//------------------------------// // Myths — The Queen of Echoes // Story: In Sheep's Clothing // by Kydois //------------------------------// — Resources were scarce in the vast deserts of the changeling homeland. To the changeling hives battling for mere survival, control over the few sources of water was often as important as influence in the roving Zebra herds. For a long time, the hives were simply too small and dispersed to encounter one another, but as zebras began to settle into the fertile river deltas, they became more and more aware of each other. Conflict was inevitable. Although the population boomed and supplies were more plentiful, there were too many changeling hives converging in one city, making it impossible to sustain each of them with the food, water, and magic available. Clandestine battles for dominance ensued right under their prey’s noses, the balance of power see-sawing violently as they gathered more intelligence on one another. Entire hives were eliminated, and the spoils included far more than simply material resources. Magic was their lifeblood, and victories beget more antagonism as queens battled selfishly for ever more magical strength, taken forcibly from their own kind. Queen Spectre’s hive was broken in this tumultuous era. Depleted and nearly completely wiped out, the pitiful remains of her hive fled, initially numbering barely more than a caravan’s worth of bodies. On the journey to what would one day become Equestria, the rest of her hive would perish to preserve their queen, but while their sacrifice was meant to deliver the queen from near certain death, their queen’s heart felt otherwise. Embittered and seething with rage, Spectre wished only to return and take vengeance upon the hives who had stolen everything from her. So she searched Equestria in hopes of finding something to rebuild her power. While food and water were plentiful, the ponies had not begun colonizing the land in earnest yet. Tribes were split and often low in number, certainly nothing that could fuel the growth of a hive as quickly as she had wanted. Queen Spectre resigned herself to a slow rebuilding of her hive, tempering her potent fury to a slow simmer. Still, she hoped to find some sort of solution to quicken her return, so she continued to explore the Equestrian frontier, leaving her hive to grow and develop with only minimal input from herself. On one of her solo expeditions, she had gotten lost. The forest was vastly different from what she was used to, and her wings had been injured by an ambush by a roving band of timberwolves, preventing a quick escape through the canopy. She trudged on, winding her way through thick brambles and twisted vines until she stumbled down a well-concealed hole in the ground, tumbling heavily over the hard soil into the darkness. Battered and bruised ever further by her fall and with the approach of night up above, she decided to seek shelter in the very tunnels she had fallen into rather than wander aimlessly through the forest. She did not want to spend her last days as injured prey surrounded by watching predators and unfamiliar flora. Queen Spectre ventured further into the underground passage, lighting her way with the dim glow of her horn until she finally discovered a vast cavern. Moonlight trickled in from an opening far above, and luminescent flowers and mushrooms littered the cave walls and floor, giving the scene an eerie phantasmic aura. At the center of the cave was a pool of water like a mirror, crystal clear and completely still, reflecting the twinkling of the sparse lighting in the enclosure. Spectre could tell instantly that the pool was special. She felt power and magic within its watery depths, and she eagerly set upon it to discover its secrets, hoping to use its power to fuel her return. Days passed, and she was nearly at her wit’s end when she finally deciphered the magic of the pool. She realized that once activated, it could clone whatever breached the surface of the water, creating lifelike simulacrums. Though she lamented the limited mental capacity of her duplicates, Spectre realized she could still guide their simple minds through her hive link, and she plotted to utilize this magic. Managed properly, she could bring the incredible might of a fully powered hive down upon her wretched foe within seconds. She used a portion of its magic to enchant a wide-bladed glaive, her weapon of choice, binding the very essence of her magic to it. With her weapon in hoof, she finally departed from the underground cavern. She returned to her hive for only a day or two before she departed once again. Her rage and hate, long smoldering just beneath the surface, flared back with a vengeance, and she left her hive behind in Equestria in her single-minded quest for revenge. Spectre still remembered the scent of the changelings who had delivered the near deathblow, and she traced it all the way back into the desert to their main hive. She was alone in hostile territory. The other changelings engaged her quickly, thinking her easy prey, but while she was but one changeling, she was still a queen. Her anger fueled her, making her a titan amongst the insects scurrying to strike her. Spectre’s spear sliced out like a whipping reed, the thirsty edge searching out for the hearts of her enemy to feed the magic within. The glaive thrummed with power as the first drone was cut down, and a second queen materialized from the aether, identical to the first. The spear found no shortage in magic to sustain the spell, for with every bite into changeling flesh, it created another doppelganger, each with its own spear. Though some of the false queens fell to spellfire, it was impossible to distinguish the original queen before she had split into several more. Within the span of a single