“It has been quite a while since your last visit.” Fluttershy checked the aroma of her pot, to see if the tea was properly steeped.
“Yes, I do apologize. I’ve been running myself ragged with work.”
At the moment, Discord wasn’t doing anything crazy or outrageous. Nothing was floating, or upside-down, and no inanimate objects had come to life. He just sat there and waited for his tea. ‘The poor dear must be stressed’ Fluttershy thought.
“Oh, and what sort of work have you been doing?”
“Celestia thinks someone else might have escaped from Tartarus.”
Fluttershy quivered slightly, as she turned to face the draconequus. “There’s been another escape?”
“Not quite, my dear,” Discord added a teaspoon of marinara sauce to his tea. “This escapee probably just hid behind Tirek’s coattails and laid low.”
“Is he dangerous?”
“Oh yes, very, he…” Discord stopped himself. “We don’t have to talk about this.”
“That’s okay,” Fluttershy meekly responded. “I want to know.”
“This horse originally had three brothers, so there were four altogether. They came to Equestria to do harm, I don’t know their exact motivation. Among his brothers: War was defeated by the Pegasi, Famine was overcome by the earth ponies, and Death was beaten by a unicorn who became an alicorn.”
“Do you think the escapee will try to free them too.”
“Oh they’re not in Tartarus. They’re just gone.”
Fluttershy just gave a gentle nod.
“Anyway, the last brother did the most damage. You’d think it would have been Death, but no. This last brother, he wiped out a species.”
There was nothing Fluttershy could say to that, so Discord continued. “There was this race called the Honeybird Ponies. They were sickeningly cute. He hit them on two fronts. First he commanded locusts to wipe out their crops, then he murdered all their egg layers, their Queens. Their last egg layer, a pretty pink Honeybird Princess, died subduing him.”
“They’re all gone?” Fluttershy held back a tear.
“Short answer is yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“That pink princess I mentioned, she laid a Queen egg in secret. It was an egg capable of producing an egg layer. She actually hid it under her bed before she went off to fight the last horse. Apparently she asked her closest friend to nurture the egg if she didn’t come back alive.” Discord groaned before he explained the next part. “The friend got it in her fool head that she could help fight that monster. They ended up both dying. Nobody knew about the egg, and without proper nurturing, the thing that hatched from it can’t rightfully be called a honeybird pony.”
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In the days following the hatchery incident, Lily kept Chrysalis’s egg close to her at all times. She knitted a wool saddle bag, believing it would allow her to better warm the egg in transit. When working she placed it in a basket with swaddling blankets. The flower mare was thankful for the tropical climate, during the day it wasn’t necessary to warm the egg with her own body, although she viewed skinship as being very important.
She no longer seemed uncomfortable around changelings, and was more accepting of their peculiar habits. Lily still couldn’t get a handle on their language, and often needed Daisy to translate for her.
When changelings took the form of ponies, they could imitate phrases the ponies had used. Drone, aka Big Mac, showed that he could say eeyup and nope, before switching back to the more comfortable nod and shake of the head. More than once Lily received messages from what she thought were her friends, only to have the ponies turn into changelings before her eyes. That was still kind of terrifying.
Daisy insisted changeling language wasn’t actually that hard. She turned to Drone and asked him to repeat something he had told her earlier that day.
Drone hopped around three times, then rubbed his belly and shook his head.
“He’s saying changelings don’t eat frogs.”
Lily nodded. Ponies were vegetarian anyway, so she’d never really thought about whether changelings ate frogs or not.
Now he slithered on the ground, rubbed his belly, and nodded.
“Changelings eat snakes.”
“Gross,” Lily admonished. She wondered if she’d have to catch snakes and feed them to her baby.
Now Drone wrapped his arms, as though holding a baby, and rocked them back and forth. Following this, he shook his hoof at the imaginary infant.
“He says, mothers orders.”
Lily was starting to catch on. It’s not that changelings don’t eat frogs, they were just ordered not to. Furthermore, they were eating snakes, the frogs predator. Perhaps Chrysalis wants a high frog population. Sometimes frogs are useful, in eating certain bugs. Is Chrysalis worried about an infestation?
The three of them walked back to the honeycomb house.
The last few days, Roseluck had been mapping the hive, in order to discuss possible escape routes. Changelings kept careful guard over the boundaries of the hive. They did however seem more concerned with keeping threats out, then keeping ponies in, the reverse of a typical prison. Right now her best options seemed to be the waste disposal area’s, or the Forrest. The Forrest was in the wrong direction yet had better coverage for an escape. Although because of this better coverage, more guards patrolled the area.
Without thinking, Daisy allowed Drone to follow them inside, and he saw their escape map.
Drone stepped up to the map. Roseluck stepped back. Changelings were still threatening enough that you don’t stand in their path. He scanned over it with his bug eyes, taking in every detail. Was he going to tear it up? Was he going to report treason to Chrysalis?
Actually he pointed to the cartographers nest on the map. Yes, changelings have a hive cartographer, and her maps were far better than this doodle.
Next he pointed to an edge of the map, and crawled on the floor panting as though desperate for water.
“He says you gotta cross a desert to get back to Ponyville.”
Drone fluttered his wings.
“You won’t make it without wings.” Daisy explained.
Drone declined an invitation to stay for supper. He had found a snake nest while working, and wanted to get to it before any other changeling could. Daisy reminded him to come for breakfast before work tomorrow. She promised him a big stack of apple cinnamon pancakes, and he faked interest. Apparently Big Mac likes pancakes.
