My Little Ones
There was a blinding flash. The pain and heat was getting stronger. The only thing that it could hear was screaming. The agonizing heartfelt screaming of its companions, brothers and sisters since birth and even worse, the painful shriek of the one they had called mother. Most tried to reach out to the Hive Mind telepathically, only to succumb to the insanity of the shared agony they all felt. The burning pain would creep onto them, and they would lapse out into the blissful sensory deprivation of unconsciousness.
Every so often, a changeling would die. The Hive Mind, alit with the mass fire of pain, would slowly dim as one by one, each changeling flame would go out, leaving a gaping hole and sense of loss that would never be forgotten. She could hear them. She could hear them all. Cacopsylla, Acizzia, Arytainilla. Pysalla could hear her closest sister and best friend’s scream the loudest. Pysillid. Her shriek rang with painful clarity, octaves vibrating beyond the walls of Pysalla’s mind. Just when her chords strained to the verge of escaping, it snapped. The hollowing loss where Pysillid used to be opened its fanged maw and tried to bite. More chords snapped. The many holes gaped wider, trying to swallow the rest of them.
Pysalla could not take the mental strain. She dove swiftly out of the Hive Mind and into reality, where she vaguely realised she was being thrown, further and further, away from the target. Then came the physical pain. Opening her mouth, which gave a dull throb, she screamed to the air, and hit something. Hard. The impact gave one last throb of agony before Pysalla fainted.
~~~
When she came to, she gave a shriek which dissolved into a wail. Her limbs were racked in a splitting pain and the rough and dusty ground beneath her was causing her hemolymph-dripping wings to burn. Her mouth was incredibly dry but the salty metallic taste in it suggested the only moisture came from her embedded tongue, which she gingerly tried to pull off from where it had been impaled on her sharp canines.
Finally, Pysalla opened her eyes. She looked down giddily at her small drone body. Her fore limb was twisted the wrong way, the charcoal shell material cracked, green blood, dripping down slowly. Her other limb was surprisingly fine, but she could not feel a thing. Seconds later, the pain hit her with nauseating intensity. She winced and chewed her cracked lip. She got to her hooves, her back limbs having minimal damage, but the sharp hoof edges cracked and lime green blood tracks running down onto the dusty sand, where it stained. Cranking her head, she angled her neck to peer at her insectile wings, and felt bile rise in her throat at the repulsing sight of her shredded wings being utterly mangled.
She looked away quickly, coming face to face with a vast hilly desert, dead and blackened tree, along with several black brambles littering the landscape. Huge white and grey bones, curved to a point, lay half buried in the reddened sand. The sun, in the dreary grey sky, glared down with heated intensity, the familiarity causing Pysalla to stumble. Her breath grew unsteady and quick.
“T…the Ba…d lands…” She sputtered out.
Pysalla took several unsteady steps forward, the searing agony nearly causing her knees to go out. She stumbled along, the usually simple action needing her to rest, sweat dripping down her back and causing her damaged chitin to sting. Her grey horn pulsed with the heat and pain. Every time she tried to use it, it would sputter and send waves of nausea over her, crashing down sickeningly, spots swimming across her faceted eyes. Due to the inability in her horn, the Hive Mind was out of the question, so Pysalla would be helpless to anything that came her way.
Then she saw it.
A small blackened crater, edges dark with heat and friction, marring the sand. Inside the dent, lay a changeling. The changeling was severely injured, half of its chitin missing, exposing dry and raw flesh that glistened with green liquid. Pysalla hobbled as fast as she could, skidding down to her brother. His eye was nearly punctured, a thorn embedded underneath. His horn was gone, broken off cleanly, leaving a dripping stump.
Pysalla sucked in a breath quickly, recognising his multi-faceted eyes and pattern of holes that decorated his body. She bent down, her muzzle nearly touching his, feeling whistling gasps of air as he inhaled. “Ent…entomon?”
