//------------------------------// // Chapter VII - Rejoined // Story: The Roses of Success // by HypernovaBolts11 //------------------------------// Fangheart froze mid stride, his legs stiffening, and his eyes widening. He had to stop thinking about what was in front of him, but he couldn't think of anything else, so he simply stood there as the mare walked past him. Her coat was the color of coal dust, and, though it lacked the luster of the crystal ponies', still seemed to glitter in his mind's eye like the most carefully polished gem. It was emblazoned with a symbol he knew too well, a brown wooden handle with a blue pickaxe head attached to it. Her mane and tail were woven from the finest veins of iron, rusted over time by the clearest streams, and her irises were made of pure, polished gold. Her chiseled chest was as solid as the stone she seemed to have been carved from, as if the forces of nature themselves had conspired to craft her from the earth upon which she trod. Her sleek legs moved with such agility, but he had seen them support thrice her weight in stone —and soldiers. She was an earth pony quarterling, and a fine one at that. Even as she passed, Stoic emerged from his suite in time to watch her go, and said the only thing running amuck in Fangheart's head, "Damn." Everything in his being commanded swift condemnation of that stallion. No one was supposed to compliment her but him. No one, but no one, was allowed to advance on her, and she was supposed to speak highly of him as he would for her. She could sleep with whomever she pleased, but her words were for him, and his for her. Stoic looked over at him, and raised an eyebrow, asking, "You okay, dude?" Fangheart stared back at him, eyes narrowing, ears burning, heart pounding. His wings stiffened at his sides, and he brushed his hoof against the ground, as though preparing to charge. Every fiber in his being wanted to simultaneously speak with the mare, confess his true identity to her, return to a time when he had been proud and brash enough to call her his, and show the stallion who was boss. He wanted to call out to her, to call back through the mists of time to a day when he had been young, when he had convinced himself that he was both her owner and her property, when he had been bold and happy. But that drone had never cared for anyone but himself, and had never truly cared for her in the way he now loved Twilight. Twilight. That thought soothed the ache in his chest, and the fire in his eyes, allowing him respite from the longing for a past that never could be, that never was. Twilight, like the sun as it set over the mountains in the west, and extinguished itself on the crest between two peaks. Like the sky, set ablaze in its absence, so calm and empowered. Such a lovely soul she was, such a kind pony, and such a gentle heart. He drew in a deep breath, and lifted his hoof across his chest, closing his eyes. He exhaled slowly, lowering his raised hoof, as he had seen Twilight do in times of frustration. He sighed, and looked back at Stoic, whose slender form was now tensed, prepared to answer any hostile action with swift retaliation. He smiled faintly, and asked, "You are aware that she isn't a pony, right?" Stoic didn't relax, but did allow the supposed halfling to take several strides towards his dwelling, and said, "She looks perfectly normal to me." Fangheart was just barely containing a grin, showing only an expression of mild glee, and said, "She's a quarterling. She's many other things, an avid partygoer for one, but the one you should know about first, is whom she's married to." Stoic leaned against the side of his suite's entryway, and asked, "Changelings have marriages?" Fangheart nodded, and said, "Keep a few things in mind when I tell you. If you don't like polygamy, stay in your home. If you don't like having another stallion above you, don't sign up for a feast. If you don't like the idea of your bedmates sleeping in another person's bed, don't talk to-" He looked up for a moment, stroking his chin. "-basically anyone." "In the hive, you are a meal, a source of love. The best ways for you to feed the changelings involve intimacy, and you are a guard, so a lot of the changelings you meet are going to be rough with you. They expect that you'll willingly engage in intimate activities for the purpose of feeding them," he said, audibly licking his lips to make Stoic uncomfortable. "There are events called feasts, which prisoners can sign up for. She really likes going to them, and she actually met her husband at one of them," he said matter-of-factly, before leaning forward until his nose was a mere centimeter away from Stoic's. After the guard remained silent for a few seconds, waiting for him to continue, he asked, "Why's that important?" Fangheart grinned from ear to ear, and paused. He couldn't help but remember that night, at least not the most personally valuable moment of it, when she had first kissed him. How the entire world had simply fallen away, and how the mind had been doomed to so hopelessly melt in that instant. When his eyes had closed, and her lips had locked with his in the most passionate embrace he had ever known. And her eyes had met his, and her short fur had done so little to cushion the impact of her muscular chest against his. Oh, how that memory plagued him now. He bit his lip, and glanced at the floor. He had to think about something else, anything else. He had to escape the past of a dead