When she woke again, Chip felt something soft under her body. Much had changed—the awful smell of her prison, the steady dripping of the water was gone, the flickering light of distant candles were gone. Her hunger was gone too, replaced with a staggering supply of fresh glamor in her stomach. Not the most she’d ever had, nowhere close to her capacity, but enough that she didn’t feel even a little bit hungry. Enough that she could sleep for weeks without worry.
She didn’t sleep for weeks, but rolled onto her side, trying to get a better look around her. Sheets stopped her from rolling right off the bed. She looked up at one of the massive posts of a familiar bed, one where she’d spent plenty of nights feeding. Not generally sleeping, though.
“H-hey, don’t move too fast!” Study’s voice beside her, worried and urgent. She felt magic gently rolling her back into a resting position, securing her under the sheets. “You fell pretty hard, Inversion. I wasn’t sure what was wrong, but… thank Arinna you’re awake.”
“H-how long?” she croaked, pulling herself up into a sitting position, resting against the headboard. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Two days,” he responded, concerned. “The circumstances were… somewhat confusing. I didn’t call a doctor… I wasn’t sure what I would’ve told him.”
“Y-yeah,” she chuckled. “I didn’t have enough left for a change like that.”
He ignored her. “Where have you been all this time, Inversion? I looked for you… I waited months for you to come back. You didn’t visit, didn’t even write! I had the family’s informant search for you, but even he couldn’t turn up anything useful.”
“That’s because I was in prison,” she whispered, her voice very low. “In your basement.”
“That’s impossible,” he muttered, though he didn’t sound even a little bit confident in his assertion.
“Unfortunately not,” she muttered. “Look, if I promise to tell you the whole thing, do you promise not to stop me until I’m done? That’s the easiest way.”
“Sure.” He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Tell me everything, Inversion. I need to know.”
She did. Not everything from all her lives, but at the very least the bit about being reborn under Riley’s power. Staying frozen, being discovered and grown, and eventually put into the labor team. Chives and the opportunities she’d seized.
She told him everything about her current life, though much of it was rapidly summarized. Kept explaining things, until she’d reached the point where their plan failed, Chives was killed, and she was thrown into prison.
“And that’s when you found me,” she finished, after nearly two hours of explaining had passed. “I’d been locked up inside that cell for so long I thought I would starve. They didn’t even give me meat, by the way… I would’ve got as much nutrition from eating rocks as that porridge they tried to feed me.”
“You can’t be the same one,” he insisted. “The talking fieldbeast was so small... and you’re almost as tall as I am.”
Chip had watched Study Time’s emotions during the entire exchange. At times he’d been indignant, at other times disbelieving, or even a little angry. Yet now most of that was gone, leaving only the quiet sense of confusion, wonder, and relief.
“Is the door locked?” She glanced up from the bed. “Shut the curtains, too. I’ll show you.”
“Not if it will hurt you,” he argued, but even so the glow of his magic was visible briefly by the curtains, as they shut themselves. “If you really are the same pony…”
“No, I’m better now,” she said. “Having someone take care of me is… well, it’s better food than I ever got in the dungeon.”
“Food?”
She showed him. Changed back to her pegasus form very quickly this time, only a few seconds to show him. Study Time still had the instinctive disgust at a changeling, the deep primal fear that had gotten many of them killed in the early years. She didn’t want to provoke those feelings now, when she so desperately needed allies. And food, though she wouldn’t admit that one even to herself.
“How in Arinna’s name have I been… have I been sleeping with a fieldbeast all this time and not known it? I know there were those brothels… keep a beast locked up, and it will… feel what you desire. Want to become that for you.” He rose, white-hot anger flaring as he raised his voice. “Is that all this ever was, Inversion? I was just… like those brothels? Empty and fake?”
She bit back a sarcastic response. “You hired a courtesan, Study. You paid for my body, but you paid for my company too. Do you think a dumb animal could hold engaging conversations with you about spells and schools of magic lost to history? Could they correct your spellcraft, or… be your date at courtly functions? Could an animal have done all of that? Or…” She leaned up a little, feeling her ears fall flat to her head. “Would a dumb animal have just admitted the whole truth to you, put herself completely at your mercy… does that seem like something a ‘beast’ would do?”
Study Time deflated. “No. I guess not.”
“No,” she agreed. “You begged me almost every night to know the truth about me. You wanted to know how I learned everything I did—because I attended the University of Alexandria myself, three separate times. I helped the legendary Mystic Rune mod his PC installation of Skyrim. I had drinks with Idyia, and fought in terrible battles alongside the firstborn against unspeakable things from the sea.