The undamaged eye cracked open. It peered at her, before the mouth opened. Entomon smiled, revealing broken canines and teeth. He spat out a tooth, dripping with green blood, before speaking.
“Pysalla…?” He rasped out. She remained silent, biting her lip, at a loss of what to do.
His injured body stirred slightly, his torn wings slapping the ground. His smile wavered as he traced her chin with an undamaged hoof, causing shudders to run down her back. He sighed, his eye closing before opening again.
“I knew you would still be alive. You…were always quite the…warrior…” His breath began to come in laboured wheezes.
Pysalla watched as her brother’s wheezes faded and his eyes, still glittering like diamonds, glazed over. He gave one last final sigh, before he lay still, a smile still frozen on his face.
Pysalla climbed out of the crater, watching vultures overhead already starting to circle in for the meal. Her legs trembled with emotion, crystal like tears making shiny tracks down her face, clearing dust as they went. She fought a wail back down her throat.
She continued walking.
She blinked more tears from her overflowing eyes, her vision foggy as she limped onward blindly and nearly fell down a large crater.
She blinked down at the crater. It was significantly larger than Entomon’s, the sand around it even darker and burnt. A black bundle with turquoise strands that framed a narrow muzzle and a long twisted horn lay crumpled at the bottom, a black copper crown lying to the side. A faint aura of sadness drifted the air, the crumpled heap making sobbing noises. Pysalla gasped when she realised who it was.
~~~
Chrysalis sobbed softly into her dark hooves. Tendrils of aqua cobwebs clung to the moisture, hiding her face. The tears clotted in the round holes in her hoof, making them sticky. She had a large chunk taken out of her chitin, but was otherwise uninjured. Even while she was crying, she still managed to maintain an air of being regal and respected. Her tortured wails made anyone stand on edge. Her pain and torment had started the moment she regained consciousness, and had continued till then.
“My Queen!”
The sudden chitter a drone made caused Chrysalis to look up apprehensively. A head was peering down at her. The drone had light blue, wintry eyes, and was slightly damaged physically, but one nudge against the Hive Mind told her that the drone’s link was damaged, if not completely severed. Her cheeks were still wet as she slid down to where Chrysalis lay, limping along the way. Hope flared in the queen.
“What’s your name, my little one?”
The inquiry caught Pysalla off-guard, her eyes widening at her queen’s expectant façade placed quickly over her heartbroken expression.
“P…Pysalla, y…your majesty.”
Chrysalis smiled slightly, her lips curved sadly, her double iris eyes still wet with unshed tears.
“Is Princess LaceWing alive?”
“I…what?” Pysalla reeled slightly from surprise. Was the princess alive? She would not be able to tell, her horn was damaged, the link…
The changeling queen shook her head. She needed to be there for her little ones. Her children needed her. But how could she face them after the fact that it was her idea to send them to their deaths?
Taking a shuddering breath, the Queen of Changelings concentrated. Her horn released green sparks, an emerald aura lit around the drone’s damaged horn. Then her magic sputtered out, leaving Chrysalis in a fit of coughing.
The drone could feel a sear of fire, sharper than a blade, slide and push her mind link into place, a hundred different voices flooding her mind. Locating Princess LaceWing, she nodded to the queen.
-200 injured, princess-
…Pysalla! Has anyling seen…
Pysalla felt a rush of relief at the familiar sense and voices. Acizzia! She was alive. She smiled and turned to thank the queen, only to realise what exactly she had done.
Chrysalis reeled in the sand, her last energy reserves used to heal one of her little ones. She collapsed, sending dust to drift in the air. Her eyes glazing over, blurring and her body shuddering. With her last breath, Chrysalis’s horn lit up in a green flame, sending one last message to the Hive Mind, to all her little ones, before her link stretched and snapped, severed forever.
Goodbye my little ones,
You shine brighter than a thousand suns,
My love outweighs a thousand tons,
Goodbye to all my daughters and sons……
I love you…my little ones.