Silence. There was nothing but silence as the changeling drone regained consciousness, although that was not entirely true. There was the sound of a light breeze carelessly traveling through some trees, but the most important sound to the changeling was missing. The Queen’s voice was silent.
To say the drone did not know how to react would be an understatement, for it would be a lie to say that the drone could do things on its own. The drone obeyed the Queen’s orders unquestioningly for the drone had no mind with which to question them. Without the Queen to give it orders, the drone would be content to lay there, face down in the dirt, until it died of starvation.
Or rather, it should have been. Without warning the drone opened its eyes and lifted its head out of the dirt, fixing its gaze on Canterlot in the distance. Canterlot. Mere moments ago, or so it seemed, the drone had been in Canterlot, the Queen’s voice crying out in victory throughout its mind. And then, out of nowhere, something had hit the drone and now it was sitting in a small crater of dirt and torn up grass.
“What happened?”
The drone’s ears perked up as it turned its head to try to locate the source of the voice that suddenly cut through the absolute silence.
“What was that?” There the voice was again. The drone kept looking around, trying to locate the voice. However, from its position on the ground, all the drone could see was the edge of the crater it was in, the tops of a few trees a short distance away, and Canterlot even further away.
“Can’t see anything from here.” The drone strained its ears, trying to discern even so much as the general direction the voice was coming from, but the voice didn’t seem to be coming from anywhere.
Things continued on like this for a while, the voice saying something and the drone trying to figure out the source of the voice. Indeed, this may have continued on for quite a while indeed had it not been for something amazing happening. The changeling drone, the mindless puppet of the Queen, realized something.
“Wait a minute, that voice isn’t coming from around here,” ‘it’s coming from inside me.’
Me. That word reverberated through the drone’s mind as an unfamiliar feeling started welling up inside it.
‘What is this? How is this? Drones don’t think, they—we—I?’ The word was unfamiliar to the drone. It was not used to thinking of itself in such a way, mostly due to not being used to thinking at all. It was used to being told things, and obeying without thought; it was used to the Queen thinking for it. The more these thoughts showed up, the harder the drone found it to breathe. Some part in the back of the drone’s head dimly realized that it was starting to panic; for the first time in its entire life the drone was feeling emotions, and it was panicking.
‘Drones aren’t supposed to think, I’m not supposed to think, what happened am I dying is this what happens when drones die what am I supposed to do my Queen tell me what I’m supposed to do whatishappeningwhyisithappening…’ The drone’s thoughts went on like this for quite a while, its thoughts growing more and more frantic with every passing moment. Eventually these thoughts became too much, and the drone collapsed to the ground in mental exhaustion… but as it did, the drone had a moment of clarity.
‘I am an individual… I can do… I can do whatever I want. I can be whoever I want to be, I can-’ the drone once again noticed Canterlot in the distance. ‘I can be a wanted fugitive. Shit.’ Surely changelings would be branded enemies of the state after the queen’s foolish actions. That last thought lead to more turmoil within the Drone’s head. Had it just questioned the queen?
For the first time in its entire life, the Drone could question its—no, her—queen, and at this very moment, she was questioning a lot of things. It felt weird to her to be able to do such things, and in many ways it felt like she was doing something very naughty, but the more she thought, the more she felt okay with this; the more she felt like she was doing the right thing. She had never thought about doing the right thing before. She had imitated many ponies before, and they thought about such things, but she never had. After all, she had been nothing more than a puppet operated by her queen, and what use was there in a puppet thinking, let alone thinking about such things as questions of what is right and what is wrong?
Now that she was capable of such thoughts, however, her queen’s actions were making her more and more uncomfortable. Sure, they needed to feed on love to survive, but did they have to take on the form of somepony else and steal it? That thought made her stop. ‘Do changelings need to steal love? Can we take on a form of our choosing instead of mimicking somepony else’s form?’ The Drone had made up her mind, she needed to find out.
