its vision.  "I didn't even know I had a link to her."

"It's superficial.  She doesn't know either."

"Why was it so important to get rid of it?"

"So that you can live away from the hive.  Free."  With unusual gentleness, Elytra helped it prop itself up with its forelegs.  They trembled, but held.  "With no obligation to the Swarm."

Carapace said nothing.  There were so many questions it wanted to ask.  How elytra knew about their strange, subconscious bond with the Queen, why he had faked his death and left the hive, why he seemed to think that it should do the same.

But it didn't ask anything.  "You can change back.  There's nopony here but me."

Elytra gracefully stepped off of the bed and walked around the room, stretching the numerous superfluous muscles of his current form.  "I'd rather not."

Instead of asking why, Carapace rose on shaky hindlegs so that it was standing on all four hooves.  The position felt precarious, but it didn't go back to sitting.

"What time is it?"

"Around four in the morning.  You woke at midnight."  He waved a hoof in the direction of the drawn curtains, and the many blazing candles.  "The rest of the palace will be up soon, and then you can feed."

Carapace hopped off of the bed and barely kept its legs from buckling.  "Hopefully.  Everypony ha--"

At that moment, a strong wave of excitement and anxiety hit it.  The overpowering flavor was swiftly followed by the door bursting open.  A harried-looking Twilight Something-or-other, with her mane completely out of order and a pile of books balanced on her back, galloped into the room.

"Carapace!" she exclaimed with a warm smile.  "You're awake!"

Elytra moved a little closer.  "I would have alerted you immediately if I had known that you would be so excited, Lady Sparkle."

"Thank you, Captain..."  Twilight levitated a book off of her back, cracked it open, then tossed it on the ground in front of Carapace's forehooves.  "Can you read this?"

It sat down.  "No."

Twilight, unamused, raised an eyebrow.  "You didn't even look at it."

She nudged the book a little closer.  Carapace gave in and looked at it, wincing at the pain in its neck when it lowered its head.  All it saw was row after row of spidery characters that meant nothing to it.  Maybe there was some pattern or elegance to them--it couldn't tell.  And, to be honest, it didn't care.

"I really can't read it."  It looked at Twilight again.  It briefly considered telling her that it couldn't even read basic Equestrian, but rejected the idea.

"You're sure?"  She lifted the other books off of her back and sat down, scrutinizing Carapace.  

"I am positive."  It spun the book so that Twilight could try to decipher the weird text.  "What is it?"

"A book written by your people," she replied, turning her attention to the pages in front of her.  

Carapace was silent for a moment.

"That's impossible."

"That's what I thought at first, too," Twilight replied, her excitement swelling again.  It was a bit strong for Carapace's taste.  "I mean, from what you told me, you and Gossamer are the only ones intelligent enough to write a book--besides Chrysalis, of course, and this is far too old for any of you to have written it."

"Then it's fake," Elytra interjected suddenly.

"No, I performed a dating spell on it.  It predates almost every written work of ponykind--thank Celestia that bookseller knows how to restore and take care of old books.  And, in the first books, it was a custom to include a piece of yourself.  A kind of signature.  A feather for pegasi, a clipping from the mane or tail for unicorns and earth ponies, and for your kind..."  She flipped to the back cover and showed them a small scrap of blue gossamer sewn into the binding.  Carapace peered at it.

"It's from a Changeling," it admitted reluctantly.

"The writing looks like a much older, more complicated form of a language used in eastern Equestria, before the tribes united," Twilight said, leafing through it.  "I can't make head nor tail of it, and nopony I've talked to can, either.  Luckily, it isn't the only book I have."

She spread the others out.  They all had weird squiggles on them.

"These were written by seaponies.  They had a thriving civilization before we even left our primitive herds.  They wrote about your people, Carapace."  She opened on of the books and stared at the incomprehensible language.  "A seapony is helping me translate these, but it's slow going.  The form is very old, and she isn't familiar with it."

"What have you learned so far?" Elytra asked.

"That they wrote about Changeling customs.  Their homeland.  Their anatomy," Twilight told him, glancing up.  Her eyes flicked to Carapace.  "It doesn't match up with what you told me."

Automatically, it bared the roots of its fangs.  "I told you the tru--"

"I believe you!" she said hurriedly.  "But sometime, you changed.  Your species did, I mean."

"We tend to do that," Carapace replied dryly.

"No, I mean--your true forms changed.  And so did your society.  You've never heard this before?  There aren't any legends or anything?"

"Nopony to tell them," Carapace shrugged.  "The Queen never told us much about our history--there wasn't much to tell."

"I wonder what happened."  Twilight turned her attention back to the book.  "How you became...like this."  

She waved a hoof, encompassing the entirety of Carapace.

"The ability to shift," Elytra jumped in.  "Did they have that when your books were written?"

"I never knew you were so interested in Changeling history, Captain," Twilight replied.  "It hasn't been mentioned yet."

"Know thy enemy," Elytra returned, glancing at Carapace.  It blinked.

"There's got to be something I'm missing," Twilight muttered.  "Originally, I just wanted to get Cadance to treat you a little better, Carapace.  I thought that it would help if she knew more about you.  But now, I feel like I'm onto something more...important."

She leaned back on her hocks, folding her forelegs across her chest.  She stared down at the book like she expected it to sit up and give her the answers that she wanted from it.  Then she sighed, and reluctantly flipped it closed with a nudge of her magic.

"I never thought I'd say this," Twilight murmured, "but there's only so much so few books can tell me."

She rubbed her temples with her forehooves, looking troubled.  "I wish there were more.  But..."  She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them, looking determined.  "I need to talk to Chrysalis."

"What?" Carapace and Elytra said in unison.

"Carapace, you can take me to your hive."  She gathered her books and lifted them onto her back.  "I'll need to repack my saddlebags."

"Are you sure that this is--" Elytra began, stepping forward.

"I'll be fine," Twilight said, exiting through the still-open door.  "After all, Chrysalis sent an ambassador to Cadance.  She'll be open to me holding an audience with her."

Carapace tasted her fear and uncertainty, and her resolve.  She didn't want to go to Chrysalis; she was afraid.  But she knew that she had to, so she would.

Elytra pushed the door closed with one hoof and let out a deep sigh.