It didn't take too long for you to realize how terribly you fucked up the negotiation meeting for yourself and Equestria as a whole.
For starters, you ended up spending the rest of the day with Chrysalis. You already knew she wanted to jump your bones, but now you were positive that if she didn't somehow convince you to willingly giving her what she wanted, she'd make it a point of raping you before handing you back over to the princesses. Even though you already had a tour of the hive the day before, she led you around, showing you her favorite spots. Which pretty much just ended up being the nursery, Carapace Colosseum, and the Love Shack. At least, that's the name you had for it.
You came to learn that there was a select chamber in the hive where ponies that they had already placed under proper enchantment to feed upon for their love were kept. It was really a rather sad sight, the poor multi-colored ponies given just barely what they needed to survive, clamoring for their loved ones, which they'd get only small sights of as Changelings would enter the chamber in disguise, feeding off their affection. The supply of ponies was so low though, only those that had received special blessings for good service were permitted to feed on the love.
You also got a look inside of Chrysalis' own bedroom, which she had ended up referring to as the Love Shack, which you quickly refused to refer to it as such. She tried putting the moves on you again there, but you were just having none of it. She also tried putting the moves on you, giving you some seductive looks as she lay across her bed, which ironically was not queen-sized. You avoided getting near it by pretending to get sick from the dinner you had just prior... until you realized you didn't properly chew one of the grubs, and that it wasn't actually cooked to death, feeling it crawl around in the back of your throat till you actually threw up on her floor.
You'd hoped that such a display would put Queen Whoresect off, but you learned that apparently throwing up was how they took care of a lot of things. Like building their hives, as you suspected, or detaining their victims. She also seemed more concerned with your health and sent you to your room, swearing that she'd have someone check your condition the next day.
And that's what brought you to where you were at now. Lying in your uncomfortable bed, Apocrita look at you with disinterest from across the room, while another Changeling stood by your bed, looking you over. Like Apocrita and Pharynx, he was a bit different from other Changelings. With green eyes and back armor, a missing left wing (which you highly doubted was natural), and a second, slightly smaller horn behind his first one, he seemed calmer than the other Changelings you'd seen.
"Mhm, yes... yes, I see. I think I know the problem here." he stated, turning back to Apocrita, choosing to address her over you. "He's missing his exoskeleton, that's what's wrong. I'm honestly unsure as to how he's holding himself together right now. Poor thing must be in constant agony." he explained, his voice like every physician who made you wait thirty fucking minutes, just to look your chart over and say you could go. Fucking assholes.
Apocrita shot him an annoyed look and replied "He's what they call a human, and they don't have exoskeletons. They have skin, like ponies do, but without the fur."
"Really? That's highly inconvenient." he remarked, looking back at you.
"I make do." you spoke up.
"I meant for me." he corrected. "How am I supposed to determine if you're in proper health if there's no carapace for me to inspect for sheen? No wings to check for brittleness? Honestly, I don't know why you all waste my time with this lost cause."
"You must have missed the bedside manner course when going through medical school, huh Doc?" you grunted, propping yourself up to look at Apocrita like it was her fault.
"Doc? My name is Chitin." the Changeling corrected, his brow slightly furrowed, but otherwise undisturbed by your remark.
Noting your gaze, Apocrita said "You're better off not pressing the matter, Chitin is socially awkward, even by Changeling standards."
"I am right here, you know." Chitin asserted, looking between you and Apocrita.
"Yeah, well, you spoke about me like I wasn't even here, and I'm the patient and biggest deal in this hive right now, so shame on you." you chided, wagging a finger at him.
"Is he always this obnoxious, or is this just a symptom of his illness?" Chitin inquired, tilting his head like that'd give him a new perspective on your condition.
"He's not sick, just an asshole that can't deal with grubs crawling in his throat." Apocrita explained, shaking her head as she strode over to you, plopping onto her hindquarters once beside your bed. You wanted to make an obedient dog comment, but you were fairly certain she'd bark and bite at you to ward away the obedient part.
"She's right, but do me a favor and tell Chrysalis that I need to rest for the day and that I need some new food. Stuff that won't come back up on its own." you requested, trying to give Chitin an award winning grin.
The medical Changeling merely stared at you for a moment longer, then shrugged. "If it means I can stop wasting my time on this lost cause, I'm willing to lie about it. Wouldn't be the first time." he agreed, turning to head out the door.
Watching him walk away, you looked to Apocrita and said "He'd totally lose his license if he was a doctor in my world."
"I'm not defending him, because honestly he ticks me off as well. He's just barely better than that coward, Thorax, wherever in Tartarus he went off to." Apocrita grumbled, her tongue clicking off the roof of her mouth. "However, he's not here to be your doctor, or even our doctor really. His job is mostly making sure the ponies we have stay alive while we feed off their love."
