Edited by DJ_Neon_Lights, Kudzuhaiku, and TuxOKC.
Forty-five changelings fled from the house some time ago, before the sun had reached its zenith. Now, it was halfway through its journey towards settling behind the opposite horizon. Changelings were not only very good at impersonations, but they could also alter their natural armor to bend the light around them, creating a natural camouflage. Doing such a thing did little to drain their magic reserves, but it was difficult to disguise the sound of their buzzing wings. None of them had gone through the training to conceal sound, save for Newton. The oldest changeling sighed at his younger siblings in silent dejection.
Of course, hiding and muting sound was moot, as the evicted changelings turned to song. The changelings were trying to keep their spirits up as they flew towards the woods Mr. Hooman had angrily told them to go into.
Us little changelings, us little changelings
Ahh, ahh, ahh, ahhh…
(us little changelings)
We had wondered about our brand new queen
(us little changelings)
Why did her parents have to be so mean?
No adventures!
This isn’t fun!
I wanna go home
What went wrong?
Where was the kindness?
Now what went wrong there?
They were eating from our hooves
Just look at us little changelings
Did you know this is not an original song?
They had gone over a large yard with a wooden post fence as they sang. They had heard the sounds of barking dogs on both sides. Those who could smell the changelings went absolutely nuts, barking as though a pack of cats were cutting through their turf. It had been the most terrifying one hundred yards Speaker could ever remember crossing in the entirety of his life.
Such a depressing (and questionable) song! They had started going through the song for a fourth time when they finally hit the woods. The trees, in Speaker’s estimation, were small, but the bushes were thick and full. Thickets promised a plethora of cover and concealment from human eyes. The changelings darted into the underbrush, glad to no longer be exposed.
Still, it was warm out. There was no rain. The woods dipped into a shallow ravine where a small creek meandered lazily through. As the changelings settled to the ground and caught their collective breaths, Speaker was well aware more than a few eyes had fallen upon him in a mixed bag.
How had things gone from promising to nightmarish?
“Let’s go over what happened,” he said, trying to make sense of the events of that morning. “What happened?” The question was general, noling was called out. Speaker just wanted one of his brothers or sisters say something that was on his or her mind.
“Gordon pooped in the kitchen and it started eating through the vinyl floor,” Jo replied, throwing an accusing glare at the sickly-looking chef.
“Sod off,” he groused, managing to look the part of a kitchen staff’s worst nightmare given flesh. “It was raw!” Gordon gibbered, falling to his side on the ground.
“Nevermind that,” Speaker sighed. “Look, I think part of the problem was there were a lot of bodies in a teeny-tiny living space. We crowded the humans, invaded their private home, and sang music. Worst of all”—he glared the Glare of Disappointment—“we began to worship the idiot box. Did you honestly think offering sacrifices to that thing in their living room would endear yourself to the hoomans?”
His brothers and sisters blinked at him, uncomprehending. “No! No. No?” they said, looking at each other, uncertain. There seemed to be an unseen discussion shared through glances, looks, and uneven blinking eyes. “Yes? Yes. Yes!” they assented with great reluctance.
“Where is Cabbage?” Jon asked, pushing herself up to Speaker. Her question came in the form of an urgent hiss.
“Angela is missing, too.”
“Zey are in ze house,” Newton observed, flicking his attention to the house. “Watching over our Queen. She iz safe.”
All heads turned towards the direction from which they had come. The ivory siding was barely visible through the branches, the black shingled roof bathed in sunlight. Some of the windows on the back of the house were visible. The sliding glass door could be seen as there were no obstructions hiding it. More than a few changelings were jealous. Cabbage and Angela had been clever and stayed behind.
Clever and Cabbage was a difficult combination.
Still, Angela was with him, so Catherine would have the voice of well-structured sentences to guide her. Everyling loved Cabbage. It was hard to stay upset with him for too long. His sister was also his clutchmate, as they had come from the same batch of eggs. Many changelings spent their lives with those who had been in the same clutch. It made a family within a family, as it were.
