The guards at the hive were jovial that night, it was a time of celebration and every changeling, down to the lowliest drone, was in the best of moods. "Go right in!" If Penny didn't know any better she would say they were drunk, well, a little. Somepony was handing out love, she was sure, and these two had taken a big bite.
"Stick, tell me it's okay they are like this?" Penny looked across Twilight to the drone.
Shrugging, Stick just smiled. "You think they are actually guarding against-" She didn't get any further as Penny stepped right up to the drones and gave each a peck on the cheek. The two changeling's eyes went wide and they started giggling.
Hay laughed outright at the antics. She had felt Penny channel and knew the pair wouldn't have had a hope of resisting when the mare started radiating love. "Oh they are going to be so out of it for a while, lets take them inside."
Between Hay and Stick, the two giggling guards were lifted and floated along behind them.
"Why did you do that?" Twilight was looking at Penny with a touch of confusion.
"Everypony deserves to celebrate, plus they weren't really guarding, it was just the look of it, and being out there and half drunk on happiness is not really the image I think Fast wants." Penny's logic was sound to Twilight, but the manner of her execution still seemed a little strange. "Wait, you fed them, didn't you? Oh! I thought you did some kind of spell with your kiss…"
"As a mage, I am very new to things. But when there is a changeling nearby I have all the subtlety of a strong hard cider." Penny grinned and gestured with a hoof. "Lets go in and join the fun."
Twilight didn't feel like this would be fun at all. She didn't have a list, a guide book or anything to help her deal with the emotional mine that had hit her and, she knew, was waiting ahead.
It was easy enough to follow the sounds and, reaching a huge vaulted hall, the group of ponies found the party.
"Twilight! Stick, Penny, Hay… why are you carrying our door guards?" Slow greeted them and was looking puzzled at the pair of love-drunk drones.
"They were half out of it with love already, Penny zotted them so they wouldn't resist. Not like they were guarding much as they were." Stick set the pair down in the room and they were immediately greeted by a pony stallion who was wearing a curious uniform.
It took Penny a moment to realize the stallion was a 'hired snack'. It made her curious as to what would happen if she just opened up and channeled as hard as she could.
"I know that face. Penny Farthing, whatever it is, I want you to wait until we are in private…" Princess Fast Change had sneaked up beside the group though everypony wondered how with the size of her. Fast was now larger than any other pony in the room. Her green mane and tail were thick and she lacked a single hole.
Penny blushed at the admonishment, it was mainly because she was actually thinking of doing something naughty. "Aww, you don't want to see what happens when a whole hive full of changelings gets drunk on love at the same time?" She gestured to the two guards with a hoof.
"You wouldn't!" Twilight's wings fluttered a little in shock, she looked between Penny and Fast, wondering if the other princess might return the dare.
"She would, if she thought it wouldn't cause any trouble." Stick trotted over to Fast and pressed in tight against the almost queen-sized changeling. "How was it, mom?"
This did get Twilight's wings to flare and she looked ready to burst with a thousand questions.
"It was something I would have said I never wanted to do but, being bigger has made that… a little easier. It was uncomfortable, but I don't regret it. The hive is able to grow and it should, the ponies of Canterlot have so much love in them and they nearly all are perfectly happy sharing it." Fast's eyes kept darting to Twilight.
Stick gave the princess another squeeze. "Well, we might go mingle." She looked at Penny and Hay, then stared at Slow Perfection.
"Oh, yes!" Hay swung a leg over Penny's withers, pulling her out into the crowd and away from the royal mares.
Twilight and Fast weren't really alone, there was still a lot of changelings around, but nopony else was paying attention. "Eggs?" Twilight managed the question, a blush starting in her cheeks. "How… how does it work?"
Fast saw a flash of something, Twilight's insatiable need for knowledge eating away at her anxiety. The changeling princess herself felt a little odd. Her recent times with Slow had been, well, there was a theme that the queen was stuck on. "It was odd, they tried to explain it to me but they didn't really know it themselves. They knew how Chrysalis was doing it… I don't want to do what she did."
A scroll and quill appeared and the pair made for a comfortable set of couches nearby.
Penny stole a glance over her shoulder, seeing Fast and Twilight settle together to chat. "So they are an item?"
"Yes and no and it's complicated." Stick brought up the other flank of Penny.
"You wouldn't believe how complicated, things are… well, Fast is infatuated, I think. I am trying to help distract her, but so far she is keeping us as strictly 'for eggs' purposes." Slow Perfection sounded a little upset at this.
"Is Twilight stringing her along? What is happening?" Penny sounded a little indignant. She reached a hoof out to try and give Slow a hug but was rebuffed. She also noticed that Slow was bigger than they were the last time they had met. Something more was going on and Penny felt out of her depth.
The lunar mare got a hug from Hay, feeling the half changeling cuddle her. She completely missed the upset stare leveled at Slow by Hay.
"Okay, what is it Slow." Stick clopped a hoof down. "You know more than us in this and I want it all."
Slow drew up to their full height. "This is none of your business, drone-"
The breeder had a brief moment when he had to stop, the hoof of Stick's had moved so fast he had barely seen it until he felt the sting in his cheek. "None of my business? You don't have the right to tell me that. She is queen of this hive well before you are her breeder, remember that. If you want to be more, to have that power, then tell her damn you."
