//------------------------------// // 4 - Trial and error: the way of Queens // Story: Chryssie, Equestria's best 'Harmonic' Monarch // by Redundant //------------------------------// I pulled away from the now empty pot, the delicious taste of Love spreading a warm feeling throughout my entire body. My vision seemed more crisp, my hearing sharper, my very chitin seemed to gleam brighter than usual. All in all, Love was pretty good food. The drone that delivered my food quickly took the empty pot and scampered out of sight, the stench of fear trailing in his wake, and left me alone once again. Who would have thought that being a Queen would be so lonely? Pondering that thought, I relaxed into my throne once more. It was a quite skillful maneuver if I say so myself, what with the throne being made out of stone-ish material and whatnot. Maybe I should add a pillow - but would that make me look weak to my Changelings? Do Changelings even HAVE pillows? A shiver passed over me as I realised that I wasn't aware of the living conditions and comforts of my own subjects. I'll add that to the list of things to do, right after 'recreation'. Or maybe before? Nah. They've been sleeping however they've been sleeping now for a while so creature comforts can wait a little longer. Once the ponies, thus Love (which is good for Changelings) and bits (which are good for ponies AND expansion), start rolling in those issues will fix themselves. In a perfect world. I'll keep an eye on it when we get to that point. But that's for the future. There's more immediate concerns right now such as the upcoming famine, which is being dealt with theoretically, and... me. While I am the Queen undisputed with grand ambitions and an intellect to match, I am lacking - through no fault of my own! - in other Queen-ly fields. Such as magic! Queen Chrysalis The Previous had successfully used her magic to both transform into ponies and overpower Princess Celestia in a standoff. I... figured out levitation by accident the other day. A wizard I was not. Now, unfortunately, Changelings seem to believe in a 'trial by fire' method of education - I saw one of the caretakers leading some nymphs past the Changelings in the infirmary and taking note of which looked interested or didn't shy away - which means that getting taught how to do magic properly would be impossible. Silver linings, however! It would be highly concerning if the Queen tried to learn magic from a drone. So, obviously, that only leaves the conclusion that a Queen must be taught by another Queen. I am a Queen. With that thought, I focused on levitating a small nearby rock, trying to remember the muscle memory that prompted me to do it by accident the other day. A mild green glow suddenly began somewhere above my field of vision - my horn - and the small rock in turn became enveloped in sickly glorious green aura. With a mere thought the rock flew across the room as if shot from a trebuchet, stopping exactly where I wanted it in the air. Then I made it rotate. Then I made it do a loop. And then I made it do a loop while rotating. I soon dropped the rock into a corner of the room, confident with my mastery over the levitation of small rocks. I'd have to try it with something bigger later... maybe wait till a drone questions me in public or something. There's only so many times I can let it slide before word spreads and they start questioning me, or worse, stop working on starting my economy. I had to be cruel to be kind. Yes. That'll be what I would say at my trial. The trial which won't ever happen, because I'm pretty certain that the Changeling justice system boils down to 'whatever the Queen says'. Go- Me, I love absolute monarchism. But back to work. I've mastered telekinesis, what I suspect to be the most fundamental of spells that there is, and thus should move onto the second, confirmed magic, Chrysalis displayed and so I am supposed to know. Generic magic beam! ... ... Go! ... Nothing happened. Okay, minor setback. Inconsequential for a Queen like me. Just needs some more effort. I thought about what I wanted, that being a green beam erupting from my horn capable of scorching the flesh of my enemies and cutting through stone with its sheer might. I imagined the scene from the wedding where old Chrysalis managed to defeat Princess Celestia with the sheer power of her beam. The glow above my vision came back. Looking upwards, I could see that my gnarled horn was enveloped in that glorious magical light. Yes! Now... just to focus. I'm doing this for a grand cause. Come on Chrissie, think about the economy! Proboscis, and every other Changeling in the area, jumped up in a shock and surprise as a deafening 'crack' echoed over the badlands. Construction ceased entirely as every drone, worker and infiltrator and supervisor alike, turned their head in the direction of the Hive. A thin pillar of green energy - instantly recognisable by every Changeling - was rocketing out of the side of the spire, towards the top, roughly near the throne room. The beam cut off as suddenly as it began, and a small chunk of the Hive spire fell off the top, slowly peeling off the structure before plummeting downwards, bouncing off the Hive around halfway down before finally burying itself in the dust below and kicking up a great cloud of the stuff. The same thought ran through every Changeling's head at that moment, and Proboscis was the one to voice it. "Cruel Queen above, am I glad I wasn't whoever that was." At the very, very, very least, this could be definitely be attributed to the dreaded 'delayed outburst' of the Queen that everyone has been dreading being on the wrong side of recently. The moment passed, and Proboscis didn't even have to yell for the other drones to get back to work. They worked like their lives depended on it. I could only blink as a section of the wall literally fell off after my beam pierced through it. That... was more than anticipated. I was either some kind of magical prodigy or Chrysalis' muscle memory is just that good. Following that display of my divine power as a Queen, I decided to shelve the idea of magical self-teaching for now. In brighter news, I had a lovely new window from which I could see the construction work without even getting off my throne. Proboscis and his work gang seem to have been getting on splendidly, the number of buildings having grown since I last looked. It might have been my eyes playing tricks on me, but the drones seemed to have been revitalised by something, the small black dots that they looked like from this distance moving with a sort of frenzy that I haven't spotted before. Maybe the extra Love has began kicking in properly? Its been a week and a half after all, and my Changelings weren't shy about consuming Love now that rationing had stopped, as evidenced by my daily trips to Love Storage. Whatever the case, I would have to think up some sort of reward for Proboscis once all the work is done. The drone has earned it. Now it was only three days or so until I inspect the dwelling and the infiltrators I sent put to get food return - phase one of step one of the economic plan will be soon complete, and phase two would have to begin shortly afterwards. We'll have the homes, and we'll have the food and water. The only thing missing would be the ponies themselves. It wasn't like we could just kidnap random ponies and force them to live at the foot of the Hive - I mean, we COULD but if we do that we might as well just pod them - since the plan hinged on ponies eventually coming here out of their own volition. Besides, I wasn't about to rely on stockholm syndrome to feed my subjects. No. The desperate ponies, the ones at their lowest points in life, they will be the the first pony citizens within my lands. They'll live here. They'll see the plenty their new Queen can offer. And they will Love me. Hopefully. I really didn't want to base my survival on podding whatever we could get our hooves on - it just wasn't sustainable.