The Naming of the Queen

by LeapingEquine

Queen's Lament

In a kingdom deep inside Equestria, where the only light source was the sickly blue of bioluminescence, changelings rushed around frantically.
The Hive was agitated. Every inch of it with its honeycombed walls and twisting tunnels, buzzed with one thought; the Hivemind's thought.
The Queen. The Queen is dying.

---

Although every changeling in the Hive was thinking of the Queen, they all seemed to be taking elaborate precautions to avoid her chambers.

The narrow, winding tunnel that led to her quarters were silent. No half-crazed citizen stumbled along the passage. Dark and mysterious, the only sign of life was the blue glow of a lone guard. His armor reflected his light, and he stood in front of the great stone doors which were the entrance to the Queen's private chamber.

He quickly touched the Hivemind. One with his rank had the ability to tune in and out of the Hive's consciousness, at least partly.

Fear, panic, hopelessness... a pungent mix of the rawest emotions. They coiled themselves around his mind, searched for a foothold in him.

With great effort, he shook them off, delicately untangling each sensation from him.
The Hivemind's thoughts were dangerous when they were like this. They almost never were.

Perhaps he should go out and soothe the Hive. The rest of the Queen's guard was already attempting to calm the storm. And he was the Head Guardian after all...

At that moment, a changeling burst into the passage. The stone walls echoed with its clumsy hoof-falls.
"Head Guardian! My Scout party has returned!"
The changeling skidded to a stop right in front of him. Muddy and slightly bruised, her black cloak indicated she was a Scout Leader. She shared the default changeling build, with a smooth black coat; curved horn; pupil-less blue eyes, iridescent blue wings; fangs; a small flexible exoskeleton attached to the wings; and general appearance of an insect in pony form. A strange charged feeling around her indicated that she had collected love. But it felt weaker than expected.

"How much?" he asked.

" More than expected! We-"

" How much!"

The scout leader's forced cheerfulness wobbled, disintegrated and disappeared under the rage of her superior. Still, it was not unexpected. He did not like disobedience. Or bad news.

"Enough to feed several hundred changelings, Head Guardian."

"Several hundred changelings?"

Silence.

"Do you realize that the Hive consists of at least ten thousand changelings!?"
"Yes Guardian, but-"
"Silence! You yourself told me the Bright Ones have defeated the Chaos-Maker! Has that not given those pathetic ponies the opportunity to love again!?"
"The Celestial Sisters have defeated Dis-"
The Head Guardian bared his fangs and snarled, and the Scout Leader quickly realized her mistake.
"You fool! Larvae-out-of- the-sack! Names are for none but the Queen!"

The Hive considered names strictly taboo for all but their ruler. Titles were the work of a lifetime, and you were addressed by them. The common changeling was "it" or "you", or he-she if they had chosen a gender. Only the Queen had a name, and the power to say names. This was the way the Hive had always worked, for as long as any changeling could remember.
"Hail the Queen! May I never feel love again for my mistake, Head Guardian!"
"It's not likely you'll feel love now, what with the rationing. Changelings don't feed on rocks. Next time collect more."
"The ponies are still suspicious toward outsiders. Our subtle tactics can only do so much."
" Haven't you tried imitating foals? That seems to work for the other Scout Leaders!"

" We have, Head Guardian."

" Well, find something that works, or you'll find yourself cleaning larvae slime!"

The Scout Leader was silent. It was a great honor to be chosen by the Queen to collect love for the Hive, but faced with the hypercritical Head Guardian, she wondered just how bad it would be to spend her life cleaning the slime of newly hatched changelings.

Like any changeling, she hated being less than absolutely perfect. Perfection was what the Hive depended on.

Her superior switched to another topic, baffling her for a moment.
"Where've you left your Scout Party?"
" Eh... the mossy tunnels!"
" Where?"
" Tunnels two-hundred ten to two-hundred thirteen."
" So far from the Healer's Nest?"
" We took a hidden entrance to the Hive to avoid any potential pursuers."
" Well, bring your Party to the Healers immediately! They need to synthesize the love they carry to feed it to the Hive."

" Of course, Head Guardian! "
The Scout Leader stumbled, and staggered away clumsily.

Really! The Head Guardian could swear some changelings got stupider each day.
He hoped it wasn't a genetic flaw. The last time that had happened, the Queen had to go through all the trouble of weeding out half the Hive. It was partly the Breeders' fault; they never got the Healers to check the genetics of their eggs.

He would have to talk to the Queen about that. If the Queen was still alive, that is...

---

The Queen had other problems.
Gasping and groaning, her body contracted once more.
She continued to struggle, even though with each push her vision became dimmer, until her chamber's mossy walls faded almost out of sight.
Just a little more...
Even though the room was filled with warm, life-giving slime, the Queen felt cold.

She had failed.

She, who was practically immortal, who was supreme ruler of this vast Hive, had completely and utterly failed.
When the Great Chaos had started, she had rejoiced. At last, the Hive could feed with impunity! Surely the war between the Bright Ones and the Chaos-Maker would stir up emotions, make those little ponies love stronger than ever before!

She had not listened to the frightened words of the Scouts who had seen the battles, and seen that the ponies were too terrified to love.

She had not moved the Hive from Equestria, had not moved on to other lands.

No, she had kept the Hive in the dusty, lifeless desert that was the Badlands.
And it had all gone terribly wrong.
The Hive had starved, was starving, slowly but surely.
She could do nothing. Even with all her magicks, she starved with them. What could she do? There was no love.

The Hive was too weak to move to lands beyond Equestria filled with love.

And then her illness had struck.

That, at least, had spurred her to action.

The moment her glossy black coat began to flake; the instant her bug-like eyes dimmed; the very second she began to have trouble breathing; she had known that her last change would be to a corpse.

And so she had picked the best of the many consorts that constantly buzzed around her, and she had mated, hoping desperately for a rare Queen Egg.

The Queen convulsed one last time, and the larvae-sack slipped out of her, and coated her in sweet, sticky slime.

Soon the the Guards would come with the Healers and Scouts,and search the room and take her dead body away from here.

Soon they would discover their newly-hatched Queen.

Little larvae, she addressed the unhatched Queen in her sack, I hope only one thing for you. Do not follow in my hoof-steps. At any cost, at any price, do not fail.

Comments

[Lunaexcelsior]

Absolutely amazing. I love how you explored the Hive into greater detail and portrayed the life of the Changelings. So is the newly hatched Queen Chrysalis? It is definitely a interesting work and your exposition of the operations of the Hive was rather interesting. It felt like I was truly there seeing all of their inner infrastructure. Really great struff

[LeapingEquine]

5354427
Thanks a lot for the praise!
I'm glad you liked how I portrayed changelings. Part of the reason I wrote this story was because I felt that there was more to changelings than some stories showed.
An entire nation of shape-shifting insect ponies is pretty awesome, after all.
And there's so much room for exposition!
As to whether the newly hatched is Queen Chrysalis...well, you'll just have to wait and see, won't you?

[Tinted Dawn]

This is amazing. I also liked how you put the changeling life differently than other Fics