Cold.
Silence. Always silence.
Call out...
...No response. Never response. Can’t hear Queen.
Noises... Gone now.
Call out...
...No response. Hungry.
What is target? What is goal? Silence, nothing, wait, rest...
Awaken. Still silence... Always silence.
Won’t call out, never response.
Should go out.
No... No goal can’t. Wait... Nothing... Wait for goal no more hungry... But nothing...
Wings, fly with Queen, move with Queen.
But no Queen... No queen long time.
Should go out look for Queen.
No. Must wait... Rest... Wait for Queen.
Rest...
Awaken. Silence as always.
Listen for sounds. No response.
No Queen, can’t hear Queen...
...Miss Queen. Queen guidance...
Will wait for Queen. Must wait, must rest... Still hungry... Rest...
Morning dawned across the edge of the Everfree Forest. A stark, quiet contrast from the raging storm of the previous night. The forest wildlife began to stir and wake, emerging from their dens to survey the damage left in the storm’s wake. The sun had finally crested the horizon, though its light didn't reach far beyond the thick wall of foliage which marked the forest boundary.
A large, gnarled oak had fallen amid the storm. An ageless behemoth whose end would come as no surprise to the locals. The sun spread much needed light onto small plants and fresh seeds spread by the wind. Among these mundanities, however, was a more intriguing object, bathed in the sun’s warmth for the first time in its brief existence.
Adhered to the bark of an aged tree was a white cocoon. Far too large to be the pod of an insect, and even giant spiders, known to reside in many parts of Equestria, were unheard of so close to the boundaries of the Everfree Forest.
As sunlight struck the semi-translucent pod, a shape stirred within, unfamiliar with the sensation of the sun’s rays. The creature opened its eyes, but quickly shuttered them, shielding its sensitive eyes against the light which stung and made its head ache. After a long pause, the creature opened its eyes again to regard a yellow glow surrounding it that had never been there before. All there had been before was black.
It lay still for a long while, considering its situation and what it should do. It had been lying within its protective cocoon for months now, it couldn't even remember why it was waiting in the first place. It seemed pointless to lie there any longer. Whatever the creature was waiting for wasn't coming soon enough.
The creature experimented with movement. It was an odd feeling.
The creature wriggled around a bit, gaining a feel for the sensory command it had over its limbs. there were four things dangling from its underside, and it found them strong and easy to control. They were a part of it after all. The creature took its time to get a feel for movement. An act that felt strange, but ultimately natural.
After working on its motor skills, the creature raised a limb up to prod at the squishy interior of the cocoon. The material felt like it would break with enough force, so it started to put pressure against the surface.
The cocoon was very elastic, and the creature began to doubt if it could actually get out on its own. With all its might, it pushed forward, stretching the pod outward.
Its body ached with the effort, and it pulled its limbs back, unable to continue for more than a few seconds. After a short rest it tried again, this time with all four limbs, and then again... And again...
The material was too elastic to break with force alone and the creature had tried for a very long now.
Considering there was nothing else to do, the creature chose to simply lay there, thinking. Not thinking about much. Thought was a new concept to the creature and it didn't at all know what to think about. It couldn't understand why it was thinking all these things, why it was thinking in the first place.
Trying to remember before being in the cocoon only brought blurred colours and confusing images, not really images, more... thoughts, but not quite. They didn't seem like its own thoughts, which was a hard feeling to describe. It couldn't pinpoint why they felt wrong, they just did.
The creature shook its head. This wasn't the time to worry about those things. It had to escape this place, even if it had no idea how. It tried moving its head to observe its surroundings. It couldn't see much, just the golden glow of the outside world, still dimmed by the viscous liquid It was submerged in.
Its attention was brought to the shadow residing just above Its eyes, on the top of it's head. It reached a limb up to touch the strange object, coming to rest on a solid smooth appendage. It was definitely attached to the creatures body, and appeared to come to a sharp tip at the end.
It almost immediately realized what it needed to do, this thing was obviously designed to get It out of this place, it made too much sense. How could it have not noticed sooner? It scolded itself lightly.
The creature lifted Its head up to the wall of Its confines and prodded it with the appendage in experimentation. The elastic material gave, but did not puncture. The creature pulled Its head back, thinking. Now, having gotten this far, it could consider what it was about to do. It had never seen what was outside, It had no idea what to expect.
It was entirely possible that the perils awaiting in the outside world would render it dead in a very short time. It was scared. Scared of what might await it in the outside world. It was an emotion the creature had never experienced before. Its whole body shook, curling up a small amount, trying to protect itself from dangers that weren't really there.
After a time, the creature calmed down enough to collect its thoughts. If it didn't escape this place, it would likely die anyway. It was better to take a chance with whatever was outside than wait for nothing to happen.
The creature cautiously uncurled its limbs from its body, paying careful attention to the sharp appendage protruding from its head. It took a moment to figure out how it needed to move its body to cut through the surface in front of it.
It was now only a matter of doing it.
Bracing itself, the creature shifted its position downwards, jabbing the thing on its head into the wall in front of it. After staying like that for a moment, it pulled its head up as quickly as it could manage, making a vertical slice in the material.
The weight surrounding the creature shifted immediately and the creature went into a dead plummet.
It fell only a short distance before landing painfully on the ground with a thud, accompanied by a torrent of strange green fluid that followed out of the cocoon.
