Chrysalis’ eyes widened as the Changeling before her tilted her head back, revealing a pale streak that overlapped most of the tendons in her neck. It muddled and skewed the perfectly aged black carapace that covered her throat. She leaned her head down again, her eyes and fangs hiding under forced calm. “That is what this is all about.”
“Over sibling rivalry? Really?” Chrysalis ditched her attempt at humility and made light of the situation now that she knew how ridiculous all this was.
“It’s much more than that!” The scarred mare slammed an indignant hoof upon the sound block. “And it all began the day that we addressed Mother about an audience.”
Moth watched her steps and surroundings as she passed several bustling Changelings. Some were guiding young, some were baring their fangs, some were even begging for a drop to drink. Even though she was royalty, she felt the bitter quake of hunger in her own stomach. She held no place in society that had an advantage in food supply. That fasting feel drove her, as well as every other Changeling, to be slightly manic in their actions and temperance. If everything went according to plan, feeding days would begin tomorrow. Each Changeling would crawl back into his hole, sated from the bountiful gathering and desiring no stir with any other.
This wasn’t the first time this famine had happened, however. The lesser Changelings didn’t know how to ration and refused to learn. This lead to an immense amount of consumption in the early months of harvest seasons and increased poverty at the end of the season. Now, even as they had been rationing, the stores had run dry. Moth felt her stomach tremor again, begging vocally for sustenance. Moth sighed out her frustration and began to think that perhaps Larva did have something worth trying for.
Larva was an older sibling to Moth and little else was thought of her. On occasion, the eldest had made herself an enemy of Moth, and the two fought for supremacy. Upon reflection, it had been some time ago that they had sparred with one another over something, and, to be candid, the matter was nothing short of trivial childhood anger. It could be that her disdain for her older sister was for naught, but she felt no urge to change their relationship to something more than civil.
Her mulling had brought her to her destination quicker than she had imagined. She now neared the castle in the back of the large Changeling enclosure, Hive. Two lesser cretins sat at the border of the lane she trotted in. They lifted their lifeless eyes to her and hissed, feigning the deepest shame.
“Lady Moth! Have you a drop to spare?” Their bodies still retained the saturation of grey that signified their health. These two were lying and greedy, having not been fed true hunger’s bitterness. She didn’t stop her stride. Instead, she barked at them, warning them of their intrusion.
“None.” Her gaze dared not to meet the beggars. “Especially none for fools.”
This lit one of the stallions aflame. He stood with all his adrenaline and charged at her, horn first.
Without missing a step toward the castle, Moth harnessed him with her magic and drove him past her and into the scaly ground of the Hive.
“I don’t expect you to try again.” The wretch wailed at the domed ceiling of the enclosed city as she deserted him.
Upon her approach, the castle gates swung open wide, disturbing the stagnant air around her. Her paling verdant mane blew over her shoulders as she faced the approaching pressure.
The castle Decept was the most intricate construction in the entirety of Hive, donning several facings cut out of the lucid stone. Each insignificant crevice was deepened to exactness and symmetry, establishing the royal dwelling to be the most daringly crafted edifice Hive had to offer. The greatest of all that adorned the large estate was each of the high towers on either side. They reached almost all the way to the surface above their home and framed the lustrous beauty of this archaic living wonder. The vast exterior left her sight as she passed the doors and entered the halls of Decept.
The grand foyer, being as empty as it was, had become a novelty in recent years. The staircases ahead were furnished with tapestries and flags but served no real purpose. They were bought and sought by vanity; each one bore the image of the aging Queen in several stages of her life. No signs that hinted at the lineage were anywhere about the halls, and all was centered on Mother.
Mother (whose true name had long been lost to the poorly wrought epithet) had been more greedy than the previous queen. Trust had declined tremendously between ruler and subject, and privileges such as passage rights had been taken in result. Fearing that her subjects would be more apt to take her life and overthrow the tyrannous rule, she restricted the public from gracing the castle halls. However, no one dwelled there because they wanted to other than the vile monarch herself. Even Moth, whose passage was ever granted, had not even been inside the slumbering corridors on her own volition for a long time, now that she thought on the matter.
Moth, taking to the stairs on her right, heard a sound that puzzled her. A clack of some hoof echoing off of the stone flooring of the passage was resonating toward her. The steps were quick and light, only stopping heavily every once in a few skips to satisfy some sort of rhythm. As Moth continued higher on the spiral, she slowly calculated the arrival of the approaching entity. In a few steps, the two Changelings met at the peak of the rhythm.
“Moth!” Chrysalis stopped, surprised to see her elder sister in the stairway.
“Chrysalis? When did you get here?” Moth took a dark tone, almost threatening the young parasite with her voice alone.
