• Published 2nd Dec 2012
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Xenophilia: Further tales. - TheQuietMan

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62: Will you bite the hand that feeds? (Hv)

Will you bite the hand that feeds?
Chapter published 26th November 2013

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Consciousness and Twilight Sparkle were not the best of friends right now.

The purple unicorn had no idea how long the two of them had been in a state of undeclared hostilities, but she rather wished it’d stop pretty soon so she could figure out just what the buck was going on.

And also why the word ‘gas’ kept pushing its way around her foggy, groggy, soggy, boggy brain.

She’d been floating in and out of something approaching lucidity for a while now, catching glimpses of her surroundings that seemed to jump about, though some part of her mind kept trying to tell her that they weren’t jumping around, more that she was only awake for a few seconds at a time and that it was she that was being physically moved around, and not her surroundings.

She remembered the train, yes, they were on a train. Then sky, lots of sky, and ground and trees far below. Then tunnels, tunnels that glowed, some green, some orange, mostly orange.

Then she could remember Rainbow hanging from a ceiling like a piñata at a cute-ceañera, the pegasus shouting her head off at... something.

Memories were coming faster now, the mare’s brain being more cooperative as the sleeping gas wore off.

Sleeping gas! That’s why the word ‘gas’ had been stuck in her head. They’d been on a train, making their way back to Ponyville from Horseshoe Bay where they’d gone to wave Sweetie Belle and Spike off on their research trip.

A small wave of annoyance came over Twilight as she remembered that her mother, Star Sparkle, had also been there, being as irritating as ever. This was swiftly replaced by a small wave of relief as the memory of her mother also being on the departing ship came to mind.

Yes, it was a research trip, wasn’t it? Sweetie and Spike were spending six months in Neighpon with Star Sparkle. It was a shame they’d miss the birth of Twilight’s first child but to be honest, missing major family events was about par for the course with Star Spar...

Hang on... First child? Twilight was pregnant? Twilight was pregnant! How could she have forgotten that she was pregnant? What kind of mother forgets that she’s pregnant?

As her eyes shot open, Twilight cried out...

“I’m pregnant.”

“Why, yes. Yes you are” came a response from somewhere behind her.

While Twilight couldn’t see who it was that had spoken to her - and the general gloom in the room was giving her tired eyes a hard time in adapting - she already knew all that she needed to in order to pinpoint the speaker’s species. The haughty tone, the reverb in the voice, the flittering buzz of insect wings.

“Changeling!” Twilight stated to the shadows surrounding her.

“Why, yes. Yes I am,” the voice came again, getting closer until it was right behind her “Well done for stating the obvious, you're quite good at that, it would seem. Would you like to try for three for three?”

“You won’t get away with this, changeling.”

“Oh dear, and you were doing so well.”

As Twilight’s eyes finally started to adjust to the dimness of the room, she could barely make out a changeling standing to her side. Now that she could get a half decent look at her she had to assume that this was a changeling queen, both from her size and from her general bearing.

While Twilight would admit that she had only ever seen one other changeling queen in the flesh before, this being before her looked to be almost the spitting image of Queen Chrysalis. The only major differences she could see being where Chrysalis was black with a dark blue mane and green eyes, this queen was a deep brown with a dark orange mane and yellow eyes.

“So who are you? And what do you want?” Twilight asked.

“Aahh, getting straight down to business. I like that,” the queen walked slowly around Twilight, causing the unicorn to - unsuccessfully - attempt to turn her head as she was being circled. “I am Queen Auriela, and this is my hive.”

Coming full circle to stand in front of Twilight once more, Queen Auriela swept a foreleg around her, motioning around the room as a number of large orbs placed here and there came to life, bathing the areas around them in a sickly yellow glow.

“And I bid you welcome.”

The queen’s smirk, the thin lips, the sharp fangs, all did very little to make Twilight feel even the tiniest bit welcome.

Twisting about as best she could - her body responding as well as could be expected as it fought to clear the sedatives from her system, which wasn’t that well at all - Twilight took in the vast room that she was laying in.

Room? No, cave would be more like it. A huge, vast cave with a domed ceiling so high and walls so far in the distance she had trouble making it out in the feeble light.

Dotted around the cavern were what could only be described as ‘orbs’ if the speaker was feeling particularly generous - and as ‘oozing lumps of... yuck’ if they weren’t - that gave off sickly orange or yellow light, occasionally dimming down to almost nothingness before regaining what little flickering illumination they had provided before.

