Tenacity threw herself onto the ground and stared up at the blue sky. A ceiling that went on forever. She wanted to fly, to take up all the air and space as if she would one day lose it again.
"These are all the survivors?" Halfwing asked her captain, gesturing to the small group of injured soldiers that had helped dig them out of the rubble.
"Within the mine," replied Carrier. "A dozen scent trails lead out of the camp. Ponies who fled the fight, I imagine. Some lingered among the dead, maybe to bury them after the fighting, maybe just to hide, but whatever they were doing, they're not here now."
Halfwing sighed. "Do you think we'll find more in the village?"
"Neither Princess Spectra nor Princess Majesta is here. They would have taken a lot of ponies with them. They had the numbers to do it."
"We can't recover without more magic." Halfwing turned back to the mine. "The old masters, do you think we can dig them out?"
"Before they died of thirst?" He shook his head. "Ponies are fickle creatures. Even if we began clearing all the other tunnels right now, we don't have the raw labour to do it fast enough."
Halfwing snarled. "We had more ponies than I cared to count. It would be a tragic waste if they died."
"With due respect," spoke up one of the ponies, one without injuries. "Even if we did, wouldn't we be outnumbered by them? Digging them out will mean setting them free."
Carrier agreed. "The pony's right, we no longer have the strength to maintain what we had before."
"Then what?" Halfwing asked, turning to Tenacity. "Any ideas?"
She spread herself out on the ground. "Groundskeeper will still help us, but there's no way my ponies are still there. Majesta probably took them."
Halfwing looked to the survivors. "Do you think your village can come back after this?"
The healthy stallion looked at his comrades. "How many of us died? Any ponies left alive would be those who fled to the farmlands before the fighting began, but Marblestop doesn't have much farmland."
"There should still be a few hundred ponies left," Halfwing replied.
"Maybe, but we're not machines. The village's morale will crumble once word gets out. There's only so much loss we can handle."
Tenacity sat up. "I don't know what you're complaining about. Riverfork should have thousands of your kind. From what Spectra said about her time there, it sounds like they'll take you in if you say Changelings attacked you. Wouldn't even be a lie."
"You want us to go to the ponies we rebelled against?" the stallion replied.
"They probably assume you were all replaced by our drones during your uprising. And even if they don't, you can just tell them that's what happened."
"That's not what I meant." He helped one of the other ponies stand up. "We don't need them. Marblestop can stand on its own without ponies who force their own kind to work."
"Hm." Carrier thought for a moment, fluttering his wings in a twitch while he considered the options in his head. "Maybe you don't want to, but it would be best if we went."
"What do you mean?" Halfwing asked.
"It'd only be for a few weeks, for you to regain your strength." Carrier gestured to numerous corpses scattered across the mining camp. "Marblestop's not an ideal place to hunt anymore. Riverfork is full of healthy ponies with happier emotions. You'll recover and gain your strength, and it'll give Marblestop time to lick its wounds."
"Hey, drone," Tenacity yapped. "It was my idea, don't talk like you know what to do. You're young, aren't you? Have to be, since your first captain's dead."
Carrier didn't reply, Tenacity's remark hurting him so much he actually showed it on his face.
"What's your point?" Halfwing asked.
"You don't have experience hunting. Not for real."
"And you do?"
Tenacity smirked. "Of course. I actually hunted with my pack the right way."
"Forget it," Halfwing snapped. "If you think you can take the lead on this, we should just part ways now. I can't trust you enough not to get me killed."
Tenacity rolled her eyes. "You know there's no point in us fighting, we'd just be doing Spectra and Majesta a favour."
"I don't need you to beat them," she snapped back. "If it wasn't for you, I would've killed Spectra once I captured her."
"You should've done it the moment you saw her," Tenacity smirked. "Instead you waited and wasted precious time. If you want to keep to yourself, fine, but I won't let you waste my time when I already know what needs to be done."
She hissed to her drones and took off through the treetops west, toward Riverfork. Whether she meant it or not, it was another insult to Halfwing's disability, literary leaving her behind.
Halfwing sighed and took a seat right there on the gravel. "Think we should have killed her and taken her drones?" she asked Carrier.
"Even without magic, they're dangerous," he said. "You avoided the risk. I can't say if it was a good or bad decision, but it's the one you made, and the one I'll follow.
"Then we'll find the groundskeeper, and ask him for information on Riverfork."
"You plan on going, still?"
Halfwing nodded. "She was right about one thing, I haven't practised living as a pony for long enough. I'll have to expand my experience to have any hope of catching up to Spectra now."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Majesta and Spectra looked at both of their spawn.
"At least it has a leg," Spectra said, optimistically.
"That was supposed to be a rib," her sister replied.
"I think I put the face wrong on mine," Spectra added.
Majesta looked over. "The horn is sticking out of its eye socket."
