Warm.
Tibia's mouth was filled with liquid. Her entire body was filled with liquid, seeping into her every pore and opening, completely encasing her on all sides, like being frozen in a block of ice.
But much warmer.
Changelings found it hard to parse a lot of pony poetry, and the metaphor of the womb was one of those little things that didn't translate well cross-culturally. 'The blood of the womb', 'the safety of the womb'. Medically, they could understand it- The reproductive organ in which foals are produced. But as a metaphor, something to return to for safety and warmth, it vexed them.
Ponies had wombs, the darkness before birth they could never return to. Changelings had cocoons- the darkness before birth they regularly returned to, like taking a shower at the end of a long day. It was a metaphorical woe changelings simply couldn't comprehend.
Cocoons were as second nature and commonplace to changelings as forks to ponies, if not moreso. Weaving them from the gel their own bodies produced was an evolutionarily taught skill grubs were laid already knowing how to do. In day to day life they were beds for the sickly, recreational centers for the exhausted, and cells for their prisoners, most frequently ponies who would not have the skill or sharp ends required to cut their way out. Once sealed inside, the fluid they were filled with could be breathed like oxygen, and you were likely to be completely at the mercy of your weaver.
Multiple chambers in the Hive contained nothing more than rows and rows of cocoons; what divided them was their occupants. If they were filled with changelings, it was a hospital. If they were filled with any other species, it was a fridge.
Tibia had been hurt, and was being repaired. It could take days, weeks, or months, depending on how bad the injury had been. Whether it bruising the exoskeleton or losing a leg, changelings had one answer to heal it- The cocoon. Any incision or injection related medical training a changeling strove to achieve was for espionage purposes only.
Warm.
Tibia tried to move her head, to look down at herself and assess the damage. The cocoon was too small, just enough to restrict her. She decided she'd raise a complaint when she got out.
If she remembered.
Warm.
Her lapses into memory loss weren't the cocoon's fault. It was something entirely different. Changeling brains are a pyramid, linked together, sharing instructions and memories.
And the one at the top of the pyramid was the root. Like a spider on her web inspecting caught flies, she crawled down the pyramid from her throne when she needed to, picking apart the minds below her, inspecting memories and extracting the info she needed.
Tibia felt honored her brain was cracked open, being inspected. It told her that her mission had been a success, and she was now being forcefully debriefed. Any important information would be filtered directly to the Queen. Anything else would be discarded, and when she emerged from the cocoon well rested and healed, she would be a blank slate ready for her next mission.
She felt special.
Tibia's mouth was filled with liquid. Her entire body was filled with liquid, seeping into her every pore and opening, completely encasing her on all sides, like being frozen in a block of ice.
She thought back to her last mission. Her memories were fading fast as she was debriefed, and she was passing in and out of consciousness herself. Her instincts told her to drift to sleep, and let her brain be pried open without any of the confusion being awake during the process would bring.
But something else, a tiny, fading part of her, fought to remember.
Cold.
And gross.
It melted into a sludge where she picked it up. It felt bizarre against her hooves, like the feeling of biting too hard into an ice cream- which she had very recently discovered.
Scattered in the sludge were bits of the ground it had ripped up, sticks and blades of grass that clung to her hooves even as she tried to shake them off in a panic.
"Blue Cross! It's sticking!" Tibia panicked, shaking her butter yellow hooves to try and get it off.
To her despair, Blue Cross hardly seemed concerned, giggling in delight. When she saw Tibia's seriousness, she took on a more respectful face and came up to her comfortingly.
"It's alright, it's alright, it's just snow!" She laughed, patting down Tibia's legs. "Sheesh, Talia, I didn't think it was this bad up in Appleloosa. Is this really your first time seeing snow?"
Tibia coughed, blushing through her fur when she realized the potential faux pas. "I... guess I didn't really get out that much as a filly." She sighed. "It does this every year?"
"For miles." The two were barely a step away from the front porch, looking around at the blanketed town. Even this early, the roads were littered with criss crossing hoofprints going up and down to their various duties.
Tibia calmed down a bit, mostly happy Blue had bought her lie. Her pony form was a yellow pegasus. Talia was a practicing nurse, who had moved south in order to pursue her practice somewhere with more ponies. She was 22 years old and fresh out of college. In order to fit the role, she had studied intensely into pony healthcare, and quite a bit into the academic system as well. "Sweet Celestia."
"It used to, anyway. Might not be as much nowadays." Cross shrugged. "But you know what first snow means."
"Of course I do." Tibia lied.
"You getting me something?" Cross took on a flirtier tone, grinning at her expectantly.