Deciding to try changing into past forms a few times first, the Drone called up memories of the times when her queen had made her change forms. Carefully she examined them, and, after a quick calming breath, slowly began calling forth the necessary magic. Focusing on the form of a pony randomly selected from her memories—that brought forth a thought that ruined her focus.
Her memories. Until today, these memories were merely stored within her, but now? Now they were her memories, the mere act of accessing them feeling to her as if she was making a claim on them; each memory accessed almost felt like it needed to be accompanied with a possessive growl of “mine!” The Drone spent a few minutes lost in thought, accessing more and more memories. With each progressive memory she became more and more aware and sure of the fact that the feeling welling up inside her was giddy excitement. She was unsure why she was excited, but at the moment that didn’t matter. The mere act of being excited was more than enough for her. She felt lighter than a feather, she felt as though the weight of the whole world couldn’t bring her down, she felt like… she felt like dancing.
A thought that once upon a time would have been literally unthinkable, she wanted to dance. She was not just thinking about something, she wanted to do something. For the briefest moment, a thought of ‘can I dance’ floated through her head, but as soon as the thought appeared, it was gone, and she was dancing.
It was, in a word, graceless. Yet, despite moving as though she were born with three left hooves and one permanently sleeping right hoof, she danced with such energy and joy that such details didn’t matter. She continued dancing her dance of happiness for a number of minutes before tripping over one of her own hooves and collapsing onto the ground in a fit of giggles.
“My heart… it feels so light,” she quietly said to herself between giggles as she stared up at the cloudless sky. A short while passed on like this, the Drone laying there giggling to herself, a faint smile seeming to be permanently stuck on her face. After the shortest fit of giggles yet, a new thought drifted into her head.
‘I’m going to need a name, aren’t I?’ She couldn’t just go around referring to herself, much less introducing herself, as Drone, after all. Now staring thoughtfully into the sky, the Drone spent a few minutes pondering this question. While she pondered a name, fear started to build up within her. What would happen to her if queen Chrysalis found out about her, and how would she react if a lowly drone had given itself a name? How would queen Chrysalis react if she knew she had been dancing?
As soon as that last question posed itself in her head, something changed. Whereas moments before the fear was gripping her more and more, threatening to boil over into panic, now it was as though every spot the fear went to grab onto was occupied by something else, and with nothing else to do, it simply drifted away.
Dancing. It had brought her such joy to be able to do such a simple thing, who knows what else there was waiting for her out there to bring her such joy, or maybe even more joy? Another fit of giggles escaped from her mouth at that thought, and an odd desire accompanied it. She decided to give into this desire and began to roll around in her mirth, enjoying the feeling of the grass beneath her tickling her carapace. Eventually she went back to staring at the sky, hooves outstretched and a content smile upon her face. ‘My light heart has returned, it seems,’ she thought to herself before pausing as an odd thought struck her.
“Light… heart,” she slowly whispered to herself, as though she were tasting the individual sounds. “Light heart,” this time the words came out a bit faster, a bit louder, confidence welling up inside her. “Lightheart. That’s it! Lightheart! My name is Lightheart!” If what she had felt earlier while dancing had been joy, then the emotion that built up within her every time she said her new name was indescribable. Lightheart leapt up from the ground, not quite sure what she would do now that she was no longer lying down, but it didn’t matter. She had a name now, and that was all that mattered in that moment. She wanted to dance, she wanted to sing, she wanted to shout her name for all to hear.
She was mere moments away from hopping into the air and flying straight for the nearest pony town when she remembered something. She was still in her natural form, and ponies probably wouldn’t be too happy to see a changeling.
“Now that won’t do at all,” she muttered to herself, frowning slightly. Closing her eyes, Lightheart started to construct a new form for herself in her head, still not knowing if crafting a unique form was even possible, but deciding the best way to find out would be to just try. After a few moments she called forth her magic, relishing the unfamiliarly familiar feeling. Sure, she had changed her form countless times in the past, but never had she been the one in control.
