"I wish you were here with me... not the way you are now... the way you used to be."

Ocellus recalls thinking the love-starved hive's infesting Nightmare Moon's Palace. Now, she has found the core of the infestation.

The vast room is filled with changeling pods, each large enough to encase a bugbear and filled with royal jelly. Between them, sets of columns populate the enormous space, fan vaulting rising from their tops like the canopy of a jungle. Stairwells descend from balcony viewing rooms above. The lime lighting makes the room feel like the dark heart of a swamp.

The swamp is full of buzzing insects. Black, hole-ridden drones dart about, several carrying lanterns of blue flame. Ocellus feels a pang, realizing she has left her little friend with Gallus. Perhaps it is better she not see her sisters serving this hive.

Gallus was surprised that Greed was in the dungeon, not the palace treasury. This is the treasury of Nightmare Moon's Palace. But any faux treasure Nightmare Moon created for herself has been broken down, the dark essence turned into weapons. Display tables that may once have held replicas of crowns and scepters are now covered in rows of royal jelly sprayers. Shelves hold glowing, putrescent orbs, lined up like they were books.

Unlike Queen Chrysalis, Elytra has no throne. Her weapons are her monument to herself. The treasury is an armory.

Ocellus stops before an octagonal display table. Two dozen moonsilver needles ring the surface, sharp ends pointed inwards, blue smoke roiling in the bulbs.

Ocellus pales internally at the idea of two dozen more abominations like the ones she and Gallus encountered. She looks about. Seeing no drone watching, she opens her saddlebag and scoops them into it with a swing of a foreleg.

Not that she has any intention of using them herself. She'll just break them down. Smolder can make herself gemstones.

Stop! Don't think of Smolder! Don't think of any of them. She cannot feel love. Not here.

Ocellus looks around again. Three sets of columns ahead, a drone is tending to a changeling pod. Another flies by in the next aisle, carrying a royal jelly sprayer. Neither are paying her any attention.

Between the pods, she spots another set of onyx columns. The third set she has seen in the treasury. But the first column is shattered at its base, only a few jagged black stones remaining.

No sign of Queen Elytra yet. Nor any sign of Pride. Ocellus hopes she finds the latter swiftly enough to avoid the former.

Ocellus dares not open her receptors in here. She can't handle another taste of the queen's love. A steady diet of that, and stabbing herself in the eye might seem reasonable.

Nothing is shifting in here. The treasury is stable. The cavernous room seems to swallow the drones buzzing within. The deeper she goes, the fewer she sees. Have they been ordered to keep only to the outer edges of the treasury?

A drone drifts by, paying her no attention. Ocellus notices a saddlepack similar to the one worn by the drone she hit with a vase. It might even be the same drone.

Okay, limited access to the armory makes sense. And since Queen Elytra's drones are always obedient, none of them question her presence. If she is here, she must be supposed to be here.

Ocellus nearly understands that level of submission. Queen Chrysalis demanded it. And Ocellus, like every other drone, had given it. Queen Chrysalis was their mother, their ruler. When Ocellus was young, she almost worshipped her.

Until Thorax and Starlight invaded the hive and Thorax proved there was a better way.

These changelings receive their only source of love from Queen Elytra. Obedience for life. The very thought of disobeying must be anathema, disobedience tantamount to suicide.

She catches her love-starved reflection in a changeling pod as she passes close to it. Ocellus stops, staring at herself. Everything that horrifies her stares back into her ocelli. Feelings of remorse and revulsion swell from her gut. Empathy and hatred seep from her heart. They mix in the cauldron of her soul. Churning. Making her ill.

Ocellus' breath catches. She assumed they were all full of royal jelly. Who, or what, would be imprisoned within? The only living things on the moon, aside from the changelings themselves, were moonsharks. And the creature trapped inside this pod, while large, was far too small even for a mega-eel hatchling.

Ocellus begins to circle the pod. As she reaches the far side, the slumbering form within becomes clear.

"Yona!" She breathes her friend's name, the whisper of a shout. Immediately, she spins, looking for any'ling who might have heard her.

