Thorax slumped to the ground.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing better than podding,” I said as I paced the room. My breath formed small clouds in front of me as the cold air of the storage room we were in kept me awake. Two days after the vault, and I never stopped thinking of its contents.
‘And that puzzle.’
I asked Thorax to teach me more about the symbols, but that was going very slowly. I’d need a better teacher for those.
Coxa and Lacewing shared a look, but added nothing. Oestridae watched on quietly.
Thorax stared at a spot in front of him on the floor. “What… what else was there?”
I stopped. “My siblings. The princes and princesses.” I turned and saw the First Fang looking at me expectantly. “Many went as Chrysalis said. But plenty were… reprocessed.”
“Reprocessed?” Coxa, Thorax, and Lacewing said in unison.
“Probably thrown into the recycling vats. Guess even changeling royals have limits when it comes to their down deeds, and have a hard time stomaching their… murders.”
“Now what?” Thorax asked quietly.
“If Equestria falls, there’s no telling what Chrysalis will do. She might let me live. Might. I am not staking my life on the hopes that my cold, distant mother cares enough about me to, from her perspective, risk her own survival for my sake. And to that end, I need your help. In fact, I need more than just the First Fang.”
My eyes wandered around the room. The cold storage we were in held the grisly remains of whatever creatures were kept as livestock for their component parts– bugs, from the looks of it, and Lacewing’s comment in the Greencave– as well as parts from creatures from the Underhive. A Tatzelwurm fang here, a Great Uttu mandible there. That last one was slated to be carved into a holy symbol, Coxa had told me.
“I need the backing of the Legions.”
“You made them,” Lacewing said, “Surely they will be loyal to their creator?”
I shook my head. “No. They are loyal to their commanding officer, who is in turn loyal to the highest link in the chain of command. If it came down to it, they would side with Queen Chrysalis rather than High Marshal Prince Phasma.”
“So how do you plan on getting their loyalty?” Coxa questioned.
‘By reaping what I sow. Chrysalis made a mistake in letting me choose the commanders.’
“With your help, I will establish the Warrior Lodges within the Legions. Clandestine meetings and groups, whose members take leave of rank to speak openly and freely.”
Thorax’s head tilted as he asked, “Wait. You want to secure their loyalty by letting them talk freely?”
I started to pace in a line again.
“That’s right. They speak their minds in these lodges. At first it will seem, uh, benign. Let’s say that I am establishing them to gather opinions and ideas from them. Things like letting them give a nickname to their own legion, or ideas for tactics.
“Then, we transition to questioning Chrysalis. Why are we risking our one chance at conquering Equestria by launching this invasion far earlier than it needs to be? Shouldn’t the one who made the Legions have more say in how they will be used? After all, he would know best how to utilize them the greatest.”
Coxa nodded, “You’re talking a lot of sense to me.”
“And the broods. They seem to be inherently inferior to the concept of families, so why does Chrysalis enforce their existence? Is she making our lives worse, separating us from each other, to cement loyalty to her? Or rather, to mitigate loyalty to others?”
Thorax stood up, “Yeah!”
“Why have the infiltrators been so few in number, when we have been struggling for food? Is our suffering artificially created by Chrysalis so she can have ultimate say in each of our lives? Give us duties without question? Why can’t we have artists, writers, or more infiltrators to gather love?”
“I wanna paint!” Lacewing cheered.
“Why does Chrysalis choose only now to go after Equestria, after so long of sitting on her ass? Why didn’t she address our hive’s issues before they became so disastrous? Will she fix future problems before they become as bad as they are now?”
Oestridae nodded slowly.
“Queen Chrysalis has ruled for centuries and she never lifted a hoof to help the hive. Only now, with my hatching, does she get her ass off her throne to help out the common drone. But can we really trust her? Queen Chrysalis is a threat to the hive.”
“Then what?” Oestridae asked.
“What? After I get the Legions’ loyalty?”
He nodded again.
“Then… We force her to come to the negotiation table. We say, ‘hey, we don’t want to fight you, but things need to change.’ Show her that we are willing to be loyal, in exchange for a change to the status quo. With Equestria capitulated, she won’t have any reason to deny our demands.”
Coxa shook his head, “You’re putting a lot of trust into the idea that Chrysalis will play along. She’s ruled the hive for centuries, you think she’d let go of that control so easily?”
“Which is why we also need to devise a plan to kill Chrysalis.”
Thorax hissed, “There’s got to be another way!”
“It’s… very likely that this will end with one of us dead. We will approach her, willing to compromise, but ready to attack. Push comes to shove, we can retreat while the Legions turn on Chrysalis.”
“But, what if she just kills you after, Phas?”
“Then I will become a martyr in death. My name will be a rallying cry against Chrysalis. You won’t be able to kill her– doing so would mean the extinction of the royal caste– but you can take away her power and imprison her forever.”
“No,” Lacewing declared. “I won’t risk that. You can’t throw away your life, you’re only seven months old!”
I sniffed. “If we are willing to negotiate, Chrysalis will have no leg to stand on. If she tries to kill me, she takes away all her credibility. If we try to kill her first, we risk losing our moral high ground.”
“I don’t want to fight anyone, but I also don’t want to lose you, Phas.”
“Those who dare, win, Thorax. If we are to get the changes we want, we must be willing to risk what we have. You all will work with friendly contacts I have in the legions to establish the Warrior Lodges. From there, we will spread the idea of free thinking. Then, we plant the idea of disloyalty to Chrysalis. Is everyone clear on that?”
“I don’t like it,” Thorax moaned, and Lacewing nodded.
“It’s better than doing nothing. We can think about it more while we make the Lodges. I’ll contact each of you later with more information on who to talk to within the Legions. Oestridae, I’m making you my other Praetorian now that the vault has been cracked. If we need to, we can get two Praetorians loyal to myself to crack it again if we need to go back.”