"Well he's doing a shit job of it. Those guys looked like hell" you quickly shot, earning only a shrug from the guard. "I mean seriously, the guy makes you seem like a ray of fucking sunshine, Ap." Oddly enough, Apocrita didn't seem to snort or growl or really anything at that, your brow quirking a bit from the lack of reaction. Reaching out, you gave a poke to the back of her neck, making her tense for a moment, her legs stiffening with preparation to leap, but she stopped herself from doing anything. "Huh, thought I'd lose a finger for that one."
"You poked me thinking I'd bite your finger off? Why would you do it then?" Apocrita asked, looking at you befuddled.
"Boredom mostly... also cause you're acting kinda weird. I mean, this is like, day three of knowing you, but you're not being as bitchy as you were the first few days. Am I wearing you down? Cause I can totally get down with adding 'Broke elite Changeling guard' to my list of accomplishments." you explained, grinning as you wiggled your finger against the back of her neck, having not removed it the entire time.
At this point, she did lift her foreleg up to smack your arm away, but only gave an annoyed sigh. "I... Thank you."
You had to do an actual double take at that. "Thank you?" you repeated, looking at her like she sprouted a second head. Sure, she could transform her head into maybe a hydra's head and have numerous heads, but that was besides the point. "Have I uncovered Ap's secret subby side? Cause I feel like I can get that out of Chrysalis as it is."
"No you stupid- Urgh!" Apocrita growled, stopping herself by pressing a hoof up to her snout, inhaling sharply. "I just... I never said thank you yesterday... you know, for... not telling Chrysalis I bit you..."
"... in the ass."
She shot you a look, then groaned out "Yes, in the ass. Like it really matters."
"I told you she worshiped this fine booty like it was sent from the gods... wait, maybe that's why I'm here." you began to wonder. It would explain so much. An entire religion focused around your beautiful backside for these ponies to pray to.
"I swear, if you start saying you're a godsend, I will resign now and wander the wastelands till I die." Apocrita mumbled, trying to reel you back into the actual conversation.
"Oh fine, party pooper." you snorted, crossing your arms like a hurt child.
"Seriously, I knew she had a... thing for you, but I didn't realize it extended that far." Apocrita commented.
Snorting, you crossed your arms behind your head and tried to get comfy on the bed. Quite the failure you soon discovered. "So she was going to drop your rank, big whoop. You've been bitching about your position anyways."
Shaking her head, Apocrita placed her forelegs on the bed, surprising you by her boldness... but then quickly not caring. "You don't understand, you've never seen... that look before. Queen Chrysalis gave me the same look she gives when one of us has failed her in an inexcusable way. She makes it so they can never fail her again."
"Well isn't that a good thing? Honestly sounds like she's a great motivator. Why, you're helping me to see her in a whole new li-"
"She kills them Anon. They can't fail her again because she kills them." Apocrita quickly corrected your train of thought.
"Oh..."
"Yeah." Apocrita agreed, rubbing one hoof over the other, staring down at them. "So I just wanted to thank you, for covering for me... even though I have no idea why you did." she admitted, looking up at you with confusion and curiosity.
"Ah, I see... I dunno. I guess I just didn't want to deal with rehiring. It's so hard to find good help these days and I'd have to train a whole new guard. You were enough effort." you replied.
"... Anon, I'd known you for a day. Heck, I've only known you for two days at this point!" Apocrita spat. Rather literally, as some of her weird, greenish saliva landed on your face. Gross.
"Um, yeah." you stated, like it was the most obvious thing in the world... because it was. "It took a whole day to teach you how to be my guard, and honestly I'm getting the feeling you've learned nothing at all."
Apocrita gave you a blank stare, then proceeded to bury her face beneath her legs, wedging against the bed, and gave a muffled yell. Despite the insulation, it still made you wince from the painful screech. Quite the lungs on her. You simply stared at her as the screaming stopped, the elite guard staying still, simply keeping herself lodged there.
Looking around the room awkwardly, finding nobody else watching, you sighed and reached out, placing a hand on top of Apocrita's head, gently stroking it. "... that'll do pig, that'll do."
You expected a violent reaction from Apocrita at this time, but were once more surprised to find that she actually just... let you pet her? In fact, you could see one of her ears twitch as your hand ran over her head. She was like a happy little dog. The only thing that could make this better was if she-
"-rrrrgggh."
Your eyes widened, hand stopping by her ear. "Did you just... purr?"
As if all of a sudden realizing what you were doing and what she had just done, Apocrita suddenly jumped away from you, wings buzzing to give her extra distance, actually leading to her bumping into the wall. Her eyes were wide with what almost seemed like fear, staring at you like you were some sort of monster while hyperventilating.