This side of the pod faces a wide aisle beneath the canopy of fanning ribs. At one end is the largest pod yet, big enough for her gigantic insect form. At the other is another set of onyx pillars, again with the first pillar broken, the rubble cleaned away. More pods cling to the fan-ribbed ceiling in clusters. But Ocellus sees no other changelings. The aisle is completely devoid of drones.

To her relief, she sees Yona's eyes flitter open. She cannot help the swell of love she feels at seeing her friend. Or the fear at finding her like this. In this place.

Ocellus shoves away that thought before anxieties over how she could have accidentally doomed Yona prevent her from saving her friend.

Ocellus feels a wrenching in her heart. She knows why. Her friend is staring at Ocellus the Love-Starved Drone.

With a flash of turquoise, Ocellus reveals herself. "Yona!" She whispers. "It's me! Ohgosh, I'll have you right out of there!"

Ocellus feels her insides becoming numb, slewing away. This is a trap. It wasn't luck that she found the right pod. She briefly wonders what percentage are seeded with changelings like this, drones willingly becoming trapped and helpless to act as bait.

The hive knows she is here. But they still can't tell her apart from themselves, so they are using the forms of her friends to try to provoke a love response that will betray her.

Icy cold flows over her. But before it can paralyze her, the room is filled by a booming voice from the farthest cocoon...

Paralysis shifts to hope. The only way they could mimic Yona is if they had encountered the real Yona!

Ocellus' eyes widen, staring at the extremely oversized pod and the form of her friend moving within it. Her mind is a library, and a yak-shaped calamity has knocked all the books from the shelves.

If that is her, the real Yona is doing a number of impossible things all at once. She's awake and moving inside her cocoon! And talking... understandably despite the fluid interior. And most unimaginably...

As Ocellus watches, Yona slams her head into the cocoon, creating a spiderweb of cracks!

Ocellus dares peek open her receptors, gagging hard. Overcooked cabbage, slightly rotting spinach and bitter roots overwhelm her. But beneath the cloying, pungent taste of Queen Elytra's love, she can discern a thin emanation of mushroom soup, green tea and wet dirt. Yona's love -- strangely muted but still clearly Yona's.

From above, another voice vocalizes Ocellus' confusion and disbelief. "What!?? How...? How are you even moving!?? That's impossible!"

Ocellus's gaze is ripped upwards as the changeling queen emerges from her hiding place within the pods on the ceiling above. She is struck by how much Queen Elytra looks like Chrysalis. Similar... but not the same. Elytra is younger and even more emaciated, with more holes in her limbs, and even one through the first bend of her horn. She has slightly warmer tones of green and blue in her carapace and irises. Her hair is shorter, pulled back into a ponytail.

Queen Elytra set this trap for Ocellus. She has her prize, but she is completely focused on the inconceivable event playing out before them.

Ocellus looks back in time to see a charging Yona -- not just moving but charging within her pod! -- ram into the shell. The small spiderweb of cracks in the pod grow to cover the whole face of it.

Yona backs up two steps, pushing against the resin that should be binding her. It ripples around the yak the way royal resin only does when its queen wills it. Her mind flashes to the memory of Queen Chrysalis confronting Thorax. The memory revisited in last night's dream.

Queen Chrysalis scoffs. "The only thing Thorax has found..." She announces as She marches up to the treasonous drone who abandoned them and helped outsiders invade the hive. "...is what happens to those who turn their back on the hive!"

The Queen lifts him with Her royal magic, pulling him from the royal resin as it turns to jelly at Her will, no longer binding him to the floor.

Yona stares at the changeling queen defiantly, her eyes glowing a bright silvery-white. "Yona moving because YAKS BEST!"

Another slam, and Yona does what yaks do best. With a resounding SMASH! the changeling pod ruptures. Yona pours out in a flood of green, viscous liquid.

Ocellus flies to Yona's side, but the afflicted yak is already getting up. Ocellus ducks behind a column as the yak shakes herself, flinging liquefied resin everywhere.