skirmish, Spectre had created a legion, implacable and unrelenting in purpose. She tore through the winding tunnels of her nemesis’s hive, only growing stronger with each fight, but the other queen was not idle. Within the walls of her home, Spectre’s adversary lured the rampaging Spectres into a single cavernous room, closing off the two egresses while the remains of her hive cleaned up the scattered doppelgangers outside, which were nowhere near as threatening once isolated. The two queens were trapped. They fought, but it was clear that Queen Spectre had the advantage. The other queen stood her ground, but she was wearing down quickly. With her defenses nearly broken, she threw the rest of her energy into a curse of madness, flinging it into the mass of bodies bearing down on her. It hit one of the clones, and it took only a second before the curse consumed its simple mind. It turned against the horde, its glaive sinking into another one of the myriad false queens and creating another mad doppelganger. Before long, the same boon that had allowed Queen Spectre to take on a hive solo had turned the tide against her. Like rabid dogs, the hysterical clone pounced at anything within reach, biting, tearing, ripping, rending in a mad frenzy. With the corruption spreading so quickly, even the hivemind of Queen Spectre found itself under assault. The curse was insidious. Insanity and madness found cracks in the sturdiest of armors, and even the most resolute of minds would have broken under the crashing waves. Carnage ensued, and so it was that the terrible assault of Queen Spectre, the Queen of Echoes, was broken under her own strength, but not without exacting a near fatal blow to her quarry’s hive. She had taken the life of the queen who had decimated her own hive along with countless drones and workers, yet in her madness, she knew naught of her own success nor her own tortuous demise at the end of her own spear. — The silence was deafening after what seemed like an eternity of shrieking and wailing. Slowly, gently, I eased myself out from under the bed where I had lain hidden, all the while shaking like a willow. It had been my mother’s own private chambers, a place of comfort and safety, yet within its familiar walls, I found only worry. The door had been barred, a myriad of furniture barricaded against the entrance. Carefully, I eased each of them out of the way. The dresser. The wardrobe. The couch. My magic worked steadily, despite the growing dread in my breast telling me to stay away from the truth. Away from reality. The door was cleared, and I dispelled the magic keeping it locked before pushing it open. The dimmest of lights shown through the crack, and I took a few unsure steps out into the abyss. It looked as if a tempest had blown through the cavern. Cracks, scorch marks, and blood peppered the walls like tapestries, gruesome art from a depraved mind. There were only two bodies, landmarks across a scarred battlegrounds. I paid no attention to the farther one, for the only thing I cared for her was that she was dead. Her hive would gain another queen with her death, wherever they were. The closer one though… The body’s flesh had been torn asunder, strewn across the floor. It was nearly unrecognizable as the former queen of our hive. It was horrific and gruesome, yet I found myself unable to look away from the morbid sight. I had felt when she died, of course. The entire hive felt it. She uttered not a single cry even unto her final moments, a display of her unerring strength and fortitude. She was gone now. The hive was in shambles. Voices crept in from the walls, crying for succor from their new queen. From me. I felt the magic inside me, the mark of power belonging only to the queen, passed on from mother to daughter. This was what she had left me before her sacrifice, along with a hive barely able to stand on its hooves. The mantle of responsibility weighed heavily upon me, alone and without a mentor. The door at the opposite end of the throne room burst open, and the guards rushed in to behold the results of the grim finale performed here on this stage. After a moment of silence, they turned to me. “Chrysalis, my queen. What are we to do now?” they asked, exactly as I expected. The world held its breath, waiting and watching. I had the fate of the hive on my head. With our strength so thoroughly decimated, the other queens would no doubt strike at us. This was a matter of life and death, but there was no longer a voice to reassure me. No longer a voice to correct my mistakes. And yet the hive must survive. My mind’s eye focused, a moment of clarity in the eye of the storm. “Get me a status report on the hive. Be ready to take as many of our supplies as we can and prepare to move out. The other hives will no doubt set upon us soon. We leave, or we shall surely perish.” They bowed, unflinchingly loyal. “Your will be done, My Queen.” I watched as they hurried off to their tasks, and the hivemind, rather than a backdrop of despair, turned quickly to hope and resilience once they had their tasks ahead of them. Truly astounding what a show of confidence and an imminent threat can do to inspire action. And like them, no matter how low or how hopeless it all seemed, I would not falter. The queen persevered, turned impossible odds into her favor, and was always prepared. I swallowed my nervousness and trepidation. There was no time for idleness, no time to mourn. There was only the path ahead and the strength to follow it, for the queen must always be the guiding light, no matter how dark the abyss was. I took one final look at my mother and bowed my head in respect before turning to depart, steeling myself to rally the remains of my hive for our exodus. Many may fall in the face of adversity and chaos, but not us. Not today.