“You know what?” said Roseluck, “I feel like I’m doing this all by myself.” She tousled her hair with her hooves, a habit that came out when she was irritated. “Are you mares even trying to escape?”
“Yes, I suppose,” said Daisy. “Though I don’t want to leave Big Mac behind.” Daisy occasionally expressed a belief that if they took him home maybe the princesses could cure him, or he’d remember his love for his family, or he’d just fall in love with her.
“There’s another thing that’s been bothering me. If Chrysalis can turn us into changelings then why doesn’t she?”
Roseluck had a point. The girls were still under the mistaken belief that Drone had been Big Mac at some point. Drone was undoubtably loyal to Chrysalis. When the queen was around he followed her like a puppy.
“Well, when he became a changeling, he forgot some things. Chrysalis must want us for our knowledge.”
“There’s a first.”
“And what about you Lily?”
“I’m not escaping,” said Lily. “Escaping is too dangerous. What if my egg gets cracked. Then what happens after we escape. We have to cross a desert, and who knows how the little one will be treated in Ponyville?”
Roseluck tousled her hair again. “Everything's about that egg with you. You don’t know what’ll hatch from it.”
“Chrysalis said my love has made her different from the other changelings.”
“It’s a her now.”
“A mother knows.”
“No! You don’t know,” Roseluck told her. “What if Chrysalis is just messing with you? What if it’s just another changeling in that egg? Are you still going to be its mommy. What if you can’t give it a warm hug because it has cold armour all over its body. Will you nurse it if it has fangs? Well…”
Roseluck already regretted what she was saying, yet her frustrations and anxieties spilled forth. On the verge of tears, Lily ran outside.
When next Roseluck turned, Daisy was giving her the stare. Roseluck shrunk before her gaze, she felt like a child who had her wrist slapped for the first time.
She lowered her head, took two breaths, then in a much meeker voice said: “I’ll go apologize.”
When she stepped out the door, she saw Lily. Lily had apparently grabbed the first changeling she saw. She embraced him in a tight bear hug. The bystander changeling blushed and looked away, apparently watching the moon, and reminding himself that he wasn’t allowed to feed on her.
“This is nice,” said Lily. “I’ll be okay with this.”
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Drone fluttered onto Queen Chrysalis’s balcony.
The Queen was in a fetal position, reading. The book was called ‘Afterglow’. It was something she had requested Drone get for her, and she really was not enjoying it.
“I never thought I’d say this. I’m on team draconequus.”
Drone took the form of Daisy then returned to normal.
“No, I haven’t learned how to transform ponies into changelings. The book explains how, but it’s just fiction.”
Drone made a shrug.
“Yes, I’m sure. If you don’t believe me then test for yourself. Drain that mare friend of yours of all but the last pint of her blood, then let her drink your own blood, and see what happens. May I remind you that our blood is acidic, which is another thing this book gets wrong. It is full of misconceptions: Changelings that glisten, random superpowers, a precognitive changeling whose powers only work when it’s narratively convenient.”
Chrysalis stopped herself from mentioning one last thing. According to the book, changeling queens have inherited memory. In theory an egg layer should have all the memories of the past queens up to the time she was conceived. Chrysalis had actually heard this myth before. She heard it from the surviving honeybirds, who expected her to just pick up where her mother left off, as though the two were interchangeable. The pressure was infuriating.
She tossed the book on the ground, and Drone slumped his head.
Chrysallis rose, ready to go to bed. Drone nipped on her leg, stopping her motion.
“You feel bad about lying to her.” She paused, in thought. Chrysalis never considered that her changelings would give a damn about a few ponies. There was a strong sense of community in the hive, though that’s because changeling are literally brothers and sisters to one another. How did the ponies get adopted? She wondered. “Then You may as well tell her the truth.”
Drone made bug eyes at her.
“Don’t be afraid. Truth is like when you’re stuck by an arrow. You either pull it out, or drive it the rest of the way through. Either way, best to get it over with, so you can cauterize the wound before the gangrene sets in.”
Now Drone couldn’t stop looking at the holes in her legs.
“I’ll think of some other lie to motivate them. This was a ridiculous deception anyway.”
Once Drone was gone Chrysalis eyed the book on the ground. Sure it was tripe, yet she just had to know. She had to know if the pony who has a bell with swan wings on her flank, whatever that means, would come to her senses and realize draconequus is a better match for her.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The next morning, the girls were roused from their sleep by a commotion outside. Of course they new what the commotion was for, this had been in the planning for several weeks now.
They left their home and made there way into the main town.
“Aw why weren’t we invited to the party,” Daisy complained.
“It’s a raiding party.” Roseluck told her.
“Maybe we’ll all celebrate when they come back with what they’re stealing,” Lily offered.
Word had arrived that there were dozens of cocoa plants being held in a nursery in Ponyville. The very changelings who were disguised as the flower ponies had set up this nursery. If successful, they were sure to win back their queen’s favour. A group of changelings was preparing for the long trip to go retrieve the plants.
They had provisions of course. There was water for crossing the desert, and barrels of salted fish, because it was an extra stop to steal meat in Ponyville
Roseluck eyed the barrels. She asked herself if they would notice if one barrel carried a pony instead of fish. ‘This day is going to be perfect,’ she thought.