"Stupid, wicked bug-lady try to capture Yona! Try to steal Yona's special rock! Try to hurt Yona's bugfriend! Yona SMASH you and all you stupid bug-people!"

Ocellus doesn't need to be told what Yona's "special rock" is, and she aches for her friend.

Ocellus wonders: is she seeing what happens to somecreature under the normal influence of an anti-Element? If so, she has no idea what to expect, or how badly her Yona has been warped by it. Queen Elytra formed a parasitic relationship with Pride. Gallus was repulsed by Envy, and Smolder... well, what Smolder did with Greed was by no means normal.

Hidden behind the column, the nymph hears Yona venting angrily at Queen Elytra. "You nothing but leeches. Bug-leeches. Leeches get stomped!"

The words skewer Ocellus. Surely that's Pride. Surely Yona never thought of changelings that way. At least, not changelings like her. Right?

Yona stops, turning to see the timid form of her changeling friend. Her eyes widen, and Ocellus can see the yak become more self-aware of her words. But instead of the worry and apologetic hurt she would see in the eyes of their Yona, the yak's expression becomes defensive.

"Yona not prejudice," Yona says, pointing towards Ocellus. "Yona have bugfriend."

"Oh yeah, this is fun," Ocellus says to herself with a deadpan worthy of Gallus.

Queen Elytra is hovering in the air over them, unimpressed. Her horn glows, and a horrible sloshing fills the air as the resin in the changeling pods around them softens. Flashes of brighter green light from within tell Ocellus the bait changelings are retaking their natural forms.

Ocellus lifts herself into the air, her arms wide. "Listen to me! Look at me!"

All about her, she hears the softened pods splitting open like overripe fruit. The skittering of drones as they climb out. The wet sound of wings shaking off a coating of melted resin.

"I'm a changeling too," she calls as she lifts herself high for all to see. "I was once starving, just like all of you. But there is another way to survive. You just have to share your love!"

She looks at Queen Elytra. The queen hovers, her expression cool, unfazed. Not haughty. Not panicking.

Several of the drones are taking to the air, staring at her with the hostility their queen's demeanor lacks.

"Well, that is definitely something worth looking into," Queen Elytra responds in a droll tone. "After we get home."

The changelings surrounding them hiss, their forked tongues lashing out like angry serpents. Agreeing with their Queen. Applauding her. Intimidating the intruders into their hive.

Queen Elytra flies up to her. "A noble try Ocellus." The queen's voice is calm and sickly sweet.

"But my hive is driven by a greater hunger than love. I give them love. And once we have reclaimed what should be mine, if any of them wishes to become like you, they have my blessing to do so." Queen Elytra's eyes narrow and her tone becomes harder than a cragadile's scales. "Unlike some queens, I don't punish my children if they want to sever ties and go their own way."

"This is not our home!" the changeling queen announces, moving past her. The part of Ocellus not simply reeling makes mental notes. "The world in the sky is. I was banished to this lonely rock by my mother for the crime of being everything I was born to be."

Below them, Yona is still glowering haughtily. "Are all bugqueens best at monologuing?"

Her afflicted friend's words shake Ocellus out of her stupor. Her mental notebook Unanswered Questions is open and she is finally filling in lines under her first and biggest question: why are there changelings on the moon? She doesn't have a picture yet, but Queen Elytra's soliloquy is revealing that the puzzle does have pieces. And she has found a big one.

"You're not looking to return peacefully from banishment," Ocellus counters. Queen Elytra spins around to face her again. "You're creating weapons! You're stealing Luna's knowledge. I'm not going to let you come to my home bringing war and nightmares..."

"Nightmares?" Queen Elytra interrupts. "Who said anything about nightmares? With all your former ruler knows, I can bring creatures' dreams to life! Give them their deepest, darkest desires! I'll give them what they love, and there will be no end to the feeding. With that power, no force could stand against me. And who would want to?"

That's... Ingenious? Diabolical? Horrifying? Under Queen Chrysalis, changelings used to eliminate creatures who were part of a loving relationship and replace them. How many creatures would willingly accept a facsimile of someone they loved and lost? Or someone they could never have? How many would give up their freedom for their greatest desires made real... or as real as anything created from dark essence could pretend to be?

