“So, Chambin doesn't recall he is a changeling, and the spell left him unaffected,” Chrysalis summarized, contemplating Faerbin's report carefully.
“Y- yes, m-my queen,” Faerbin replied meekly. The report took quite a while to deliver in her current form, but she couldn't bring herself to drop the spell. She figured that she must be afraid all that work to perfect her character would be wasted if she dropped it, so she meekly whispered and stuttered until Chrysalis became frustrated and snapped at her, causing her to cower even further.
“This could work to our advantage, yes,” Chrysalis stood and paced and she spoke, “but there's still a chance that the right one will end up with the element in an emergency. I'd like better odds.” She turned to face Faerbin again, who cringed instinctively at the fast motion. The queen rolled her eyes and added, “but we'll find a way to identify Chambin at the crucial moment, and remove Rainbow Dash from the equation. But for now, come! You've done well, and must be famished.” Her horn and eyes began to glow, and a wafting strand of green magic drifted up from her, seemingly carried by an undetectable wind towards Faerbin.
“N-no... thank you, my queen,” Faerbin said, drawing back from the tendril as if it was her own shadow.
“But,” Chrysalis was taken aback, and the tendril drifted slightly. A few stray changelings nearby quickly darted through it, bathing in her adoration to sustain themselves before she quickly withdrew the spell. “I don't understand, dear Faerbin, don't you need love? And have I not kept you all well fed, well adored, as you have adored me in return?”
“You have,” Faerbin admitted, “and it's... nice.” The flat tone she ended on lacked any enthusiasm.
“Yes, I know, freshly collected love is more... poignant, but once we've thrown Equestria into chaos, we should be able to stock as much as we need!” She moved the tendrils to Faerbin again.
“I'm fine...” Faerbin countered, and she added, “you should save it to feed other changelings. Look at that poor fellow over there,” she flew over and mussed his mane. “Poor thing, looks like nopony has loved you in days. Here, feed this one.” She smiled convincingly at Chrysalis as the changeling, another elite, leaned into her, his weakness countered by her attention.
Faerbin clearly couldn't see it, but Chrysalis could. She could see the small amount of magic seeping from the pony in Fluttershy's shape, and it seemed diffuse, and weak, but it slowly eked into the other elite, who was looking stronger already. She was not afraid when Twilight Sparkle unmasked her, and was a only briefly concerned during her duel with Celestia. Fear never even entered her mind as Shining Armor and Cadance's shield wave swept her out into the badlands. No, fear was a new taste for her, and it was bitter, caustic. She drew in the tendrils of magic, then lashed them out before she even knew what she was doing.
Faerbin was knocked to the ground, and she briefly tried to stand, coughing the dust and shaking it from her mane, before she realized that Chrysalis was towering over her, and she cowered uncontrollably. I... why don't I just change back? I wouldn't be as frightened. Something else made her resist, but she had no further time to ponder it.
“We will decide who and when we feed!” Chrysalis boomed above her in full royal voice. “Your insolence will not be tolerated! Gone from my sight, both of you!” She dismissed the other elite with Faerbin. The ordinary changelings buzzed overhead, echoing her fury as they were simultaneously drawn to her outcry and repulsed by her rage. Faerbin charged away as quickly as she could, the other elite not far behind. The other elites followed them with their eyes, then looked to each other. They saw it too, Chrysalis thought to herself as the fear seeped away and replaced by a sense of foreboding. “Come, my loyal ones!” she cried to them, raising her magic again. “Be sustained!” As they descended to feed, she tried to reassure herself nothing would come of it.
* * *
Faerbin curled up on a rock, crying into her tail. Nopony was in sight – she had run until the buzzing of the hive was a faint echo. This is silly. I don't have to be her anymore. She sniffled, then suddenly startled and turned belly up as a nose nudged her side. She forced her eyes open to see the elite that had run with her was there. “Oh... uhm... hi there,” she said. “You... uhm... didn't have to follow me.” The other changeling drew back for a moment, then shimmered and became a mirror image of the Fluttershy shape Faerbin seemed to be unable to escape.
“Oh, but I did,” the reflection replied. “I just couldn't let you go without thanking you for what you did.”
“Oh, but I didn't do anything...” Faerbin trailed off as the memory replayed in her mind. She could see it suddenly. Her confidence, its tie to this shape, her ability to generate her own love... and her ability to share it. “I mean... you're welcome.” She smiled widely, her eyes beaming. “Do you want to know a secret?”
* * *
Chrysalis tossed and turned fitfully in her sleep. Nights in the badlands were cold, and while the drones were still building the hive, she curled up on the surface surrounded by her elite changelings for warmth. Half asleep still, she moved about one way, then another, but all she could find was handfuls of chilly dust. Her eyes snapped open and she stood suddenly.
The valley around her was empty. There was the faint sound of the cold night wind, and the faint drone of the changeling horde all around her, though that was a noise she has long since grown so accustomed to as to not hear it at all. Nothing else stirred. She was alone.
“They... don't need me,” she pouted briefly. Then, her magic flared about her, shimmering tendrils and wreaths of green, and her eyes glowed deeply. “Ingrates! Just because you no longer have need of us, to abandon us, to cast us aside after all we have provided for you! Traitors!” Her crooked horn shimmered solid emerald as she summoned the horde to her. “Find them! Bring them to me!”
The horde moved across the sky like a cloud of locusts, twisting every so often to smash a rock structure or tear through a dark ravine, literally ripping the ground apart in attempt to obey their queen's orders.
* * *
Faerbin sat silently in the shadows of the massive hall's columns, listening the buzzing overhead grow louder. She heard the cries of the Royal Guard, and saw the flashes of magic fired into the sky, giving her an opportunity to see the writhing cloud that sought her. She began to shiver in spite of herself, but the cloud started to draw back. In her anger, Chrysalis had overextended herself, and the horde limped back to her, the sound growing more faint.
Faerbin moved forward to look out of the broken window, and she squinted trying to make out the details, but then was nearly blinded by a flash of blue-white light. The light formed a column upwards then slowly refocused itself. She cowered as it seemed like the light was going to focus directly on her, but then it veered slightly to the left and passed her. The Dodge Junction Outpost, she surmised. They must be signaling Canterlot.
“It's all right now, everypony,” she urged softly. “We'll be safe here.” She watched as several dozen Fluttershies moved out from behind various columns. Nopony had come here for years, deep in the Everfree as it was, and since Nightmare Moon had been defeated in this very spot a couple of years prior, it had remained vacant. “Now, we have to find you poor dears your own confidence, don't we? This form just won't fit for all of you, sillies.” She smiled broadly.