//------------------------------// // Chapter V - Crowned // Story: The Roses of Success // by HypernovaBolts11 //------------------------------// Twilight looked up from her notebook, and asked Fangheart, "What sort of bodily fluids do drones feed on? You talk about this liquid love as though it's a touchy subject for you." He said, "Well..." He trailed off, and rubbed his chin with the front of his lower leg, the holes in his leg brushing against the chitin of his lower jaw. "I don't want to tell you directly." "It's that gross?" she asked him, raising an eyebrow at her stallionfriend. She had been prepared for a direct answer, prepared to struggle against her gag reflex, but not for even him, a changeling, who had shown no discomfort whilst openly discussing a fair amount of changeling biology to her, or the fact that she was writing it all down. That caught her off guard. He sat down in front of her, and said, "I'll give you a hint. I'll tell you what process in which it is produced." She placed her quill to the paper, steeling herself for anything, and, looked up at him. He leaned forward a bit, and said, "I find that the term "making love" is quite telling." She thought that over for a moment, and then, on reflex, began to write, before stopping in the middle of the first word. Her ears flopped down against the sides of her head, and her nose wrinkled in disgust. She grimaced, and shook her head frantically, maneuvering the quill to scratch out the incomplete word in front of her. He laughed, without restraint or remorse, and with the most vehement expression she'd ever seen on a changeling's face. He fell onto his back, and wrapped his forelegs around his spasming chest as he rolled across the floor. "Ha... Hahaa! Woohoo..." he exclaimed, his eyes screwed shut. Twilight shook her head at the page in front of her, and crossed out the last two sentences of her notes, which might have been a bit suggestive, save for the term "certain bodily fluids", which she figured was vague enough to get past a real scientific publisher without too much trouble. She glanced at her calendar as the changeling laughed. Her coronation was tomorrow, and her parents would be there. She knew that she'd have to introduce them to Fangheart at some point, but the coronation was not the place for that. After her coronation she'd have a few weeks free. Plenty of time for them to get to know him, and for her to gauge their reaction to his identity. She just had to convince him to wear a suit. Fangheart sighed as the coronation came to a close, and waved his hoof at Twilight as she took off from the balcony. Watching her soar off into the distance, he couldn't help but wonder what would become of him, if she would become so preoccupied with her new responsibilities as a princess that he just sort of slipped into the background. He shook his head. He couldn't doubt Twilight. It wouldn't be in anyone's best interests if he did, but still, something gnawed at the back of his mind, like an itch. It was bothersome to him, like a faint whisper on a gentle breeze, something carried through thousands of molecules of air, trying to simply be heard, and he had to at least try hearing it. He looked over his shoulder, not that he could explain why, and glanced at the heavily decorated form of Princess Cadance, who was bearing the traditional crystal vail that he had once seen Rarity finish on her. Her eyes were warm, gentle, and her gaze was just as soft as her eyes met his. She motioned him towards her with a quick tilt of the head, and he quickly moved to stand before her, though off to one side so as to not draw much attention from her. She lifted her hoof to obstruct the other princesses' views of her lips, and muttered, "Your little cousin is sick in bed, suffering from magic poisoning, after touching the Crystal Heart." He glanced to either side of them, his tuxedo collar chaffing his neck, and pulled her aside so he could speak above the volume of a whisper. "But... You sai-" he began. "-Upon further inspection, I discovered that the heart has a sort of anti feeding spell placed upon it, and it is an integral part of its aura. Someone has essentially poisoned the well, and I don't know the counter spell," she told him. "I don't know who they are or what they did, but I promised that your friend would be safe in my city, and she will be well fed." He blinked at her, and furrowed his brow, wondering how exactly she planned to feed a changeling who had no friends. There were less orthodox methods of course, but he couldn't imagine ponies partaking in such activities. He nodded to her, and said, "Thank you, Princess Mi Am-" "-It's just Cadance," she insisted. "Thank you, Princ-" he reiterated. "-We're beyond titles now, Fangheart," she corrected him with a smile. "I should hope to be an aunt soon." She turned to face the cheering crowd of ponies alongside the other princesses. He didn't know how to respond to that. Twilight had told him that having children wasn't necessarily a part of being a couple, which hadn't really added up in his rather —admittedly biased— reproduction centric mind. He was a drone, and drones had lots of kids. That was just how things worked in his head. Then again, his head hadn't been raised in a world where friendship, contraceptives, or romance existed. His mind had been built in a world of nearly constant intimacy with some other living creature, be it a griffon prisoner one day or his concubine the next. He paused at that thought, wondering how the hybrid mare was getting on without him. Quite well, he imagined. Pick