Revelry had died down, the changelings around the kerfuffle having turned and focused on the arguing pair.
"What is going on?" Fast stepped in, the change in mood having gotten her attention. Finding two changelings closest to her a hair's breadth from a full fight was not helping her mood. "Stick, did you hit Slow?"
"Yes, my queen, and if he doesn't speak plainly in your hive I will strike him again." Stick's formal tone, using the more changeling-like title for Fast, shocked not only Fast Change but also a lot of other changelings. "What is the matter, Slow, won't even say it before your queen?"
Slow didn't look furious, the former drone didn't have that kind of emotion in him. But he did look angry. "Okay, since you bring this out. I love my queen, I want to be her breeder in all ways and not just to serve the hive." Slow felt like a passenger, along for the ride as his emotions carried him away and led the attack with his voice. "I want to be at her side, I want her to smile when she sees me, I want… I want to be her mate!"
Everypony was silent, they could hear the panting breath of the breeder after his frenzied announcement.
Stick smiled, her eyes were going back and forth between Fast and Slow. "Well? My queen, your breeder has made his desires known. Is he just a tool to improve the hive, a great duty in itself, or does Slow mean more to you?" The changeling drone's words were both trap and key. She was sick of seeing these two dance around this.
"I… I… didn't know…" Fast looked a little shocked, her blinking face showing surprise and a mix of other emotions that were indiscernible on their own. "Slow…" Memories came back to Fast, of how much the breeder had been at her side lately, of how willing he was in bed, to please her. Her heart broke. She saw a stallion ready to devote everything to her, and yet she still had feelings for a mare who couldn't decide if she was ready for love.
Slow Perfection lowered his head. "I understand, my queen, I will await when you next need to swell the hive." He lifted a hoof and started to turn, only to be grabbed in a tight embrace by a mare larger than he.
"You don't understand." Fast hugged the stallion tightly, clinging to him with a fierceness that she realized stems from how good it feels when he is close. "You are more than a breeder. More than just another changeling."
There was a pause as they were looking at each other, two changelings, two ponies.
"Say it." Stick whispered it under her breath, but Penny heard and nipped the drone on the shoulder.
"Fast, I love you." Slow closed his eyes, unable to see the reaction, he expected her to let him go, she always seemed, at least where love was concerned… so fast, so mercurial.
"I...I love you too."
The cheer drowned out anything more that might be said, changelings cheering for the love of their queen and her breeder. They milled around, congratulating the pair who could see, hear or feel nothing except for the other.
Penny hugged Stick closer. "You and that voice of yours are going to get in trouble one day… but don't stop." Hay joined them with a giggle.
There was one, however, who slipped from the party. Twilight wasn't sure she was truly in love with Fast, or if she had ever been, but she suddenly felt hurt. She bolted for the exit only for a pegasus mare to block her way. "Forgive me, Princess." The pony was wearing the uniform of the 'hired snacks'.
Twilight stopped and blinked, she didn't want to stop. She began to work the spell of teleportation, a big one, one that would pull her all the way home.
The mare looked about to say something else but there was a pop of purple smoke and Twilight was gone.
The party seemed to kick up a gear and the two, their love professed, were now the focus rather than the impending hatching of the eggs. "Penny!" Fast reached a leg out and managed to snatch up the unicorn in question from the embrace of her fiances. "Penny, it is required that, when the eggs hatch, a meal is ready for the new drones, to be the first of a long life. Would you do my hive the honor?" There was a twinkle in Fast's eyes.
Penny managed a partial bow to the princess of changelings. "Of course I would, it would be a delight."
Fast noticed as Penny reached back to her own flank. The gesture reminded the changeling of something. "There was another matter. Penny, changeling-friend, your filly will be at least half-blood changeling. Know that she will have a place at my hive, a place of honor and respect."
The lunar mare blushed hotly but took another bow, accepting the gift. She opened her mouth to reply with something equally flowery but a cry started. "They're hatching!"
Fast drove a wedge through the crowd, the changelings parting for her, Slow and Penny's family. Reaching the pile of eggs, Fast suddenly had no idea what she was meant to do. "Uh, Penny?"
The unicorn moved up and settled down on her belly just before the eggs. Each glowed softly with a green light. Something tickled in Penny's throat and she almost ruined everything by giggling as the first verse of a song started. Her voice was lighter than she had ever known it. Penny closed her eyes as she sang of love, of family and friends. The verse ended as one of the leathery eggs tore open and a small grub-like thing squirmed free. With the forelegs and head of a pony, it looked unfinished. Penny continued to sing as the little changeling larva crawled toward her. Her horn lit as she sang and her magic spilled out.
Penny had never had this much control of her power, nor this much raw energy. She let it spill down and the little larva crawled right up to her and snuggled against her body. She sang down to the little changeling, her voice welcoming it to the world, a world that would be better than any before it had known.
Fast joined her, laying down beside the smaller mare and lifting her voice for the third verse. It was a duet, a promise from changeling to pony, and vice versa, dedicating themselves to friendship and making Equestria better for the newborns.
Penny was surrounded by snuggling larvae by then, the eggs spilled all the newborn changelings and the whole hive sang the final chorus, letting it slowly fade as the grubs settled and slept.
Penny couldn't stop the tears, there was so much love within her, so much peace and perfection in the world just then that she leaned sideways against Fast Change and settled in to sleep.