//------------------------------//
// 1. Out of your depth 
// Story: Changing a kingdom 
// by keroko 
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	The changelings have changed. 

It sounds like a silly joke, like someone saying 'the water got wet' or 'the fire is hot.' Changelings change, that’s what they do. What they are.

But they had never changed like this before.

Thorax looked around the table. It was a simple thing: round, pale green and jagged, formed from the floors of the hive itself. Seated at the table were the higher ranked members of the hive, even if they looked nothing like how he remembered them. Where he would normally have seen a number of near identical black carapaced warriors, now he was looking five multi-coloured changelings, each with their own unique colour pattern.

So much change. He returned his attention to the current speaker, a changeling with a now green carapace and pink eyes. Vespid, the hive's military commander. "-and I have increased patrols around the border." the changeling finished his report. 

The new leader of the changelings tilted his head. "Are you sure that's really necessary? I really don't want to go to war with anyling. Or pony." He still wasn't sure how this whole diplomacy thing worked, but he remembered Shining always having his 'Serious Captain of the Royal Guard' face on whenever he and Cadance were talking about troop movements and how everypony might react to them.

"I assure you, King Thorax, these are purely preventive measures. With the throne destroyed, our primary line of defence has vanished. Noling ever dared attack us without their magics, but now that they can..." 

"But Princess Celestia gave us her word nopony would interfere with us." Thorax protested with a frown. "And I told you guys, you don't have to call me 'King Thorax.'" 

Vespid lowered his head. "Apologies, Prince Thorax."

"Just Thorax." 

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Prince Thorax." The green changeling responded.

Thorax rolled his eyes. "I don't see why you guys can't just call me Thorax like you used to." he grumbled. 

"Well," a blue tinted changeling began, tapping her chin. "you did sort of single-hoofedly defeat Chrysalis in single combat. A bit unorthodox, but the laws of the hive don't really make a difference between open combat or backstabbing. By all accounts you rightfully usurped the throne." She flashed Thorax a grin. "Then there's also how you changed the lives of everyling in the hive forever. You should at least, as I believe the ponies say, 'take responsibility'."

A round of chittering laughter went through the room as Thorax's head hit the table with a solid *thunk.* "Thank you, Chatter." he grumbled, but the smile dancing across his muzzle betrayed any attempt to make the grumbling seem genuine. 

The changelings were joking and having fun. Teasing, pranking and laughing, but doing it all together.  Just a few weeks ago, this would have been unthinkable. No changeling would so freely share love and joy with another when each was starving.  Each would hoard every scrap of love they could get into their jaws to themselves, or even take what they needed to live to the next day from another. Friendship? Caring? Right of the strongest was the only way to survive in the hive. 

The hunger of the changelings was eternal. It started as early as birth, as the larval nymphs hatched from their eggs and tried to sate a hunger that could not be sated. Drawn to the largest source of love, their queen, they fought and fed for the first time. It was one of Chrysalis's favourite private moments, watching a new brood fight for a drink of her store of love.

It was a lesson that would stay with the hatchlings forever: Fight for your food, and never share, for you will never sate your hunger if you do. Even a changeling recently fed would feel the pangs of hunger again in minutes, and they would grow to become agonizing as those minutes turned into hours. 

To be friendly to anyone, even another changeling, meant risking opening up and letting that precious love go, to starve just because you were nice to someone else. No changeling had ever considered doing so.

No changeling except him.

Chatter was right. He had changed the lives of everyling in the hive. By showing them that love shared is so much more filling than love taken by force, he had shown the changelings another way. A way where they would not need to hunt, a way where the changelings could work together as friends. For Thorax, It was a lifelong dream come true.

Though apparently it did come with certain caveats. 

Thorax sighed as he returned from his meandering. "I really don't want to be that important though. I even made this round table so we wouldn't have a head for someone to sit at!"

"Uhm, Ki-Prince Thorax?" Chatter said. "You're our prince, and almost twice our size. I'm pretty sure that wherever you sit down kind of becomes the head by default."

Thorax blinked, then looked down at the others, watching them all look up for a moment before realization sunk in. "Oh."

Another round of chittering laughter went around the table, and even Thorax felt the ghost of a grin play on his lips.