It had been nearly three months of endless work, controlling the growth of their first... they couldn't even give it a name. It was supposed to be a Changeling, but what they got was a flat waste of chitin and skin that barely resembled a cow's faecal matter, let alone a living creature.
Both sorry things had three holes on the side that faced up, opening and closing to inflate themselves with air. Their erratic rising and slumping sickened even the two princesses, who could strip a deer of its skin without flinching a muscle.
"I don't know how mother does it," Majesta complained, kick her creation against the wall of the training room. The pile of flesh gurgled and puffed a load of air, trying to express pain and shock, but even its emotions were dead. It didn't have the brain to understand the pain and simply reacted to whatever touched it in a similar fashion.
Spectra grabbed a notebook, notes stolen from a natural philosopher who lived up north in a village called the Citrus Hills. He had diagrams of the anatomy of the large spiders native to his land, and the dragons that nested in the mountain near his home.
She flipped through its pages, reading over the near-complete picture of the internal and external composure of spiders and dragons.
"This is useless," Spectra said, tossing the book back onto the table. "What good is all this knowledge if we can't make it work for us."
"That notebook was stolen over fifty years ago," Majesta said. "I told you not to trust it. The information could be wrong."
"True, but our own studies haven't been much better." She grabbed the heart of a dead jungle rodent off one of their tables. "What's the point of studying all these animals? Changelings aren't any of them."
"There's a bigger picture," Majesta groaned. "Somehow, we're not seeing something."
"We could dissect another worker-drone," Spectra suggested.
"It would be no different from the other six we've already used," countered Majesta. "We need to try something different."
"Fine, once you figure it out, by all means, try it." Spectra levitated her grotesque creation and tossed it into a sac of green digestive fluid.
She left the room and Majesta, leaving through a corridor lit by round bulbs, green with a core of bright yellow. Light-drones, she learned one day from her mother. They were a subset of worker-drones, made specifically to never develop beyond their embryonic state.
Their egg sac, clearer but thicker than any other Changeling egg, was packed with highly nutritious fluid. Their eyes and internal organs glowed with white light, but according to her mother, their transparent chitin gave it the lava-like yellow-ish orange hue. A single light-drone could live for two years before it began to dim and die. She talked about their bodies as if understanding them was so simple, but after months, she had still decided not to divulge most of her secrets about producing more Changelings.
"Princess!" her captain called out from below as he hovered up the hive to meet her. "Worker-drones finished boring the hole you wanted."
"Good." Keeping her ponies healthy was a difficult chore. They needed food and water every day, and their internal skeletons offered no protection from the rats and insects that were parasites to their flesh. The hole led through the mountain to a stream on the surface, a source of fresh air and water in the empty cavern they lived in.
"Now that that's done, get the pack together, we're taking a trip up north," Spectra said.
"How far up north?"
"You know about the Citrus Hills?"
Her captain nodded. "Hunted there once for a few weeks."
"Alright, and bring only the best. It's a quick recon mission, there's some information I want to get."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Is this what you normally wear?" Halfwing took one look at the pony Carrier had kidnapped a day ago. "It feels weird, having something so smooth draped over you."
"It's called silk," the groundskeeper said, watching them. "This mare's a wizard from a city far to the west, a place called The Range. She must be a young student if she didn't put up a fight with her spells."
"Ponies have strong magic like that? I thought they needed crystals."
"Not for some unicorns," he answered, "but not many of them live this far south of Equestria. Most stick to mountain cities, like the one north of Riverfork. The Range has several cities along the mountains the make it up, all boasting codified schools of magic. You'll have to pass as a student of magic if you're going to replace her."
The short mare stared in horror as the two of them casually discussed how Halfwing was going to take her place. Halfwing had already taken her form, but the groundskeeper continued his speech in the Changeling fashion of hisses and clicks.
"Please, take any pony else," she pleaded when they seemed about done talking. "I'm new to Riverfork, I don't know any pony with love to steal."
"A bit of work," Halfwing replied with the pony's own voice in a much stronger and confident tone, "but that's perfect. I'm a bit of a picky eater, so I hope you don't mind if I pick your friends for you."
"Princess!" Carrier hovered down from the treetops, returning from his patrol. "We spotted a pony headed this way a few miles south of here."
"Damn horrible hiker if they got that lost," mused the groundskeeper.
Carrier ignored the comment. "When I went to capture him, he called out your name. It's Septarian."
Halfwing's eyes widened. "He's alive?"
The groundskeeper frowned. "What's a... septarian?"
"He helped me seize Marblestop," Halfwing answered hastily, "and we need to find him. He must have escaped my sisters, somehow."
"The other two are leading him here right now, he should be at the edge of the nest soon."
