Chapter 6
After the royal sisters left, Twilight and her friends made excuses to leave. I looked at, Bug Dude the guy looked tired, but he wore a friendly smile. Once I was alone with him I raised my chin in the universal what’s up gesture. “Hey, what’s up bro?”
“Hello.” He says nodding to me. “You should probably take a bath, before that stuff hardens.” He says walking towards the door. “I will have somepony help you scrub it off.”
“Thanks?” I say looking down at my body. I was covered in the green syrup. Last time I hatched Mother held me down in a stream to clean it off, however it looks like I am on my own this time.
“No problem, I hope to see you at the feelings forum later, Princess.” He says pausing in the doorway.
“You might, if I am still here.” I say knowing that my Mother would want me to leave, as soon as I could get a chance.
“Well if you do decide to stay, we could show you how to use magic.” He smiles in a friendly way as several smaller ‘Bugs’ come into the room.
“I have questions. Who are you, and what are you?” Those were the two most pressing questions, I had at the moment.
“My name is Thorax I am the new leader of this hive. And we are changelings.”
“Reformed changelings.” A supposed changeling adds.
“You’re kidding, right?” I ask chuckling.
“No.” he says looking slightly confused at my laughter.
“You actually look, like what I expected of changelings. I say noticing that they look more like fairies, than a changeling.
“Expected?” he asks looking even more confused.
“There are things about me, that would be best not to question.” I say controlling my laughter.
Thorax nods and walks off, leavening me with three ‘changelings’. They lead me to a bathtub the size of a pool, and poured in bubble bath.
“You think that’s enough?” I ask, as the reformed changelings dump a couple five-gallon size buckets of soap into the pool. They look at me then continue poring. I climb into the pool to find the water, warm and bubbly. The reformed changelings levitate bath brushes, and descend on me. I didn’t stand a chance against them, and their brushes. The scrubbed me till I didn’t have a speck of dirt on me. Then they rinsed me and dried me off with warm towels.
I felt clean! Sure, I had a bath in the wilderness, but dang does soap make a difference. When I was dry the reformed changelings took me to a bedroom. It was a very nice room with a bed an actual bed. I hadn’t slept in a bed since the day I died. I made a bee line for the bed and collapsed on it. Believe it or not hatching can be tiering, especially when you are burning calories super-fast, as the growth is accelerated. Not to mention the stressful and exhausting prosses of entering the hive mind. With all of that it only took a few moments for me to fall asleep.
I dreamed that I was back in my parent’s house. My old room specifically, odd because It had been years since I last visited. I got out of the bed, and walked out of the open door. I looked into the living room to see the floating mane of, Princess Moony siting on the couch.
“What are you doing here?” I ask as I sit down next to her. I was in my ‘Titania’ body. That is probably for the best. I think not wanting to give Moony any information that she didn’t already know.
“Well for one thing, I wanted to apologize for interrogating you.” She sighs.
I am surprised but I nod in acceptation of her apology. “Why are you here, I find it hard to believe that you would enter my dreams just to apologize?”
“You are right.” She sighs “Your name appeared as a topic in my night court.”
“So?”
“It was brought up by a changeling Queen, from the north. We didn’t even know there was any other hives. We thought that Chrysalis was the only Queen.”
“What did she want?”
“She wants you to return to her hive with her. She claims that there hasn’t been a changeling princess in over a thousand years, she wishes to show you how to be a queen.” Luna explains.
“Well you can tell her to forget about that, I will learn from my Mother. And there is no way that I am leaving her.” I say firmly.
“Look I don’t care what you do, just talk to her you will find that she is far kinder than Chrysalis. Besides chrysalis is proven to be evil, whereas this queen seems to be less evil.” Luna says as she gets up and walks to the door. “I just thought you should know your options.”
“I will talk to her on one condition. I when I wake up I want to spend the day with my Mother.” I say fallowing Moony.
“That does not seem like a reasonable deal, nevertheless I shall see to it, Princess Titania that both meetings are arranged.” Luna opens the door with magic, and steeps through. The door closes behind her leaving me alone in my old home.
Suddenly the door opens again, and my parents step through. They are holding groceries in paper bags.