Tibia's mind raced a mile a minute. This was a joke. She was supposed to respond with something absurd. "A lawnmower." Was the first thing that came to mind.
Cross snorted. "That might be more helpful than you'd think. I don't expect this snow to last long- by January it'll be summer again."
Bless the Queen. Tibia had screwed up, but somehow that had worked out anyway.
"What are you getting me?" Another good way to carry a conversation was to turn the question back around.
"I dunno. What do you want?" Cross teased.
'Want' wasn't something drones had much need for. Still, she thought all the same, searching for something to respond with. Her studies of pony culture came back to her. Books- books were something ponies enjoyed.
"Frog and Toad All Year by Arnold Lobull." She responded quickly.
Cross blinked. "That book they were reading to the kids at Golden Oaks yesterday? You went to medical school, and you want to read Frog and Toad?"
"It seems educational." Tibia replied earnestly. She meant it this time. From what little snippets she had heard, it contained information on the seasons, a subject she had sorely bypassed during infiltration drilling as evident by her surprise at the first sight of snow.
Cross was perplexed for a second, before smiling sweetly. "You're adorable. You know that?"
Tibia didn't answer, but smiled all the same. It was a nice thing to hear.
The next few weeks were missing. They were being scanned heavily, and if they contained nothing of note, they would be discarded. Tibia was to only remember the facts that may aid her at pretending to be a civilized mammalian. Her medical knowledge. Snow fell every November. It would be gone by January. Frog And Toad All Year was a kids book, and therefore not something adults should want.
She mulled over another memory, set shortly after the last, before it vanished.
Warm.
Every creature, no matter how alien, understands the threat of fire. The red beast was locked inside Cross' fireplace, biting and snapping at its restraints. Looking at it made Tibia's eyes bulge out, rooted in place. She was simultaneously entranced and terrified of the light, and what it could do to a creature like her.
Blue Cross giggled. "Go on, silly, open your present."
Ponies were asinine creatures. A million types of naturally light producing gemstones in Equestria that could light a hive endlessly, and they enslaved fire to produce their light. Tibia had no choice but to slowly approach the monster, keeping one eye on it at all time while cautiously reaching for the present on the hearth. Grabbing it and sitting warily in front of the fire felt like falling hook line and sinker for an angler's lure. When she did unwrap it, however, her fear ebbed.
"You got it for me?"
"Well, duh. You said you wanted it." Blue Cross carried a hot chocolate from across the room. Despite her safety far from the fire, she willingly chose to put herself in danger by coming up and sitting beside Tibia.
"I know. I did want it." Tibia turned Frog And Toad All Year over in her hooves. "I didn't know that meant I would get it."
"It was an easy buy. Much cheaper than the things my ex wanted on Hearthswarming." She sipped her hot chocolate, watching Tibia slowly crack the book open.
Inside were many helpful diagrams and drawings, and a story to go with them featuring fictional amphibians.
Toad opened his present from Frog, Tibia read curiously. It was a beautiful new clock. The two friends sat by the fire. The hands of the clock moved to show the hours of a Happy Hearthswarming.
Ah, so this danger was traditional. The fire in the drawing looked much more unkempt- Cross' had a grate in front of it. Against her better judgement telling her to skitter to safety, she decided to indulge in this tradition.
The two friends. Cross was her friend, she decided. Tibia scooched closer, wrapping a wing around Cross.
This seemed to heat the pony up further. Cross relaxed into her embrace, cheeks turning red as the two made physical contact.
Warm.
"Happy Hearthswarming, Talia." Cross breathed. "I... love you."
"Happy Hearthswarming, Cross." Talia responded.
She glanced down at the book again, and the open page she had left it on.
Yes, she could see why this was enjoyed by ponies.
"I love you too." She answered earnestly.
The two friends sat by the fire.
Tibia felt only a removed disinterest when she returned to that memory. It felt bizarre, watching herself interact with this stranger as if she had known them her whole life. Who was she?
The memory slid out like a drop of water down a pane of glass, and Tibia woozily blinked. She was still inside the cocoon, exhaustedly breathing solid fluid in and out her tracheae. Only the prior day remained, which she reflected on in her last thoughts before sleep,
Warm. Extraction's tonight.
It was an inevitable part of every mission. Their time varied; a changeling could stay in deep cover for days, months, or decades, reporting back routinely and otherwise fitting into their chosen role like a glove. Their pony form became a second skin to them; they were creatures whose very way of life was espionage.
But no matter how long they lasted, the end was always the same.
'Talia' was in bed with Cross, the other mare pressing her pelt against her partner's with a fond smile in her sleep. Tibia could feel her breathing, chest rising and falling against the changeling's false wing.