When she was a love-starved changeling, she would pretend to be what a pony wanted her to be. Now, she's... still doing that, isn't she? Is she any more real than the effigies that Queen Elytra is promising?

"YAKS STOP!" Yona promises loudly. "Yaks not want fake gifts! Yaks SMASH them! Yona stop evil bugqueen!"

Queen Elytra ignores the yak beneath them, focusing on Ocellus. The queen's voice shifts again to sickly sweetness. "All I want is to return home. And you... you and that monster in the mirror... you seek to rob me of that chance?"

Ocellus jerks as if slapped. A defiant anger wells within her. "Luna's not a monster! No matter what she did before. She's changed! Creatures can change!"

Queen Elytra scowls, her tone one of dry anger. "I don't want to change. I want to carve out my place and shape it in my image!"

"Yona not want world in ugly bugqueen image! World should be in image of YAKS!"

Queen Elytra's eyes narrow to slits. Then widen as she smiles far too widely. "Well, if nightmares are what you truly want..."

Ocellus knows she has failed. But she has one shot left to end this -- to remove Queen Elytra (without even harming her!) and break the leash she has on her drones. Before the changeling queen can finish her threat, Ocellus transforms in a flash of turquoise light.

I can't see! I can't see! Ocellus falls to the floor with a bone-shaking thud, wrenching one of her cockatrice wings. She reverts to her nymph self as her hooves fly to her face, her ocelli covered in hardening resin. She feels the splash of more royal jelly hit her, spilling across her body and to the floor, stiffening, becoming elastic.

The royal jelly binding her never solidifies. It collapses back into softness as a yak hoof wipes it away from her face. Ocellus looks up, her vision blurry. The smile on Yona's face looks a lot like her friend's.

Wait, is Pride's relationship with Queen Elytra symbiotic? Pride amplifies Elytra's self-love enough for her to feed on herself. Is it also taking something from her? Ocellus knows pride is a weakness that masquerades as a strength. A precarious self-image that must be fed. If the anti-Elements resonate with their vices, what has Pride conned Elytra into feeding it?

Her ocelli catch the light of drones conjuring their collision barriers. "Yona, look out!"

The nymph's vision goes dark as she gets a face full of yak fur, Yona stepping over her protectively.

Ocellus hears the meaty thumps as five drones comet into the yak. The nymph's breath catches as she waits for the yak to collapse on her, unconscious or dead. She knows that should have killed her friend.

The fall doesn't come. Ocellus slides her head enough to see beyond the dangling curtain of yak belly-hair. Her still-blurred ocelli open wide with wonder.

Pride-Yona continues to stand, unfazed as the drones scattered around her groan and try to regain their senses.

Yona hrumphs. "What friends for? Yona protect small, weak bugfriend. Keep Ocellus safe. Yona make Yak Promise."

Ocellus rolls onto her hooves. "I'm beginning to really dislike the word 'bugfriend'."

Queen Elytra lands in front of her. "Go ahead," she says in a silky purr. "Show me another of your interesting forms."

Ocellus flies into the air, trying to keep her distance. A shapeshifter battle is the last thing she wants. One of the first aspects of this hive Ocellus noticed was their limited and object-heavy form repertoire. They've proven adept at learning new ones, one even becoming her dice and Gallus. She doesn't want to add any new weapons to their arsenal.

It was probably a really bad move to turn into a cockatrice. On the other hoof, maybe they'll all just petrify each other.

Queen Elytra looks up at her with an expression that says: where do you think you're going? The room is huge, there is a lot of up, but eventually she will hit the ceiling.

"Of all the creatures from our home, you had to be a changeling," Queen Elytra says in an almost regretful tone. "You are a threat to everything, Ocellus. I can't let you leave here. Not someone who can identify my drones just by standing near them."

Ocellus blinks. That's why she's worried about me? Not because I might destroy the portal, but because she thinks I'm a drone detector? It doesn't even work that way!

