//------------------------------//
// The Chrysalis 
// Story: The Naming of the Queen 
// by LeapingEquine 
//------------------------------//

  Hours passed before the Queen was discovered; slow, tedious hours.
She stared at nothing in particular, tried to keep her mind empty. She was not sure what she felt about the... thing beside her.
She knew she had been burning, she had been hurt, and she had made it.
What should Queen feel? Regent isn't here to say. Queen will feel nothing.

In the end, it was a Healer who found her. 
Healers didn't do things at random. They waited, waited for years, and then acted when everything was perfect.
There was a reason they had waited so many years for the Proving. And the Queen had Proved herself spectacularly.
The Healer looked at her with those glowing blue eyes.
The Queen looked back. She was Queen. She could look all she wanted. She could look and judge and give and take. She could bring things to life and kill them just as easily.
Queen is Queen.  
The Healer was no longer looking at a hatchling. The Queen felt far too old to be a hatchling, too angry, too sad, too confused.
She had a numb feeling of loss, but she had no idea what she had lost.
The Healer knew. It saw the thing beside the Queen.
It spoke to the Hivemind, showing them the thing, giving them the sensations of a Husk.
The word spread like a wildfire.
The Queen has Proven herself.
They thronged together, formed a great crowd, and headed, in the thousands and hundreds, to the place they had felt the Healer's call.
The Hive filled the Queen's chambers.
They all saw the Thing. It was difficult not to see it.
Larger than the Queen, it was a soft, gelatinous cocoon, attached to the chamber's walls by plenty of thick, sticky slime.
Green as her eyes, it was thick and swollen, curiously both comforting and repelling. If one looked closely, a thin, twisted outline could be seen inside of it, the lifeless form of the Shadow Regent.
The air of the Queen's Chambers was charged, full of love energy, the remains that had been in the Regent's body.
The Healers took it in. Later, the Scouts would collect it, and give the Hive a feast. It was the Regent's gift to his enemies.
The Hive saw the cocoon.
They saw the chrysalis.
The chrysalis, symbol of death and rebirth. How fitting.
The Healers knew it was fitting. They latched onto Head Guardian, fed him the speech they had built.
"On this day, in the Queen's Chambers, our Queen, stronger than death, stronger than life, strong as the love we devour, truly becomes Queen. 
She gains the true power that comes with the title; we as a Hive willingly give it. She has Proved herself, shown that she is not only the Hive's great friend, but also Death's, the Great Changer. She has made a Husk, and she feeds us its energies. 
For a symbol of her power, we give her something we do not have; a name. May it be on the lips of the Hive for thousands of years."
As Head Guardian finished, the Queen smiled, a serpent-toothed smile. She had no idea what she had done, if it was good or bad. 
But apparently, it had made her Queen.
 The Hive is mine. Queen is Queen. Not Regent or hatchlings will ever take it from me, take Queen's power.

She stood before all of the Hive, and silently accepted her power, spoke her wordless consent into the Hivemind.
The Healers had only Opened it to her seconds ago. The constant roar of voices in her head was strange, but comforting.
Now, she only waited for a name.[/
And it came.
Her name, is Queen Chrysalis.
All hail Queen Chrysalis!
May she rule forever.
Queen Chrysalis heard her name, heard her power, heard the Hive's praises.
She was in no way modest. Queens had no need to be modest. They accepted that they had won, and left all their enemies behind, to die alone.
She laughed, a mirthful screech that came from deep inside of her, and the Hive resonated with the sound.
She was Queen. She was young. She was beautiful and powerful.
She would rule supreme for hundreds of years, lose all her weakness over the decades. She would become dangerous and ruthless.
And one day, more than a thousand years into the future, she would fail.
But for now she was Queen Chrysalis, the undefeatable Queen of Changelings.