//------------------------------// // The King's Waking // Story: Celestia XVII: The Broken Princess // by brokenimage321 //------------------------------// The old changeling drone scuttled his way through the entry tunnel, then stood and dusted himself off. A small squad of three warriors eyed him carefully, though they did not challenge him. They could smell him, and that was all the identity they needed. Words could not describe his smell, for words were not designed to do so; suffice it to say, his pheromones marked him, beyond any doubt, as a brother of the Hive.  (Given that he was a drone, and an old one at that, he was undoubtedly father to many in the Hive—though this was a distinction that mattered only to the Horses. As far as the changelings were concerned, they had only one parent, and she had perished in the Burning of Canterlot.) As they stared at each other, a little worker scuttled past them with a hoof-full of mud, and began to seal the opening. The motion seemed to shake the others from sleep; the guards looked around awkwardly, while the drone cleared his throat.  “How many returned?” he asked, in the changeling language of dance, and wing, and pheromone.  “Fifty or so,” the largest of the warriors replied.  This was a death-knell to the Hive, but her voice did not quaver.  “And how many workers remain?” “More,” she replied. “Perhaps five hundred. Though we lose more every day without the Songs.” She hesitated. “Do you bear them? The Songs of the Ancestors?” The old drone shook his head. “I bear some of the Brood-Songs,” he said. “Though, without a Queen to sing them to, they are worth little.” The warrior bobbed her head, but said nothing.  Behind them, the worker finished sealing the entry-tunnel, plunging the room into night. The old drone turned and looked behind him questioningly at the fresh mud.  “We sing the War-Songs,” one of the guards volunteered. “They tell us to keep the entries sealed.” She paused. “With no Queen, it is all we can do.” The old drone said nothing. He understood. When there is nothing else to do, you do what you know best. It wasn’t a bad decision, all things considered. The Burning had dealt them a blow—or, perhaps, they had dealt themselves a blow, in the end—and retreating to safety might save them. Though, without a Queen, it would avail them little… “Has a Conclave been called yet?” he asked.  The warriors looked at each other. The Songs spoke of such a thing, of course, but it had never been done in their lifetime.  “Do it,” said the old drone.  And so, word spread that, for the first time in memory, the Hive was calling a Worker’s Conclave. The news travelled slower than the thunderclap that had been the Queen’s will, and not with the wildfire-strength that made all who heard it mad with passion. It travelled more like water, flowing from changeling to changeling, seeping into their hearts, slower, and yet, in its own way, undeniable.  And slowly, the workers, and the warriors, and the nursemaids, and the drones came out from hiding. They gathered to the largest space available to them in the Hive: a communal feeding-ground, deep in the earth. And there, they saw the old drone, standing on a great stone, waiting for them. They knew him, of course, by his smell. The pheromones marked him as a Hive-brother. But there were other scents, too—scents that were familiar, and yet, all too alien.  One of the warriors—a big female—shifted uneasily.  “You smell of Horses,” she hissed, her voice full of venom. “Why do you bear their scent?” “I have lived among them since the Burning,” he said.  His words rippled through the changelings. As it passed, they flashed their wings at him in surprise and fear.  The same warrior spoke again. “That is not possible,” she hissed. “The Burning came sixty sunrises ago. No changeling can survive without Queen or Hive for so long!” “And yet,” the old drone said, “I have.” He flashed his own wings in an expression of irritation. “I was there. I was not Burned, but I saw it. I saw the black and twisted hall that the Horses sacrificed to kill us. I saw them burn the Queen on a pyre built from our own bodies, and I saw how they scattered her ashes in the river. I saw—” “You saw?” repeated the warrior. “And you did nothing?” She buzzed her wings angrily. “Perhaps you should be burned with the others, as a reward for your cowardice!” More angry buzzes echoed around the hall. But the old drone did not move.  “I did do nothing,” he called. “But it was not cowardice. It was survival. The Horses were clever, and had luck on their side. If I had stayed, I would have done nothing except die with them. Now, I have returned, bearing my fragments of the Songs for the good of the Hive.” The buzzing began to fade, but the warrior still was not satisfied. “How did you survive the Burning, then? And why did you linger so long among the Horses?” “I smelled smoke and fire on the wind,” he said. “No flames had yet been set, but I guessed that a great evil was coming to visit the changelings. So I tricked one of the Horse-guards. I killed him and took his shape. They did not find his body because I did not keep it: I threw it into the river, and it washed out to sea. And so, I became yet another Horse-guard—invisible, even in broad daylight.” He shot a dirty look at the warrior. “I did not participate in the Burning,” he said. “Other Horse-guards did, but I found cause to be elsewhere. But even so, I did what changelings always do: I hid among the Horses until the danger had well and truly passed. And, at the first time I could do so without arousing suspicion, I fled.” He watched the warrior. She buzzed her wings once, then stood motionless. She had submitted.  All this time, more of the workers and warriors throughout the Hive were still finding their way into the chamber. And then, as a last few trickled in, the balance suddenly shifted. Something rippled through the assembled host. They were now a quorum. There were enough of them now to force their will upon the Hive, upon the Queen herself if she still lived. Somehow, they all sensed it, in a way that left no room for such mundane concepts as mere numbers. The old drone spoke first.  “The Queen is dead,” he called.  