Spaced around the walls at several intervals were what looked to have once been huge and ornately detailed stained glass windows that would most likely have been lit from behind to throw colours and shapes across the room’s interior. Now they were just dim shadows of their former selves, whatever illumination lay behind them now just barely fading in and out of life, leaving the ornate glass-work dark and oppressive.

At each of the two entrances to the room, the only two that Twilight could see anyway, stood a pair of changeling guards. While superficially they were much like those that had invaded Canterlot all those years ago - except for the brown and orange colouring compared to the black and blue of Queen Chrysalis’ minions - they didn't seem to stand as straight and tall as those Twilight had seen before.

From the fluctuating lights to the mucus dripping from the ceilings to the few guards spaced sparsely around the room, every about her surroundings gave the unicorn the uneasy feeling of a world filled with sickness and decay. Twilight felt physically ill just being there, though the sleeping gas slowly working its way out of her body didn’t help in that regard either.

“Where’s my herd, what have you done with them?” the unicorn demanded as she struggled to her hooves.

“I assure you,” the queen replied as she walked around Twilight and back out of her field of vision, “they’re quite safe, for now.”

Twilight didn’t believe her, not one little bit.

“You don’t believe me?” the queen asked, reappearing at Twilight’s other side.

“No, why should I?” Twilight asked, wishing the queen would just stay still while her poor head was still taking more of a pounding that the drum kit Pinkie had given Pound Cake for his last birthday.

“Because I have no need to hurt them,” Queen Auriela disappeared from Twilight’s vision yet again, just to appear out of the darkness not even a full body length from the unicorn’s left hoof side, “not yet anyway. Whether that changes depends solely on you, my dear.”

“So why am I here? What do you want with me?”

“We have need of you.”

“To do what? To help you take over Equestria? It’ll never work you know. We’ll stop you, just as we stopped Queen Chrysalis before you.”

“Take over Equestria? What a silly idea.” The queen’s laugh was not pleasant, bringing to mind both Nightmare Moon and Discord in their worst moments; A large dash of arrogance, a dollop of malevolence and more than a touch of madness. “But then, my sister never was particularly smart. No, we have need of you, or rather what you have already proven can be done.”

From out of the darkness came a small bundle of newspapers, falling right at the still swaying unicorn’s hooves. By instinct Twilight tried to levitate them towards her but found that her magic wasn’t responding.

Reaching up to the front of her mane with a forehoof she found what seemed to be an old but still functional horn wrap enveloping her horn. Well, that explained the lack of magic at least.

Pulling the small stack of papers towards herself with a forehoof, she held each one up in turn so she could read the headlines in the dim light from the closest ‘orb’.

HUMAN/PONY HYBRID BORN“ claimed the Canterlot Free Press; “BREAKTHROUGH IN THE THAUMOLOGICAL SCIENCES” trumpeted the Foal Street Journal; “PALACE WELCOMES NEW HYBRID RACE” proclaimed Equestria Daily, while the Daily Fail - ever the bastion of fair and unbiased reporting that it was - went with “MAD SCIENTIST CREATES SICK ABOMINATION”.

Twi recognised each of these headlines; she had copies of each of these publications - with the exception of the Daily Fail, she’d burnt that one - back in her office along with many more, all ready for the day that the herd’s first born was old enough to understand them.

“You want Sweetie?” she asked, a level of venom creeping into her voice that would freeze the blood of lesser mortals.

“Oh no no no,” came from the shadows to Twilight’s right, the Queen appearing from her left a split second later. “But I do want what made her. Holding the child itself is just a means of persuading you that it would be in your best interests to do as I require.”

Twilight hated to ask, but she couldn’t see where else she was going to go.

“But why?”

The fangs again. The smile just brought forth more lip, more teeth, an ever increasing feeling of dread on Twilight’s part.

“My subjects are dying, my hive is sick.”

As the unicorn turned to her left to follow the voice, the queen appeared on her right.

“Our pupae are withering on the vine. As it is we have less than a year left before the hive is no longer viable.”

“And what’s that got to do with Sweetie?” Twilight asked, deciding to give up on trying to keep her ‘host’ within her field of vision and instead pinched her brow with forehoof. It didn’t help in the slightest.

“Do you know how we feed, Ms Sparkle?”

