“Uh… heh, heh… well that’s it this pipcast, under squeaks…” And OC’s been live streaming us this whole time, because of course she has. My life is online entertainment for subterranean mutant changelings. “Uh, guys… we probably really need to talk…”
“Wait… you were filming us?” And Gloomy is also not okay with this. Good to see we’re on the same page.
“It’s okay! I was in my doll disguise!” Okay, to be fair that is a potential issue.
“Charlie.” Oh damn she is going extra monotone. “I am only just barely alright with you bringing home an adolescent shapeshifting ladybug pony. This is my life. I am a witch pony and you are my jinx doll, but you need to explain boundaries to our apparent…niece? We DO have boundaries, they are loose but we have them!”
“I’m really sorry, Aunt Gloomy!” OC is spooked. Even I can pick up on that. “Usually when I do my pipcast my brothers will just argue in the background and I just make it part of the cast! But that’s not even what’s important, I am so sorry to say it that way… But that mare that tried to foal nap you… Uncle said she was the Nopony…”
And now Gloomy’s eyeballing me with those violet eyes. And they’re extra big, because she’s small . “There was another encounter on the road up the mountain. A stallion, but it was the same creature. It spoke with your voice. Ladybug has it right. We need to talk.”
She taps the rhythm. I remember once again that I am her doll. I remember just enough that I can’t explain anything.
“The No Pony was a boogitty in the underhive.” OC is afraid and it hurts me that she’s scared, but she should be. “Was that actually the No Pony you asked me to introduce myself to, Uncle?”
It hurts worse because she means it when she calls me that. She trusted me this whole time. Gloomy has known me long enough to know better, “That thing can play with the words. I saw it when it tried to pick a fight on the way up the mountain. You know who it is, and you don’t sound surprised. And in twenty years you’ve never brought that thing up… not in any of your stories.”
“No, it was in my stories, Gloomy, that’s where it came from. It just wasn’t in any of the stories I told you…” When all else fails, tell the truth. “I can’t really remember what happened… or even be sure what I remember writing was what actually happened. I kinda hoped it was dead by now.”
“I know my mom filled you in on a lot of the history you missed, Uncle!” I’ve never seen OC this serious. “And I told you a lot of our hive’s history. But there’s parts you might not know about…”
Actually, she seems to be something of a nerdy history buff, and her history is likely at least as accurate as what my senile brain fluff can drag up. Plus, OC deserves to tell her tale after what I dragged her through to get me back to Gloomy.
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The Nopony is an integral part of the Underhive’s history. Universally hated and reviled, nearly all record of it’s existence were purged from history by both changeling and pony alike. It’s believed he served as some sort of adviser, or researcher, to the Mad Queen, though it’s hard to say for sure, given the Mad Queen actually forbade an record of history within’ her hive.
It’s believed the queen wanted him to develop a new breed of changeling that could feed off of fear, as well as love. About ten years before the start of the pony-changeling war, he succeeded, producing a clutch of thirteen viable eggs. However he covered up his success and raised the grubs in secret while plotting his escape.
The Mad Queens failed invasion of the pony capitol gaveNopony opportunity as well as setting off a war with pony kind that would drag out in a series of skirmishes ultimately leading to the Mad Queen’s utter fall from power.
During this first invasion, Nopony used the chaos to attempt to escape with his clutch of now preadolescent changeling foals, and his brood queen in two groups.
Nopony and his unnamed brood queen slipped away from the hive while the Mad Queen was focused on her failed invasion. The thirteen changeling foals were smuggled into the pony capitol, with plans to reunite later in a city called Fillydelphia. However, due to reasons lost to history, the foals were separated from their escorts believed to have been killed in the chaos of the invasion.
And that seemed like it was the end of it. Until years later during what the pony’s referred to as “The Second Invasion”. In the intervening time, the ponies and changelings fought various smaller skirmish battles when changelings would raid outlying pony settlements foalnapping ponies to harvest their love.
Only one of these is really relevant, and that’s when an ambassador… or maybe a prince, the records aren’t really clear on that… anyway, he led a rescue mission to recover captured ponies and in the process liberated a large number of changelings seeking to flee the Mad Queen’s oppression with the help of previously unknown changeling queen. She’s remembered in our history only by her title, the Changeling Princess. This is actually really important later.
You see, these changeling refugees became the Canterlot Free Hive. Under the leadership of the Changeling Princess, these changelings only fed from love given freely by ponies, and were fiercely protective of the ponies who had, in their eyes, rescued them from tyranny. They were seen as the perfect defense against infiltration and invasion by the Mad Queen’s forces. And for a while it worked.
There was a sort of stalemate between the two hives. The Mad Queen’s infiltrators could be easily spotted by the Free Hive’s changelings, who the ponies in turn trusted to protect them. But there was a third hive that no one knew about. In Fillydelphia the Nopony, his brood queen, and the changelings who had escaped with them had gone into hiding, forming the Shadow Hive…