//------------------------------//
// 33 - Recollection is Disheartening 
// Story: Hive Alive 
// by BlackWater 
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Rarity ignited a series of magical inscriptions around her. Symbols spun in the air, glowing with a cyan hue that matched the tone of her cutie mark. They formed a large levitating embankment around her, adding more and more to their own numbers. Spike was just on the outside of it. A single swipe from one of his large clawed hands sent the symbols racing towards him and then reforming to circle both him and Rarity.
“Oo,” Rarity squealed in excitement. The magic she was reviewing was originally Twilight's advanced composite spell formula. Spike had just mutated it with a flick of his claw and a rush of inspiration. The spell's cyan hue now had streaks of electric green dancing through it as if it had been infected.
It had changed and now Rarity felt something changing within herself. It was a fiery rush that surged to her chest and heated her very heart. She began breathing a little faster. The dragon stepped closer to her with his beaming smile he hadn't lost since their minds connected. Could this truly be possible?
“Spikey,” the white unicorn breathed out heavy. She put a forehoof to her thumping chest. “What...what is this?”
Spike's eyes almost seemed on fire, the irises flickering with a certain heat. He laughed in a way that was far more relaxed than she had ever heard before. “To be honest, I have no idea. But if I knew it felt like this then I would have used the magic a long time ago.”
Rarity's eye twitched and she sat back down on the grassy meadow. Her eyes felt like they were on fire and she thought that she shouldn't have felt any such thing. Through her queen, she was able to immediately construct a mirror in front of her. It was just like the one in her bedroom, full length and spotless.
“Oh,” she exclaimed in worry. “Oh, dear. Twilight!”
The purple pony heard the call even before it came out of Rarity's mouth. In fact, she was walking over the moment Rarity had seen herself in the mirror. The queen had previously been tied up in a rush of rapid-fire conversation under the willow. Pinkie Pie wouldn't stay quiet, Rainbow Dash wouldn't keep her hooves to herself, and Chrysalis was copying Rainbow just for the fun of it. Of all present, Twilight was most thankful for how the guards were acting. They were calm, reserved, and made no fuss.
“Hm,” Twilight hummed as she came up to Rarity and waved all the magic symbols away. They vanished into whatever realm existed beyond the hivemind. “I have to admit, I've never seen anything like this.”
“That's not what she wants to hear,” Spike almost laughed. He deadened his look when Rarity shot him a glare.
Twilight reached up and carefully pulled down on the part of Rarity's face just below her left eye. She peered close and saw that the eyeball was indeed struck with green lines. It was basically the same as being bloodshot, except the lines were green instead of red.
“I didn't factor in anything like this to the physical representation matrix,” Twilight frowned. She searched her hivemind and then looked at Spike. “It's originating from you.”
Spike's smile returned. He suddenly erupted in a crackling of green sparks, disappeared, and reappeared behind Twilight. “Maybe it's my magic. I seem to understand more of it every second.”
Did he just teleport? Twilight's thought was her own but then bled out through the hivemind to everyone.
“I wonder if I can do it in the real world, though,” the grown reptilian assistant was almost giddy.
“Slow down, Spike,” Twilight kept frowning. “I don't want anything to spin out of control. Why would your magic bleed over into Rarity?”
The Element of Generosity blushed at the idea.
“You're the queen here,” Spike shrugged. “You tell me.”
Twilight gave him an age-old disapproving glare.
“What?” Spike returned a bit more reserved. “I don't understand all of it. Honest. You're way more knowledgeable about magic. Me getting your knowledge is one thing, but coming up with it on my own is another. As far as I can tell, this hivemind only shares what we know. It doesn't literally turn me into you.”
“I don't know about that, Spikers,” Pinkie Pie suddenly appeared from behind one the dragon's back spines. She quickly trotted over to Rarity and generated a rainbow colored trail in the process. “See? I can copy Dashie.”
“Ugh,” Twilight dropped her head and felt a little ill. She had seen this before and had tried to ignore it. She knew there was something about her hivemind she didn't understand and only a full connection with Chrysalis would alter that. “Maybe Chrysalis-”
“Please,” buzzed the changeling's voice. “I hate to copy that Rainbow character, but my name is Chrysy.”
