The hive was stunning, unified like this. I could feel the smile stretching across my face as a sigh escaped. The small nook I was currently lounging in rested near the ceiling of the grand chamber. It allowed for a simply splendid view of the beating heart of the hive.
Changelings flowed through the chambers like the blood of our nation's veins, the work they were leading, allowing for the betterment of us all. The beginnings of the construction. A forge for the ladder that will lead us to the light.
My current focus amidst the humdrum is three Lings smiling and working together, two making conversation. A joke is exchanged as the third begins laughing.
It makes my heart feel full. Fuller than the largest of feasts I've ever attended in my mother's court.
This was right.
The hope I saw on their faces told me all I would need to quell the doubts that would often bubble up within me.
Another Changling is hard at work forging a sword, his father, I assume, talking and motioning as he works the blade, passing his years of knowledge on to the future.
Two others were carving wood and creating fletching as they converse or gossiped.
The fire I lit in them was burning, and it was glorious to see it unfold in front of me genuinely rather than have updates recited by some intermediary.
Resting here was always worth it at the end of these long days. Doing so with good company was always the ideal outcome. However, Krag had long since fallen asleep within his own alcove somewhere to my right.
Not that I faulted him.
He had spent the day helping to renovate one of the hatcheries into a storeroom for all the new equipment being made before my eyes.
A nap away from the sounds of construction and the general bustle of the hive was welcome occasionally, even by me.
I felt good.
Far better than I had in the weeks before things began to pick up speed. When it was all talk and plans and projections rather than action.
No. This right here was what I wanted, what I was hoping for.
It was almost perfect.
Then I woke up.
I was wrapped around another Ling.
It was cold, wet, and everything hurt.
I clutched him tighter, pressing an ear to his chest.
His heart still beats. One ear listened to the steady reassurance of life. The other listening to the persistent rain smashing against stone and brush just outside. The sounds were profoundly isolating.
My world had come crashing down. Left so small I could hold it within my hooves. Amid the messy swirls still gripping my heart, hope, fear, loss, and cloying dark despair. Hope that was thoroughly crushed and beaten, alight again. Where once arrogant confidence might have been, clawing, fresh fear tore and bit into the hope.
I shifted against the uncomfortable stone, pulling uncomfortably against wounds freshly bound. The Bandages around my forelegs were now damp with rainwater and mud rather than just my blood.
What kind of consolation prize is one life? The curse wanted me alive, it seems. I had asked, and the curse delivered, perhaps binding me to more profound despair.
If I let go, Would this dream disappear? I clung tightly to this hope granted unto me. Even knowing it would slip from them again, I wanted to grasp and hold on tighter than ever as if the desperation could give strength I knew was lacking.
Running a hoof down my treasure's frills, I heard Alison clear his throat.
I waited a moment. Allowing the stillness to last a second longer before turning.
Alison was an absolute mess. Deep lines under his eyes and tightness within his face as if he had not slept in days. I should hold back on draining as much energy as possible next time. My new acquaintance sat against the cave wall across from me and closer to the entrance, a small stream running under them as the rain poured.
He sat with his arms draped over his knees, Gloves clenched tightly as water and bright green blood still dripped off him onto the floor. The small river of liquid ran from his position against the wall winding further into the cave's darkness, going from clear rainwater to a sickly green.
Tainted.
We cannot change the past. No matter how much I might wish it.
To deceive others, you must first deceive the self.
This ling will live a long life, and Alison will be tired. I won't feel bad for saving perhaps the last remaining member of the invading force.
"He passed out a little bit ago," Kelly said. She sounded just as tired as their body no doubt felt.
"I don't think he'll be awake for a while, so we get to have a little bit of girl talk, you and me, hm?"
I tensed up at the words. The tone was the kind of sickly sweet someone only uses when lying. But they want you to know it. What was the lie here? The pretense of a civil conversation?
"Are there any side effects when you eat someone's emotions?"
Her eyes drilled into mine. Steel bound in the small orbs.
So childish.
If the snake wants to challenge a queen, She'll find I have ample steel of my own.
"No, aside from the physical and mental fatigue. Which should fade within a few days, mind you. There will be no lasting side effects from this." I matched her gaze.
My tone was biting and sarcastic, and it would be a lie if I said it was purely on reflex.
I have nothing besides this life in my arms and my own. If she wants to start something behind Alison's back, I will die sooner than allow myself to be humiliated again.
Her expression softened a bit before speaking again.
