Andrew sat in the hall of a hospital idly fiddling with his deck of cards. The sterile smell that came with the medical environment was something he doubted he could get used to. He had arrived at the front door of the hospital only moments after Fleeting had relayed the message to the staff, and there was already a team of doctors ready to take the unconscious changeling into their care. The guards gave him an earful about how he could have made matters worse with the sudden acceleration of the carriage, but nothing actually happened, so he paid the guard's words no mind.
"Andrew!" Called out a familiar voice from across the room.
He looked up to see that the voice belonged to Spike, who was riding atop Twilight's back.
"What's all this about Chrysalis being in the hospital!?" The young drake demanded. "What's going on?"
Andrew stood and pocketed his cards before sitting back down. "Do you want the short version or the long one?" He asked.
"The full story," Twilight said. "What exactly happened over there? What's wrong with Chrysalis?" Despite her personal opinions regarding the queen of the changelings, she was genuinely worried. She had never actually tried to see things from the ‘villain's’ perspective before Andrew had aired his interpretation of the events. She still believed that Chrysalis could have easily spoken with Celestia peacefully instead of resorting to attacking Canterlot. Either way, she felt that she understood why Chrysalis went about things the way she did. Even if she didn't agree with the changeling's methods, she understood her motivation. Of course, she still couldn't completely accept that Celestia was both aware about the Changeling's plight, and choosing to ignore it. That simply wasn't Celestia. She optimistically hoped that Chrysalis recovered quickly, and that her and her hive could slowly begin to integrate into society, the right way.
After all, if the physical embodiment of chaos and disorder could be reformed, why couldn't the changelings?
Andrew sighed, "Alright, I'll skip some of the harsher details for the sake of time."
Twilight listened with a hoof over her mouth as Andrew revealed all that he learned at the summit regarding Chrysalis, and what became of her hive in the aftermath of the Invasion. Andrew claimed he would withhold the more gruesome pieces of information, but Twilight found that hard to believe, as merely the idea of so many lives lost was enough to upset her stomach.
"What about the other one?" Spike asked. "You said Chrysalis brought another changeling right? Where is he? Is he being seen by the doctors too?"
Before Andrew had a chance to reply, a white furred, blue maned nurse approached the trio, a clipboard and quill in her turquoise magical grasp.
"Hello Mr. Detmer," The mare greeted the human without taking her eyes off the clipboard, a slight frown adorning her face. "My name is Cool Remedy, I have some news about Chrysalis."
"And?" Andrew asked the distracted nurse, who was still scribbling away on the parchment. A moment after finishing, she looked to Twilight and spike before settling on the human.
"I won't beat around the bush," Remedy prefaced. "Frankly, I haven't the slightest idea how she survived this long with her wounds. Fractured femur, broken muzzle, a section of her leg almost perfectly flayed and infected, three broken ribs, a—"
"We get it," Andrew said, raising a palm. "I don't care how amazing it is that she's still alive, is she going to stay alive is what we need to know."
"Er… Right." She replied with a nod. "Chrysalis is in surgery at the moment, and it's going to be several hours at least, even more if there are any complications."
"And what about Cadence, is she in there too?" He inquired. "I haven't seen her since we got here, she just went in with all of the other doctors."
"Princess Cadence is helping with the surgery," Remedy explained. "She believes that feeding her magic directly into Chrysalis might help with her need for love."
"And? Is it actually helping?" Spike asked.
"We can't be sure just yet," the nurse admitted with a solemn shake of her head. "At the very least, Chrysalis's breathing and heart rate steadied right after Cadence began providing her with her own magic. It could just as well be a coincidence, but right now Chrysalis needs anything we can possibly give her to save her life. So long as there's a chance it might be working, it's worth trying."
"But what if one of the doctors hates changelings?" Spike thought aloud, not exactly expecting a response. "What's stopping them from..." He didn't need to finish for the implication to set in.
"Spike!?" Twilight gasped, looking at the dragon atop her back in shocked anger. "How could you even suggest—"
"No-no, I can understand his concern," The nurse interrupted, "what with the recent attack on Canterlot and everything, I can certainly understand why certain individuals would be willing to..." She shook her head and said, "I can assure you, every doctor in this hospital would do whatever it takes to save their patient, regardless of species and personal prejudices. All the more when the life of an endling is on the line."