“I know, Hunter but we need the money.” Says mom walking inside and setting the bags on the counter, while dad does the same. I barely have time to dart out of the way.
“When we had, Josh we made a vow that as long as our son lives we won’t consider returning to the family trade. And I don’t plan to start now.” Says dad in a firm tone.
“Our son isn’t alive anymore, so our vow is now void. We need to get back into the old business. We were the best of the best in our day, we still can be!” Mom says as she starts putting groceries away.
“Hello right here! Obviously not dead!” I say waving a hoof in the air.
“You are right, Martha.” Dad says as if he didn’t hear me. “However, I want to live peacefully now.”
“Hunter, you were the best hitman there was!” Remember that cruise we went on? We could do that again. It wouldn’t be hard to find a job, Benjamin franks said that if we ever decide that we want our old jobs back, he would be more than happy to give them to us.”
“My parents were, hitmen? That can’t be true they aren’t violent enough for that line of work. And Benjamin franklin died in the late 1700!” I say loudly, thoroughly confused.
“Fine but only till we have enough money to retire peacefully.” Dad sighs in defeat.
“What no dad don’t say that!” I yell at him but get no response.
I woke screaming. I breathed heavily, I gulped in air slowly calming down. Just a dream I told myself.
Thorax darts into the room “Princess, are you alright?”
“Yah, why?” I snarl, angry with him just barging in like that.
“You were screaming.” He points out.
“So, screaming is perfectly normal for me. What’s your point?” I say annoyed.
“I just wanted to check up on you. After all you are my sister. Look ever since this hive removed, Chrysalis as our ruler. I have taken over as de facto leader, since I was the one who showed the changelings the magic of friendship. That means as ruler I must protect my subjects. I was just trying to do so by checking on you.” He explains calmly.
“You did what!?” No wonder Mother hates your guts. That’s it I am out of here! oh and I am not your sister, or your subject!” I growl and hop off the bed angry at this traitor.
“Princess Titania, wait!” he yells at me. A tendril of magic grabs me but quickly let’s go.
I turn slowly, my anger feels like lava in my veins. There wasn’t much I could do to Thorax but the one thing I could do I knew would hurt. A lot! I opened the hivemind and linked with Thorax. “Good bye traitor.” I say calmly, before letting loose a high pitched mental scream. Thorax collapsed to the ground unconcise and not moving. Blood ran from his ears, nose, and eyes. I turned and ran out of the room. The walls of the hive shifted and moved constantly. I simply ran in a random direction hoping for an exit. A reformed changeling pops out of nowhere.
“Hi are you lost? You look lost.” Asks the reformed changeling.
“Yah, where is the exit?” I ask kindly, I also smile for effect.
“Oh, the exit is that way.” The changeling points to a doorway. “Better hurry through that door will close soon.”
“Thanks!” I call after him as I sprint for the door. The door closes behind me, and the floor despairs. I fall through the floor and out into the wasteland. I look around to see lush foliage growing around the hive. I also see a chariot and a few bat like pegasi pulling it. The chariot lands nearby one and of the pegasi turns to say something.
“Are you the, Changeling Princess Titania?” Asks the batpony.
“Yes I am.” Honesty is the best policy.
“We are here to take you to prison.” He says in a gruff tone.
Luckily for me they meant that they were taking me to see my Mother. I climbed into the back of the chariot and they took off.
It took less than two hours to get to Canterlot. Which is apparently the capital of Equestria. The night guards were very informative and I had a lot of questions. So Sunbutt, Moony, and Twilight were alicorns an elite race that ruled the country. Personally, I thought that was a bit racist, but hey I was only born a few days ago so what do I know. Also, apparently Sunbutt controls the rising and setting of sun while Moony controls the moon in the same fashion. Surprisingly Moony had a bit of jealousy issues. While Celestia has a bit of a God complex. The fact that Celesta sent her sister to the moon for not lowering her celestial giant, wasn’t surprising in the slightest as Sunbutt always did strike me as a bit tyrannical.
As we flew over Canterlot, I noticed we were headed for one of the castle towers. We landed in a courtyard, stone statues accented the topiary bushes and flower beds. One of the guards lead me through the courtyard to the base of a tower. Two white guards stood holding spears blocking the towers doors.