"Well, so long as you're not lying, that's good news."
Her eyes never left mine. Drilling into me.
"My brother is trusting, but I will protect him should you try and harm him in any way." She shook her head lightly as she spoke, "I would love to trust people as freely as he does, but too many people lie and hurt for no good reason. I've been looking after him a long time, hun. You won't win."
I narrowed my eyes at her.
"Message received," I muttered in response.
"Now, now. Let's not be like that," Kelly said with a smile. " We can consider threats and posturing to be over with."
She waved her hands about while she said it, motioning in some way she probably thought effective.
Why did everyone have to be so difficult?
I focused on my wet, uncomfortably tight bandages and my pained shallow breathing.
Was I any better?
"Then"
My voice cut out. The single word was so quiet I wasn't sure Kelly even heard it before I stopped myself. Then I pushed through the fear stopping up my throat.
"Then, Let's not."
The cave was silent momentarily, the dull sound of the rain and tiny rivers running from the mouth becoming sharp.
"I'm a petty, vindictive failure. I've lied more than I have ever been honest." I am a leech upon the world's goodness.
"I'm asking for a third chance, I suppose. If you'll give it? I'll probably ask for many more."
Because I was born. Because I took the throne. Because I had hope. They all died because of me.
"That is who I am. This is who you saved."
I pressed my bandaged hooves into my chest with the words. Light green bloody water pooling in small amounts within some of the holes adorning my legs.
I'm going to need them to trust me. Which is especially hard when I don't trust myself. Or believe anyone should trust me, but we work with what we must, no?
Kelly's face shifted to a small, sad smile before she lifted the helmet from its place on the ground, sliding it on swiftly, covering her features in a practiced manner.
"Give me a moment, ok?"
She said the words softly before exiting the cave while staying in sight. Just standing in the rain. Letting the blood wash off their clothing.
The helmet gave nothing away as water battered the metal pointed at the sky.
What exactly is next? Finding the most transparent avenue forward was proving hard when I wasn't even sure where in my own mind it was safe to traverse without running into emotional pitfalls and deep holes of memory and regret.
Just conversing with my rescuers was proving more complex than I liked. It all should be as expected. It should be practiced and easy. But deception and lies are more difficult after the truth is plainly visible.
How can I act like a queen when they've already seen a sobbing mess in a hole, ready to die without hope. A lie is hard to make as quantitative as every failure leading to this truth.
But I've never been this thing I am now.
Keep moving. Refrain from getting caught in your thoughts. Look around you.
The cave was the same boring thing I'd seen for hours now. Just wetter.
Saying nothing of the fact that rocks stab at me the longer I lay here. As if gathering and poising themselves to attack me while my attention shifts.
"I'm getting the message, cave. I'll go."
I've got to keep moving forward. If I stop, I don't know If I will have the strength to stand up again in a shockingly literal sense.
I've been given one more chance. Don't let them down again.
Performing the daunting and arduous task of simply getting up and stable on my own four hooves. I'm proud to say it took less than 5 minutes. Bones clicking and popping. Chitin and hooves scratch against the stone floor. Some unqueen-like grunting and hisses of pain as my joints held my weight for the first time in... a day?
In a long subjective time, no matter what time has passed in reality.
I gazed down at the still-unconscious form of my subject, chest rising and falling. It gave me the strength to make the walk outside.
"Should you be up and walking?"
It was Kelly. Harder to tell in the rain. I was getting better.
"It wouldn't matter if I needed a day or 2 weeks of bed rest. We don't have the luxury of either. We need to move from here. Somepony is bound to search the area, a royal guard search party, or an inquisitive idiot. It doesn't matter so long as an equestrian citizen finds me. I'm shipped to the Canterlot dungeon or simply executed, neither of which I'm partial to."
The helmet turned towards me. Searching for information in my expression. She would find none. I've been molded for this. To take posture or a simple glance, my very tone of voice into a weapon to wage wars and spear through opposition. Conversation can be treated as a battlefield; my body is a resource, my tongue a blade...
My shoulders sagged before sitting on the wet grass. Looking into the sky with kelly rain drenching my matted hair, a few droplets inconveniently smashing into my eyes within about a second.
Dark clouds pouring out their hatred onto the forest.
"I don't know what to say to you. I keep thinking through all the lessons and what I remember in the manuals or the videos, but it's not applicable here. Everything I can think to say feels half-hearted. I don't know you. I didn't see what you've been through. I don't know. Not really."