"What!? An endling!?" Twilight exclaimed. "Th-that's horrible!" She looked to Andrew for answers.
"Like I told you," he began, "whatever Cadence did, it killed almost her entire hive. The ones that survived sacrificed themselves to save her, and the last one died at the summit." It was too late now, but he wondered if he was even allowed to divulge those details.
The first thing that she became aware of was the warmth of the bed she lay atop of. It wasn't the most comfortable mattress she had slept in, but there weren't exactly many opportunities to indulge in such luxuries when living in the Badlands. The most one could hope for there was a particularly soft mound of sand, or if one was lucky, a smooth, concave boulder. She took a few moments to appreciate her bed, then shuffled, changing her position. Accompanying the action was a series of cracks... That wasn't right, beds should creak, not crack.
She felt movement beneath her, causing further confusion. With more effort than should be necessary, she strained her eyes open, to see that she was lying on her side. She looked toward the ground, searching for the source of the unpleasant sound.
Instead, she saw bodies.
The bodies of her children.
Her eyes shot open in horror. She tried to scream, but only managed a coarse wheeze. She could barely breathe. She shuffled again, the action once again accompanied by a series of cracks. She couldn't tell if it was her bones that were breaking, or those of the bodies below her. She couldn't feel any pain, but she knew she was not without injuries, the pain would come... in time.
Her lips trembled as she took in the sight of the bodies below her. There had to be at least two dozen below her, in varying states of... wholeness. She brought a hoof to her face, only for it to come away a gooey mess. Confused by the substance, she strained her neck, looking back to the 'pillow' she had been using.
It was a head... At least, she thought it was a head; there was an empty eye socket towards the bottom, something that resembled the remnants of a horn. But this... thing... was more akin to an opened clam than a head. She turned away, looking for open ground in her immediate vicinity, but had no choice but to empty her stomach onto what were once her progeny.
She heard a squawk off to the side, and turned to see the source of the noise as she wiped the filth from her muzzle. Impaled on one of the branches of a dead, leafless tree was the body of one of her children. Well... the front half, as the other was on the ground below, still connected to its other half by...
A trio of vultures were fighting over the remnants of the corpse.
She tried to yell in protest of the scavenger's actions, but again, she could only wheeze. She tried to stand. That's when the feeling in her body came back in full force.
Her vision went white from the sheer intensity of the pain assaulting her mind. It felt like her entire body was on fire. She tried to scream yet again, and couldn't even tell if she was successful this time from the ringing in her ears. Despite the pain, she could still feel the cracks in the bodies below her. She lied there, unmoving, paralyzed in her pain. When her vision finally cleared and the pain subsided just enough to not occupy the entirety of her focus, she found herself slightly lower in the hill of bodies she originally woke up on. She cast a quick spell to dull the pain in her body. She knew that exhausting her magic was a bad idea in this situation, but she would be rendered completely helpless from the pain otherwise. She stood again, cursing herself at the breakage of chitin and bone alike below her. She fell into a coughing fit, and spit out a blood clot of worrying size. Her breathing eased somewhat after that, but she didn't dare examine her body for injuries, terrified of what she would find. Even without physically checking, there was one thing she knew for certain, something only a changeling queen could instinctively feel. She pushed the unpleasant thought from her mind and thought back to invasion.
It was supposed to be a last ditch effort to save her children, her race.They knew of the risk, that was the first thing she made them aware of, and she wouldn't force any of her subjects to go through with it if they didn't wish to. Somehow, the hive had unanimously agreed to spend a month carefully harvesting and rationing the already low supply of love they had access to in the hopes of gathering just enough strength to launch the attack. Dozens of her subjects willingly gave their lives simply so their siblings would have that much more sustenance.