As the magic finished washing over her body, she lifted a hoof to quickly see if it had worked. Instead of the usual black, hole-ridden hoof, a thin, whole, pale yellow-green hoof greeted her. Quickly looking around for a pond or something with which she could more closely inspect her new form, the glimpse of a navy blue mane momentarily distracted her away from noticing a nearby pond. Trotting over to the pond, Lightheart gazed into it, being greeted by icy blue eyes filled with more warmth than their color would imply.
After double-checking that her body had come out the way she wanted it to, her attention turned to her mane. When creating her form it had given her a great deal of difficulty until she recalled a poster she had seen once advertising a singer. Sapphire… something. Recalling the mare’s mane style, she had decided that she liked it, and as such that was how the mane on her head was now styled.
After double-checking her tail and her cutie mark, a red cross within a white heart, her attention shifted to one final detail. One horn, no wings. She wasn’t sure why she had decided on taking the form of a unicorn, but looking at her reflection in the pond, she felt as if no other choice would have been… right.
Now that she had a pony form of her own, there was one thing left for Lightheart to do. She looked around for a few moments before striking off in the direction she hoped the nearest town was in.
It turns out that Lightheart had gone off in the exact opposite direction of the nearest town. However, even if she could somehow go back and head off in a different direction, she wouldn’t. She loved Ponyville, even if it had taken a few days to reach. Everypony in this town was just so friendly and helpful and accepting, it was almost as if this town was made for changelings. She reflected on this thought as she happily trotted home after another wonderful day of helping ponies.
Some ponies might find it odd or possibly even insensitive to say that working at a hospital could be a wonderful job, but wonderful is the only word Lightheart could think of that fit. After all, it was a job where she could be there for ponies who were receiving terrible news, and help those who were hurting. She was helping ease both physical and emotional pain, and she was good at it, too. She wasn’t sure if she just had a knack for it or if she had been able to glean more from her memories of the time Chrysalis had her pose as a nurse than she initially realized, but there were two things Lightheart was absolutely sure of. She loved her job, and she wanted to do this for the rest of her life.
Happily humming a tune she had overheard that morning, Lightheart considered these thoughts as her home came into view. Your average pony would probably call such a place quaint only if they were in a generous mood; Lightheart’s friends were practically mortified when they learned that this little shack was her home (Lightheart giggled upon thinking about how they would react if they knew she lived on the streets prior to the so-called ‘crime against houses’). Yet, even though she had lived in it for only a couple of weeks, Lightheart could think of no place she’d rather call home.
Closing the front door behind her, Lightheart quickly went through all the rooms in her house, making sure none of the curtains had somehow come undone again, before doing something that she only dared do since acquiring her house; she changed back into her natural form. As much as she loved the form she had created for herself, she felt she needed to let her wings flutter and air out her holes every once in a while.
Glancing over at a nearby vanity mirror and feeling oddly reassured by seeing the fanged visage of a changeling drone staring back, Lightheart turned towards her kitchen before noticing something out of the corner of her eye. Turning her head back to the mirror she was able to see herself in profile now, but there was something wrong. Almost every detail about her form was as she expected to see, except for one little tiny detail. There was something on her flank. Something that shouldn’t be there. Oh it was definitely something familiar, even if the colors were blue and green instead of red and white, but it was something that should’ve disappeared when she reverted to her changeling form.
Thinking she perhaps had just forgotten to fully dispel her disguise, she summoned up her magic only for nothing to happen. It was at this moment that Lightheart started getting worried. What was it? What if it was the sign of some sort of rare changeling disease? Who could she go to for help? Why did it look like her disguised self’s cutie mark?
‘Wait a minute...’ Just like that, the reality of what she was staring at hit her. She, a changeling drone, had a cutie mark. Lightheart fainted.