“My last life… hasn’t been great,” her voice cracked. Adult body or not, there was no banishing the pain she’d felt. The loss for her drones killed, for the banishment Posy had suffered, watching Chives die. So much pain she could’ve prevented, if only she was a real queen, instead of a fake. If only.
“Even when we first met, you were one of the better parts. At first it was for the money, I won’t lie and say otherwise. But things changed. Being with you… it let me be a little of the pony I was. Be a scholar again, an advisor… two of the things I was best at. All we would’ve had to do was spend some time in the kitchen, and my life would’ve been complete.”
Tears streamed down her face, and she didn’t even bother wiping them away. “Every time you asked me to move in with you was harder. I would’ve in a heartbeat, if I didn’t have my drones to think about. They trusted me, they were depending on me… and Chives too, poor bastard.”
Study Time remained silent for a long time. Chip couldn’t read his emotions, either—not because anything magical had happened, but because she was drowning in far too much of her own. She sat still on the bed, silent, waiting for the scion of House Time to respond to what he’d just been told.
“All that time I searched for you… all the time I waited, wondering what’d happened… and you were in my own basement. I could’ve walked down to see you any time I wanted.” He slumped against one of the posts, looking defeated. A long silence. “How could you stomach it? Sleeping with me… my family enslaved you! Our taskmasters whip your… what did you call them, drones? You grew up in deplorable conditions. One of our captains had your friend banished.”
“Well the last bit hadn’t happened,” she answered, numb. “Honestly, I didn’t know. I was still working my way through New Alexandria when everything fell apart. If I’d known at first… I would’ve picked someone else.”
“So… you’re going to leave now, then?” He glanced at the window, still covered by curtains. It was night outside, and very dark. How easily she could’ve escaped, if she wanted to. “Now that you know?”
Chip shook her head. “I don’t want to go back into that prison cell, if that’s what you mean. That was worse than being a slave.”
He brushed her words aside with a vague gesture from one hoof. “So far as anypony knows, the captive teleported out. She’s loose in the city somewhere. House was already searched while you rested here.”
“Well…” She hesitated, hopping down to the ground beside him. “I suspect somepony will put together the whole ‘brothel’ thing with me being able to look like somepony else, and inspect your bed eventually. Being able to talk won’t help when they know an intelligent changeling escaped. I think it… I think it might be best if I left until the search dies down.”
“And after that?”
She met his gaze, eyes even. “What do you want to happen after that, Study? You know I’m a changeling. Not like the ones you enslave… but close enough.”
“It’s a good thing you don’t look like that all the time,” Study admitted. “I know you said you’re centuries old and all, but I don’t think I could manage the doublethink. I hope you’ll be Inversion next time you visit.”
She could feel his love again, so bright that it nearly blinded her. It washed over her more intense than any of their sexual experiences could’ve possibly been. It was one thing for him to lust after an attractive mare. It was quite another for him to know the truth and still love her, even so. His words carried far more weight than the implied invitation to return. There was no doubting that when she practically drowned in glamor.
She let him kiss her. And some other things.
When they were done, she felt more alive than she ever had as a queen, more determined. She rose from the bed, straightening her feathers with her magic. No sense in hiding it now. “There’s one more thing you have to know, Study. If you want me back.”
He watched her from the covers, a bittersweet expression on his face. He clearly wanted to ask her something, but couldn’t manage the words. “Yeah?”
“I don’t blame you for what the Time house has done. It’s been going on for a long time, that much is clear. But I am going to stop it. There are ways changelings and ponies can work together, but this isn’t it. When I fly out this window, I’m going to find a way to free my sisters. I don’t know what that will do to your house.”
“I don’t care,” he said, and she didn’t have to question his honesty. The sincerity was plain in his mind. “I’ve seen the factory. My father… he’s never been willing to listen to my objections. Says our margins are narrow enough as it is, just buying deer from the blood-priests. I’ll help you bring it down. Maybe you can find the time to help me understand how you can be a person and a changeling at the same time.”
“I will,” she promised, throwing the curtains open with her magic. Bright, cool moonlight streamed in, washing over her. Through the open window was New Alexandria’s skyline, and beyond, freedom. She waved with one wing, then jumped straight out.
* * *
The next few years were not easy for Chip. There was nothing easy about hiding out in the city, watching her own sisters dragged through the streets with collars around their necks and blood leaking from the wounds of servitude. It was only a small consolation to know that they were not intelligent, that almost all who had suffered this way would never wake up. Very small consolation.