“You attack ponies and suck out their love.” Twi snorted, as if the answer was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Oh dear, my sister really did leave a bad taste in your mouth did she not?.” The smile may have vanished into the darkness, but the giggle it left behind was probably even worse in Twilight’s opinion. “No, that’s not how we feed. It is a possible method I grant you, and true, it is a little extreme I agree, but a possibility, yes.”

As if realising that Twilight was making no attempt to even look at her, the queen stepped out of the darkness, this time placing herself squarely in front of her ‘guest’, using her own forehoof to lift the unicorn’s chin, to look her captive in the eye.

“No, we feed by taking pony form and inserting ourselves somewhere there’s a lot of love floating around, and then we just-” the changeling spread her ragged gossamer wings wide, showing a wingspan that would Princess Celestia to shame “-open ourselves up and soak it all in.”

Pulling her wings back against her sides, the queen span on her hooftips like a giddy schoolfilly, her little dance taking her a few body lengths away towards the darkness.

“Oh you should have seen it, back in the day. Our scouting parties would come back practically drunk with offerings. A particularly good haul, something like Hearts and Hooves day or Heartswarming Eve maybe, could feed this hive for months. Forager drones could go out, find a village, pass themselves off for a while as a pony from out of town and then come back to us when they were full. No pony got hurt, no feelings were distorted, everyone came away winners.”

Nice though this little tale sounded, Twilight couldn’t help but get the feeling this might not be the whole truth. She didn’t know why, or how, but something wasn't quite ringing true here.

“So what changed?” the unicorn asked bluntly.

Broken from her reverie, the queen stopped her spinning, instead launching herself towards her captive.

“You did,” the changeling hissed, pushing her nose up against Twilight’s, the unicorn trying her best not to cower, “you did, you ponies. Or rather, your feelings changed.”

“How so?” Twilight asked, hoping the waver in her voice was just in her own mind.

The queen tilted her head, focusing first on one of Twilight’s eyes, then the other.

“Once my sister had made our existence public to the world, what do you think is the main emotion that you ponies now feel towards us?”

“Fear, I would imagine.” Twilight didn’t have to do a lot of imagining right now.

“Yes, indeed. Fear, hate, loathing, disgust. And for passive feeders such as us, what do you think this does to our only source of sustenance?”

“I don’t know.” Though the unicorn was starting to have a vague idea where this line of thought was leading, and she didn’t like it one bit.

For a moment it looked like queen was pondering her next move and, after what felt to Twilight like a lifetime, the changeling backed away, disappearing back into the shadows again.

“I hear that you ponies often add spices to your food, do you not?”

“Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?” Twilight replied to the darkness.

“And these spices, though tiny in quantity, can influence the meal in both subtle and major ways, correct?.

“Yes, that’s true. But what does this hav-”

“And if one of these spices is something to which your body reacts negatively? Something that in small doses isn’t too much of a problem at first, but once it has built up in your system can have disastrous effects?”

“Well, that’s not a good thing.”

“Fear, hate , loathing, disgust. We can see all of these emotions as a spice in small enough doses, but once they build up. Well, the results have not been pretty.” The queen reappeared, this time at the unicorn’s side, her mouth close enough the mare’s ear that she could whisper into it. “I will not let my people die, Ms Sparkle. We will not go quietly, we will not fade away into the pages of history without a fight, not while I have a breath left in my body.”

“And what would you have me do?” Twilight turned to find the queen already gone. “You can’t change the way an entire nation feels about your kind. Plus foalnapping me and my herd and dragging us here against our will certainly isn't changing the way I feel about you either.”

“Oh you’re not here to change your little ponies.” That giggle was definitely worse than the smile. “No no no my dear, you have a much more noble task ahead of you. You’re here to change us. Or rather, to change our younglings. Your job is to make us less dependent on love, more resistant to hate. We are changelings, in order to survive we change ourselves all the time. This would just be a little more... extreme. Yes?”

“And why would I do what you want?” Twilight protested, un-nerved as she was by the edge of mania that had crept into the queen’s voice. “Why would I help you by taking away one of your weaknesses? Changelings are amongst the biggest threats Equestria has ever seen. Why would I help you?”

Without warning, the queen stepped out of the darkness once more, close enough to stroke the unicorn’s mane with a wingtip.

“Really, if that’s so then why had you never heard of us until just a few short years ago,” she asked. “If not for that damn fool Chrysalis you’d still be none the wiser about our existence.”

Twilight knew what she was doing, all this appearing and disappearing. The throwing of the voice, the hoofsteps that could only be heard when the queen wanted them to be. She was trying to keep her ‘guest’ on edge, trying to keep her disoriented, to keep her from gaining her bearings. And by Luna it was working. But now Twilight was just starting to get annoyed with the whole Celestia-damned performance.

