The start of a story is usually the beginning.
~ Liarra Sniffles
Chrysalis was grumpy.
Perhaps grumpy was not the right word for her simmering anger, but she had good reason to be so. Half her army was deceased, the other half still mostly missing or wounded having barely survived the fall from Canterlot. For every Changeling in her hive, another three were absent for crying out loud! This defeat had put her in such a poor position; it would be years before she could attain her previous power and probably decades before any sort of large scale invasion could be attempted again.
Of course, she would never again try such a bold tactic without far more confidence in her victory. 'Stupid ponies and their stupid magic.' she grumbled, causing several nearby drones to flinch from the emotions she was emitting. 'If only I hadn't underestimated that purple menace, I should have put her in a cocoon instead.' She sighed. No use crying over it now, however, she needed to re-establish her hive.
"My queen!" A drone hurried through one of the holes in the walls, throwing himself at the foot of her throne.
"What is it Whisper." She barked, mentally adding 'can you not tell I am trying to sulk?' Whisper was almost always the changeling charged with bringing her bad news, of course he would survive the attack in perfect condition.
"The ponies have doubled or tripled their patrolling on the border, and many unicorns with detection spells have been posted among them." He cried, his wings buzzing a little.
"Getting past the guard is going to be much harder than previously; a dozen 'lings have already been captured trying to sneak back to the hive." Suffice to say this did not exactly improve her mood, but Chrysalis knew that this would happen once she had revealed her hive to the ponies.
"Are they taking them away somewhere?" Perhaps she could trade some of her few remaining captives for workers, else the hive was probably doomed to collapse.
"I could not see anyling being taken away, it looks like they are going to hold them hostage." Whisper snivelled like the irritating waste of space that he is. His wings twitched in agitation under the queens gaze.
Chrysalis let out a breath she hadn't realised she had been holding.
"Fine, assemble a small group of changelings and see if you can get the ponies to talk of trading." Three of her guards nodded as they buzzed through the roof.
Today was going to be a long day.
Grubby whistled a tune as he shifted piles of rocks with his legs. The strange strangled chittering that came from his mouth not exactly carrying the tune well, but he was proud of his talent nonetheless.
"Hey grubs, come take a look at this!" His fellow worker drone called from his own hole, the two of them being the only two worker drones currently left in the hive meant that they got all the important jobs, such as fixing cracks in support columns deep under the hive.
"Gimme a sec." Finishing his patch job with a nod and a satisfactory hum, he flitted across the bottomless pit from the spire he was working on in the direction of his fellow drones' cry.
"What do you make of this?" His compatriot said, standing in front of some weird depressions in the wall of a support spire. Taking a closer look, he traced some strange symbols in what could be described loosely as lines.
"Is that some kind of writing? This better not be one of your pranks PB" Plumbum, or PB to his friends, was quite well known for pulling all sorts of weird practical jokes that he insisted were funny.
"No look, I found this already like this when I removed that boulder." Plum indicated a large flat rock sitting on the ledge.
"Well neither of us can read, so I don't see what's so interesting about this. It's probably just someling's writing practice." Grubby didn't have time to be messing about with this now that he was head excavator, he was a very important 'ling.
"No look at this!" PB grabbed him by the hoof. "The writing keeps going into this rock layer, don't you know what this means?" Grubby frowned and shook his head.
"It means that this was put here before the next layer was added, it could be thousands of years old!" Plum chittered excitedly. Grubby thought about it, the hive was built on top of the previous hive, which in turn was built upon the previous hive all the way back to the first hive. Like the layers found in the earth, this huge tunnel going down many hundred meters was built from the layers of previous hives. After enough time had passed, the weight of the surface structure had compacted the ground below, forming many interesting patterns on the walls of the lower tunnels.
"Even if that is true, I still can't read and you're still going to get us both exiled." Grubby hissed, having never been particularly interested in the history of the hive. Getting sent out alone into the world for the sake of some old poetry was not on his bucket list.
"Listen, I'm going to patch the cracks down there if you're too busy staring at this to work. But once I'm done we need to leave, you can always come back if you get some spare time or something." Flitting down the column before PB could object, grubby landed a few meters below him and started to plug the cracks with a mixture of goo and small rocks. Leaving Plum to his muttering.
Grubby didn't mind doing PB's job for him too much, he still owed him after the wedding fiasco, but that bug could really use some lessons in self discipline before his rash actions caused serious problems.
Just as in the last plug went into the last crack, some fresh goo and a decent sized stone, a loud crack rang out, temporarily drowning out PB's chittering. Buzzing back up, he found PB digging through the spire and into the nearby wall, following the strange symbols.
"What the buck are you doing!" He cried. Both PB and Grubby were born experts in the hive's various construction methods, so PB knew that taking out such a large chunk of the a major support pillar was unsafe at best, and moronic at worst.
"Have you lost your mind!" Grubby furiously pumped his wings, slamming into the moronic changeling before he could do any more damage. The force of their collision sent them tumbling through the wall of the cavern where Plum had been digging, the thin wall shattering like cheap plaster.
"Was that really necessary." PB groaned, rubbing his head as he picked himself up from the rubble.
"Yes you bucking thick headed-" PB put his hoof over grubby's mouth, cutting his angry rant into muffled expletives.
"Shush for a second, you can yell at me later. Look at this room! We must be the first 'ling here in centuries!" Grubby shook his head free of Plum's grasp, glancing at the empty tunnel leading down before turning back to the entrance with a growl.
"Where are you going Grubby, this could be a huge discovery!" PB shook with excitement, all thoughts of the pillar he had nearly destroyed forgotten.
"Someling has to make sure the hive doesn't collapse, you buffoon" Grubby snarled, hurrying back to the half destroyed column and grabbing as many lose stones as he could. PB turned and headed deeper into the tunnel, disappearing from the hole leaving Grubby grumbling darkly into the shadows.