Halfwing levitated her silk robes up off the dirt and hurried toward the south border of the nest. Carrier moved to follow, but the groundskeeper but a barrier in front of him to cut him off.
"You go on, Halfwing," he said. "There's something I need to ask Carrier about." She continued running, not seeming to care about what they had to talk about.
"What's going on?"
"You didn't smell that?" The groundskeeper groaned. "Of course, you didn't, you're as young as she is. Been around her longer too."
"I don't get it," replied Carrier.
"Her scent's not right," barked the groundskeeper, briefly shifting his voice to a low, bear-like pitch before returning to normal. "I know what it is, even though I've never even encountered it before."
"I didn't smell anything."
"I know you didn't, though I'm not sure why. The scent of a Changeling's love is unmistakably pungent."
The groundskeeper's words cracked a smile on Carrier's face. "That's a joke, right? Are you intoxicated or something? I saw a bunch of herbs in the pony's saddlebag."
"For once, I'm serious," the groundskeeper said sternly.
"You are?" Carrier stepped back and looked around. "For a moment I thought the Queen was here. Your kind only ever behaves normally when she's around."
"The rules on this are vague, so let me just say it plainly, whelp," the groundskeeper hissed. "Whatever your princess feels for that pony, he's more than just another tool to her. I can't say what the bond is, obsession perhaps, or like how ponies care for their pets, but it's not right. The scent's rancid enough at this stage. Any stronger and the Queen has a standing order to kill her, princess or no."
And those last words switched Carriers attitude. "Did you just threaten a princess? My princess?"
"As it stands she's barely those things," remarked the groundskeeper. "A bond like this with anything that isn't the hive is treason to the Queen, and 'my kind' are loyal only to the Queen. We are the weapons of her will. So deal with this problem."
"Or else you'll kill her?" growled Carrier.
"Me, or any other groundskeeper," he clarified, not even denying the outrageous thought of killing one of the Queen's daughters.
His conviction softened Carrier's expression against him. Groundskeepers were not ones to make threats lightly. Most hunter-drones treated them as outcasts, but even one as young as Carrier new the truth; they had as much strength and experience as the best captains of the hive, and they were born without the need to hunt in a pack. Whatever he wanted to do, Carrier knew there was no way he could stop him.
"In any event, we'll need that stallion," he said, taking to the air again to retreat to the nest. "Septarian was a special kind of drone to the Marblestop ponies."
"I know about their unique slave system."
"More than that, he was a skilled worker among them. Apparently belonged to some expensive business, which was how he learned the skills he has now."
The groundskeeper turned his back to the quivering unicorn and switched over his voice. "What do you think. Sound like a good idea?"
She stared at his fanged grin, horrified. "What? I don't know what you're talking about."
"Fine, have your fun with her," Carrier shook his head, flying off. "Just forget about the princess and let me deal with it."
The groundskeeper gave him a look as he left, then turned back to the mare. "I don't know if he can handle it. Did you ever have any difficult siblings? Technically I have thousands. Too many, I say."
"I don't know what you're talking about," the pony whimpered again. She yelped as the groundskeeper gently bit into a leg and yanked her closer.
"That's fine. After all, you don't need to know much of anything to be eaten."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Septarian leaned his back against the trunk of the nest-room's tree, unable to resist as Halfwing tended to his wounds. She had transformed into a blood-drinking bat, the kind whose saliva numbed the cuts of its victims so they would never notice their parasite. He found it weird being tended by her, but once her tongue began lapping up his blood, the cuts suddenly felt warm, and then there was no pain.
"That form you were in," he murmured, "you're going to take her place? Who is that unicorn."
Halfwing bit him on the shoulder, a soft spot not yet numbed up. He yelped but kept quiet after that, catching onto what she meant. No talking, not while she was working.
He felt squishing as she reached for the deeper wounds. Walking back from the wetlands the Changelings had taken him too was not a short journey. He had gashes where scavenging birds attacked him with their talons, too hungry to wait for him to die on his own. There were claw marks from foxes and wolves along his rear legs where the predators managed to catch up with his galloping.
Even with the numbing saliva, Septarian felt like his whole back being pinched and compressed. He looked to his side where a small pile of his infected skin was discarded.
"He'll need stitches," Halfwing said to one of the drones standing by, though her voice was much softer since the bat was so small.
But the drone complied anyway, flying quickly away and returning just as fast with a spool of thread and a thick copper needle that was clearly made by a Riverfork crafter.
"Can't stay at Marblestop?" he asked as she pricked his skin and pulled the thread through.
"No," she answered through her teeth as she worked the needle through again. "But you should. Your village needs a guiding hoof."
"What about you? Ow!"
He heard a sly cackle. "You forget, I'm the one who's a monster. Don't worry about me."
"You know I can't," Septarian said. "That's why I had to come back, I had to know if you survived the mountain slide."
