//------------------------------// // Chapter 50 - Falena // Story: A Journey Unthought Of: Revival of Chaos // by Hustlin Tom //------------------------------// The Hive of the Changelings was a place very much lacking in décor. The only rooms within its twisting tunnels that weren’t efficient and utilitarian were the Queen’s and the Candidates’ chambers. The Hive’s warriors and workers adored their rulers unquestioningly, and out of their almost child-like love for them they had gone to nearby towns to secretly take luxurious furniture and other amenities for them. The Candidates had each separately appreciated these endeavors of theirs with varying degrees of sentiment. Queen Chrysalis had accepted her gifts without thanks or even a thought, as if she had been expecting her drones to provide these things to her all along. Lounging in her dark red colored bed of soft downy feathers, she waited patiently for the one she had summoned to her chambers deep in the mountain. Luminescent fungi and Hive created lights made it so that the Queen’s room was never dark, and the respective blue and green hues each created harmoniously complemented one another. Falena stepped down into the open chamber, and humbly bowed before her sovereign, “Your Majesty.” “Rise Falena,” the Queen declared warmly, “and approach me.” The Candidate humbly did as she was told, and slowly walked to the Queen’s bedside. “I suppose you are wondering why I have summoned you here,” the Queen said with a smile as she crossed her forelegs. “It did cross my mind, your Majesty,” Falena responded matter-of-factly. “This ‘Return to Harmony’ movement has more bite than I’d originally expected of them, and now they are only a few days march from their capital. I must know if there is anything else you could possibly tell me about these ponies from your experience living among them.” Falena exhaled loudly, exasperated by her sovereign’s vague demands, “To be fair, your Majesty, I might be of more help to you if you actually told me what your strategy was against them.” Queen Chrysalis’ demeanor changed rapidly from hospitable to angry, “No one but me can know!” Falena remained silent as the Queen began her tirade, “I allowed myself one tiny moment of relief, and in that moment all of my planning and promised victory was swept away! I may have killed Celestia and driven her pathetic sister into hiding, but I should have been sitting in Canterlot when it happened, not cast out into hiding by their so called ‘power of love’.” The Queen leapt from her bed and began to stare her lieutenant down as she approached, “Now, you can either tell me what you know and perhaps be of some help to your Hive, or you can get out of my sight!” Falena waited until the Queen was done before she calmly spoke, “These ponies are going to Canterlot to show that they are not afraid of you. They know you are responsible for the civil unrest and warmongering among them, and if their government recognizes the validity of their message, all of the past several month’s efforts will crumble around you, and they will hunt us in united earnest. You’ve hit them right in their most sensitive spot, their ideals, and they are not nearly as soft as you think they are. If your attack does not succeed, we might not be prepared for the aftermath of our failure.” The Queen calmed upon hearing her subordinate’s candid words, and a slight smirk came across her face, “The past several month’s efforts have not been wasted, and they certainly won’t be after we’ve accomplished our mission.” The Queen lightly stepped into her bed once again, “Those fools in Canterlot hold the means of their own destruction, and all we need to do is seize it from them.” Falena cocked an eyebrow at this cryptic statement, “What do you mean?” The Queen chuckled coyly, “They have a weapon buried deep beneath their pristine little city which they cannot control. With dear Prince Shining Armor’s knowledge of Canterlot in my hooves, I will take command of it and bring Equestria to its knees! We will feed as we wish, take what we wish, and the land that was promised to us so long ago will finally be ours to rule as we see fit!” The Queen dismissed her after a little round of chuckling to herself, and Falena returned to her chambers. When she was out of earshot, one of the fungi near the cavern entrance began to ooze, expand, and transform until it took the shape of Pupa. “She may appear to be acting like her old self,” the Candidate said tersely, “but you were right; no one could be in deep cover that long without some kind of subtle difference in behavior. She's definitely hiding something.” Queen Chrysalis sighed as she absentmindedly began to examine the many holes in her left foreleg, “I had anticipated after such a long time that she might have gone native, but for her to think that she could have been capable of deceiving us really does mean she has gotten soft.” “She was the best when it came to fitting in mentally,” Pupa offered with a small sense of disappointment and pity, “It’s truly a shame that she was too capable with her talent.” “Have Papillon seize and pod her,” Queen Chrysalis idly declared as she now glanced at her other foreleg, admiring the contours of her porous limb, “She knows more than she’s letting on, and eventually she’ll remember our first rule: Everybody lies, except one member of the Hive to another.” “Say ‘apple’,” Falena patiently repeated. The drone she was trying to educate exuded its impatience through its pheromones and a brief fluttering of its wings, but because it was a Candidate who asked it could not disobey. With great effort, it enunciated, “Eh-ppel.” “That’s a good effort, but let’s try again.” It rather obviously rolled its eyes at the continued strange request, but it tried again, “Ah-pel.” Its teacher’s eyes gleamed, “That’s better! You’re making good progress. We’re done for today. You can go.” The drone bowed quickly, hissed its thanks, and quickly left her chamber, dreading that she may in fact change her mind. Falena trotted over to the mirror she had been gifted by the rest of the Hive and sat down in front of it. She looked herself all over, from her turquoise colored hair to her black armored hooves. She almost laughed at the strange sensation of being uncomfortable staying in her true form for so long. She really had gotten used to her earth pony disguise she realized. Her thoughts began to wander back to her real home, and how Big Mac and the children were all doing. She hoped her beau, Scootaloo, and the others were safe. Even though she thought fondly of her new family, she had come to realize in the past few days that she still had a responsibility for her first family as well. It wasn’t some influence of the Hive’s telepathic field on her mind that created this sensation; it was her own feeling of compassion