"Easy there, I'm not going to hurt you." you reasoned, holding your hands up with your palms out to the scared Changeling. "If I wanted to do that, I'd wait till you were asleep and hold a pillow over your face until you stopped kicking and screaming."
Oddly enough, something about the admission of pillow-induced murder was able to calm Apocrita down, leading to her slowly floating down until her hooves were on the ground once more, a few deep breaths to steady herself. "I'm... I... shut up... it was a growl, that's what it was." Apocrtia fumbled through her words, although the knowing, shit-eating grin (but not really because you consistently refuse to eat that shit) on your face let her know you didn't buy it.
"Oh, of course. You were truly angry at me. Why, I've never seen someone so truly furious." you replied, the sarcasm in your tone so terribly thick, you'd have to scrape it off your tongue with a spatula. Mmm, sweet, delicious sarcasm.
Now came the actual snarling that shut you up, Apocrita's bug eyes narrowed to glowing violet slits. "Get this straight. You ever, EVER, tell anypony about what just transpired, and I swear to to the queen, before she disembowels me, I'll pop your eyes out of your skull and shove them up your own ass, just so you can see what the rest of us have to look at all the time."
"... you... look inside of my ass all the time?... that's weird. You're weird." you mocked.
"What? No, I- Urgh!" Apocrita growled, spinning on her hooves and marching out the door. "I'm going to guard you from outside the room. Call for me if you need me." she hissed out, slamming the door shut behind her. "SO DON'T NEED ME!"
You stared at the door for a moment, thinking about what just happened, your grin slowly returning. Getting comfy once more, you said to yourself "She totally wants me."
You came to a realization after several hours of being a layabout in your prison room that, despite bitching and moaning that Chrysalis and the Changelings were the worst creatures in both worlds you've lived in and would rather be alone... you didn't like being alone.
You'd forgotten that when you were trapped with yourself, you allowed your mind to drift off to places best left untouched. Dark, sorrowful places. Reminders of your home world that you may never see again, the people you left behind, and how they might be feeling without you. Thoughts about how, whether it was that old world or this one, you could never truly open up to people to share the deepest feelings and weaknesses that you were afraid they would shun you for. That dark, abyssal spot in your heart that whenever you looked into, you could feel it looking back, judging you as you judged it...
... also, if you should just man up and fuck Chrysalis. After all, for a horse-bug monstrosity, she looked kinda hot. She had hair, sorta. Plus, she was a shapeshifting horse-bug monstrosity. She could technically be anybody, or maybe just anypony, you wanted.
HOLY SHIT! Why did you not realize this before!? You could totally give Luna that cream filling. Or spank Celestia's fat flank! Oh, that one rhymed. Hell, you could even unleash some of those pent up feelings of hatred for Twilight with some exceedingly demeaning sexual humiliation!
You rose from your bed, ready to head off to Chrysalis, ready to tell her you were finally ready to give her what she wanted. Ego was coming!... well, not yet anyways.
"Is that really him?"
"Of course it's him. How many creatures on two legs have you seen in the hive?"
"He's even more hideous than I thought he'd be."
"How else do you expect a creature more devious than our queen to look?"
Before you could leave your bed, you found a series of whispers distracting you from... what was it you were going to do? Something about Chrysalis and fucking... That's right, you were going to tell Chrysalis to go fuck herself... why'd you get out of bed for that? You'll tell her the next time you see her, as you do essentially every time you see her.
"Get away from the door, you're attracting his attention." you heard Apocrita hissing, drawing your eyes over to the door.
Sure enough, you could see a collection of Changeling eyes peering through the ajar door. The moment they recognized you saw them, they shut the door with a rather audible slam, earning a sigh from the unseen Apocrita.
"Hold on a second, get your bug butts in here! Nobody peeps on me and gets away with it! At least not without teaching me how to, because I always get caught!" you demanded. There was a moment's pause, leading you to cross your arms over your chest in frustration. Damn, you really needed to know how to do that.
But then, the door opened slowly, revealing Apocrita begrudgingly leading in a small gathering of Changelings. The horse-bugs looked... oddly sheepish around you, trying to avert their gazes, while Apocrita just looked back at them in frustration. "I told you idiots to be quiet, now we actually have to acknowledge he exists." she grumbled, stopping to sit halfway over to you.
"Oh my god... Ap... are these... your friends?" you asked, snickering. "I never thought I'd see the day. My little Ap is growing up and making friends! And here I thought she'd be a humbug all her life. Oh, where's a camera when you need it?"