Pincer, a green carapaced changeling with orange eyes, smiled. “Look, my Prince, I understand you are nervous. But the hive needs you to be a leader. We've all changed in ways we're still learning to understand, and while we will be forever grateful for releasing us from the Eternal Hunger, all these emotions we're now freely experiencing, these new appearances... they scare us as much as we enjoy them. And everyling looks to you for strength."

Chatter's lips parted in a predatory grin, buzzing her wings as she stared at the changeling across from her. "Though some are probably more upset than scared, right Vespid?" 

Vespid scoffed. "Oh shut it, at least you got lucky with your new all blue colours. Meanwhile I got stuck being this orange winged, green-chitined pink-eyed thing. I even got pretty pink jewels to match them. Pink jewels! Why did I get pink jewels? I'm a warrior!" 

"Yes, why did you get the pretty jewels?" Chatter noted, her eyes narrowed and her voice dripping with envy. 

"We're still not quite sure what decides how we look like now." another green changeling, this one with blue eyes, spoke up as she fluttered her pink wings. Miridae, if he recalled correctly. "Tarsus and I have spoken at great lengths about it, but until the next generation hatches, we can't do much but guess, but I'll leave that to Tarsus for his report."

At the mention of his name, the red carapaced changeling on his opposite end nearly flinched, and seemed to shrink in on himself. Thorax tilted his head at the lead caretaker. -'your lead caretaker' he mentally heard Vespid scold-. For some reason the changeling seemed extremely uncomfortable. In fact he had been visibly uncomfortable since the beginning of the meeting, and had meekly requested to give his report last. Thorax seen no reason not to accept the request, but he and every other changeling around the table had been keeping half an eye on Tarsus since.

Thorax resisted the urge to taste the emotions running around the table. Shining and Cadance had grown comfortable with him doing it during his stay at the Crystal Empire, but they often impressed on him that ponies generally did not like it when others read their emotions, and over time resisting the urge in new company had become somewhat of a habit to him. Instead he took a deep breath and straightened up again. 

"Allright. Speaking of enjoying. Pincer, how are the workers doing?" 

The worker grinned. "Giddy like nymphs on their first hunt. After you told them the hive didn't need to look uniform but could be what anyling wanted it to be, they practically exploded trying to come up with new designs. I'm half surprised none of them have snuck into the throne room for a total overhaul yet, given how this one is just temporary." 

"And praise the Hive for that lingering bit of sanity." Vespid muttered. 

Pincer laughed in response. "As offended as I and my creative drive should be, I'll admit the stallion has a point. The workers seem to be getting a bit too into the spirit of things. I'll talk to them and see if we can tone things down before the hive looks like something out of Discord's dreams."

"Maybe get something like a team started? So you can still organize things a bit?" Thorax offered. At the worker's questioning gaze he felt his ears fall flat against his head. "Oh, right, we had a system like that already..."

Pincer chuckled. "Yeah, but maintaining the hive hierarchy is not such a bad idea. As enthusiastic as my workers are, some are also yearning for some structure. We Might want to keep some of the old systems around, rather than throwing away everything and changing things too fast." 

Thorax's ears perked back up again, glad that his idea was well received. "Okay, let's go with that for now. Now as for the next report, Miridae?"

Miridea nodded. "As you all know, my team has been keeping an eye on the landscape and weather.  The landscape around the hive had always been a barren wasteland due to the magic that kept the weather in Equestria so ordered fizzling out before it could come close to the hive. Now that the throne shield is gone, we have seen a noticeable increase in stray clouds travelling across our lands, and grass and weeds are beginning to slowly creep in from the outer edges. It will reach the hive eventually, but it doesn't seem to be causing any problems as of yet." 

"We might need to start looking into waterproofing the Hive should rainclouds gather in force though." Pincer noted. "I'll order the workers to start looking into it." 

"Can they do it?" Thorax questioned. 

Pincers shifted uncomfortably. "I... cannot say right now, my Prince. The Hive hasn't had to worry about the weather since the creation of the throne several thousand years ago." Pincer's voice had gone softer as he spoke, his ears slowly flattening against his head and he almost mumbled that last part. "But I'll look into it personally!" he added quickly. 