Except it almost would if part of her palate wasn't atrophied. Love-waste is something only changelings can taste. It would be useless in situations when love wasn't a factor, which usually included battle, but a changeling could use their senses to detect another changeling while they were in the act of feeding.

If that's why I'm a threat, Ocellus realizes, then she must see our whole hive the same way. In her invasion, we'll be her first target.

Ocellus transforms into a rock and drops into Queen Elytra's upturned face. Queen Elytra lets out a rasp of surprise and pain as the impact drives her back down. The changeling queen somersaults as she falls, Rock-Ocellus sliding off her face.

Rock-Ocellus hits the floor, bouncing once and transforming in a flash. "Yona! Our friends are waiting for us!"

Oh please not this. Ocellus thinks quickly. Yona needs to win; her pride demands it. So set the win conditions. "They're trying to keep us here. We win if we get back to our friends!"

Yona pauses at that. The yak stops thumping a drone, dropping it to the floor unconscious, and looks around. "Okay. Bugfriend lead way."

Ocellus can almost taste Pride tainting every use of that word. A word she's used to hearing said only with fondness and maybe some respect. It makes her queasy.

Ocellus looks around too. There are huge crater-impact cracks across the marble flooring. She sees a lot of unconscious drones scattered about the floor. As much as she misses her true friend, Ocellus is really glad that Pride-charged, nigh-invincible, Yak-supremacist-version Yona is on her side.

Queen Elytra flies above them, having shaken off the blow. "Now that was just rude."

Her horn is glowing with fierce green light. Two chunks of onyx stone float up next to her, rotating slowly. In the light of the queen's magic, Ocellus catches the deconstruction capital rune carved into each stone.

"Let me show you another of my toys," Queen Elytra hisses, hurling one of the onyx rocks at Ocellus.

Ocellus dives behind a ruptured changeling pod. The rock hits the floor on the opposite side of her cover.

The treasury fills with a horrendous warping sound, like the air itself is screaming. Reality warps as her cover is pulled apart, broken down into globblets of green as it is vacuumed into an eruption of ultra-bright etheric flashes.

The uncontrolled devouring tears up the floor beneath the lights, turning it into oil and blue smoke before it is sucked into the light.

Ocellus feels herself being pushed towards the etheric lights as air rushes into the void. She scrambles, the marble beneath her offering nothing to grab onto. She loses purchase with the ground, beating her wings frantically as she is drawn through the air towards the devouring point.

With a pop, the flashes collapse. Ocellus drops, hitting the chewed edge of the floor and rolling into the cistern below. She spreads her wings, beating hard, catching herself. Her heart is pounding, her breaths hard and quick. Her flesh is panic-tight under her chitin.

She crests the floor to see Queen Elytra smiling at her, juggling the second onyx stone.

Yona STOMPS! Her hooves flash with silvery-white light that spreads out in a visual shockwave, tearing up the marble floor. Veins of light race up the columns to each side of the yak as they crack. Then shatter.

Fractures lit with silver-white light slash across the fan ribbing above. Chunks of the ceiling start to fall. One crashes down on a softened changeling pod, smashing it open like an egg. Lime green pours out, running into the cracks in the floor.

In a rush, Ocellus remembers all those lessons from Twilight about what the Elements of Harmony were capable of when wielded by someone in tune with their spirits. She almost feels Pride is making a statement, reminding every creature just what being an anti-Element means.

Queen Elytra backs up, eyes wide, then darts away to avoid being hit as the ceiling begins to come down.

Ocellus chooses a different direction and does the same, calling out and hoping desperately that Yona follows.

She finds herself rapidly approaching the wall. Above, she can see the balcony of the viewing room. She can fly up there easily, but Yona can't. She turns to see if her friend is following.

Ocellus looks. Yona is understating. A whole swarm is pouring into the room from the stairs. They would already be overwhelmed if the drones weren't pulling back from the collapse.

Okay, then we won't fly, Ocellus thinks, shifting to a new plan as she surrounds herself in transformation energy, becoming Dragon-Ocellus. We'll create a climbable platform.