With this gaggle of misfits and unwanted changelings, it was surprisingly devoid of too many changelings who had hatched together. Speaker could only think of two other sets of clutch mates in the group besides Angela and Cabbage. They normally shared the same duties. The Queen had been quite adamant in ensuring clutches share the same tasks, as she believed they would do better as working teams.
Speaker sat on his haunches and looked up and around at the trees. “All right. All right. Let’s worry about what happened later.”
He brought his muzzle level and studied the other side of the creek. There was a deeply sloped embankment. Several trees had exposed roots from years of erosion. Two were almost parallel to the ground, yet were still alive. The ground beneath him was soft beneath the rotting leaves. There were patches of sunshine falling through the canopy above. The woods were not thick. This was not a good place to be. However...
The other changelings were also taking in their surroundings, blinking with compound eyes. Speaker always wondered why they needed eyelids when they had compound eyes. He shifted his attention again to the house in which his Queen resided. He thought about the neighbors in the other houses. The hoomans probably heard the singing.
Blast that singing! Of course they had to sing as loudly as they could. Barking dogs? They only wanted to sing, too! Catchy tune, though.
Speaker caught himself humming a few bars before he cleared his throat. “Anyways!” he announced to his brothers and sisters. “We are going to put the hive here. We need to be near the Queen. We are changelings, we need to be near our Queen.”
“You just said that twice,” observed Reggie. His eyes blinked in an owlish manner.
“Said what?”
“‘We need to be near the Queen’. You said that twice.”
“I like our Queen.”
Another changeling piped up, “Her parents sure don’t like us.” The sour tone was echoed by the others. Speaker could see one of his sisters kick at a dead tree branch.
He levelled a flat glare at the changeling who had spoken. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure we had nothing to do with that.” Speaker’s tone was more than enough to shame half of the changelings. “Seriously? The idiot box? Seriously!?”
“Right! Hive! Making it here!” The changelings broke into a flurry of motions, darting apart and scurrying throughout the woods. They bumped into each other, apologized, and went about finding something to do other than listen to Speaker lose his mind.
He did not notice, it seemed. “The idiot box? You were all idiots! We had it made! We were going to live in the basement, next to the washing machine! We, we, we—” Speaker hiccuped, interrupting himself.
“Were going to drive them insane, anyways,” supplied Jon as she sat next to him. “Look, brother, we’re new to this world. We had a hard enough time getting the other nations in Equestria to accept us. What made you think they’d take us in openly and without question?”
“Ze desire to have happiness. Ze need to be secure. It iz completely natural,” Newton said as he slid up on Speaker’s other side. “Ve all vant it.”
“Newton?” Speaker asked in a whisper.
“Ja?”
“What’s with the accent?”
“Vat accent?”
Speaker sighed and rolled his eyes. “Nevermind. Look. What am I going to do? What are we going to do? You all chose me to speak on behalf of the hive. You’re the oldest and most experienced of us, Newton. Why didn’t you take the role when we asked you?”
“Unt have ze weight of responsibility placed upon my old shoulders? Nein! I am far too old to handle zis group. My nerves, you see.” Newton followed one of the changelings with his eyes. The poor thing was flying, not watching where he was going as he dragged a dead log. The changeling had no idea what he was doing and promptly flew into a tree. “My point iz justified.”
“Why was he dragging a log?” Speaker wondered aloud.
Jon giggled. “Anything to avoid hearing another one of your rants.”
“I’m okay!” yelled the tree hugging changeling. He rose on woozy wings and staggered through the air off in some general direction, rubbing his head with a hoof.
“I know these guys don’t have the best coordination in the world,” Speaker said. “But I think we can make something of a good life here. We have to work for it.”
“What about love? We need emotions to charge our magic and to keep us from turning into gibbering idiots.” Jon blinked and sighed.
“Zis group is consisting mostly of hive drones. Janitors.” Newton let out a huff and resettled his wings. “Ve have no warriors. Ve have no infiltrators. Our abilities are muted unt our natural defenses may or may not work on zis world.”
“Do you have an idea?”
“But of course! I am ze genius!”