Tibia personally found ponies and their bizarre anatomy... gross. But she felt obliged to allow this last bit of intimacy, given what would likely happen to Cross. It was no grudge against her, after all. It was just what happened.
It was her fault for getting close to Cross, really. Tibia had made her a victim, to be removed from the picture during her extraction. Whatever that meant would vary, but Tibia could taste quite a lot of love coming off her where she lay. That didn't seem to bode well.
Tibia's job was to sit still and wait to be picked up. Her brothers or sisters would arrive, and deliver her back to the hive in whatever state they found her in to be debriefed.
And yet despite all her reassurances, Tibia was moving.
From her intimate position, Tibia rose, blanketed in moonlight wafting through the open window. Her eyes flickered, flashing with a pale, queasy shade of green before catching alight, bubbling off like wax to reveal the glowing blue globes beneath. With a disgusting retch, she began to cough up fluid into her forelegs as skin melted down them. She pulled the fluid taut like taffy, brought it to her sharpening fangs, and began to work her magic.
She moved Cross only in gentle nudges, which made the process take far longer than it would have had she not cared to wake the pony up. In her care, she spent hours cautiously disturbing Cross' rest, rolling her inches towards either side to slip her weavings under the pony's back. She slickened the bindings, sticking them together, reinforcing them, and trickled green ooze in through the cracks that soaked through her bedsheets.
Cross stirred, and Tibia froze.
Her eyes flickered, and shot open.
She opened her mouth to scream, finding it flooded with liquid. Her entire body was filled with liquid.
From out of the liquid her hooves punched, ruining several minutes of work and grasping for Tibia's throat. The changeling balked and chittered, confused as to why the pony was so fixated on her neck but otherwise trying to keep her work unfettered. The two grappled until Cross' hooves shot lower. Tibia heard a horrible crunch and nearly folded at the awful sensation of one of her bones being stripped away from where Cross had apparently managed a grip, spilling a jet of ichor into the liquid.
Tibia tried to return to her work, keeping her eyes focused on Cross. She hoped she was communicating some form of harmlessness. She doubted it- their facial anatomies weren't exactly similar.
Cross couldn't hear her anyway, thrashing and fighting. To her, she was being attacked by a wild animal, maybe even scared of what had happened to her missing partner. That was probably for the best. Tibia lowered her eyes, changing her demeanor to try and behave more roughly with the cocoon she was forming.
Even with her eyes held low, Tibia noticed how Cross' thrashing began to slow, and how she squinted through the green murk at the monster trapping her.
Tibia pulled the last weaving taut, slicking it and sticking it down with the rest like tape. The completed cocoon was sitting in a slick spot on Cross' bed, with its weaver crawling around the exterior like a fly on flesh.
She looked Cross in the eyes, but only for a moment. Then she turned her over, facing her towards the floor.
She looked down towards she sheets, seeing a black-stained curved plate of bone lying behind her, feeling the sickening gap in her natural protection betraying the squishy parts beneath.
In all technicality, she was bleeding. At the moment she had more pressing concerns.
Tibia applied a few final reinforcements to the cocoon's form, and crawled up the wall and along the ceiling to the nearest window, opening it to the cold wind. Returning to Cross, she lifted the struggling shape in her legs, and her wings silently buzzed as they carried her away into the night.
Cross loved the snow. Already the nights were getting warmer, and before long the white blanket would be melting until next November. As a last gift, Tibia left the cocoon in a snowbank at the edge of town, along a commonly traveled path. With any luck she would be free by morning, long after Tibia had been extracted.
Tibia watched the cocoon shake lightly, rolling over the events of the last few hours in her mind and still bleeding heavily from the gash in her barrel. It felt like her limbs were moving of their own volition- she was doing what she felt was right, without the Queen's input.
It was a strange, detached feeling, but not altogether unpleasant.
Her wings buzzed again, and she took off back to Cross' house.
Tibia woke up. Her mouth was filled with liquid. Her entire body was filled with liquid, seeping into her every pore and opening, completely encasing her on all sides, like being frozen in a block of ice.
But much, much warmer.
Her memories were going fast now, leaking out like water dripping out of a sludge pile in a pony's hooves. All the needed information had been extracted by Chrysalis, whatever she found interesting enough to remove. Anything Tibia would need for next time would stay firmly in her head in the form of hard facts. Everything else would fade.
Something clung a little longer to her head, and when she got out much later, she would swear she could still hear the echo, a shape she couldn't exactly grasp the form of from a life she no longer remembered living.
"Oh, Frog," Said Toad. "I am so glad to be spending Hearthswarming with you."
It felt warm.