Yet she also knew that to simply attack, running around breaking open pens or trying to murder workmasters would not accomplish her goal. As much as the human half of her was enraged, Chip was also a changeling queen. A queen could be pragmatic and patient, even when that behavior might seem ghastly to anyone else.
Inversion became Study Time’s consort full time, instead of on the random nights she could sneak away. She took up residence in the very mansion where the oppressors of Riley’s brood lived. Whatever else might be said for the house of Time, at least Study’s lordly father didn’t mind his son’s dalliances with her. Each time they met, he had specific recommendations for her, ways to teach her son “how to treat a proper noble lady.” Inversion always obeyed, and so was more than welcome in the household.
Study Time himself was perhaps her greatest ally, since he had access to every aspect of the work King Obrican had entrusted to the house of Time. Any visits he made, any records he requested, only served to increase his father’s respect for him that he was finally “taking a hoof in family affairs.”
Chip started with the “factory.” This was not a difficult task, since the operation involved ponies at only the beginning and end of any drone’s time there. The actual location of the factory was a closely held secret of the Time house, of course, but what did Chip care if she had to wear a blindfold in the carriage on the way there?
They brought a dozen guards for the trip, marching in regular order behind the carriage that other guards pulled. Not even the factory overseer accompanied them, though Study believed the pony would be furious at their interference as soon as he learned of the visit.
“You’re the first pony not in my house to visit this place in two generations, Inversion,” Study said, helping her down from the seat of the carriage. “And between you and me, this is only my second time visiting.”
Study’s appearance had improved somewhat in the last six months. He’d lost the pudge of indolence, now that she was around him constantly to police what he ate. He’d lost his wandering eyes and the weight of despair that had settled on him after her absence. In exchange, Study Time now moved with a sense of purpose even Chip could admire. To please her, yes, but also to succeed in her cause. Study Time was fully convinced in her vision of a cooperation between changelings and ponies. He saw, as she did, a world like the Alexandria before, where drones wore no chains and needed no overseers. A world where they could eventually leave labor and join pony society as individuals.
Riley’s ancient capital had done as badly as Alexandria itself. Of all the stone structures reinforced by glamor, nothing survived. Huge piles of rubble marked where buildings had been, and occasionally the edge of a ruined statue emerged from the dirt.
“Wait with the carriage,” Study instructed, before levitating a pair of saddlebags from the carriage and settling them on Chip’s back. Yes, she was the mare, but she was also not the one with noble blood. Some aspects of their relationship still mirrored the way it had started. “Do not allow anyone to interrupt us for any reason, do you understand?”
The head of House Time’s personal guard, Captain Accounts, saluted. “Of course, young lord. It will be done.”
They walked away down the deserted streets. “My name is Ozymandias, the king of kings. Look upon my works ye mighty and despair.”
Study looked up at her, quizzical. “You’re quoting something?”
Chip nodded. “An old human poem, old before I was born. Queen Riley was… the greatest, noblest, wisest ruler I ever knew, and look what happened to what she did. Nothing left. Her young, my s-sisters… the most valuable part of her world were locked away where she thought we would be safe. But time had her beat there too.”
“Adventure Time,” Study agreed. “My progenitor. She was apparently a great explorer in the days the kingdom was founded. Went searching all kinds of ruins for…” he trailed off, looking away from her.
Though the whole city had crumbled, Chip still knew where she was going. The nursery would be located in the deepest part of the vaults, the deepest and most enduring section of the palace basement. “To look for what?”
“She was an Outcast,” Study said, voice quiet. “It’s not a secret exactly, but it isn’t something the family spreads around. Not since… Not since Outsider ancestry has come to represent moral weakness and corruption.”
“I struggle to find words for how stupid that is. Everypony has ‘outcast’ blood if you go back far enough. Except maybe the ponies living in Arcadia.”
“First you’re a changeling, now you’re an atheist,” Study muttered, grinning. “I’m not sure which is worse.”
They passed through a secure gate someone had affixed over the entrance to the ruins. Below ground level, the palace had done a little better. Many carvings survived, in particular the striking style of bas-reliefs favored by many drones who wished to leave a mark on the world but lacked the money, glamor, or influence to ever amount to anything. “Here was 17,496, I lived,” said one. “I am happy,” said another, with a crude rendition of a smiling pony’s face. So far as quality of art was concerned, they might as well be attached with a magnet to a pre-Event refrigerator.
Chip didn’t have to guide them, not when there were hundreds of little flags hanging from walls, blocking off doorways, and otherwise directing them down. Down through the secret maze of passages, through areas that only changelings were allowed to go.