How long has it been since the attack? She looked up to the sky, and was greeted by Luna's moon looking back at her. At least several hours, maybe more. It couldn't have been more than a day, as there was no stench of decay, not yet at least. She set her gaze back down, now examining the surrounding area. Changeling eyes were well suited for darkness. That, combined with the light of the moon made it easy for her to take in the arid region. It was a very rocky area, which meant they must have landed somewhere in the Eastern Badlands. Dead trees lightly littered the landscape, and off in the distance were the tall, steep mountains that worked so well at closing the badlands off from the rest of Equestria.
Chrysalis opened her elytra, the hard, protective casings on her back, and attempted to unfold her wings. Unfortunately, yet unsurprisingly, she discovered that her hind wings were missing. However, they weren't simply ripped or torn, it was more like they were cleanly burned away. It must have happened as she was being blown away, in her desperate attempt to right herself. She, as well as the rest of her hive, likely tried to right themselves in the air, unknowingly exposing their sensitive wing membranes to the magical blast that was all too eager to take away the one thing that may have saved them. That also explained why her children had resorted to acting as a meat shield for her in her unconsciousness. She paid her wings no mind; they would grow back rather quickly, if she survived her injuries.
She felt something tickling her fore hoof, and looked down to examine the cause. At the bottom of her hoof was a thick strip of flayed skin, the chitin layer above it crumbling slightly at every movement. The strip stretched further up her hoof before finally connecting to her skin. Strange, there was a dull throb where the exposed flesh met the air, but other than that, the spell did it's job well in addling her pain receptors.
She began to scan the area for potential survivors, starting with the... pile... that she awoke upon. She didn't even consider searching the crushed bodies at the bottom, or the broken bodies in the middle. She moved carefully atop the pile, only stepping on those she knew were lifeless, the crunching of chitin made her flinch with every step as she searched for signs of life. After a few minutes, she finally stepped off onto solid ground. She couldn't cry, she wouldn't cry. She was back in the Badlands, there wasn't enough water to waste on crying, she had learned that long ago, as did her hive after her. Tears were a waste of resources and nothing more.
She made her way around the area, checking the bodies of those were didn't already look... unfit for life. There were many boulders in this area, and she would have to take her time checking behind and on top of each. She heard the vultures behind indulging themselves in her absence, but she didn't turn back. There was nothing to save there. She continued looking for survivors in an ever increasing circle, the mound she woke up in serving as the center. On her right was a boulder, the body of a changeling resting in front of it, broken from the impact along the surface of the rock. She walked on, her steps just a little less confident. She was already desensitized to death, one had to be to live in the Badlands. However, she was used to her subjects passing from thirst, or from hunger both physical and emotional, not from being torn apart, nor from caved in heads. Every now and then she would wretch from the sights around her, her stomach trying it's hardest to expel food and fluids that were no longer there.
She heard a sound behind her, and looked back, her ears perking up as she waited, uncertain if it was all in her head. At once, she heard another whimper, high pitched and feminine, just as the head of a vulture poked up behind the boulder while it looked to the sky and swallowed something down its gullet.
She galloped towards it and jumped on top of the over sized rock, the pain in her legs and body flaring, even while dulled.
The scavenger saw the queen coming and squawked begrudgingly as it took to the sky. Food was plentiful at the moment, and it had no qualms with giving up its current meal to the creature.
Chrysalis jumped down to the changeling, who was lying in the fetal position facing away from her. She went to wrap her hooves around her child's midsection only to quickly retract her limbs when her daughter groaned from the touch.
"I-I'm so sorry." Chrysalis stammered, unable to think of what else to say. With a quick peek over her child's form, she could see that the vulture had had its way with her eyes, the first part of the body that birds typically go for, before starting on the other end... With a quick, if flickering glow of her horn, Chrysalis numbed the dying changeling's pain, just as she had done her own.
The changeling let out a contented sigh of relief before uttering, "M-Mom?"
Chrysalis bit her lip, one of her fangs drawing blood. It was extremely rare for one of her subjects to address her so casually. While she did enjoy the maternal address, she was her hive's queen first, and their mother second. "I'm so sorry, Kara," She repeated, unable to look her daughter in the eye, even if she was unable to return the gaze.
"About what?" Kara asked
"This is all my fault." Chrysalis stated. "If I didn't decide to attack Canterlot, we could have at least died in the relative comfort of our hive. Instead..."
"We died trying?"