Twilight hadn't been expecting Chrysalis' voice to suddenly be so close to her ear. It made her jump in her coat. A few years of her immortal life might have been shaved off as well. “Where'd you come from?!”
“I took a page from the pink one,” she explained. “I stepped out of your shadow.”
Pinkie giggled, bounced over, and wrapped a hoof around the shape-shifter's neck. “That's my little changeling!”
Now Twilight really started to get a headache and no attempt to shake it off worked. Her head lowered from the shaking anyways and, when she looked back up, Rainbow Dash was a micron's length from her face. The queen's heart skipped a beat.
“Yo,” the blue mare whispered.
“Enough!” Twilight shrilled. “I can't keep track of all of this! The hivemind is just a mess now.”
“Uh oh,” Spike backed away. This was normally the moment he adorned himself in pillow armor to prevent injury from a Twi-Stress Explosion. Lacking the necessary materials, he made do by grabbing Rarity and putting her out in front of himself.
“Wha-?” the mare was only able to breathe out before Twilight emitted the same magical blast that had once jumped the entire Golden Oaks Library.









“So there is clearly some advantages to the hivemind that are not currently being used,” Rarity remarked upon recomposing herself. Thankfully, being in Twilight's hivemind meant that she hadn't been harmed by the explosion. At least not in terms of injury. But the queen's powers did successfully replicate what Rarity's mane would look like after being struck by an explosive blast.
Rarity continued smoothing it back out and recurling what had become a frizzy blown-back mess. In addition to fixing her mane, she also saw to it that her backstabbing Spikey Wikey was duly punished. He lay in a heap beside her, bound in a series of chains that criss-crossed his arms, legs, and snout. Rainbow Dash was also beside him, flipping a key in her hoof that went to the chain lock. It hadn't been hard to convince Twilight to materialize the chains. She was a very understanding queen.
“Yeah, Twi,” Pinkie added in. “You're supposed to share the stress across the hivemind, not bottle it up until it explodes.”
Twilight sighed and continued to lay where she was in the grass. “I'm sorry,” she said with a returned calmness. “I just...”
“Had a panic attack,” Chrysalis finished. “Just because you have so many connections now does not mean you are immune to stress. As the queen, you will always decide what is shared and what is not.”
“I'll get a grasp on this,” Twilight said to herself more than the others. “I'm in control. I can do it.”
Spike mumbled something through the chains.
“No, Spikey,” Rarity turned her nose up. “Traitors get no favors. You must pay the price for abandoning your gentledragon nature. Really,” she huffed.
“Yeah, bud,” Rainbow smirked. “You want love, you got to be loyal.”
The dragon rolled his eyes and puffed a small cloud of smoke through his nostrils when he saw Rainbow wink with the last word.
Twilight retraced her line of thought and beckoned Rarity closer. “Both your eyes,” she rethought her observation, “have a lesser but similar pattern to the green infusion I saw in Spike. You might have seen a small black book in my recent memories. Luna gave it to me.”
Rarity synched with her queen's reasoning. “It's about Spike's dreams. But you haven't looked in it yet.”
“I got the notion that a dragon's dreams may have a magical component to them that ponies don't have,” Twilight tapped her chin with a forehoof. “I'm no dreamwalker, but my hivemind indicated the dreams we've all had over our lifetimes have not been immediately controlled by our will. Spike's memories show something different. He's crafted his own dreams - or at least strongly directed them after they started.”
The white unicorn looked back to the mid-sized dragon, who had a deadpan expression on his face. “I must say that the ice cream castle was cute, if not a tad overdone. That I have been a princess in so many of his dreams...”
“It's what you are to him,” Twilight said bluntly. “But it's the control that magic dragons have over their abilities that makes them less animalistic than other dragons. That's what I got from our talk with Celestia and what you did as well. I get the feeling that if I had been Spike's biological mother then his powers would not be such a mystery and I would know exactly what this green stuff is in your eyes.”
At that moment, a massive series of magical encirclements surrounded Twilight and Rarity. They were far larger than Rarity's had been earlier and they each were radiant with a purple fire. It made the queen comment.
“Hm,” she hummed. “It seems even my magic is being affected by him. The only thing I sense is an increase in foundational output, though. It should be safe to continue.”
Rarity let her queen mumble to herself. She trusted, through their connection and more general friendship, that the purple pony wasn't intending to do anything dangerous to her. The obsessive look in Twilight's eyes still made her worry, though.
