While Sparrowbee and his fellow nymphs settled in for dinner, a significant portion of the hive was occupied with a different form of pressing matter. Queen Sclerite, her unflappable regal mask firmly in place, stood in attendance at the fore of a dais, overlooking a sea of sombre and worried changelings. One of these, the relevant district’s head of operations, had only just retaken her place following a speech she’d delivered. It was all too obvious to the Queen that everyling present knew what was coming, but her regret couldn’t change the facts. Due to the steady march of time and the difficulty of acquisition, the district no longer had even one pod pony to sustain them, and it was unclear when any new ones could be brought in. The pickings were rather slim, after all, and the risks associated with venturing out had certainly not lessened. The necessary course of action, therefore, was clear as glass.
While she gazed out at them all, delivering a consoling speech of her own, she located their presences in the hivemind. Without disconnecting them from one another, she gently prised them loose from the main hivemind, giving each mind a faintly apologetic brush of emotion. Not one of them resisted, nor requested to be transferred to another district, their gazes resolute, unwavering. “I am so proud of you.” She confided, in a murmur that reached every changeling in the chamber, and they smiled up at her with a trust that stung at her heart as she sank their minds into the enveloping blankness of hibernation. Without the love to sustain them, she couldn’t justify having them active and consuming resources – but living in Quarry Eel territory, there was no guarantee they’d wake.
Unlike the larvae, grubs and nymphs gathered in their sanctuaries in the core, these hive members lived near the edge of Crag Hold, and they wouldn’t be the first hibernating district to be lost if it all did go wrong, whether by outright destruction or less direct damage caused by disturbances elsewhere in the hive. She’d post guards, of course, but there was only so much they could do against Quarry Eels. If only mature changelings could feed on the love of their own kind, as the young could, things might have been different... As it stood, however, it was this or send them out to try to catch a new loving creature – and very few of this district were Infiltrators and the like. Most, in fact, were of the Builder caste – great for hive upkeep when it was so often damaged, but far from the subtlest of changelings when it came to disguises or weaving a believable role. She watched as a team of Workers stowed the hibernating changelings in longsleep pods for as much insulation from the outside world as that could afford, her thoughts circling around the scene, and she only strode out once all were tucked away and under guard. They were her people, many of them her own children, and it was her responsibility to see them off into the dark.
She was tempted to take her mind off such weighty things and visit the young ones again, to at least get some mental breathing space, but one of her advisors had alerted her to a problem with the podded puppies they’d been trying to stretch supplies with. Apparently, she was told when she made her way over to inspect them, figuring out the right goo composition to keep them both healthy and happily dreaming was somewhat finicky and time-consuming. It was, the pod managers informed her, a lot of effort for relatively low-grade love. It wasn’t that the puppies weren’t loving – they were simply somewhat lossy to extract that love from, not being quite as sentient as a pony or other creature with civilisation. The decision she had to make was this: was it worth the effort to keep this project running for the low-grade but still consumable love, or would the hive be better served if she reassigned the pod managers to pony pods to maximise staffing and concentration of effort there?
She considered the issue for a while, consulting the available reports, before electing to continue the project. Any source of love was vital, especially if she had a young Royal to nurture. As soon as any nymph began to show the signs of developing into the Royal caste, their love requirement began drastically increasing – and changeling love could only take them so far. Royals developed quite rarely, and a typical hive could only sustain one growing nymph of the caste at a time, especially during adolescence – partly as adolescent Royals in close proximity were prone to competition and outright conflict. Knowing that one was waiting in the wings would at least give her some time to prepare, but the issue was still thornier than she’d have liked. It came quite naturally to a Royal to desire Royal heirs, but when that desire came into conflict with the situation, it could be quite stressful.
What if she sent out some of her Warriors out to intercept love-carrying changelings from other hives? A desperate move, and a risky course of action – perhaps it would be best to see if another pony or so could be acquired first, but sooner or later they’d have to get aggressive in their tactics. Aedeagus had said it before, and in this case, she had to admit that he was right. While getting into conflict with other hives or the Equestrians was far from ideal, she could not allow her hive to starve. If he’d been there, she’d have turned to him to aid her in working this out, but he and his patrol were otherwise occupied, retaking some of the lower tunnels from the nesting eels that had taken up residence there. Withdrawing to her chambers, she began drawing up plans, suppressing a slight shake in her hoof. She was the Queen. She was resolute. It was her duty.