"What if there was another way?" Chrysalis said, fighting to hold back her tears, unwilling to show her emotions in front of her subject.
"What else could we have done?" Kara asked, "From the scouts that we sent to the south, the ones to return only spoke of death. The west is nothing but trees as far as the eye can see, and the north is like the east, except once you exit the forest, there isn't civilization for several days journey. To the east are deadly swamps, and right after that is a lake so vast we wouldn't survive the journey across."
"The Ocean." Chrysalis corrected with a smile as she lied down next to her daughter, it was clear at this point that she was paralyzed from the neck down, as even the absence of pain didn't give her the excuse to move. Kara gasped at the feeling of Chrysalis wrapping her hooves around her, but there was no discomfort behind the sound. "It's not a lake, Kara," Chrysalis continued. "It's called the ocean, more specifically, the Celestial sea, which is only a small part of the ocean." The younger changeling never did attend her lessons, always risking her life making treacherous journeys to nearby pony villages to make use of her 'filly cuteness' to garner affection from the locals, before bringing it back to the hive. It was something that the hive as a whole appreciated, but Chrysalis would scold her each and every time for her reckless behavior, and each and every time Kara would promise not to do it again, only to go missing again several weeks later, possibly never to return.
"But Kara." Chrysalis said skeptically, "If the east is just the impassable sea, and the south and west are devoid of civilization, and the north has too many obstacles before reaching a decent love source, where in Equestria could we possibly go to feed ourselves?
Kara smiled, she of all changelings should know the answer to this. "North-west." She stated simply.
"Oh? What about the North-west?" Chrysalis asked.
"North west of our hive is a road," Kara began, "Follow it for a day and a half, and you reach the northern exit of the Badlands. Then you follow the road for a few days more, and—"
"Follow the road?" Chrysalis asked. “Isn't that dangerous? Won't you get spotted easily by carriages before you have a chance to shapeshift?"
"No." Kara stated with a weak giggle. "Nopony travels south on that road because it only leads to the badlands!"
"And?" Chrysalis inquired.
"Nothing is in the badlands but sand and rock."
"But?"
"But we live here! But most ponies don't know that, so we're safe!"
"So you do pay attention in class?"
Kara giggled again, the action interrupted by a cough, then a subsequent spit of blood.
"Continue, please," Chrysalis said softly. "You don't have to worry about carriages, so..."
"So there's no need to waste precious love energy to change form until you start to see the town."
"And what is the town called?"
"Dodge city," Kara answered. "Usually, it can be a really good place to get love."
"Why only usually?" Chrysalis asked.
"Because ponies there are mean sometimes!" Kara said angrily.
It was Chrysalis's turn to giggle. "And why is that?"
"Because last time I was there, not a single pony came to my 'free hugs' booth! Can you believe that! Not a single one!" Kara tied to shout, though it came out in a tone only slightly louder than conversational.
"Impossible." Chrysalis said as she used her magic to gently raise the changeling upwards, bringing Kara's head to rest on her neck, hugging her daughter's withers as she acted as a pillow for the younger changeling. "Who could ever deny such an adorable creature her justly due hug."
"Exactly!" Kara agreed.
"Then again," Chrysalis mused, "I suppose you have lost your filly charms, so such a method would come across as strange coming from a mare your age.”
"Hey!" Kara protested.
"What? I only speak the truth," Chrysalis said. "You're no filly anymore, you will have to start working for your love from now on, instead of relying on handouts."
"I can take care of myself!" Kara said defensively.
"Oh really? How so?"
"Last time I was in Dodge city, a colt called my booth stupid and bucked it down."
Chrysalis felt a brow twitch in anger. "That wasn't very kind of him, what did you do in return?"
"I bit him." Kara stated happily. "I made him believe I was his sister for the rest of the day!"
"Is that so!" Chrysalis laughed. "I didn't know you had developed queen venom."
"Hmm?" Kara hummed.
"Looks like you missed that lesson." Chrysalis said. "It's something that only changeling queens have. It's not anything of legend, but it is very rare for a typical changeling to acquire such an ability. It's a rather pleasant coincidence really."
"How so?" Kara inquired.
