//------------------------------// // 15: I guess she IS in this story after all. // Story: Halls of the Changeling King // by Nameless Narrator //------------------------------// The queen raises her foreleg, and her combat unit stops. “-” she opens her mouth to say something, but only unintelligible ‘ungh’ noise comes out before she closes it again. However, the heavily- do I even have to add heavily to armed and armored when talking about dwarves? No, not really. So, the dwarf wearing a gold-trimmed armor who has been walking by queen’s side says calmly: “Tell everypony to stop fighting, don’t engage anypony, stay where they are. Any dwarf who disobeys the order will be disciplined for high treason.” Of course, the second in command is Seven, still in disguise. The queen’s eyes only dart away from me for a second when Granite and others surround her group, and then green fire bursts out from her, incinerating her steel armor within seconds. After the burst is over, there stands Eight, surrounded by slowly floating ash and cinders. Gee, was she this big even before? To be accurate, she’s only a little taller than me, but where I looked in the mirror and saw a skinny, mostly normal changeling, kingship aside, Eight is, umm, rather wide… thick even. She kinda reminds me of one of the old warrior queens from the hive memories now… the one whose head she ripped off with her bare hooves, I think. Alright, that’s not a good description, because she did that to quite a lot of them. Still, she’s Eight. The wine-red mane dropping over one eye long enough to reach her chin, the short tail, the bulky, muscular exterior, the still shocked but happy smile, and most of all - the opening hive link filled with disbelief and relief. “Who- what- are you?!” stutters one of her dwarves. “You heard your orders, soldier,” says Seven, “This will be explained in due time.” “B-But-” “The queen will explain in due time,” he repeats, voice firm, “Radio everypony that the war is NOT on, right now, or I’ll discipline you where you stand.” Another dwarf in the back starts fiddling with a large backpack which I now know is a mobile radio station, something I until recently called a ‘big talkie box’. My squad has got one too. Which reminds me… “Granite, order everyone to stay put and don’t fight. I think we’ve managed to avert the biggest drinking contest in dwarven history. If they disobey… say I won’t let Three hug them ever again,” I say to the suddenly snickering loremaster standing behind me and watching Eight. To his credit, he immediately relays the order to our radio dwarf. Then he walks over to me and whispers to my ear: “You knew about her, didn’t you?” “I had my suspicions she was around, yes,” I don’t bother lowering my voice, because I feel Eight’s presence inside my mind, “but I didn’t know she was the queen herself until we got close.” Eight clears her throat, announcing: “We surrender. Unconditionally.” “Wh-” “What?!” “You can’t-” She turns around, snarling. Her dwarves back off when faced with what to them has to be some living nightmare. “Who did just sign up for a blowjob from their own ripped off head-” “AHEM,” I clear my throat as well, interrupting Eight’s outburst, “If I may say something, everypony,” all dwarves look at me, “The old king you fought against is dead, and I took his place. There is no reason to fight, no reason to cause bloodshed between dwarves. We can talk about things peacefully, in the open, where everypony can hear us. Besides, you’re surrounded by dwarves who actually are kinda pissed at you for having to live without electricity and clean water for far longer than they should, so I wouldn’t push them...” I grin. And with that, the war is over before anything regrettable ever happened. ”I...” I finally hear Eight’s voice, and realize how absolutely exhausted she sounds, ”I want to say something… something profound… something big… something that would show you how much I needed this… and I’m just babbling...” ”I love you too, Eight. Always had.” In contrast to her physical body walking tall and firm by my side, followed by Granite, Seven, and increasing amount of dwarven soldiers as we find more and more units on our way to the castle, her hive mind image is sitting on her haunches, tears streaming down her cheeks while smiling like crazy. ”The dwarves follow you...” she says, her voice distant as if reality still hasn’t fully penetrated her head, ”And you’re not disguised...” ”Long story short, they’re actually the only species who kinda like changelings. Three helped a lot, though. He’s sort of a public relations cheat