for the drones, her ‘biological children’ so to speak. Their mental capacity had found a way to deteriorate even further than when she had last seen them so many centuries ago. The Queen had obviously been so obsessed with her plan of vengeance that she had not found a way to keep their metamorphic physiology from evolving out of control. It was a predicament that Falena had thought of for years; how to keep her race’s beneficial mutations from turning malignant. She had realized not to long after her arrival to Ponyville that the royal jelly was somehow the answer. The Queen had not lost any acuity, and neither had she or the other Candidates. Something about the royal jelly kept them from destabilizing further like their drones had. The mystery behind this bodily meta-stasis had to wait temporarily, as another more pressing one had to be answered: what sort of weapon could Queen Chrysalis be referring to? Due to her passive psychic link with Princess Cadence, she was sure that the others were already working out such a conundrum. Still, that didn’t stop her from trying to think up her own hypotheses on the matter. “Hey Falena,” she heard a voice call out. She saw the reflection of one of her fellow Candidates in the glass in front of her. As she turned to look she smiled, recognizing her diminutive but energetic sister, “Hello Papillon!” “Heard you just got out of a talk with the Queen,” the smaller Changeling said with a grin as she trotted over with a spring in her step, “I guess you forgot how mercurial she can sometimes be, huh?” Falena was careful in how she chose her words, as after all they traveled very fast in a species that was part telepathic, “I can't claim that it makes sense, her holding onto the plan's secrecy when it wasn't the Hive's fault the first attack failed, but I trust her judgment.” "I get the feeling Pupa knows, but she hasn't been too talkative about it," Papillon shrugged as she sat down next to her compatriot, “She sort of became the new you after you disappeared. Speaking of, I never got to ask, but what sort of things did you do while you were away? I mean, I get out pretty often, but I don’t usually wait a couple years before I come back and report in.” Falena chuckled a little at Papillon's statement, “I became a teacher actually: it provided for a varied but interesting diet. Just feeding off of the children would have been easy enough, but I also used post-hypnotic suggestion on them to make them more subservient and pliable. As they grew up, I gained a vast network of information that I could pull any which way I wanted.” Here Falena emphasized her statement by plucking at the air like the strings of a harp were in front of her. “Every one of the little foals was so willing to please dear ‘Ms. Cheerilee’ that I almost never had to give a reason why I needed what I got.” Papillon gawked a little at her sister’s achievements, “No way!” Falena smile grew into a devilish grin, “Oh yes!” Papillon cackled and hit her sister in the side playfully, “You monster! I love it!” The two of them laughed a little together before Falena spoke again, a small degree of truthfulness slipping in between her lies, “It’s funny, really, but I have to say that I legitimately enjoyed being a teacher. It’s more than just shaping the minds of a few fillies and colts: its literally shaping the future right in front of your very eyes.” "Having all those connections, you must have felt like a spider in the center of her web, able to see and do anything. You must have felt like the Queen herself," Papillon still had a wicked smile on her face, “So is that why you were trying to teach that drone just now: nostalgia?” Falena blushed a little, realizing she had been caught in the act. She sheepishly smiled, “I won’t deny it; that’s part of the reason I’ve been doing it.” “And the other part would be?” Falena tried to think her words out as fully as she possibly could. As she did, she leaned back on to her hunches and tapped her hoof to her mouth. After a short silence, she had thought of what she needed to say, “I’ve lived among these Equestrians for a quarter of a century, and with all that time on my hooves, everything I’ve learned can be summed up in a few sentences. They have something we don’t. Our lack of empathy is our undoing; it’s the reason we have to be parasites instead of a self-supporting species. If we can find a way to train ourselves to feel as they do, to share our emotion with each other, whether Queen, Candidate, or drone, the way we do things now doesn’t have to be the only way anymore.” Papillon’s interest was piqued as Falena’s speech became more impassioned, and her eyes widened in sudden surprise when she began to realize her fellow Candidate was projecting her emotions, and that she was being fed by her close proximity to her, “We wouldn’t have to hide or steal others' feelings to survive ever again! We can live in peace, learn, and grow! Perhaps one day we can even find a way to stop our children’s continual state of evolving decay. Who knows, maybe we could even find a way around the barriers the humans placed in us so we can begin to reproduce as a race again.” “Falena,” Papillon exclaimed in a hushed tone, “Stop right now.” Falena was confused by her sister’s command, “Why? What is it?” “This explains everything; why she wants you silenced, why you’ve been gone so long and acting so strange, everything!” Papillon murmured to herself, and a crafty smile grew across her face, “Whatever your plan is, I’m interested!” Falena did a small double take when she looked at her sister, “What?” The smaller Changeling pointed at her, a smug grin still on her face, “The Queen thought your sudden return was too convenient to be true, so she’s been spying on you. She sent me here to pod you on suspicion of treason.” “That’s absolutely outrageous!” The larger Candidate said as she rose to her hooves and jittered her wings in practiced anger even as her heart fell straight into a pit, “I was her greatest lieutenant! Why would I return at all if I didn’t come to serve her once again?” “She thought you were a traitor, but I think you are something much more.” Falena eyebrow arched even as she exuded fake anger at her sister’s accusation, “And that would be?” Papillon lean closer to her and whispered, “Not a traitor: a usurper.” She then quickly leapt to her hooves and declared in a commanding tone, “Candidate Falena, I am commanded by order of Queen Chrysalis of the Changeling Hive that you submit yourself to me for questioning.” Falena angrily groaned, “Fine! I have nothing to hide from you or her Majesty! I will submit.” As Papillon led her away from her chambers, Falena could only hope that Princess Cadence and the others would decipher the Queen’s cryptic boast, because it looked like her services to them were now at an end.