She tightened the stitches and knotted the thread. "A little late for that, don't you think? Good thing for me that it worked out in the end." Halfwing stepped back and made space to stretch her body back out, burning magic in a violent green glow, growing back to the unicorn's body in seconds.
"When will you be back?"
"I don't know," Halfwing smirked and lay Septarian down on his side, protecting his back, "but be honest with me; this mare's body feels a lot better than mine, doesn't it?"
His eyes bulged at her sudden advances. "It'd be rude to compare two kinds of beaut-"
"Oh come on, I don't mind," she laughed. "A different body is just like clothing for my kind. Don't you like it? From the talk I've heard from your soldiers, don't males enjoy younger, innocent females?"
"But, your Changelings, they're right below us," Septarian protested uselessly once she laid her weight down on him.
"They're only drones," she said grinned. Her face pressed against his neck could feel the warmth of his blood rushing through capillaries and arteries, heating up the surface of his body. Elevated, his heart pumped blood into every vessel until the scent was intoxicatingly sweet. "They won't think anything about us."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The groundskeeper sat back and sipped a cup of tea, one of the many items stolen from the unicorn's saddlebag. He was with her, at the highest nest-room, listening to her story. It was one of the many things that set his kind apart from the drones, an appreciation for finer arts.
"Your mother sounds like she was a very proud mare," he mused, swishing the tea bag around. "The Rangefield Academy almost never takes in merchant class students." Once he began joking with her, the fearful unicorn seemed able to accept what was happening to her.
"Couldn't stop me from taking a 'diversity tour' to satisfy them," she said bitterly, lifting up her hemp bindings. "You can see how that turned out."
"Orders are orders," he shrugged. "I've no reason to deny Halfwing, while the Academy has to listen to the nobility that funds them." He emptied the cup. "I spent a few months among them when I was training in my youth."
She curled back away from the groundskeeper. "Then you'd know they send students like us to fix problems they don't want to handle. If you knew why I had to come to this place, you wouldn't have taken me."
"Well, whatever it is, it can't be helped now."
"It can if you let me go," she said. "That village across the river, hundreds died there, haven't they?"
"Was it really hundreds?" The groundskeeper scratched his head. "I guess if you count all the prey she kept inside the mountain..."
"By now I thought you would've figured it out already," she gawked at his lax behaviour.
"Oh quit it, or I'll really eat you," he scoffed. "Of course a dragon's going to turn up. They can pick up that scent from hundreds of miles away."
She furrowed her brows. "And you're not worried?"
The groundskeeper ruffled his wings in a gesture she could only guess was some sort of boast. "That dragon's going to eat her fill of ponies, then nest for a few decades to lay her eggs. As long as I do to it, it will do nothing to us."
"It might eat your friends," she suggested.
At that, he laughed. "Drones aren't my friends, I don't even know if they're capable of the thought. But, if Halfwing somehow finds her way into the jaws of the dragon, she's not worth saving."
He laid his head down to rest. "It might even save me trouble in the long run."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Scrunch, scrunch, two ponies dug through the unburied remains of the mining camp's battle. There were still claw marks in the gravel that hadn't settled back down, though the oldest corpses were already half-eaten by maggots and crows.
"Owlseye, see anything we can use?" Blunderhoof shouted to his friend.
"Raw ore and broke pick heads," replied Owlseye. They, and about seventy other ponies, were the first to take the news to heart and return to Marblestop proper.
"Those soldiers survived somehow," Blunder sighed, "they must've had more than just those spears."
"Well we won't find herbs for your daughter," Owlseye kicked over a bucket of iron ore. "Did you see the others? Cuts and bruises everywhere. Looked infected."
"Maybe they were saving medicine for a tough day?"
His friend scoffed at his optimism. "They already had their toughest day when the other Changelings beat them. Just because we were the ones to finish the job doesn't mean they weren't already desperate."
"Thanks for cheering me up," he scowled. Blunderhoof stood up and wiped the gravel off his knees. "I've searched through half of these dead bastards and there's nothing." He bucked the pile of dead Marblestop soldiers aside. "Told you we should have gone with the others to loot the village. Might've been some medicine oils in the market."
Owlseye stomped his hoof at his friend's complaints, scattering a pile of broken crystals. "Blunder, if there were medicine oils, don't you think the army would have carried that somewhere safe? I'm telling you, once Tackle Ficher gets here with the cart, we can haul these spears back and use them to get the medicine she needs."
The stallion opened his mouth to complain about another thing when a shadow passed over their heads. The sky, the blue luminous sky, was so quickly washed with blood. Black and rotting like wretched roaring, soaring, it flamed the mountainside. The blistered camp's iron air wafted high when skin peeled back to revel in its cleansing, screaming, calling out to the dragon to end the suffering of existing as dead things. Turned to ash, they were, the looters looking for medicine.