code.” ”What? Three? How? What are you talking about?” ”MISS EEEEEEEEEEEEEIIIIGHT!” Three appears in the hive mind darkness, pouncing at Eight and clamping all four his legs around her chest and neck. He’s even tinier than before compared to her, ”I missed you so much and boss did too I even told Two how awesome you were and I’m really sorry I didn’t clean your litter box but that’s okay because you’re now even more awesome than before and you became the queen which is funny because boss made himself king, well technically Two did that but they sorted things out and I’m so happy you’re okay and look my body is glowing now and I can change it, I mean I was able to do that before I licked some electri-not-a-city cables and now it’s just white but I’m working on it and I’m trying to make Six learn how to do that too, but he doesn’t have a magical body so it’s harder but he’s learning and dwarves like it when he-” Eight shoves her hoof bigger than Three’s muzzle into his mouth which doesn’t exactly stop him from mumbling into it, and only makes his excited machine gun speech even less understandable than before. Eight looks at me. ”How?” ”Long story. I’ll explain everything after we sort out the dwarves looking at you funny. Yours for being a changeling, and mine for, well, a lot of stuff that you did.” ”Okay.” ”By the way, that mental block in Seven, Six, and Five’s heads is your doing, right?” ”Yes. It stops the clergy dwarves’ devices from detecting us, and after we discovered that other changelings might be involved down here, I added the physical protection of my venom that disallows them to communicate about their mission and related stuff in case someone got into their heads. I can’t talk to them via the hive link, though, and they have to report in person.” ”Weird, I can talk to them just fine. Five, Six, Seven!” I allow the trio to join us. Each one of them appear around us, rather surprised at blabbering Three still glued to Eight as well as her sitting in front of myself. To my surprise, Seven only tilts his head. “Huh, this is the first time I see you smile,” says the infiltrator. ”I guess I’m just a warrior, while you are the king,” Eight lowers her head, ”I’m your warrior.” ”And I’m glad to be your king again, Eight,” I sit down to her, and give her a hug, which shuts Three up as well. He can’t hug us both due to the size difference, but he’s happy to be sandwiched between us anyway. In the real world, however, my ears twitch as I hear an angry, loud voice from the distance. Eight and Seven must be hearing it too, and soon will the dwarves as well. “Let’s be quiet, everyone,” I order, and the dwarves go into sneaking mode, which for them means only slightly less noise than an avalanche made of steel pans and buckets. In a plaza ahead, we find a dark priest standing on a small, mossy hill in its center, yelling at few gathered units of Eight’s dwarves apparently refusing to do whatever he wants them to. “-she’s a monster! Darkness will swallow you all, if you allow this… this HERESY AGAINST DWARFDOM! STAND AND FIGHT FOR YOUR CITY, FOR YOUR LIFE, FOR YOUR TRA-” “Did you want to say traditions?” I raise my voice to be heard. The dwarves gasp, and then they gasp again when a burning green chainsaw materializes from my raised foreleg, pointing at the dark priest. I gotta admit, it looks absolutely horrifying against the dark background of the emergency red lights. The dark priest’s jaw drops. Apparently, news travel fast. After his eyes dart around and see no support from the gathered dwarves, he stutters out: “Y-You wouldn’t...” then his brain finally realizes that I have absolutely no qualms with getting creative, and he legs it, his brown robe flapping behind him. On our way to the castle square, we reunite with Eight’s army, and our groups carefully join us as well, still paranoid about being vastly outnumbered. Soon enough, hoof-held lanterns and flashlights make the positively massive plaza light up like the night sky. Apparently, the place has been used for public speaking, because in its center stands a raised, circular, stone podium onto which Eight walk via a short set of stairs. With her size, she must be visible from everywhere, although from the back lines of the thousands of gathered dwarves she still must look only like a bigger dot. We’re standing on the steps under her, and by ‘we’ I mean Granite, Seven, and myself. With the electricity out, Eight burns a little love to power her vocal chords. “CITIZENS OF BRAUHEIM!” the front lines of dwarves slam their forelegs against their ears. Eight lowers her voice a