Thorax blinked at the sudden change in Pincer's mood. "Okay, well, do your best and let me know what you find." he answered with a smile. 

Pincer's ears perked up again after hearing that, and Thorax once more resisted the urge to taste the emotions going around the table. Why did they seem to be so... unhappy one moment, then happy again the next? Was it because they didn't want to disappoint him? Thorax almost snorted at the idea. The changelings around this table were leaders in their fields, they were the kind of changelings he had looked up to before he had left the hive. They had skills he had longed for for years. 

If anything it was he who was afraid of disappointing them.

"If that concludes the worker reports, I think it's time to finally address the giant manticore in the room." Chatter said.

The table almost as one turned their heads at Tarsus, who almost seemed to shrink under the sudden attention. 

Strange. Thorax could not remember Tarsus having ever been a shy changeling, yet this was the second time Tarsus had shied away from attention.

Tarsus began to speak, his words shifting between painstakingly slow and rapid chitters. "I... as your highness is no doubt aware, I am currently leading the, uhm, the effort to understand our nature. That is, our new nature, the one after our change, and I- I-" 

Tarsus hung on the words for a moment before almost slamming his head on the table, bowing as low as it would let him without crawling under it. "My most profound apologies my King! I will do whatever is in my power to find a solution! I swear on my carapace! I may have failed you once, but I will not do so I again! Please! I just need another chance!"

Thorax reared back from the display of utter submission. "Tarsus, what are you-" 

Then it hit him. That foul, bitter taste of fear. When he'd reared back he had lowered his guard, and now the taste flooded his senses. It was as if someone had wrapped raw cocoa in citrus leaves and stuffed it in his mouth. He barely resisted gagging, the retch already beginning its way up from his stomach. 

"Tarsus-" he began, but before he could form another word his stomach doubled over again. This taste! This wasn't fear, this was pure terror! Why? What had made Tarsus so terrified? 

"TARSUS CARETAKER!"

The room almost seemed to freeze at the thunderous voice, and all turned to warrior-commander Vespid of the changeling army, forehooves on the table and pink eyes burning with rage at Tarsus.

"You will cease this unsightly behaviour in front of our Prince, you will recover yourself and you will give your report or First Queen help me I will drag it out of you myself!"

In the silence that followed only Tarsus's slowly calming breath was audible over Thorax's own. The bitter taste of his fear having been largely replaced by the salty coolness of shock. Vespid, despite having roared loudly enough that the Throne Guard had chanced a look inside to see what was wrong, had merely settled back and continued glaring at Tarsus. 

"Tarsus," Thorax began once more. "I don't know why you're so terrified, but you're safe. We're in the hive. Noling is going to hurt you." 

Putting what Cadance and Shining had told him aside for a moment, Thorax flicked out his tongue to taste the chamber. The fear was still there, but... lighter. A lot of it was replaced by confusion, and from the others too.

"Just take it slow. Calm down and tell us, what did you discover?"

"I-" Tarsus's eyes darted around the table, flinching slightly as they reached Vespid's glare. "We- we have been conducting various experiments with our new bodies. We have definitely never been more healthy. Love freely given is exponentially more nourishing than love taken by force, and with the vast personal stores each changeling has gathered over the years we have a lot of it to give.

A swallow. "But... we have... discovered... forgive me my Prince, but it seems to be a core part of us changelings that cannot be changed no matter what we try. I have tried and tried again to see if I was wrong, but I-" 

"Get on with it!" Vespid snapped, and Tarsus winced in response. The next words came out in a blur, and Thorax almost missed them.

"We still need to feed." 

Thorax blinked. Was that it? "Well, of course. We are changelings after all. But now that we have learned to share love-"

"It's not enough, your Highness. The changeling body consumes more love than it produces. Even though shared love is exponentially more nourishing, it has not changed the fundamental truth of the changelings: We need the love of others. We have managed so far because we are freely sharing the massive stores of love we have stolen, but no matter how many times I ran my tests, the results were undeniable: Those stores are slowly diminishing. Once those stores are gone, we will have to share our own love. And that is not an infinite supply. It will run out, and I suspect they will do so very quickly. And then half the hive will be consumed to keep the other half alive. And another half. And another. Until only one changeling is left." 