The magical symbols forming the multiple circles around them moved up and down until the circles collectively formed a fiery purple sphere. From outside of it, the others looked on with extreme curiosity. Spike's mouth twitched when he lost sight of Rarity behind the symbols.
“Ah,” Twilight pipped. “Huh. I see.”
“You are not being very helpful, darling,” Rarity complained. “I am not getting your thoughts.”
Twilight was silent a moment longer before giving an “oh” of realization. She opened her mind back to her connections to let Rarity know what was going on inside. It seemed Chrysalis had been doing more than she realized in regards to hivemind management. It would take some getting used to for her to be natural at it.
“I see,” Rarity almost whispered and trailed off. She looked to Chrysalis while the magical sphere around them dissipated. “So hiveminds are something more than mere communication.”
Chrysalis stiffened in her spot. “I was not aware. Changeling hives do not work this way. It's possible that pony hives do not either.”
Everyone present saw the unspoken implication as if it were a hundred hoof wide neon sign. Chrysalis didn't need to be fully connected yet for that to be obvious.
“You think it has to do with the Elements of Harmony?” Twilight asked.
“I would not be here if it were not for the Elements,” Chrysalis replied in a hum-like manner. “If you had such power before through friendship then...”
“...it would be reasonable,” Twilight continued, “for an even greater power to manifest through a stronger connection.”
Rainbow had gotten bored of tossing around the key and had lounged beside Spike as if he were a desk to lean against. “What would happen if all six of us were connected at the same time?” she inquired in a neutral tone.
Rarity kept her slightly worried expression while Pinkie Pie gasped.
“I don't know, but I'm sure it'd be super extreme awesome-mazing!” the Element of Laughter looked ready to pass out from the sheer incredibleness of the idea.
“The rainbow streaks,” Twilight mumbled to herself again, this time her thoughts being shared openly across the hivemind. “The Pinkie Sense vision. Spike's power. He may not directly be an Element of Harmony, but he is a magic dragon.”
“Has Flutters ever given you some weirdness when you've connected with her?” Pinkie Pie asked.
It was nothing Twilight immediately recalled, which was likely the reason Pinkie had to ask. When she analyzed the memories, the only thing she noticed was a deep peace. The unquestioning calm when she had connected with Fluttershy was almost enough to put her to sleep and certainly enough to make her yearn for the yellow mare's presence.
Twilight shook her head. “Nothing like what I've seen from Rainbow and yourself,” she answered Pinkie. “But I felt something. Almost a serenity.”
“Perhaps,” Chrysalis spoke up. She didn't like to share Twilight almost as much as Rainbow didn't, but she was taking in the lessons of generosity from Rarity. “Fluttershy might be the one that stabilizes you rather than provide some new power.”
Rarity added in her two bits both vocally and mentally through the hivemind. “Yes. She may be shy, but she is a very strong mare. Why, there have been multiple times we would have been better off if we had listened to her calm advice rather than force our way with our stubborn ideas.”
Rainbow hung her head and agreed. She had thought Fluttershy a coward a few times in the past. But now that she knew her friend's past and all the times she had given them wisdom only to be ignored...it shamed her. “She has a strength that no workout could ever get me,” Rainbow admitted. “If only I could be the me I've always wanted. I'm still too scared.”
Twilight got up and walked to Rainbow. She hugged her and whispered encouragement that she had already given mentally but hadn't yet voiced. “We all are in our own ways. But we have all the time in the world, Dashie.”
Rainbow didn't know how she meant that since, as far as she knew, Twilight and Spike were the only immortal ones present. Before she could ask, though, the queen backed away and approached Chrysalis.
“Let's connect, Chrysy,” Twilight ordered. “The sooner we do, the sooner everything will be clear. I'm sure of it.”









Chrysalis was anxious and it wasn't any good kind of anxiousness. She had put this off because she was unsure it would work as the other pony connections had. Spike had already caused enough trouble as it was. Honestly, she was surprised Twilight got the hivemind back at all. If Chrysalis hadn't terminated the live connections, Spike's surge of magic would have caused serious damage to their minds.
