I wasn’t always this way, you understand. I had a home, and a family, and a mother and father who loved me very much. I would have grown up to play buckball, or become a teacher, or some other perfectly normal thing. I could have gone to Canterlot to attend Celestia’s school for magically gifted foals. I could have been a student at the school of friendship (thought maybe I would have been too old by then). I could have been any number of things.
But instead of becoming any of those things, I was stolen. Torn from my bed when I was an infant, I was taken away to the forest and kept there. Over the years I was transformed into the hard, blackened thing I was now. I obeyed the hive, and I stole love to survive. All while my counterpart lived among the ponies, blissfully unaware of itself, but silently siphoning the love my parents gave to it and sending it out to the rest of us.
The cruelest joke is that I’m the one usually sent to go pick it up. While my “brother” is sleeping, I’ll take the love from him that he stores every day and bring it back to the hive. We feast on it, and the older drones comment on how delicious it tastes in front of me. they compliment my parents for being so loving, then insult me by saying things like “If only they loved the right thing!”
I don’t know if I resent them for that. After all, my brother isn’t a terrible pony. I remember, when I was very young, I was sent to pick up his love, and I approached the house carefully. I was afraid of seeing violence or other such things… but I didn’t find that.
My “brother” was behaving unlike the others in the hive. He looked like a normal pony, the kind I’d seen so often and robbed of love. He must have looked like I looked like once, before being changed by the hive’s atmosphere and magic. He had a soft pink coat and a thin horn. He was skilled in telekinesis, and although at the time he had no cutie mark, he grew up to show a talent in magic, just like I thought I might have. His area of expertise was carving, and he liked to carve birds out of wood.
It seemed like such an idyllic life to me. Carving wood into shapes. Since I was a changeling, I still had the horn I would have had if I’d remained in place. I tried to carve things myself, but they came out looking ugly and malformed. There was no grace to them, no swerving shapes and idle curves. I tried, and I failed. I didn’t have the practice or skill required. If I didn’t have to fetch love for the hive, I might have had time to practice. But I didn’t, and I couldn’t, and I never got better.
I became jealous.
I was jealous of this pony that was living my life. He could carve, he had a marefriend, and he had loving parents. I saw him every evening when I crept away from the hive in those brief times I had no responsibility, or could make an excuse. I watched him as he worked, as he played, and as he loved. His marefriend was beautiful. She loved him so much, and the love I took home from the time he spent with her was delicious, and oh-so filling. He had it all.
I wanted it. I was a changeling, so I could take it. I could steal him away, replace him with myself. He didn’t know. He had no clue what his life would have been like, and he was living what was rightfully mine. We both suffered from the same background, so why should he be the only one to escape the punishment so clearly meant for me, when I was no longer the me it was meant for? We should both suffer!
I was there when he went to Celestia’s school one day. I was there when he practiced his carving. I was there when he presented his marefriend with the gift of a beautiful wooden flower, completely with a solid, oaken stem. I was there when she kissed him, and I could swear I felt those lips on mine. I was there when they made love, and I could feel every moment of it. I was there when they fell asleep in each other’s hooves, and then, when they were both unconscious, I was definitely there.
There was no struggle. It was a simple matter of separating the two and keeping his marefriend asleep. There were strange looks when I brought him to the hive and told the others to take him away. Nobody moved, so I left him there, sobbing in pain.
I awoke the next morning, sore, but happy. I was with my marefriend, after a night of lovemaking and tenderness. I was with my marefriend when we ate breakfast and we enjoyed each other’s company. My parents were happy to see us both, and there was happy chatter as I discussed all the things I had done yesterday that I knew about in detail. There were smiles as I told them of my plans for the future (I knew because I watched my brother so closely).
“Well, are you two… you know?” my father said with a wink. My mother hit him on the shoulder and told him to shush. It was such a normal thing to see. I beamed with happiness.
“We haven’t yet talked about it, but probably,” I said. I held my hoof out to my marefriend, and she took it. We smiled at each other. I drank in the love. It was all mine this time. I didn’t have to share. I would never go hungry again.
I reminded myself it wasn’t food, but it was pleasant. I shouldn’t think of it that way. I went through the day as normal, not even noticing that my carvings were perfect, as if I had been doing them my whole life.
However, it wasn’t to last. I went to sleep that night and found myself awaking within the hive. I was in pain, and empty of love. I blinked, and then I was in my bed in my house next to my marefriend. I blinked again and I was back in the hive. In my hooves was a piece of wood and I carved it with my magic. I was perfect. As skilled as my brother. I blinked again and I was in bed, holding the same carving.
I looked to my marefriend, and then out the window I always peered in. At the same time I saw myself looking in, I saw myself looking out. My marefriend awoke, and I saw her moving from both locations. It was then I understood the truth: I would never be free of my “brother”.
The End.