"By order of princes Celestia, you will trade any captive ponies you possess in return for these drones. This is not a negotiation." The blue haired tan idiot declared to the small group of changelings. Chrysalis let out a groan and nodded to her guards, sending a few to go drag out the few ponies still within the hive. The day had been long, and with every group of changelings she rescued from the royal guard, she traded more and more pony captives.
"This is the last group of ponies we have, if you take them then how can I be sure you will release any more prisoners to me." She growled at the pony, causing him to back up a step.
"We ponies do not keep prisoners like you monsters, as long as the remaining changelings do not commit any crimes separate to your foolish attack we will release them to you." The guard pulled out another scroll with a frown.
"The princess would like to arrange a meeting with you to discus compensation for damages sustained during the attack." Chrysalis sighed, she had seen this coming.
"I take it I do not get a choice in the matter." More of a statement than a question, but the guard nodded and answered anyway.
"The princess may be willing to let you keep your land and your freedom in exchange for- well I'll leave this for you to discus at your meeting in several days time." He let out a snort.
"The princess will send you a message with the details tomorrow." The guards backed away from the group of bound changelings sitting between the two groups but did not continue to speak.
The exchange seemingly over, Chrysalis turned and strutted off with a huff. These ponies sure make it hard to resist abducting their envoys. That 'Flash something-or-other' pony in particular was clearly in need of a good punishing, talking to royalty like that.
Thankfully the ponies made good on their deal, and Chrysalis was joined by many worker drones on her way back to the hive. Unfortunately now that her last remaining prisoners were gone, the hive desperately needed a new source of love. Some of those ponies had been sitting in pods for years, it was an incredible waste to give away ponies with such high quantity love generation. What good would it do the ponies to have such a boon.
Pausing on that thought, Chrysalis thought of that stupid couple. Perhaps the ponies released after a few years in the pods would also be able to use more powerful love spells, but considering nopony had ever used a pure love spell before those two, she doubted it would ever come up.
Raising her eyes to the horizon, Chrysalis let out another sigh, she found herself sighing a lot recently.
It would take a miracle to save the hive from starvation now, perhaps if she manage to swallow her pride she might ask the princess for help gathering love.
That thought leaving her in a particularly sour mood, she buzzed back to her personal chambers and kicked the guards from the room.
The smooth black walls seemed particularly bare without her personal pony toy beside her large bed. Perhaps she should start taking drones for playthings now that all her prisoners were gone.
One good thing that came out of her stay as the alicorn of love was her bathroom, a black and green copy of the one she had attached to her large bedroom in Canterlot castle, the only thing it lacked was true plumbing; her pipes instead being controlled by changelings in a room further up the hive.
Pushing thoughts of the pony castle from her mind, she pulled the cord that signalled her want of hot water, waiting until the large bath was nearly full to pull the opposite one.
Gently stepping into the shallow end of the large depression in the ground that was her tub, she looked to her mirror while waiting for her body to become acclimated enough to the temperature to go deeper. Her hair was a ragged mess of transparent blue fibre, it must have been days since she had it properly groomed.
Her wings fared little better, both primaries needing their ends straightened of creases.
A few of her teeth had been knocked out by the force of the blow sending her flying, they had already started to grow back. The sensation was somewhat uncomfortable.
The hot water running through the holes in her legs made her shiver, setting herself down for a good long soak up to her neck in the water, Chrysalis closed her eyes an-
"My queen! Some workers in the lower cavern have discov-urk!" The changeling drone that had burst into her bathroom was cut short by a green glow around her throat, she struggled to draw breath for a moment before quieting.
"I am in no mood to be trifled with unimportant business, think carefully of your next words or you will find yourself cleaning my floors with your tongue!" Chrysalis glared daggers at the small female drone, releasing her magic and dropping her to the floor in a heap.
Regaining her composure, the drone stood and started again with a deep bow.
"My queen, a pair of workers have discovered one of the early hive's chambers."
"What of it." Snapped Chrysalis, causing the drone to jump.
"W-well, judging from the inscriptions on the walls, it appears to be one of the early testing chambers for our pods. Specifically the love harvesting kind."
Chrysalis gave the drone a slap with her magic.
"Get to the point already before I lose my patience." A larger green glow surrounded her, pulling the blushing drone back to her hooves.
"Y-yes my queen, sorry my queen." The drone continued.
"There are many old pods down there, all but one are empty and solidified. This pod is much larger than the others and is emitting a substantial amount of love." The drone paused again, looking to the queen for a reaction. Seeing none she continued.
"The fortified love of the creature inside could be the answer to your probl-" The drone was cut off by more of the queens green aura.
"Mind your tongue, worm. If I didn't know better I'd suspect you enjoy my ire." Chrysalis creased her brow at the still blushing 'ling before throwing her to the side. "No matter, you shall wait here for my return." With that the queen adjusted her pose and strutted from the room, leaving the changeling again in a heap on the floor.
Despite what her forceful attitude implied to the casual observer, Chrysalis was excited for this discovery. Each of the changeling pods for the last several thousand years had been improving on an old technique some called 'love fermentation'. The simple act of keeping a pony in one of these pods could double the speed at which their 'love pool' was filled over the course of several years, similarly to how excising magic increased the magical pool of a pony. If this pony had been in one of the early pods, then they could have a ludicrous amount of love for a single creature, despite the old pods working so much slower than modern ones.
That is of course assuming that the long stay in the pod hadn't done anything particularly nasty to them. Chrysalis still remembered some of the failed experiment results from her own era of development and could not recall ever keeping a pony in a pod for longer than a year at a time without breaks, just to ensure they stayed somewhat sane.