“My queen,” the changeling began to whisper to Twilight, who was laying in front of her face-to-face. “I have lived hundreds of years-”
“You're power has drained, though,” Twilight interjected. “This is the safest time to connect.”
“But there's no telling what my memories-”
“I already have so many memories collectively that it probably totals beyond the number of years you've lived,” she countered. “Wait, I can do the math fairly quick...”
“My memories are compounded with those of my former hi-”
Twilight interrupted again. “Okay, so it's still less than two hundred years. It's a lot, though. I'm not worrying about doubling or tripling it. I mean, the cognitive consequences related to the imprin-”
“Twilight Sparkle!”
The queen didn't seem all that surprised by the shout out. Instead, she put her forehoof calmly on Chrysalis' shoulder. “I already have eight in my hivemind, including myself. Some of the memories I've received have been extreme both visually and emotionally. I'm sure I can handle anything related to your past hive. It is only a memory, after all.”
“I don't want to hurt you,” Chrysalis buzzed in a lower and more worried tone.
“I've touched you quite a bit and I haven't experienced any painful link. I think I'll be fine.”
Rainbow Dash flew down beside them from wherever it was she had been conversing with Rarity. “Are you two going to keep arguing over this or what? I want to wake up tomorrow with awesome changeling powers!”
“Dashie,” Twilight giggled. “I'm not entirely certain that connecting with Chrysalis will give us any special abilities.”
The blue pegasus flung her forehooves to the side in a shrug. “I might as well hope for the best. I mean, just think of all the pranks I could play if I could transform myself to look like somepony else.”
“Whoa!” Pinkie Pie materialized from behind Rainbow. “Oh my gosh! Totally!”
“You two will not, in the very small probability that you obtain changeling powers, use them to prank ponies,” Twilight turned more serious with the lecture. “Pranks may be good every now and then but I will not have either of you taking it so far that-”
Chrysalis tapped her shoulder, prompting Twilight to open her eyes. She hadn't even realized she had closed them. It was an occasional habit she had when lecturing because she liked to prepare the lecture notes behind her eyelids. In any case, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were gone. They were walking away across the hilly meadow, talking about prank ideas.
Twilight grumbled in frustration. “Let's just connect,” she monotoned.
Chrysalis bit her lip in continued worry. “I suppose this is what I always wanted...I just hope nothing goes wrong.”
“Don't be so doubtful,” the alicorn ordered. “It worries me when you worry.”
The changeling, tall even when laying down, lowered her head until her long jagged horn nearly touched Twilight's shorter but smoother one. “Just promise that you won't stop loving me after what you see.”
Twilight would have said something in reply if she had the chance, but Chrysalis didn't wait to tip forward and touch their horns. A blinding light snapped between them, crawling like lightning as Chrysalis opened up her full mind to Twilight's. The years rained down.









It started at the very beginning, such a joyous recollection. Twilight saw the world, strange and foreign, through a young changeling's eyes. It seemed that hatchlings were similar to pony foals in some ways. The memories started vague and nowhere near the actual hatching. Instead, the images were of early adolescence. She was probably a few years old, but still very small.
There was a face. One that brought happiness, warmth, and love. It was non-food love from a changeling and also food love transferred through strange magic. This tall beautiful changeling was old but not extremely so. She was comparable in looks to a young mother, which she was. The emerald-maned changeling female was Chrysalis' mother.
Her smile was breathtaking. She would beam whenever she saw hatchling Chrysalis, or rather when Chrysalis saw her. The mother had the ability to show up out of seemingly nowhere. Chrysalis could barely walk and, to be fair, it was really more of a wobbling half-crawl. And that was to mention nothing of the bangs.
As a princess changeling, Chrysalis had a body different than the average worker. Her proportions were unique and she had a flowing mane even at her minute age. The green-blue locks had a habit of getting in front of her eyes, causing her to cry when they blocked the view of her mother. Even if the mother queen was still there, Chrysalis could only assume the parent had ceased to exist whenever she wasn't immediately visible.
Another memory came still early on. It was when Chrysalis was learning to walk properly. Everything was remembered in such simple terms, but it was obvious there was light. There was much of it, in fact. She was laying in soft grass and there seemed to be walls of rock all around. It was as if she and her mother were in a canyon, rough dark rock on the sides and a strip of light coming down from above.
“Chry,” said an almost whispery voice. She knew it was her mother. “Come here, Chry.”