little, “I have met with the king, and it turns out our situation has changed!” “Who are you?” yells a random dwarf. “WHAT are you?” adds another one. “I suppose I should start with that,” Eight glares at the crowd of thousands, “I am a changeling, and I was posing as your queen for over a year.” Aaaand here goes the crowd’s gasping, mumbling, and whispering. Eight ignores it. “I could explain why I did what I did, but what would it change? Most of you follow me because you wanted freedom to choose between liberty and tradition, and I delivered. The old king wanted to discard any ideas about progress or change, and you knew it. Together, we stood up against the dark priests, and refused the king’s rule. However, those too set in their ways followed him, and our- your city split into two warring tribes, leaving families and friends separated over ideology. Now, the old king is dead, and the new one is willing to cooperate and compromise on reasonable change.” I walk up the stairs to join Eight. “ANOTHER change-thing?!” more dwarves gasp and yell. I raise my own voice. “Changeling, and yes. I won my position fair and square through your drinking rite, and for the past few days, I’ve been learning about your culture, and most of all - your division. I know you, who followed Eight through the schism, wanted to breathe freely, but the situation on my side of the barricade wasn’t as different as you thought. Most of my time here was spent on balancing your desire to remain dwarves with change and progress that would benefit you and not harm anypony. And the change I want now is peace in Brauheim. Let’s stop fighting, sit down to the table, and talk.” “We don’t want any chonglangs to rule us!” someone voices their very loud opinion, but to my surprise they’re shushed by the nearest dwarves. “That suits us just fine,” I answer, “I have gathered a council of dwarves who know Brauheim better than I do, and their job is to discuss change and the direction of the city. They are representatives of miners, military, social services, engineers, farmers, and more. They assess ideas about improvement you, citizens, offer. It worked well in my part of the city, and this council of senior dwarves should serve everyone as well.” “Yeah, council of traditionalist assholes who supported YOU- I mean the old king!” Two individuals basically screaming at each other, I hope that doesn’t become the norm. “As I said, dwarves you trust from your community should join the council as well. They will have final say in which ideas pass and which get thrown away. I am not a supreme ruler, and I don’t want to be. To be honest, I just want the few changelings around to find home here with you. This is my offer. I want peace, and the council idea is my proposal for your future. Dwarves who supported me know it works.” Groups within the crowd start talking, but overall it looks like we’re not about to be torn apart by thousands of dwarves. I call that a victory, if ever I saw one. Eight clears her throat, silencing everyone again. “My goal is peace. Just like the king here, I am willing to either release some of my power, or step down completely in favor of the council idea.” To my surprise, quite a lot of voices from everywhere call out ‘No!’. That makes me smile. Eight’s voice grows quieter. “We will talk about everything, as is our- your way. For tonight, go home, don’t fight, and have a good rest.” “Now this is something I don’t need a council for,” I chuckle, adding my two bits to Eight’s order, “Let’s go home. There will be no civil war this time. If someone still wants to cause trouble, you’re free to have a go at me or the queen. Don’t fight among yourselves.” The crowd begins dispersing. Dwarves give each other cautious looks, stay away from those in different armors, but we don’t spot any unrest. Lawful little buckets, I admit. Behind me, Granite coughs. “We won’t ignore the damage your sabotage caused,” he looks at Eight who just glances my way. “Later, Granite,” I nod, “Fixing stuff first, bitching about what happened later. And don’t even think about any high-treason punishment talk, or we won’t be friends anymore. I will protect Eight with my life if I have to.” Granite furrows his brows. “Then we will… talk, as is the dwarf way.” *** We’re finally inside the castle, and it looks far more like something built by whoever is responsible for that huuuuge bridge I saw first rather than for the rest of the flat dwarven city. Its hallways are tall, completely impractical for dwarves, red and gold carpets line the floors everywhere, and it’s well-lit, unlike the rest of