Turning yet again, she swoops to the closest display table, snatching a (not a vomit cannon!) royal jelly sprayer barely a moment before a huge chunk of ceiling crashes down, smashing the display table.

Dragon-Ocellus dodges the debris sent flying from the destruction. She spins, aiming the nozzle, and triggers the spray with her other claw, sending an arc of fast-hardening resin up the wall, from floor to balcony.

As Yona races up, Ocellus fires off more streams towards them, discouraging the more courageous drones from pursuing. She tries not to actually hit any, not wishing to trap a drone in resin beneath a collapsing ceiling. But the sprayer is hard to aim, the the jelly snares two of the drones who brave it. Mercifully the jelly only catches the forelegs of one and a wing of the other -- enough to drop them to the floor, but not enough to prevent them from taking forms that could survive.

Ocellus lingers long enough to see one becomes a tapestry before flying out through the balcony viewing room, following Yona.

With a great rumble, the treasury ceiling continues to crumble, more pillars cracking with fractures of white light and shattering in the cascading failure.

The changeling nymph reverts to her true form as she looks at the golden filigree in the walls.

The hallway looks similar to the one she had been in before, but she remembers more changeling pods. Oddly empty ones. Repositories, perhaps, for more royal jelly? Either way, this is not the same hall. Or, at least, parts of it aren't.

"I'm keeping this as a gift for Gallus," Ocellus tells Yona as she works to strap the sprayer over her back. "He's here. Smolder too!" The tank is almost empty, but she has no doubt the griffon would make good use of what was left. Okay, little doubt. Maybe some doubt.

Four anti-Elements. Four friends. Ocellus shakes her head. "No. I think it's just the four of us."

Yona's face falls at the news. Ocellus feels for her. Even like this, with what Pride is twisting her into, this is Yona. She still sees her friend in there, behind the silver-white lights of her eyes.

Ocellus revisits an old line of thought. Queen Elytra's displeasure at having brought a changeling into the palace gives weight to her assumption that the queen didn't know who her corruption of the mirror portal would deliver. Envy, Pride and Greed each found a friend of hers that they could resonate with. That left her and Wrath by default. With no resonance, she wasn't drawn to Wrath.

So what happened to Silverstream and Sandbar? The most likely answer is the same thing that happened to Luna. That they are in changeling pods near the mirror, having their memories drained.

"More bugs," Yona snorts in disgust, clopping a hoof and lowering her horns.

Ocellus looks up to see half a dozen guardian drones staring at them from the far end of the hall. Before she can react, Yona is charging down the hall.

The guardian patrol shoots towards her. To Ocellus, they look like pins rushing a rolling bowling ball.

A grinding fills the air as a new wall begins to bisect the hallway -- growing from the walls, floor and ceiling simultaneously. The angry faces of the patrol disappear as the wall fills in like a closing sphincter. Golden filigree snakes up like fast-moving ivy.

Yona tries to stop before she hits and trips, somersaulting into the spreading wallpaper with a graceless thud.

A rending sound builds within the wall beside Ocellus. Wallpaper splits like skin. Filigree wilts and tumbles to the floor. Columns rise up, sprouting capitals. Soon, another doorway has formed.

Still, mercifully, she follows. Ocellus turns to see the yak jump through the opening just before it seals itself, strands of canvas slithering together like dozens of licking tongues. Melding into a painting. The paint spreads across it like fast-growing mold, forming into the image of Nightmare Moon staring up at the crescent world in the sky.

Ocellus closes her eyes, trying to build up some defense against the absolute nastiness coming from her friend. She can't stand hearing her like this. This is not Yona.

I need to get Pride away from her, Ocellus thinks. As fast as possible. Preferably without any bug-squashing.

Ocellus thinks. She can't just snatch it. Her friend is clearly in possession of Pride, and it of her. But Ocellus hasn't actually seen it; she isn't sure where it is under all that yak hair.

And she won't fight Yona. She's already physically fought one friend for an anti-Element. And despite having defeated super-sized Smolder, Ocellus doubts she could win against the Pride-enhanced yak. Not after seeing Pride literally bring the house down.