A cold needle began worming its way into Thorax's chest at those words. "But surely now that we can share love..." the words that had sounded so encouraging seconds earlier now sounded hollow even in his own ears. 

Tarus lowered his head once again, eyes screwed shut as the bitter taste of fear returned. "My Prince, there is no way around it, we still need to hunt. We cannot live on eachother alone."

The cold needle had grown to become a large spike. It stabbed into his chest, and he could feel his heart increase its pace. The dream, his dream of  a happy hive where everyone got along in friendship was slowly vanishing from his mind with every word Tarsus said.

"This... can't be right." his voice cracked.

Tarsus dug his head further into the table, until he flicked out his tongue. His eyes flew open and his head jerked up to stare at Thorax in confusion. "... My Prince?"

Thorax peddled back. "No, nonono! This can't be right, it shouldn't be right! We were supposed to live alongside one another! Us! Ponies! Everyone! In friendship! I can't- we can't just!" 

"Prince Thorax, please calm down." Miridea's voice pleaded. Thorax barely registered the mare's worried look as he started pacing.

"There has to be a way. I've got to find a way! I won't allow everything to go back! I need to- I have to-" Thorax tried to think of something, anything at all, but the harder he tried to grasp at a solution, the more his mind became a mess of jumbled thoughts. But he had to find a way! He had to! He-

"Then command us, your highness." 

His pacing stopped, his head turned to Vespid. 

"What?"

"You are not alone in this, Prince Thorax. This is your hive. Every changeling here is at your command. Be it gathering through guile or dominate through conquest, you command and we will follow."

"You are not alone, Thorax." Those words warmed him, even if Vespid had not meant them in the same way. He remembered the first time he had heard them from Spike, his first ever friend.

Friend...

Friends!

"That's it!" Thorax shouted as he leapt to his hooves. The other changelings reared back in confusion.

"Prince Thorax?" Pincer ventured.

"My friends! My friends in the Crystal Empire! They can help us! Shining Armour always knows what to do, and Sunburst knows a ton of magic, and Cadance is the Princess of Love itself! They've got to have an answer for this!" 

The changelings at the table all exchanged glances. "If you think that is wise... do you have a way to contact them, Prince Thorax?" Miridae asked.

"I'll go there."

Chatter choked. "Go there?"

"Yes?"

"To the far north? To the empire guarded by the most powerful magical relic currently known?" 

"I have lived there for the past year before I returned you know." Thorax returned with a raised eyebrow. 

"Ah, yes, that is true. My apologies my Prince, I meant no offence." Chatter squirmed.

"None taken, but let's not tarry. If Tarsus is right we will need to leave as soon as possible. The Crystal Empire is a long journey away."

Vespid bowed his head. "I shall begin arranging the escort at once." 

Thorax blinked for a moment in confusion, and was about to ask why he'd need an escort before he remembered his new status and scratched his head. "Oh, right, escort. I guess I need that now?" He remembered Cadance always having to worry about escorts whenever they went somewhere. Being a Prince himself he supposed he would need to get used to that too. 

"Just, keep it small would you? I don't want to create a stir." 

"As you wish, my Prince."

"Right, then if there are no further issues?" he paused for a moment glancing around the table. No changeling made any move to offer another report. "Then I'll get ready. We need to leave as soon as possible." Thorax said, his mood noticeably lighter at the thought of visiting his friends. 

He barely noticed how all the other changelings bowed deep as he left, or how they made no motion to follow him. 





As the Throne Guard closed the doors, every changeling slumped on their place. 

"That was... new." Pincer groaned. "I had expected Prince Thorax to be upset, but I was expecting yelling, screaming, maybe a magic blast or two and a call for the guard. Not a nosedive into panic." 

"I think I would have preferred the yelling." A deflated Tarsus grumbled, as Miridea moved over to rub his back. "And probably even the blasts. A King should not taste of such complete dread. Is he even aware of just how powerful his emotions are in his new form? Of how much his mood affects the hive? Queen Chrysalis may have loved to keep us under her hoof in fear, but she never allowed herself to radiate anything but pure confidence." 