Kelly joined me in the grass, knees touching her chest, arms wrapping around those. Their movements and proportions are very unnerving whenever they adopt a new pose. It unsettles me in a very primal sense.
To say nothing about the words vomited upon me by who I was tentatively going to call the duo's brains. Which now seems like a stretch.
Nothing can be simple.
These two show up and do so little and so much all in one. Then, of course, they go and just fall apart. Because of me. Just feels too on the nose, doesn't it?
"How can you live like you are?"
"Excuse me?"
The surprise was palatable. I had to stifle a smirk.
"being half a person. Having so much of your life controlled by someone else."
I waited in the silence I created.
"It's not a-" I cut her off.
"No sarcasm. I'm cooperating here. Just curious. Parasite to parasite."
"It's not as much of a problem as everyone thinks."
The cold and the rain were cutting into me the longer I spent out here.
"Was about the extent of what I was going to say about the matter, but..."
"If I was being passive-aggressive dear, you would have no doubts. No, I was sincere in my questioning. You two are an enigma to me, and I would like this rectified within a scenario lacking severely charged emotions or severe physical trauma."
"Or Rain."
I bared my fangs. Pointed into the forest and continued.
"Pick a direction cause unless you have any idea where in Equestria we are, our best bet is going somewhere... anywhere, just not sitting here as a start."
"If your issue is unfamiliarity, then simply think about how you two come across for one moment. I know only the barest of confusing hints about my shining heroes. So let us stop acting like children and simply converse."
The silence wasn't as ominous with the rain.
The cold was almost becoming pleasant, the creeping chill numbing the pain in my joints and spine.
A heavy sigh escaped my guest.
"Ages ago now, when we were much younger. The first year of high school, I think it was. I had the dumbest crush on this senior in the band.
Couldn't talk when he was around. Just froze right up. I spent a truly absurd amount of time rehearsing how a conversation with him would go rather than actually talking to him. Gushing about how cute he was to Al. Or asking my friends if they had heard him say anything about me. Needless to say, Alison got the picture pretty straightforward, and my dear sweet brother thought the best idea of how to help me with this would be to walk right up to Jack in between English and history.
Right in the hallway. With everyone there. And just ask the guy out."
What?
"I thought it might be possible to just melt and die from embarrassment, at least in the moment. Not to mention afterward, Alison and I had to have a long conversation about boundaries and perhaps if we should set ground rules about how relationships would work going forward. But for the most part, now I think about that as a time when my brother was quintessentially himself, just doing what his heart told him would be the right thing. Without really thinking about it or how people will react, especially the person he's trying to help."
I've always wondered what siblings would be like. I concluded that we would have been pitted against each other if I had been born with a twin.
"He's a good person And working on being more self-aware, but I'm sure you've already gotten inklings that I'm not exactly perfect either, eh?"
More than inklings, without a doubt, you two are a mess. But I get it. I can no longer say I don't know anything about you.
Well played.
I had to keep my teeth from chattering as I squeezed the words out.
"I don't really get family ties. Family from far away always looks so warm and perfect. But once you're in the middle, it's just disappointment obligations and judgment."
Not exclusively true, I know, but all my experiences with the curtains pulled back informed on a lot. The picture wasn't pretty most of the time.
"I Never knew my siblings. They had all died before I was born, and I would have never 'been' without their failures. My mother had been trying to make her perfect heir for a long time and with generations of failures preceding my birth. In her eyes, somehow, she saw something in me that was deemed 'worthy'. What that was, I have no idea."
Everyone's all long gone now.
"I never will."
"Sometimes I wonder if her proclaiming that I was this zenith, the pinnacle of her creations, was her own self-justification. She knew her time was up, and she needed to believe I was the best just as badly as I wanted to prove to her I was, that I wouldn't be the final failure in a long, long line of them. But she was wrong, and I was."
Her helmet was gone, the rain roared in my ears, and my heart was pounding.
"Now, you can't say you know nothing about me."
My eyes were wet.
"Sorry"
She couldn't stand to look at me.
"Please, no more of this cowardly pussyfooting around everything. No more posturing and threats. I-...I've Had enough. Enough for a lifetime. If I can't, at least pretend to be someone else. Who can?"
I extended an ice-cold, shivering bandaged hoof.
"Acquaintances?"
Her eyes met mine. They were wet.
She shook my hoof with an ice-cold, soaked glove.
"Acquaintances."