“There was a time…” she muttered, her voice echoing strangely in the hollow, empty spaces. “A time my queen ruled over all seasons. A time there would have been thousands of soldiers in these halls, protecting the brood.” Chip slowed, passing a pillar twice as wide as her whole body, holding up a thirty foot vaulted ceiling of stone. Far above, the faint green of glamour nests had decayed to gray. Adolescent drones lived here, maturing in the darkness and the damp. Learning that they had names, futures, purpose. “How could your family just break into ruins like this, and not even wonder who had carved this limestone? Not wonder if, maybe, stealing from them wasn’t a good idea?”
“Adventure Time was against it,” Study said, his voice echoing. “She wanted technology for the king’s engineers. She found some, too. But that wasn’t what Obrican wanted. Griffons don’t see the world the way ponies do.”
“I guess not.”
Not much further to go, now. Instead of getting warmer as it should, the air got cold. No more moisture, only a thin layer of ice on every surface where water could condense. Someone had set out a trail of gravel, so at least Study wouldn’t slip.
“How did you handle the drop? Riley designed the nursery like an anthill… I think I might’ve helped dig it. How’d you get in?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Study said, pointing at a heavy wooden door lined with cloth. Mist drifted from the gaps in the opening, forming a cloud on the ground by their hooves. “It’s right there.”
Study unlocked the door with another key, levitating it open. Chip started shivering, stepping closer to the warmth of her pony companion against the cold.
In times ancient and gone, Chip had once seen the inside of an Amazon fulfillment center. This top floor resembled one such building, shelves going fifty feet up and snaking backward and forward through the ground. Unlike that center, there was no space for robots here, no conveyor-belts. Many areas could only be accessed by flying drones.
The shelves had been emptied in a systematic way, with those closest to the entrance bare except for a little slime left over to hold the eggs in place. Further back Chip could see some shelves with most of their eggs, but not many.
“Ten thousand,” chip muttered, her wings buzzing uncomfortably in the chill air. The instinct didn’t really help keep her warm, not nearly as much as the glamor in her stomach. “There are ten thousand eggs on each floor.”
“There’s only one floor,” Study repeated. “Not even the king seems to know what to do when they all run out. I’ll admit, I’ve been hoping your new system will stretch the supply.”
Chip stopped walking, pulling Study close to her with one leg. He looked a little confused, unsure of what she wanted. “Teleport.” She pointed down with a hoof. “Exactly twenty meters down. Well… maybe 19.5 meters. Just to be safe.”
“You want me to…” Study winced. “Chip, you know how dangerous that is, right? If I move us into solid stone…”
“There isn’t stone.” She couldn’t keep the anticipation from her voice. “Come on, Study. Trust me.”
He did. The taste of someone willing to risk their life, trusting her, well… it was a rare delicacy. One she hadn’t tasted since Chives died.
Flash of light, the darkness of the void. A disorienting tumble, maybe a foot, then a rough landing on the icy ground. A second later Study lit up his horn, a pale blue light in the gloom.
The shelves were all here. A few eggs had frozen solid, or fallen and smashed on the floor. The vast majority rested safely in their designated places—almost ten thousand of her relatives. Sisters, cousins… all still, quiet, and cold. Chip remembered what it was like to sleep in one of these eggs. Her mind painfully slow, her spirit aching for life.
“Idyia’s bones,” Study swore. “There’s more?”
Chip nodded. “It’s not uncommon for a queen to lay a thousand eggs a year. Most just let them hatch, the strong devour the weak, and the toughest grow up to serve her. Riley… my queen… she rejected that. She believed every one of us deserved to be alive. But raising a drone that way takes glamor. The older she got, the more Riley needed just to stay alive. So more and more of her eggs ended up down here. Some other queens, mostly her daughters, sometimes put extra eggs here too. Not as many. Most changelings measure wealth and power by the size of your swarm.”
“So…” Study brushed some ice from his coat, from where they fell. “To a bea—to a changeling, this is like…”
“A vault,” Chip finished. “Yes.” She reached out, selecting a single egg from the shelf at random, holding it up in her magic. It was a little strange to see a green glow above her forehead, when there was no horn. An obvious tell to anyone who wondered what she might be.
She held the egg up to her face, breathing on it and melting away the frost. She could see it there, locked away. The tiniest speck of life. You’re the first, she thought to it, breathing out a glowing mist of green glamor. An incredible amount, nearly half of what she held. Wake up.
I am.
That was it. Not words, but not the blind instinct of an ordinary drone. The egg kept glowing, even when she lowered it down. It shook slightly in her grip, steam rising from it, beating back the heat. In that moment, Chip sensed the very thing she’d been waiting for during the short years of her life. Though she was still standing on the icy floor, could still feel Study standing beside her, in that moment a second set of perceptions filled her.