"It should be clear by now that Prince Thorax is not like any of the Queens in recent history." Vespid rumbled. "He has never been the confident type, or one to lash out at others."

Tarsus's eyes narrowed at the warrior-commander. "You knew!" he hissed.

"I knew Prince Thorax would not punish you for what you could not control. I did not expect the panic attack either."

"He confuses me." Chatter groaned. "I dropped a dozen lures during our meetings, but he didn't even nibble at any of them. Vespid, he served under you, didn't he? Before the change? What's his game plan? With that calm air of kindness and innocence, I feel like I could have been the new Queen five times over."

Vespid barked out a low laughter. "You've seen it, keeper Chatter. When he served under me, the Thorax I know was the worst changeling I had ever seen. He had no spine, never stood up for himself or even tried to fend off those targeting him. Even his pranks were crafted with concern for his victim in mind, he just didn't find them funny if the other couldn't laugh about it as well. His skill at deception was abysmal even by warrior standards, though he seems to have improved in that regard given how he tricked all of us except Chrysalis during his return."

A small smile tugged on Vespid's lips at that memory. Chatter flicked her tongue out and caught a hint of.. pride?

"But you kept him off the field anyway." Pincer noted.

Vespid snorted. "Oh yes. He seemed almost afraid to hurt someling, much less somepony. I put him on reargaurd duty, I figured that this way he would at least be able to alert us of flanking enemies, or at the very least distract them for a second or two. After the Canterlot invasion I had written him off as dead, until we got news of him living in the Crystal Empire. Not infiltrating, but living with them." He sighed. "I had wished to report to Chrysalis that this was all part of a plan, that he had revealed himself to them to gain their trust. But I knew at that point that Thorax had... left us. It was simply not in his nature to come up with a plan that required such betrayal."

Chatter had felt her jaw slowly drop wider and wider as the conversation had carried on. "So you mean to say that all those openings I saw-?"

"-Were not lures to attempt to draw out traitors or test your mettle. You really could have been the new changeling Queen five times."

Chatter snapped her jaw shut with an audible clack. "That's it, I'm going with the Prince." 

"Oh? Want a shot at the throne?" Pincer asked, but his face held no amusement this time.

"What? No! No, but after what Vespid just said, there are complications that mean I have to-"

"Does this have anything to do with the infiltrators that failed to report back? The ones you left out of your report?" Vespid asked.

Chatter's head snapped back to the warrior-commander. "How do you know about that?" she hissed.

Vespid simply grinned. "You may be the keeper of secrets, Chatter, but I am the warrior-commander of this hive. Just because you and your infiltrators are impossible to track on the field does not mean they don't report back when they return to the hive. When changelings fail to report back, I notice."

The head of the hive's infiltrators clenched her jaw. A rather embarrassing oversight. "No need to report that, until we have something to report." she said, quoting an old changeling saying. 'Never report bad news until you can soften it with good news.' 

Miridea tilted her head. "Chatter, surely the event with Tarsus has shown that Prince Thorax does not punish failure as the previous Queens have."

"No, instead he worries about them as if they were his own and risks setting the hive into a panic with his emotions." she shot back, and sighed. "The thing is, even I don't know where those changelings went. They just vanished off the grid. No trace, not even the usual infiltrator markings. I don't know where they are, or what they're planning, but if Prince Thorax is as kind hearted as Vespid is suggesting, he'll never see them coming." 

Vespid's eyes darkened. "Are you suggesting they will be going after him?" 

"I don't know! And that's what bothers me. I don't like not knowing. But I do know that I'm not going to risk our Prince going in there unguarded." 

A moment of silence reigned around the table until Miridae cleared her throat. "Then I'm coming too. The team here doesn't really need my full attention given how slow the climate is changing, and I am every bit the caretaker Tarsus is. You might need me." 

Nods went around the table, and Pincer chuckled. "Heh, look at us. We're actually worried about him, aren't we?" 

"He is our Prince." Vespid simply answered.

But no nods followed this time, and as the changelings all left the improvised throne room, they all wondered just how much the changelings had changed.

And just how much they had to change still.