"Because," Chrysalis said, "I was planning on making you the next queen, once I had grown too old to sustain the hive, just as my mother did for me. Like you, I too had grown my venom glands before being made a queen. I was rather small at the time, even for a changeling, and suddenly, after word got out that I had queen venom, I was suddenly treated with respect second only to our mother, as if I had suddenly grown up overnight."
"Oh," Kara responded silently.
They stayed there for a long while, Chrysalis content with the gentle shifting of the young changeling's body as her chest expanded and contracted against her own. She used her magic as necessary to swat away the flies looking for exposed flesh in which to lay their eggs, though her attention was split between her own flayed hoof—which she could as least haphazardly close up—and Kara's eye sockets. She renewed the pain numbing spell on herself and Kara.
In the back Chrysalis's mind, an intrusive thought flared to life, that she was wasting her time on somepony that couldn't be saved. Time better spent searching for those that might actually stand a chance at living through this. Kara interrupted the thought for her as she spoke.
"Mom?" The grown changeling asked.
"Yes, Kara?" Chrysalis said.
"What was your mother like?"
Chrysalis stayed silent for moment, thinking of what to say in response.
"Pestilence," Chrysalis began, "as well as her mother before her, dreamed of peace with the ponies..." She paused again. "With no success, of course."
"Right..." Kara agreed. "But, what did they try?"
"Well, from what my mother told me, her grandmother had tried to bridge the gap between our species after the war, but—"
"War?" Kara questioned. "What war?"
"The Changeling War is what the ponies used to call it, but it's been several centuries since then, so I doubt it's commonly known about these days. Anyways, shortly after our defeat, most of the surviving queens and their hives were hunted down and eradicated."
"But why?" Kara asked. "The war was over, So why would somepony do that?"
"Because we're changelings." Chrysalis stated. "We are beings that require the love and affection of other races to sustain ourselves, and posses the means to do so whether they like it or not. That's just the way things are, as they have always been. That colt that you made to believe was your brother, I can only assume that was the first time you forcefully extracted love from somepony. There are physical and mental side effects to being so emotionally drained. I could have trained you to extract love at a steady, unnoticeable rate. Think about it from that colt's perspective. How would you feel if you suddenly came to your senses and remember that your sibling, who you loved dearly only moments before, was not only never actually your sibling, but clearly something that could bend you to its will with a bite.
"Umm, confused?" Kara answered.
"And?" Chrysalis egged on.
"Scared?"
"Precisely." Chrysalis agreed. "They fear us for what we can do, and for good reason. Right after the war, Equestria as a whole feared that anyone they knew could be foalnapped and replaced with a changeling, so the more zealous among them banded together, and finished off the already weak remnants of our race."
"But..." Kara started. "The ponies in Dodge city make Celestia out to be such a kind and gentle ruler. Even if we were at war, she doesn't seem like the type to just stand by and let another race get killed off."
"Then Celestia is either a different mare than before," Chrysalis suggested, "or they don't know their own ruler. The hives that survived the genocide, Celestia banished from Equestria.”
"Even us?" The changeling mare asked.
"Yes and no," Chrysalis started. "Yes, our hive was exiled, but while the other hives died out, be it in the frozen north, or the perilous jungles to the south and west, our ancestors were left to die here in the Badlands."
"But we survived!" Kara said excitedly.
"That's right, my little changeling, we lived just barely close enough to pony kind that we were able to hang on by a thread. Over the centuries, three queens have sought Celestia's aid, at the same time putting themselves at her mercy."
"But if she didn't decide to kill us, why leave us to suffer?" Kara questioned.
"Who knows," Chrysalis said. "Perhaps she simply didn't see us as a threat any longer, and figured she need only wait a few more centuries before we die out. She's lived this long after all, she may as well be immortal. What are a few centuries, a few generations of changelings, to her? Perhaps she expected us to attempt to cross the sea and hopelessly try to live off the love of the brutish dragons, or the feral diamond dogs."
There was a long moment of silence after that, before Kara spoke.
"Where is everypony else? I've only heard your voice since waking up."
Chrysalis said nothing, only squeezing her daughter that much tighter.
"Mom?"