She was freezing cold, barely alive at all, except for a steady heartbeat, locked away in a tiny egg. This drone was so small it couldn’t even swim in its egg yet. That didn’t matter, though. Chip had a swarm now, a swarm of one young queen and one egg. She had to start somewhere.
“Careful,” Study whispered, letting her rest against him. She found this a great relief—giving up so much power so fast had nearly incapacitated her. “What was that, anyway? Making it grow?”
“Sort of.” She held it in her magic, before removing a padded container from her saddlebags and securing the egg inside its faux-leather shell. “I gave it a soul. Or… gave it enough magic to grow its own. I don’t know which it is, honestly. I’ve never…” She blushed, avoiding his eyes. “I’ve never done it before. Didn’t… think I could.”
“Guess you can.” Study didn’t say anything else for several more minutes, letting her catch her breath. “Didn’t you say floors, Chip?”
“Yeah.” She leaned a little closer to him. “Let’s go down again.” She closed her eyes, stumbled, but didn’t fall as far this time. When she opened her eyes again, she could see more shelves, a different shape each time. Each floor grew naturally, like a beehive, to regular patterns. Thousands of eggs.
They jumped twice more before Chip rested a hoof on Study’s shoulder, who was breathing very heavily. “This is it,” she whispered, opening her eyes again. “There’s nothing below this. We never filled this level.”
Yet things had changed from the last time she was here. Many of the shelves had been ripped up completely, and the ones that did remain along the walls were empty of eggs.
Massive blocks of ice had been arranged in a roughly circular pattern, surrounding the central ring. They were lucky they had been standing so close to the edge, or else they might’ve ended up appearing inside one. Most of them were clear, clearer than water-ice normally appeared in the real world. A few… a few weren’t.
Chip walked away from Study, towards the largest block in the center. Without prompting, she let her illusion melt away, revealing her queen’s body underneath. She was maybe fourteen now, so far as ponies went. She was growing up fast. Though she didn’t need it, Chip lit her horn with the brightest glow she could, ignoring the strange shadows it sent refracting between the blocks. She had eyes only for the center.
There, trapped in the center block like a gemstone preserved in glass was Queen Riley. As tall and regal as Chip remembered her, as imposing as their last moments together. A large stone block had been frozen below her, and so Chip didn’t have to strain her neck to read it.
Riley Harris
Astra inclinant, sed non obligant.
“What is that?” Study called.
Chip ignored him, walking past Riley, to where another queen looked out from clear ice. Well, her corpse did. There was no way anypony could survive being frozen like this. A living queen was not an egg.
On Riley’s right rested Evoli, her mane still as bright an orange as when Chip had seen her many centuries before. She had died before her mother, not as adept at managing the size and food-supply of her swarm. But why hadn’t Chip ever heard about her being frozen?
Evoli
Igne natura renovatur integra.
So it was with well over a dozen queens. The lime green queen Calypso rested under the words “Acta deos numquam mortalia fallunt.” Perilla, reddish brown queen with one missing wing and a body covered in scars, held the motto “Corvus oculum corvi non eruit.” On and on they went.
Study caught up with her, still out of breath from his rapid teleportation, breath fogging up the air as he walked. “These are… like you?” He looked up at Perilla where she rested, eyes narrowing as he gazed at the epitaph. “Those are Oldspeech letters, but I’ve never seen them combined that way. Are those words?”
“Yeah,” Chip muttered. “It’s, uh... I guess you could say it’s our secret language. The queens wanted something that few people knew, even from Earth before, but one that could be recovered and translated independently even after many years.”
“Oh.” Study shivered, looking up at the corpses. Perilla had been frozen with her eyes still open, staring down at them with disapproval in her last moments of life.
Even in death you make me uncomfortable. Chip straightened, walking away from the dead queens. On Riley’s left was a clear block of ice, clear except for the stone inside it. It had clearly been cut from the same rock as Riley’s own. Curious, Chip leaned in to investigate, lighting up her horn again in the gloom.
Chip
Esse quam videri
In that moment, she understood the purpose of the monuments, and she wept.
The museum was very cold, and cold was the friend of no changeling. With Study’s help, Chip managed to collect herself, stop her tears, and return with him to the mostly-empty top floor.
There was much left to do. She would visit the nursery next, where drones were left to thaw and then abandoned in the dark for months. She would change everything in time, until her sisters and her cousins were no longer enslaved. Chip’s will was patient, but it was also absolute.
She would not fail.