was tough, levelheaded, and assertive, all things the hive had admired in the queen. Not only that, but she was a bountiful source of love energy, and, even if she couldn't hold much sway over the Matriarch's decisions, likely enjoying herself as the main course at a feast —which almost always turned into semi controlled orgies. She had always had a thing for group activities. Then again, she hadn't exactly been happy with him the day before his eviction. He hadn't really been paying attention, truth be told. Between the monarchy collapsing and his only home being literally turned on its head by a bunch of angry soldiers, he'd been rather preoccupied. Either way, she was an upstanding mare, a calm, proud one, and she was probably doing fine for herself. He sighed as he turned around, planning to get on a train back to Ponyville, as the schedule Twilight had made dictated. He couldn't help but wonder if she was still mad at him, if she would have approved of his recent choices, if she was even thinking about him. He hoped not, he decided. He had been a very different person back then, and the memory of her face seemed a lifetime away. He wasn't that brash, narcissistic prince anymore. He was a pony, a real one, and his name was Fangheart, no longer Love Bite, or that drone. He was Fangheart, a real pony. Maybe he'd stay in his pony form forever, throw Celestia off his trail for good, lose those memories altogether. No longer the last drone alive, but a pegasus, just another pegasus, who was dating a princess. Yeah, completely normal. Nothing weird about that. It must be Tuesday, here in Equestria. He chuckled to himself as he backtracked through the many halls of Canterlot Castle, back the way he'd come. His mother had died in this building. That felt like forever ago. That never happened, as far as this pegasus was concerned. He didn't know anything about changelings, or the revolution, or the hive. He froze, his left forehoof hovering just above the floor. The itch at the back of his mind was getting worse, and the scratching sounds began to ring clearer in his head. The hive, the hive was still full of infected changelings. Changelings were dying, and he was just standing there. He snorted, and continued walking. Those grubs hadn't cared about him, not when they'd decided that he was just as bad as his mother, when he had never commanded even one of them, sired a single creature, or given an order. He hadn't attacked Canterlot. He hadn't done anything to them, and now their ranks were dwindling without him, and without a queen to make eggs. The changelings would die out, replaced by their hybrid offspring and prisoners. No more workers would be hatched. The hive would become the home of the changelings' descendants, of veterans desperately trying to maintain order while the prisoners died out, until only their hybrid children remained. And that would be it, until the infection could find no more chitin on which to fester, and die along with its hosts. He stepped into the sunlight, allowing its warmth to sink into his grey coat, and blue mane. He adjusted his fiery red bow tie with a hoof, and closed his eyes, drinking in the mild humidity that accompanied the cloud covering the base of Canterlot with its promise of rain and shadow. The world felt clearer, crisper, sharper, like it finally accepted him as a part of itself, like he was finally free of the world he'd left behind, free from the memories of pain and of suffering, of the last drone's disregard for life and happiness of others. Those memories made him cringe now, when they had happened only a few weeks before. He was Fangheart, and he was free. A white pegasus in golden armor ran up from behind him, and another guard's aura shoved the grey pegasus into a burlap sack as the first one shouted, "Nice try, changeling. I ran into that pony on the train yesterday." And then, as they were hauling the bag back to the castle, a group of ten changelings dropped from the rooftops, surrounding them completely. An infiltrator hissed, "Fresh love, straight from the heart of Ponyland." The armored guards dropped the bag, which kicked and thrashed about wildly as a changeling moved to untie the knot holding it closed. Fangheart stuck his head out of the bag, took one look at the infiltrator above him, and slammed his head into the changeling's flank, knocking the wind out of it. The two guards exchanged nervous looks as another changeling ran towards the grey pegasus, only for the stallion to spread out his wings in an attempt to intimidate it, and charge forward when that didn't work. Fangheart launched himself at the changeling, pinning to the ground underneath his weight, and prepared to strike it before a blue aura surrounded him, freezing him in place. He growled as best he could without moving his lips, and only went silent when a blunt object struck the back of his head. Fangheart groaned as he came to, and reluctantly opened his eyes. A pair of deep blue eyes were looking back at him, and the guard gave him a nod of acknowledgment. Stoic Saber was missing his armor, spear, and anything else of military purpose. Behind him, the wooden wall of the cart they were in stood, propping up his back as he lifted a leg up, showing the grey pegasus a metal shackle around his hoof. Fangheart's eyes widened, and he immediately began to panic. The events of their previous encounter ran through his mind, and he looked down at his right foreleg. He recognized the metal object immediately, and the ancient patterns engraved on it as they emitted a cool green light, the only