The world should have lowered itself as a tiny Chrysalis got to her legs, but the viewpoint instead toppled. She whimpered and almost cried outright.
“Mommy's not angry,” mother soothed. “Try again, Chry. Come to mommy...”
A few sniffles later, the hatchling clumsily shifted again. This time, however, she did not topple over. The world bounced from left to right, the center of it being occupied by the radiant smile of a queen changeling. Mother.
The grassy earth below was so unstable. Why did earthquakes have to keep charging through it with every step she took? Why was it covered in grass to begin with? Most of the hive tunnels didn't have grass. Only the hatchery areas for some reason.
It was so exhilarating. She wasn't falling over. Step by step she got closer and mother seemed to get larger. She almost tripped and two steps later almost fell. Still she was standing. Still she was walking. The memory grew fuzzy except for the last event. Something felt warm and familiar. She was being held in caring forehooves.
Another memory came in to overlap the closing of the last. It was a pitch black room, assuming it was a room at all. Nothing was visible. But there was a voice that came through her mind. It told her to concentrate. It told her to form. Green light began to cast an eerie glow.
It was indeed a room. Some kind of underground chamber. The green glow came from her horn and seemed to funnel primarily towards something on the floor in front of her. With a click of realization, it became apparent that the material was what Chrysalis had called clod. It was morphing with the green magic. Eventually, it began to spiral around until it appeared to be a half cylinder. It changed more until it became a bowl.
A voice in her mind told her that she had done a good job. But the praise soon turned to encouragement. There was a prompt. A prompt to create something of her own imagination. And so the green magic intensified and gathered more clod from the darkness of the chamber. The bowl was evolving into a cone and finished as a more rectangular-shaped thing with some kind of antennae at the top. The tip had its own green glow.
The mental voice made some kind of sound. It seemed to be surprised and extremely pleased. It said that it was happy that Chrysalis could so quickly grasp the concepts of infusing clod-based objects with hive-power. The green magic was their collective magical strength and granted the object a certain degree of raw energy. It allowed for an unlimited number of inventions. Mother would be proud.
The next memory was far clearer. Chrysalis was on a soft sleeping pad encircled by a ring glowing with the predictable green hue. Everything had that same glowing color, but it wasn't strange or bland. Chrysalis was proud of it just as every changeling was. It was like the black of their carapace. It was a part of who they were and none disliked it.
Chrysalis had a large reflective surface in front of her. It was made of clod except for the center, which was some kind of mirroring surface. It showed herself. She was no longer a hatchling but neither was she a fully grown princess. She was at the age in-between, which had her at intermediate proportions. Her mane was long and tended to droop over her eyes as it always had.
A brush was moving through her mane. She was having a hard time because it seemed intent on snagging every few strokes. There were parts of her mane that had mysteriously formed holes, parts where the strands refused to fall. Or at least that was how it seemed. Chrysalis kept brushing and mumbling bad words under her breath upon every painful snag.
The sleeping ring she was settled upon was indented within an alcove in the wall. Upon stepping out of the ring, one would be in a wide underground corridor that ran both left and right. Chrysalis knew by hivemind and heart that left lead to the work chambers and right lead to the hatchery. She had no business with either, however, because she had been ordered by her mother to stay put.
It was ridiculous. Mother had never been so obsessed with politics before now. It wasn't just local politics with the hive's other potential royals either. It was world politics. Something or other had been going badly and mother's attitude had changed in the last month. She just wasn't the same anymore.
One more snag in her brushing made Chrysalis groan and fling the brush across her ring. She was supposed to stay in her ring and do nothing all day? It might not even be day anymore with the way she had been losing track of time. So much seclusion underground has made her suspicious of her internal clock, making her rely more and more on the hivemind to keep her sundials in check.
It was a question over the hivemind that made this moment stand out in her memories. It was also the answer that came back through the old hive. Chrysalis asked her mother if she would have time later on so that they could be together. The day was supposed to be special, after all. It was Chrysalis' birthday. She liked the idea of birthdays even though they were primarily only celebrated in Equestrian culture.
The reply through the hivemind was less than encouraging. In fact, mother said she wouldn't have time for months and didn't want to be bothered about it...she told Chrysalis that she would never celebrate those stupid pony birthdays ever again.