"We've known each other for a few days and you somehow know ways to piss me off I never even dreamed of." Apocrita stated, shooting you a glare, her violet-tinged fin twitching a bit in frustration. It was almost cute how it... wait, was it always that color? You could of sworn that it was black like all the others. How did it-
"H-he really is as terrible as they said." one of the Changelings whispered, but not well enough, suddenly realizing his words had your attention. Gulping, he shook a little as he looked up at you.
"Me? Terrible? What lies and slander are they saying about me?" you questioned.
"Th-they say that you demanded the entirety of Ponyville be turned over to Queen Chrysalis' rule." the Changeling answered meekly.
"Yeah, a-and the guards said that y-you said you hated the Princess of Friendship and wanted her to surrender to our Queen." another one added in, shyly rubbing one foreleg over the other.
"I even heard that you convinced Queen Chrysalis to demand that Equestria build us a settlement where we can breed ponies and drain them of their love for generations to come!" one exclaimed with excitement.
"You're giving him more credit than he deserves on the last one." Apocrita corrected.
"Yes, yes, I'm aware of all that. But where is the terrible stuff? You said they were saying terrible things about me!" you pressed on, caring less about the more menial details. "Did they say I can't sing? Did they say I smell funny?... did they say I have a small dick? WELL FUCK THEM! MY EGO IS HUGE! Apocrita! Tell them how massive my Ego is!"
Holding her head in her hooves, Apocrita sobbed "How did my life come to this? I was a good guard. A great guard. I was an elite!... I got greedy. I deserve this for thinking of my own needs."
"Ew, self-pity." you winced, shuddering as you watched Apocrita undergo a life crisis. "Cry behind closed doors like the rest of us."
"He's even a total asshole to an elite guard! All of the rumors are true!" one of the Changelings squealed, the glee in their face almost cute... if not for being a disgusting fanged monstrosity with a snake tongue.
"The whole hive has been talking about you! You're a hero to the common bug! Word has it that even the lowest of drones will get to taste love because of your demands!" another one declared, coming in uncomfortably close for your liking, although the praise helped you handle it.
Acting bashful, you waved a hand dismissively at them. "Oh please, you do me too much credit."
"You really do. Stop praising him." Apocrita agreed, bringing her face out of her hooves so she could glare at you and the gullible Changelings.
"Silence non-believer!" you command, pointing an accusatory finger at Apocrita, only to quickly withdraw it as she snapped at it.
Ignoring the interaction between you and your guard, another Changeling trotted forward and said "We all know that Queen Chrysalis will do whatever she pleases, but we were going to suggest that the new settlement be named after you, so that your glory may live on for all Changelings, now and beyond."
You could practically feel your eyes sparkling at the suggestion. "Wooooow! I can see it now. Anon's Happy Hive... beautiful."
Looking a little guilty, the Changeling replied "We were thinking more like... The Anon Love Harvesting Farm." You gave him a look as the implications of the name reminded you how terrible a human being you were. Seeing that, the Changeling quickly spoke up "B-but yours sounds much better! A-after all, you are the hero that will pave a new way for our kind."
Your smile returned after that, but Apocrita merely grunted, getting back up and moving between you and the other Changelings. "Alright, alright, that's enough. Anon needs his rest. He's still very sick and needs time to recover." she announced, nudging the Changelings out of the room.
"What? No I'm not. I feel totally fi-"
"After all, if he was feeling better, then we'd have to let Queen Chrysalis know so she could come congratulate him for his swift and speedy recovery." Apocrita added, glaring back at you.
You quickly realized what she was saying and started to fake cough. "Kahf, KAUGH! Ugh, oh wow, totally forgot I only have so mu-ugh! Only so much energy to spare. Blagh." you groaned, flopping back on the bed. "Ow! Stupid fucking bug vomit mattress."
"O-oh! Of course! We hope to see you get better real soon!" one of the Changelings quickly said, even as he received Apocrita's horn to his flank, trying to force them all out faster.
"We'll be sure to bring offerings next time!" another shouted.
"Get the buck out of here!" Apocrita shouted, the last statement clearly putting her over the edge as she slammed the door.
Aaaah, good times. It was great to know you were so loved in this hive. Almost made you forget the violent manner you were dragged out of your bed in Canterlot against your will, fairly certain that those guard ponies on the ground weren't breathing anymore, but then they shoved a bag over your head... oh, right, you hated being here.
But it wasn't as brutal as you thought it was. After all, it was apparently all Changelings, and not just Queen Rapetastic, that adored your personality. They did have a wonderful taste. You might even make it a point of sending them letters once you were no longer a hostage here anymore. Especially Apocrita. You just knew she'd miss you the most.
Giving a pleased sigh, you stared up at the ceiling, basking in the silence for a moment... and then the dark thoughts came again. Despair. Loved ones you'll never see again. Your overwhelming understanding that nobody will ever truly love you and that was why you boasted constantly to cover your pain. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?