“I flew here.” Chrysalis matched her sister’s voice, though it remained higher because of her adolescence. “A while ago, Larva challenged me to fly to the east tower and now I’m making my way down.”
Moth swallowed her siblings words, allowing them to pass unchallenged. They kept their distance as they passed each other, eyeing the finer points of each other’s movements without visibly preparing for a duel. As Moth increased the distance between them, tensions settled, allowing her to compose herself before the time came to be civil once again.
Moth, exiting the stairway upon the arrival of the fifth floor, took to the sleek surface of the hall leading to the throne room. Do not mention any part of the plan being to attempt a new gathering method, Moth thought. Her Disgrace will certainly reject the idea upon proposal. The second-born stood before the vast portal of the throne room now, and she took one final moment to prepare.
“I hope this satisfies you, Larva.” She quietly placed her lightening hoof on the surface of the mighty door. With a loud voice echoing through the rounded enclosure, she called out to the door, “Ave regina! Ave regina!” After a moment, the door called back.
“Enter, Child of the Midst.”
Chrysalis exited the grand doors of Decept and swept away to the courtyard quickly. She lowered herself to the cold floor and cast herself skyward once more. Her wings caught the musty chill of their dwelling and lifted her again toward the massive chalice of the east. For a Changeling her age, she was growing rapidly. Her wings were as full as Larva’s own now, and she felt her growing power well up in her as she soared just below the surface.
She wanted to explore that surface someday. She had seen it plenty when she was out on assignments from Mother, but she had never used any of her time up there for anything more than hunger-driven scouting. Barbaric though the task may be, the harvest kept them full and was rather enjoyable to participate in. For now, she had no qualms with the procedure at all and was pleased with the result.
Chrysalis turned herself to the eastern tower once more, gliding down gently toward the icy surface of the tower. How many more laps am I gonna have to do before Larva shows up? Her face twisted into a snarl of sorts, angry that her business partner was late to an important meeting. They had much to discuss and punctuality was key.
It had been a plan of Chrysalis’ own to team up with the eldest and overthrow Moth to rule together. Their conspiring might be something of a taboo, being unheard of in the records of past royalty, but Chrysalis cared not. The two sisters would shatter the singular monarchy of past leaders and rule side by side, bountiful in harvest and graces. The grim task of disposing of the other stood in the shadow of her bright future, and Moth’s termination had to be done quickly.
By now, after being lost in her frustration, Chrysalis had made it back to the spiral stairwell that ascended the tower. Her brutal maxim marched in her head again as she put her hoof to the descending path. “Guide the moth into the flame; burn her up in her own shame.” Chrysalis pranced down the steps again to her chant and occupied herself with visions of adoration and fear from subject and enemy. She hoped dearly that Larva’s mind matched her own. Cleaning up two carcasses would be quite the hassle.
One more lap down, the young princess told herself, giddy with covetousness, and she’ll surely show. One more lap….
Larva, shutting her book for the day, raised her hoof to meet her tightly shut eyes. She had buried herself in information since the lightsink first cast a glance down into their hole. Currently, the amount of information in her head alone could cause her to drown if it all didn’t soak in. Whether it was a theory for innovative emotion capture or another upstart’s formula for extraction, it was all in her possession, making the tremors in her stomach seat themselves in her head.
Larva leaned back onto the cold surface of her seat. It soothed her aching back and swimming head to finally be able to stop arching her back over a desk. She groaned deeply as she remembered that Chrysalis was waiting for her at the castle.
Of all the times that she had beckoned to the juvenile whims of the young Chrysalis, she hadn’t missed one meeting promised. She had always bent her will to suit her younger sister, as she was always taken advantage of. Someone had to rear her until she was able to put up a fight for the throne. It would be far unfair if the Queen allowed for Larva or Moth to commit infanticide to promise their place as the next generation’s queen. That’s why the child would be taught to hate, led to believe that their siblings were enemies and nothing more, planting a mentality in their mind that survival was their sole obligation to themselves and to their kingdom. Larva thought this to be an unnecessary measure and took it upon herself to raise the child. With luck and trying patience, no one would have to die.
Larva lifted herself out of her wooden coffin and stretched her yellowed wings. Removing brainwashing might have been in one of the tomes she analyzed, but it mattered not. Finding a cure for the needless slaughter that was the Harvest was far more important. She was but a few inches away from slaying this titan, and she would not let the matter rest until it was done. Well, until tomorrow, today’s tackling of text would suffice for fighting.
Her wings now unfurled to their waking glory. Regardless of their size, she had trouble putting faith in them since they had grown far colder than usual. Larva had to trust their atrophied strength to take her one more time to Decept’s eastern tower. She balanced over to the portal that led outside her hole and cast herself off her sleeping limbs into the air. Sweeping out into the stale chill of the Hive, she soared to meet the waiting princess.