“Which Mother left out of her planning on Canterlot,” Jon said with a snide smirk.
“I vas against ze invasion!” Newton shivered in anger. “Mein Mother! Our Mother! She chose ze path to war! I vanted peace! I told her. I told her! Invasion vas foolish! Ve should have sent fruit baskets! I suggested ze fruit baskets! But vas it acceptable? Nein! So, I vas told my services vere no longer needed. I had to vait at the hive. Mother vould have punished me, I think. Ze invasion vas kaput! Mother iz probably kaput!”
Speaker stared at the older changeling, shuffling a step or two aside and away from Newton. “Fruit baskets?”
Newton nodded. “Vith cheese!”
Jon smiled with social politeness. “Of course. Fruit baskets. Fruit baskets would have changed everything. We might have even gotten invited to the wedding.”
“You zink?” Newton asked hopefully. “Ve vould have been loved!”
The smile became uncomfortable. “Um… maybe?”
Change the subject! Change the subject! Speaker found his attention falling upon the top of Jon’s head. Frank and Beatrice’s earlier observation struck his thoughts. “You’re growing in a mane,” the changeling said. “Just like Silky.”
“I am?” Jon reached up with a hoof and rubbed around the base of her horn. “I am!” she cried with a smile. “I need to get the girls together!”
Speaker let out a little sarcastic yay. “Wonderful. Now we’re going to need mane care products. It’ll be Mother’s obsession all over again and multiplied several times over.”
“Get over it. I’ve got a mane to grow!” Jon hopped up and down, letting out a squee with each hop. “I hope my tail comes in, too!” She buzzed off in excitement. “Girls! Girls! Silky! I’m growing a mane!”
Speaker called after her, “Find out which of you carries love reserves!” He wasn’t sure if his sister heard him or not. The changeling sighed and shook his head. “Females. I will never understand them.”
Newton chuckled. He seemed to be feeling better already. “I am going to look for ze best place to begin ze entrance to ze new hive. I vill get ze tunnelers ve have in our group unt begin excavations immediately. Ve can have something of a shelter before nightfall, I zink. You should find some changelings who are not doing anything unt put zem on ze perimeter as lookouts. Ve can’t have ze humans stumbling upon us. It vould be bad if ve are caught unawares.” The elder changeling placed a hoof on Speaker’s shoulder. “Ve vill find a vay. I zink ve must earn vatever trust is to be gained from ze humans.”
“We should probably put together a small group who can at least pretend to be infiltrators.” Speaker scanned the working changelings (or those who pretended to be working). “Two ‘ling teams. Clutch mates, preferably,” he mused as his mind focused. “We need to learn about the lay of the land and the disposition of the hoomans living here. We’ll need to find a way to establish peaceful contact and work towards reuniting with our Queen.”
“I can put together a list.”
Speaker pursed his lips and licked one of his fangs in thought. “We’ll start with Wesley. He likes to watch.” He made a mental call out through his horn, pinging for the changeling in question.
Wesley was quick in arriving. “Yeah?” he demanded in a flat tone.
“I have a mission for you.”
Wesley grinned.
“You’re going to have a partner.”
Wesley frowned.
“TK421.”
“Her?”
“Yes.”
“She’s never at her post!”
“She doesn’t have one.”
“She’s bad at communications!”
“She’s a mute, Wesley. Take her with you.” Speaker glared at his brother. “She’s probably the best changeling we have other than you at infiltration and observation. Go grab her, get some extra love if there is any from the reserves, and get us some intel. Can you do that? Please?” His expression softened.
Wesley worked his jaw without a sound for several seconds. “Fine,” he said after mulling it over. “Standard procedure?”
“I’m not military. You decide what is standard procedure and what isn’t. As long as it doesn’t entail you getting caught! Be careful out there,” Speaker stressed. He made a sudden move towards his brother and hugged him. “Please be careful, both of you!”
The hug was broken and Wesley gave his brother a hard stare. “Hey! It’s me!” he said with a grin. Wesley took to the air in search of his mute sister. “Yo! TK!”