Brauheim. Everyone is gone, having left to see friends, family, or their old houses, so it’s just me, Granite, Seven, and Eight leading the way, although from the confident faces of everyone it seems that I’m the only one who needs the guidance. Suddenly, Granite lets out a long breath. “I didn’t think I’d see this place again, really. The good old royal tavern served its purpose, but this place… none of you can understand what this place means to us dwarves. Home, bastion of safety, light in the darkness, the last fortress of our ancestors. The heart of Brauheim,” his smile is genuine, finally easy to see due to his helmet dangling on a strap around his neck, “But alas, as always, there’s something to do before we can relax, and this time it’s… talking about the sabotages. I know the king’s position, but threatening the lives of so many dwarves by cutting them off from water and electricity… that’s a crime of inequine proportions. Vaults, homes, all services. Dwarves will want justice-” “You’re the one to talk, really,” Eight shrugs, not exactly disturbed, “after cutting off the part of Brauheim that’s twice bigger than yours.” “We didn’t do anything, Eight,” I say. She doesn’t even say ‘really?’, she immediately accepts it. “Look, I didn’t want to do it either. Not that I really care about you dwarves, but it simply didn’t cross my mind. I’m not much of a technical changeling, that’s more on Seven here, and even he’s interested in magic rather than technology. One of the dark priests contacted him with the idea of a blackout, and, you must understand, my goal hasn’t changed since I came here - to keep boss safe. You see, when I found this place, I had no intention of messing with you at all. I just stashed boss’ cocoon in the air vents, then I found a minotaur regularly taking trips to the surface alone, so I took him out and used as food.” “You’ll be apologizing to him later too,” I wink at her, “Steelback’s been of great help.” “As you wish,” she nods, “Where was I? Right. I kept the minotaur and the cocoon separate, just in case I underestimated him, he woke up, and tried to damage it. Unfortunately, one day after I returned from scouting mines and this city, the cocoon was gone. I was desperate, because while I could sniff out whoever took it into the city, there was no way I could follow the trail. After days of scouting around, I had nothing, and I realized I needed help.” “Crumble,” I say. She nods. “I took her to the minotaur, and bred her until I had a drone, an infiltrator, and a spare warrior.” Ohhhh boy, where Two came from will be a surprise even to her. “With Seven’s help, I managed to find out that the dwarven king discovered a strange, massive, and possibly magical rainbow gem. I needed to get it back, obviously. Over time, I managed to lure out the queen, and replace her.” “Where is she now?” asks Granite, “In a cocoon somewhere?” “Do… I have to answer that?” Eight asks me. “Since we’re showing our cards here, yes,” I now. “No, I didn’t keep her for food. With the cocoon gone, I couldn’t be sure whether someone would find her. I threw her into a magma stream.” Granite looks away, gritting his teeth. Eight keeps going with her story. “Seven took his place as my guard, and gradually managed to find where the king stashed boss’ cocoon. Unfortunately, the king learned about his effort, and put the vault where it was under complete lockdown. I needed more authority and power to gain access to it. Six and Seven did a great job finding a rift between the progressive and traditionalist dwarves, I played on their desire for change, and you know the rest. When the dark priests showed us the option of completely disabling electricity in the vault district, thus opening all security doors, I jumped on it. Unfortunately, the unit I sent to recover your cocoon found the vault empty.” “But why did you have to endanger the dwarves? Why cut off the residential district as well?” asks Granite. “We didn’t do anything like that. Seven with one dark priest led a group from my side of Brauheim to the vault power station. We didn’t touch the residential district.” “Can I trust her word?” Granite turns to me. “Yes, you can,” I answer with absolute certainty. It’s good that while Granite isn’t too big on Eight for what she did to his city, he’s still on my side. “Then someone else must have cut it at exactly the same time,” he growls, “and in the same way.” Eight shrugs. “Seven reported that the dark priest destroyed the station. Neither he nor the dwarf soldiers I sent knew how it worked, and he didn’t want engineers around. That was the