‘For the puzzle lock, to be specific.’
“And the podding?”
“Thorax, I want you to try to figure out an alternative while we make the Lodges. The rest of the First Fang will be too busy to figure out an alternative, so I want you to discreetly look into that. I’ll contact you all later with instructions, and I’ll see you two,” I pointed at Coxa and Thorax,” tomorrow.”
I made my way to the side door we used to enter before stopping.
“Oh, and if any of you see Tarsus, tell him I want to speak with him as soon as possible. I’ll get him on board with this, and he can help create a Lodge within the infiltrators.”
That night I dreamt of frozen tundra mountains, rising above a raging blizzard.
Sitting on a snowbank at the peak of one mountain, I could not stop shivering. The cold, though I knew it wasn’t real, bit straight to my core. The wind howled in my ears as I curled up into a ball, covering my face with my fin-like tail.
“Thou dreams of a cold winter’s night? Must be sweltering down on Equus.”
“N-n-not r-r-really.”
I poked my head out of my tail to see Nightmare Moon standing above me, looking at me with a puzzled expression.
“Thou are controlling this dream. Do so.”
‘I’ve never tried lucid dreaming before. Well, here goes nothing.’
I imagined the cold seeping away. Slowly, the biting chill receded from my body, and soon enough even the snow I was sitting on had no temperature at all.
“That was… easier than I’d thought it would be.”
“Thou are a natural Dreamwalker of great untapped potential. ‘Tis the reason We could sense thy kindred soul.”
“And here I thought it was my good looks that caught your attention.”
Nightmare Moon snorted, "Thou doth look different. Thy visage has changed, what for?"
"I've entered the adult stage of my life."
"Only just? Thou art very young, Prince Phasmatodea." Nightmare Moon turned to look at the blizzard raging beneath us.
"I've got an old soul."
“Dispel thy tempest. We only can see Equus through the mind’s eye of dreamers, and We yearn for more than moondust.”
I sat up to get a better look at the dark storm beneath us. I imagined the blizzard fading away, the winds dying down. Sure enough, the raging storm below the mountain dissipated, revealing a snowy valley, with a small church on top of a craggy peak in the middle.
“We doth not recognize this valley, yet We hath trotted the world over. Where are we?”
“Ariandel,” I whispered.
We were behind the church’s main entrance, on a cliff overlooking the whole valley. A rope bridge extended out of view from behind the church, and beneath the snowy butte was the ruins of a coliseum. Snow, rock, and windswept trees covered every surface.
“Ariandel? A real place then, not a construct of your fantasy. What species calls this glacial abbey their home?”
‘I don’t know what I can and cannot lie to her about. I could lie about this, but what if she asks a question later about this that I can’t lie to? Better just say half-truths, I can just say this is fictional after all.’
“A tall species of apes.”
“Verily? It is very much in character for the Stormmen to live in a frigid waste such as this. We must see this abbey up close, then!”
‘Stormmen? There’s a sapient species of apes on this world? Why wasn’t I told about this? I want opposable thumbs AND magic!’
Nightmare extended her massive pegasus wings– cooler than mine– and took flight. I quickly buzzed my wings in pursuit, but struggled to keep up. Changelings’ natural wings were better for maneuverability rather than speed, after all. Thankfully, there was not much distance to fly.
I caught up with her at the main doors. Even at our larger-than-average heights, the doors were still far larger than us. She put a hoof against the massive doors and pushed, but they did not budge.
‘The door does not open from this side,’ I thought with a snicker.
“Prince Phasmatodea, command this door to open. We must see the interior!”
I shrugged, “I can’t do that.”
“Ah. Thou hast merely gazed upon this church from afar and do not know its interior. ‘Twould explain the low detail.”
Leaning closer, I saw that the church, and everything else, seemed low-poly. In her excitement, Nightmare must have not noticed such an important detail.
‘Dreams cannot extrapolate from memory, probably unless I specifically command it to. In addition, Nightmare really wants to see anything other than the moon, despite being her namesake.’
“Yes… So, I’ve been meaning to ask, how are we able to speak right now?”
“Thou hath said it before; thou slumbers deeply.”
“Not this time.”
“Oh? Thy nascent dreamwalking powers must be awakening. In time, thou will be able to dreamwalk on command.”
“I can dreamwalk? That would explain how I could sense a pony’s dream once… What’s the catch?”
“Thou art catching something?”
“No, what are the consequences of this?”
“The Dreamscape is host to a myriad of… miseries. Demons, parasites, other-worldly beings. Walking the Dreamscape is akin to…”
“Ringing the dinner bell?”
“Verily.”
‘Gonna need a Gellar field for this.’
“Good thing I have the most dangerous demon by my side when I dreamwalk.”
“Demon? Choose thy next words carefully, young Prince.”
‘Oh shit.’
“Uh….”
“Uh?”
“I mean, w-... y-… Ah to hell with it, you’re powerful and terrifying. I don’t really have a frame of reference for that, given that I’ve never met an alicorn before you.”
‘Bug-mom’s pretty powerful and terrifying, but she’s just a cheap imitation of you, really.’
Nightmare’s eyes narrowed and I gave a nervous fangy smile.
“Though We do cultivate an aura of fear and power, thou will do well to remember that We are an alicorn, not an evil apparition.”
“Trust me, that’s not a mistake I’ll ever make again.”
“No, We think not.” Nightmare straightened up, looking at the sky. “Thou–”
I sheepishly rubbed the back of my neck as Eucharis stared daggers at me.
My war hammer was embedded in the wall right next to him.
“Sorry?”
“This is the last time I wake you up!”