form of written language used by the changelings for one purpose alone, to mark their prisoners. He whipped his head around, and surveyed his company, consisting of a unicorn with a brown coat in the front left of the cart, Stoic Saber further back, and an unconscious changeling, a soldier of some sort, in the front right corner. He was sitting opposite Stoic, behind the sleeping soldier. Stoic spoke up, drawing his attention, "Sorry. I thought you were that prisoner, the one that escaped on my watch, that I talked about on the train." Fangheart gulped, and glanced down at his shackle. It wasn't physically attached to anything, but he could sense the magic that tethered it to a large metal block on the center of the cart, which was also engraved with the ancient changeling writing. He experimentally moved his hoof away from the box, towards the back right corner of the cart, and it resisted being pulled beyond a certain distance from the box. "No," he murmured, unable to think of anything else. He couldn't go back, not to the hive, not to that place, not to the subterranean moshpit of brainless bugs. He had just gotten his new life in one piece. He had just sworn to leave it behind. He had just wanted to be a pony, be normal, be free. And now it was over. He was going back to the hive, at the very bottom of the hierarchy he'd been raised in the top of. He was a prisoner now. He was a meal, a well treated meal, by any standards, and certainly not a slave, but a meal nonetheless. Prisoners were citizens of the hive, able to serve it as a worker might, but with more freedom, able to think for themselves, and volunteer themselves at feasts and the nursery. He would have to earn his way to the top, by standing still, while a dozen changelings all tried to make him love them, by submitting himself to the hive's will, to the world he hated. "No," he repeated, more firmly this time. Stoic's eyes met his again. Fangheart's chest began to move rapidly, his breath coming in shallow pants, his heart threatening to jump out of his throat, his ears pinned back, his wings stiff at his sides. "I..." he choked, and closed his eyes. His thoughts wandered to Twilight. What did she know? She wouldn't know of his capture. She wouldn't know where he was. She wouldn't know if he was alive. She wouldn't know anything, but that he had vanished. Tears began to form at the corners of his eyes, and his breath caught as another thought came to him. What was the hive like now? What if the infection got to him? What if one of the other prisoners saw through his disguise? What if the Matriarch learned of his true identity? What if Twilight thought he had run off on purpose? What if she hated him? What if she stopped caring? Whether or not he would ever see her again was out of the question. No one escaped the hive —unless someone kicked them out— and prisoners were likely becoming increasingly valuable. Without the queen to select targets, the hive was likely experiencing a drop in its overall intake of prisoners, which made any existing ones all the more precious. And the plague. What of the plague? He was fine so long as he remained in full pony form, but not if anyone removed it. Stoic was sitting beside him now, and wrapping a wing behind his back. Softly, he said, "It'll be okay." Fangheart crossed his forelegs in front of him, and sobbed into his grey fur, unable to even think anymore. Nothing was worth thinking about. It all hurt to think. It hurt to imagine. It hurt to simply exist, and the crying only made it worse, but he had to cry, if only to remind himself that he could, that he had feelings now, that he wasn't an insensitive jerk like the drone who had fled the world he was doomed to. The cart rolled down a slope, where the grassy ground gave way to a pitch black tunnel, one of the hidden entrances to the hive, and the mouth of the tunnel closed up behind them, the ground lifting back up to meet itself. He knew that was the last shred of unobstructed sunlight he would see for a very, very long time. He could hear the hushed hissing sounds of their captors' voices, and Stoic's comment, "I wish I knew what they were saying." As the changelings spoke, Fangheart grew more and more aware of the dire straights their current leader was in. Losing her mind, and running out of time, the Matriarch talked of a daring plan, to invade Canterlot and rule the land. If confidence in the leader was already unstable, it could be easy to turn the tables. He hissed under his breath, silencing the changelings around them, and startling the two stallions in the cart with him. He told Stoic, "Revolution drove out the queen, and their new leader is bedridden. It seems that we were lucky to be captured at a time like this." Stoic whispered, "Are you okay?" Fangheart couldn't help but smile faintly. The more the changelings talked, the more and more easily he imagined this going. If he could just put someone in charge of the hive who had the best interest of pony and changeling in mind, perhaps everything could work out. Princess Cadance, he decided, would be a fine choice, but she was a long way away, and he had one more problem. He had no way of getting someone in charge of the hive. He'd have to think this over more carefully than anything else he'd ever done in his life, but, if it worked... His options were to do nothing, live as a prisoner, and never go home, or to take a chance on solving the major problems in the hive, and maybe go home afterwards. When he thought about it that way, he had to at least try, or he would surely never see Twilight again.