"Why bugplace have no pictures of bugs? Why funny-looking ponies?" Yona questions.

Ocellus takes a deep breath, then puts on a beatific smile. She opens her receptors, getting a strong taste of Yona. Mushrooms, grave dirt and tea. The taste is simultaneously Yona and disturbingly wrong. Ocellus can taste the platonic love of Yona's friendship, but there is something rotting in it. There is a strong streak of actual love in her pride, both of herself and her people. But love for her culture and heritage is riddled by a cancerous nationalism, as if pride itself is a love-starved changeling feeding on her love.

"Thank you so much for saving me back there," Ocellus says, tasting the shifts in Yona's love at the praise. The nymph adjusts her voice for stronger effect, her tone earnest and simpering. "I couldn't have survived against the bugqueen without you. You're amazing!"

"Yona happy to help," Yona says, smiling back at her. "Ocellus Yona's friend. Yona not let bugfriend get hurt. Yona best at friendship."

Mushroom soup, parsley, yak tea. Strong, and directed at her as much as herself. There is still a poisonous aftertaste, but after the queen's love, what is coming from Yona right now is almost heavenly.

"You sure are! And what you did back there was... I don't even have words for how fabulous that was." Ocellus chooses her wording to create an association with Professor Rarity, letting the compliment subconsciously feel like it is praise from Yona's favorite teacher.

Yona beams at the praise. Her eyes glow with bright silver-white light. "Yona best at smashing!"

Ocellus tastes Yona's self-love surge. She adjusts farther, making her tone just a touch more simpering, her expression more saintly.

I'm doing exactly what I've been doing wrong, Ocellus judges, not proud of herself at all. I'm being what creates the love response I want rather than being in any way me. Only this time, she is fully aware and doing it with intent. Which is even worse.

"Oh yes! And you're better than you ever were," Ocellus fawns. "I'm so glad you found that special rock. You make the best pair!"

"Special rock know Yaks are Best!" Yona thumps her chest with a hoof, standing even taller. She is soaking in the praise, letting it build her up. "And Yona is Best Yak!"

Ocellus tastes and adjusts. She nods energetically. "Especially now that you have that rock to help you be Best. My friend Yona is the best Yak now! The changeling queen never stood a chance!"

Yona nods, grinning. "Yes, Yona... hold on." The yak's expression falters, her brow furrowing. "Yona not need fancy rock to be best!"

Ocellus backs up a step, genuflecting. "Sorry! I didn't mean you can't be best without it... uh... it's just that it helps you be best." She points a hoof. "Makes it easier, right?"

Ocellus puts on a face of angelic contrition. "O-of course. If you say so. I'm your friend, so I believe you."

Yona flinches back, then steps forward, stomping and snorting. "Yona prove! Here, take fancy rock! Yona show bug she best without it!"

Yona pulls the huge, round diamond out of her thick yak hair. Silvery-white light dances between its facets.

Ocellus stares at Pride as her friend thrusts it at her. And now realizes her plan has one small flaw. She won't be able to just scoop it up safely from Yona's hoof with her saddlebags. She's going to have to take it -- touch Pride -- even if just for a moment.

Okay. I can do this. I just need to be fast. Professor Dash fast. Ocellus feels a shaky confidence that it won't be able to poison her if she only touches it for a second.

Before Yona can change her mind, Ocellus bites Pride, one hoof opening her saddlebag.

Not a problem. Of course she was right. She's totally on top of his. Look at how amazing she just was!

The surge of self-assurance was not only completely foreign, but the exact opposite of the self-disgust she was feeling just seconds before. Ocellus drops Pride into her saddlebag, feeling the throbs of a headache.

Ocellus' ears shoot up. Beside her, Yona wobbles. The yak's expression collapses. She drops to the floor, burying her face in her hooves.

Ocellus turns to face the gallery's grandmare clock. The numberless, moon-like face stares back at her. The minute fork shifts.

Prey

by Kkat

Chapter 10: Bugfriend