Buzzing swept the hall. They all felt it—and yet, to hear him say it made it undeniable. The drone waited a moment, then spoke again.  “The Queen is dead,” he repeated. “And we must have a Queen. It is up to this Conclave to raise one up.” The buzzing came again—this time, laced with fear and astonishment. “The Songs speak of it!” the old drone called over the sudden din. “The Father-Songs make mention of it. A female larva, newly-hatched, must be bathed and fed with special secretions made by her caretakers.” He looked around. “Nursemaids! Are there any such larvae?” “Many,” came the reply. “And a few eggs left, yet. But we know not the Songs—” “Nor I,” he said, “Not entirely. But I know a few of the words. And we can hear some of the notes in other Songs.” He looked around. “And the walls of the Hive itself must still contain echoes of our ancient hymns.” “And if those echoes are not enough?” came the challenge.  “There must be,” he replied. “The alternative is death.” This time, the buzzing was grim. “Here is what we shall do, then” the old drone said. “We shall take a dozen larvae, and attempt to make each of them a Queen. If our Songs are insufficient, perhaps we shall make one Queen out of the lot. And, if there are more—” he shrugged, an extremely Horse-like gesture. “We choose the strongest among them, and drive the rest out.”  If there were objections, they were not heard over the buzzes of assent. The changelings were not like the Horses. They did not allow compassion to keep them from what must be done. And all knew the disaster that would befall a two-Queened Hive. But the buzzing, this time, was not unanimous. A discordant note sounded from the back of the hall.  “Yes,” called one of the warriors, “but what then? The Queen bore other Songs, Songs that none other knew, Songs that perished in the Burning. How shall we recover them?” The old drone thought a moment. “We shall compose Songs of our own,” he said.  At his words, many of the workers cried aloud in fear and horror. For the first time, the old drone bristled.  “The Horses do it,” he snarled. “Why not us?” “You would have us become like the Horses?” someone called back.  “Yes!” he roared back. And this time, his voice was loud enough to silence the crowd.  The old drone started to pace. “I have lived among them for fifty sunrises. Yes, they are foolish. Yes, they are weak. Yes, they are almost below our notice. But they are something we are not: they are resilient. They killed our Queen, yes—but, as she died, she laid theirs low! And, a dozen sunrises ago, their Queen was laid low again, by an ancient enemy returned! And yet, why are we are the ones who huddle here in the dark, while they thrive?” “Because they are prey, whose numbers must grow great enough to sustain us?” “Because they are not warriors,” he snapped.  The buzzing fell silent. The old drone began to pace again.  “We waste our strength waging war,” he said. “We must eat. And to eat, we must hunt, and fight, and kill. The Horses are the most convenient source of food. But they are also the most dangerous. How many hunters do we send forth that do not return? How many warriors do we send out that come back broken? What does it do to the Hive to have so many strong and young ones struck down before our eyes?” He stopped his pacing and looked up. “I have seen a better way,” he said. “The Horses do not war. They share their strength. They do not cast out the weak and the injured, but nurse them back to health. And together, they grow strong.” He looked out at the crowd. “Their Queen? The one who has been struck down twice? There was no war for power after she fell. She is back again, and with greater strength. She guides her Hive with a will stronger than before. She gathers allies, and makes amends with those she had lost. And they are stronger for it.” He hesitated. “We are the predators. We capture and slay them. But they are stronger than us now, and always will be, unless we change the Songs we sing.” He swallowed. “But this is the rambling of one old drone, his mind poisoned by time among the Horses. What says the Conclave?” For a long moment, there was silence. Then, a single voice called out, a voice that rang out loud and clear over the crowd: “What name do you bear?” came the question. The old drone stared. The question was a challenge. Only Queens took a name—and only those greatest or most ambitious among them, at that. To take a name was to take a quest, to state one’s determination to do something great, something worth remembering. To live up to a name would secure its owner a place in the Songs… but to take a name and fail was to declare oneself an imbecile and a fool. To reach for the heights of arrogance, but to fail at even that task.  The old drone thought for a moment. When he spoke, his words came slowly, powerfully, resonating through the hall and into the hearts of every changeling present.  “I shall be… Thorax,” he said.  For a moment, the hall stayed deathly quiet. Then, slowly, it began to fill with the buzzing of wings—this time, a warm sound, a welcoming sound, of surprise and reverence and awe. Thorax. The center of the body. Site of the heart and lungs. Anchor-point for head, for legs, for wings. This was not a name for war, or a name for arrogance, but a name of hope and healing. A name that, perhaps, would help the changelings regain their glory. A name that truly was worthy.  Thorax allowed himself a smile. They had listened. The changelings might yet survive. Perhaps the name Thorax would come to be woven into the songs after he passed as the name of the hero who had saved the Hive from extinction. The name that had set them on the path towards strength—not strength of the hunter, as the Queen had, but real strength, the kind that would ensure that no changeling would ever go hungry again. Perhaps, someday, they would find a way to no longer be enemies of the Horses, but to learn from them—and, perhaps, in his wildest dreams, to live alongside them as equals, basking in the light of the sun and the warmth of friendship alongside them.  Perhaps someday. Only time would tell—but for now, it would not do to dwell on things that might be.  For now, there was work to be done.