only operation I ordered.” “Is it possible that the clergy wanted the dwarves desperate enough to be controlled into a fight? That they cut the water as well, then messed with Eight’s dwarves?” Granite glares into the empty hallway as we walk. “Engineers would immediately report any ancient machinery being destroyed in such way, even if a dark priest ordered them to stay quiet. They positively love those things. Dark priests don’t care, they have the original blueprints deep in their enclave. And you said that dark priests tried to cause unrest in our part of the city, making dwarves attack the queen’s forces when it proved that we were standing firmly behind you,” he facehoofs, “...and we fell for it completely. If… Eight here wasn’t the queen, or if you two didn’t know each other, streets of the city would be running with dwarven blood. You were against the attack, king. I and the council were for it,” he hangs his head low. “Cheer up, Granite,” I pat his back, “It’s time to rebuild everything, not to dwell on what happened. BUT… there’s something you can do to help avoid further problems.” “And that is?” “Spread the news that the dark priests are behind the sabotages, that they wanted the civil war. Then tell Hard Reset to grab everyone smart technology-wise that he can find. Brauheim is united now, hopefully, and that means we have access to all the city’s resources, not just supplies from the vaults and the few mines we had before. Use forges, use supplies, mine what you don’t have, use engineers. FIX everything.” He salutes, and trots off as fast as the heavy armor allows. Finally, I can wipe my forehead, take a deep breath, and rela- “YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUU!” What NOW?! A blazing, green, changeling-sized projectile comes from behind a corner, flying at meteoric speed straight towards us. Correction, towards Eight. Before I can react, the ball of green fire is here. With a simple flick of her foreleg, Eight deflects it into the wall, revealing the form of Two bouncing off, skipping and rolling away in a cloud of chitin shards and dust. ”Eight, be careful with her.” ”I sensed you didn’t want me to punch it away, so I just did this. Good, otherwise she’d be the new paint job on this place.” Two, snarling and growling, gathers herself and charges at Eight who shoves the approaching changeling to the side, making her lose balance again. Seeing that the already recovering Two is less than zero threat to her, she simply raises an eyebrow. “Two-” I open my mouth. “YOU LEFT ME TO DIE, TO ROT INSIDE A PONY!” powerless Two screams into Eight’s face. Unfortunately, Eight chooses possibly the worst thing to say right now: “And you are?” “I AM TWO, AND YOU-” -WILL SUFFER!- I feel the lash of the mental command aimed at Eight, who… ...doesn’t flinch or react in the slightest. “My mind and body belong only to the boss,” she says simply, “Neither Chrysalis nor One herself could affect me at this point. Don’t even try.” -SUFFER!- -HURT!- -SCREAM!- “Do I do something?” Eight glances my way. “Two, stop it,” I say, trying to be as soothing as I can. Oh screw it, I sit down and hug the now crying infiltrator. She bites me, then looks at me with horror as she realizes what she just did. I hug her tighter, “Hatred will only hurt you in the long run. I’ll tell you the story about ancient hive rulers one day.” “I-I-I wouldn’t even b-be here if- if she had her w-way...” I pat her head, running my hoof through her carpet-y mane. “But you are here. I am here. Eight is here. We’re all here.” ”Eight, say something. I’m not going to tell you to apologize, Two is smart enough to know it wouldn’t be genuine, but say something.” Eight towers above us, but as she tries to touch Two’s ear, the small changeling snarls and bares her tiny fangs at her. Don’t you dare touch me!- Eight takes a breath. “Two, you were a tool like Five, Six, and Seven. A tool to help me save the boss. I did what I had to when plans changed. I thought I had to act fast, and with all that was happening I completely forgot about my old base. I would do it again if I were in the same situation. What I did, based on what I knew, was the right choice. However, your success when faced with my changelings is certainly… admirable.” Scowling Two adds a pout to her expression of complete disdain for Eight. “I belong to the boss, not to you, no matter what hole of yours my egg came from. I belong ONLY to the boss.” To my surprise, Eight smiles at both of us. There’s nothing in it than pure joy and relief. “And finally, after all that happened, we all do once again.”