“If we are doomed, if we have nothing to lose, then what's to stop us becoming the very thing that my sister wanted, the very thing that you ponies fear us to be.” Once again, the queen positioned herself directly in front of her captive audience. “You treat us like the boogiemare, like vile creatures that kidnap foals in the night and suck their emotions dry. Well if that is what it takes, if that is the only option left to me, then do not doubt for an instant that I will not do it. You think us monsters, Ms Sparkle? You have seen nothing yet.”

“You cannot be serious.” Twilight responded, both the shock and disbelief obvious in her voice.

“Oh yes, I am. Dissapoint me and you will find out just how serious I really am.”

As the two of them, the Changeling Queen and the pregnant unicorn, glared at each other, it was eventually the changeling that turned away first.

Once released from the Queen’s gaze, from the depth of her stare, Twilight finally realised quite how much she was shaking. Was it rage? Was it fear? Was it both? Twilight didn’t know, all she knew was that she couldn’t stop shaking.

As the Queen made her way to one of the huge stained glass windows, the illumination behind it gained in strength, making the the previously indistinct image within the glass just that little bit clearer. In the centre of the frame was a flame-haired changeling queen, standing in the middle of a forest, surrounded by an untold number of her drones. The window must have been beautiful once upon a time, but now, neglect and the ravages of time had just left it a sad shell of its former glory.

As the Queen stood, her back to her ‘guest’, her attention focused solely on the ancient window before her, Twilight could just about hear instruments begin to play around them. As the sounds grew louder within her head, a sure indication that this was the music of harmony at work, she could hear... were those marching drums?, a snare maybe?... there were definitely bagpipes in there as well, possibly a trumpet or two.

The music swelled, its tone slow and sober. The last time the unicorn had heard anything of its ilk was at the state funeral held for Rainbow Dash’s old captain many years ago. Whatever it was, it was a sound that Twilight was in no hurry to ever hear again.

Still with her back turned, and with a controlled and sombre tone, Queen Auriela began to sing.

--Queen Auriela--

For you all the future’s bright

While my kind keeps ourselves tucked out of sight

A little here, a little there

We feed from ponies who have no cares

While other queens had bigger dreams

We lived here quietly within our means.

But now my sister’s mindless grasp for power

Has left for us our food turned sour

Now as you ponies frolic and play

My children starve and waste away

Our very sustenance turned to poison

As day by day our prospects worsen

Soon our hive will be no more

The future to us has closed its doors

But for my children I will dare to fight

We will not go gentle into that good night

Although my hive it is now dying

It will not be for the want of trying

Before our kind are dead and gone

I will do what must be done

If I must make ponykind my enemy

Then that is the way that it will have to be

We will not wither nor fade away

Within this world we wish to stay

When the day is past and the battle is won

When my hooves are bloodied from what must be done

My children will thrive and flourish and live

With the last gift that I can give

And from the ashes you will hear them say

That our hive will live another day

As the music faded away, the Queen turned from the window, the light behind it fading away, the image it had previously revealed again disappearing into the darkness.

Twilight shivered as the changeling’s face came back into view. The determination, the anger, all of this was enough to send tremors up the unicorn’s spine, but it was the sheer depth of the underlying desperation... desperation and madness etched across the Queen’s face that really scared her. If there was one thing that Twilight had learned over the years, one fact that held true no matter the species, it was that a mother fighting for her children was the most dangerous creature in the world. A mother fighting for a whole hive of children? The very idea made her blood run cold.

Pushing herself to her full height, making sure that none of the emotions fighting their way out of her brain, or her gut, made their way to her features, Twilight faced up to the Queen.

“And you think that I’ll agree to this?” the purple mare forced out.

The queen smiled, all fangs and lips. It was not a kind smile, more the kind a hungry snake would give a slow, plump mouse just before the inevitable happened.

“Why, yes, I do. Because if you don't, now that you know what’s at stake, now that you realise how many will die if you fail, now that you know about how dangerous a species with no hope, no future can become... you’ll have shown yourself to be a bigger monster than you could ever accuse me of being.”

Turning, the queen motioned to a pair of drones by the doorway who quickly came forth and physically lifted the unicorn from the ground..

“Take some time to think on it, Ms Sparkle. Just don’t take too long... for both our family's sakes.”

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