"Yes, Kara?"
"Why are you with me?"
"What do you mean?"
"You keep wasting your energy making sure I can't feel myself dyi-"
"You are NOT dying!" Chrysalis snapped back, interrupting her daughter. She spoke her next words more softly, mindful of the ears only inches away from her muzzle. "You are not going to die, Kara."
"You should be looking for survivors, not wasting your time on me." Kara suggested.
"Last I checked, I found a survivor right here." Chrysalis said. "So, do you have any other questions for me that you should have learned from the lessons you skipped?"
"Just two." Kara said. "Do you think Celestia might have actually helped us this time? If instead of attacking Canterlot, we just asked one last time for help?"
Chrysalis frowned at the question before saying, "No." The queen rubbed her cheek into her daughter's, the smaller changeling humming at the contact, "Nothing short of the face of a pouting filly Kara would be capable of thawing such an ice-cold heart. Unfortunately, we no longer have such a miraculous trump card at our disposal. What was your other question?"
"Umm, we need love to live, but we have to mostly rely on ponies to provide it. My question is, Why can't we just feed ourselves?" She started sniffling. "Wh-what is it that we're missing that ponies have? Why can't we l-love each other like they do? What if what we think we're feeling isn't even L-"
"Shh, Kara, it's ok." Chrysalis cooed.
"But I'm scared." Kara whimpered. "I don't wanna die."
"You aren't going to die." Chrysalis assured her.
Kara stayed silent this time, knowing that her mother wouldn't relent in her empty promises. She didn't understand why her mother continued to lie to her, as there was no doubt in either of their minds that she wouldn't last very long. Before Chrysalis had arrived, even before the vulture had noticed her paralysis, and had its way with her eyes, she knew she wasn't long for this world. She didn't know if it was a head injury, or a strike to her spine that had caused her paralysis, all she knew was that she could still feel pain from her extremities. She knew what a broken bone felt like from her many journeys outside of the Badlands, and she didn't have to be a doctor to know that most of bones in her body were in a less than ideal state. Her train of thought was interrupted when Chrysalis continued speaking.
"Going back to the topic of feeding ourselves," Chrysalis began, "there is an old changeling folk tale that speaks of a day wherein a changeling will learn to produce love within himself, and will share his love freely with the rest of his hive. After that day comes to pass, never again will a changeling want for love, and never again will we have to hide ourselves from others, for there will be no reason to." The changeling queen frowned after a moment. "Of course, the story is nothing but a tale made to give young changelings the false hope that they might free themselves of their... of what makes them who they are..."
"That's not fair." Kara sniffled. "I love you more than anything, even more than hugs!"
"Even more than hugs? You?" Chrysalis smirked. "Is such a thing even possible?"
They shared a soft laughter, and were silent for a few minutes after, each content with simply being in the other's presence.
"Mom?"
"Yes Kara?" Chrysalis replied in a maternal tone.
"I'm sleepy."
"Then I suppose that means we should be going to sleep then. It's the middle of the night after all."
"Please don't leave..."
"I wouldn't dream of it Kara," Chrysalis assured her. "I will be right here when you wake up."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
"...Mom?"
"Yes Kara?"
"I love you."
"I love you too Kara."
Chrysalis closed her eyes, but moments later felt something that filled her being with indescribable warmth. She pressed her daughter against her as the last remnants of Kara's love reserves were forced into her. And then she felt something... more, something... purer. Just as quickly as she felt it, it was gone. She opened her eyes to see Kara's body glowing softly, and her eyes widened when a thin, wide tendril of magic came out of the cracked stub that used to be Kara's horn. It wrapped around the trunk, and slowly snaked its way around the top of the changeling's head, as if beginning to form a cocoon.
Then it stopped. Starting at the end, it began to tear and break away, the shreds floating up into the air before they too were gone. It went on like this, slowly at first, then it sped up, the ripping and tearing following the magic back to its source.
Chrysalis didn't quite know what to make of what she had just seen, but now, bereft of witnesses, she sobbed all the same.
Not bothering to wipe away her tears, Chrysalis stood and trotted away from Kara's corpse, there could still be survivors waiting to be found.
There had to be.