The world was a confusing mess of sound and feeling, the creatures skin burned and all of its joints ached, more so the side of its body, where it had fallen. It lay on the ground, shaking, unable to fully register the feelings assaulting its mind.
Everything hurt, its ears were ringing, everything was so loud, its skin burned, it shielded itself with limbs, trying to stop whatever it was causing it so much pain, but it didn't stop. The deep discomfort in its chest was increasingly predominant, it just wanted everything to stop. It wished it had never cut its way through its gooey haven. Everything was so confusing and painful and loud.
The discomfort in its chest had turned to pain, it needed to do something about it but it didn't know what. It was too frantic to think properly. some sort of animal was making a shrill noise not far above it, it kept making the noise, hurting the creatures ears. It silently begged for whatever it was to stop, for everything to just stop.
I'm going to die, the creature thought..
It was the only thing going through its mind, and it had no idea how to stop it. The pain was nearly unbearable. It recognized its own existence, and realized the fact that if nothing was done, it would cease to exist. And it was facing this fact for the first time. It didn't want to die, but it was going to. It didn't even know what dying meant, all it knew is that it desperately didn't want to.
The creatures instincts took over, its mind a blurred mess of panicked messages and jumbled emotions, incapable of rational thought. It let out a small, gargled noise of distress, opening its mouth a small amount. Its chest heaved automatically, requiring no thought, and it drew a sharp breath. The pain in its chest subsided slightly, and it repeated the breath over and over, panting and whining softly.
Eventually the creatures frenzied breathing slowed to a slightly more rhythmic pace. Its lungs filled with the crisp morning air, and the coldness stabbed at its chest. The unpleasant sensation of the cold was overruled by the need to stop the ache in its chest. It lay like that for a long time, just breathing.
Breathing was good, breathing helped clear its head. After a time it didn't need to put any thought into each breath, it was something its body did automatically.
Alive, it thought to itself, I am alive.
It felt odd referring to itself like that, it seemed to have become aware of the fact that it was a living, breathing thing. It existed.
And it was going to live.
The dull ache was still there, but the panic had subsided. Its ears had adjusted slightly to the onslaught of sound, but it was still disorienting. It almost didn't dare to open its eyes for fear of the thing hurting it. Despite this, it cautiously opened an eyelid, squinting at the brightness of its surroundings. It did the same with its other eye, letting its eyes adjust to the light of the sun. As the brightness faded, the world came into clearer view.
The creature lay on its side at the base of a tree, a pool of viscous green fluid surrounding it with more clinging to its black carapace. Just above hung the sagging remains of a white cocoon, green ooze dribbling slowly from the ragged hole in the bottom.
The creature was lying on a rough green surface. Soft, but not exactly comfortable. Peering around it could see lots of trees, not unlike the one in which its former housing was strung. It seemed to know what a tree was, despite having never seen one before. Its surroundings, while slightly confusing and unfamiliar, didn't seem out of place. It was a normal forest, or at least what its mind told it was a normal forest.
Warm light shone through the canopy of trees above the creature, illuminating the area around it. And a quick glance up at the source was enough to teach the creature a small, but nonetheless important, lesson.
After being still for a period, not doing anything besides breathing slowly and letting out the occasional noise of distress, the creature decided it was time to move, it wasn't going to accomplish anything lying down doing nothing. The main problem was that the creature had no idea how to move itself. Sure it could move its limbs, but it didn't know how to actually go anywhere.
After moment of preparation, the creature tried to roll onto its stomach, twisting its torso and steadying itself with its front two limbs. It wasn't too difficult, the muscles seemed to know what to do on their own.
Once its position was settled, the pain in the creatures side flared up again. It craned its neck back to look at the source, finding its black exoskeleton cracked, thick green blood oozing from the wound. It cringed at the sight, seeing that it had landed on a jagged rock protruding from the the ground, itself covered in the bright green blood. The sight deeply unsettled the creature, but it managed to keep its emotions at bay.
The creature took a moment to look over its black torso, the sun illuminating the layered chitin. Its whole body was covered in the stuff, it shook a limb in front of its eyes for a moment. It had a flat base, and looked as if it could support some weight.
"Probably what they're for," the creature thought to itself wordlessly, placing the limb back down onto the grass. It started to survey its surroundings for potential threats and found none. It did notice a few more animals that hadn't been there before. They appeared harmless enough, much smaller than the creature itself.
Summoning what strength it had, the creature pushed itself up on shaky limbs, starting only with the front two. It was only able to lift itself a small ways off the ground before its strength gave out, sending the creature back to the earth with a small ‘thud’ of impact which sent a jab of renewed pain through its body, emanating from the wound in its side. It whimpered, its legs shivering. It felt utterly hopeless and very weak. It wished something... Someone, would come help it, come take all the pain and confusion away. Someone to care for it.
After a few more failed attempts, the creature hung its head low, its injured side now a throbbing ache.
It considered giving up. Lying there forever.
There was a definite emptiness in its shivering body. It didn't know why, or what it needed to fill that void. It silently lay its head to rest on the soft grass beneath it, staring into the darkness that was the Everfree Forest.
The creatures vision began to blur, but it didn't really care. A choked sob escaped its lips.
The noises of despair echoed, unheard, through the silence of the forest.
Rest...