drone, and get used to his life as a pony, masquerading as a halfling in the hive. He had to put it behind him, bury it, lock it away, burn everything that could ever remind him of that life. But he still couldn't stop thinking about her. What would have happened if he had never been kicked out with his mother? Would Pick have continued to serve him? Would he have become the Matriarch's pet? Would he have lived in tranquility with his wife by his side, until one day, the last drone died, and the changelings finally went extinct? Could Pick have still been his? And then he remembered —or chose to believe— something; if he came back as the drone she had married... Bad! Bad! Bad thoughts! He inwardly cursed himself for even imagining it, not just because he had moved on, but because he had other obligations. In the Hive, having sex was a necessity if he was going to get the public standing he needed in order to overthrow the government, but his motivations behind engaging in such activities with Pick were more personal. He didn't love her, of course, but he still felt as though he would be betraying Twilight, forfeiting all of her trust in him, all the progress he'd made, all the love she'd fed him and all the kindness she'd shown. He'd never be able to live with himself, whomever that was, if he simply turned his back on the one person who'd ever truly loved him, whom he had actually, measurably loved. He sighed forlornly, and, without really thinking about it, answered Stoic's question, "Prisoners can only attend as meals. They stand still while the changelings... Yeah. She married that drone, and..." He wasn't paying attention to Stoic's reaction, though he could at least be amused by imagining what it must have been like. Fangheart took a deep breath as he came to a stop beside the hexagonal entryway to his destination. He didn't like the idea of what he was about to do, much less the notion that he wanted to do it. Before he could alert the inhabitant of his presence, a deep, smooth voice sang out from within. It was both familiar and alien to him, and wrought upon his being a perceived comfort, a sensation of both longing for his previous life and disdain for his past self. It reminded him of his mother, and how she had sang to him on the day of his "wedding", which had really been an excuse for her to call another feast, and spend some private time with her soon to be daughter in-law because, as the saying went, "Either spoil the queen, or let her be spoiled." Of course, no saying ever said to spoil the drone, but that wasn't the point. The idea was; pander one's superior, or let others win her favor in your place. He stepped inside, and followed the sound of a familiar song through the expensively decorated suite, until he located Pick. She was singing clearly, and sliding her hooves across the carpeted floor in time with the more exuberant syllables in her song. She was facing away from him, leading to the awkward situation that arose when she turned around to find a pair of brown eyes fixed on her hindquarters, and a pair of wings standing at full attention. She continued singing without pause, and slowly slid towards her unexpected guest, "I'm a classic mare. You can call me when you own this scene. I'm a classic mare. Callin' on me like a young filly. I'm a classic mare. Your knees gettin' paved by the street. Elegant, old fashioned mare. Yeah, baby, I'm a classic mare." She only stopped moving when her golden eyes filled his vision, and her quicksilver tongue thrashed within her open mouth a few millimeters from his nose. She rolled her neck, swinging the smooth metal ring attached to her left ear around, and pecked him on the nose. He almost screamed. She smiled coyly, confidently as she always had, and said, "You can drop the disguise, darling." She silently turned around, and slowly made her way to the lavish bed that he had so many times joined her on, that he had so many times broken with a halfhearted chuckle. He had laughed at the sounds of its black curtains ripping, giggled at the creaks of its dark oaken frame, grinned at the snapping of its boards, and, when it had given way, playfully said, "The queen's never gonna let me have you now." He permitted his disguise to evaporate in a flash of green light, and the flames of transformation to lick at the smooth surface of his chitin. And, when that was done, he froze. Pick didn't react negatively, and instead cooed at his new look. He looked down at his hooves, and blinked in disbelief at what he saw. His left hoof remained identical to its previous rendition, covered in grey fur, and warm to the touch. His right hoof, on the other hoof —literally— was as black as he knew it to be, dotted with a somewhat familiar arrangement of holes, and mostly chitinous, with the exoskeleton softening and thinning out near the top of his leg. He quickly took inventory of his body, mildly freaked out. A botched transformation was a dangerous thing, and often difficult to rectify. On the bright side, he looked like a halfling, which fit with his alibi quite well, even if he couldn't understand what had messed up his transformation. His mane had been replaced with a set of frills, and his left eye wouldn't rotate independently of his skull. One of his upper right teeth had been replaced with a familiar fang, and a smooth, curved horn sat atop his head. His barrel was protected by a series of green armor plates, which were currently rigid in preparation for self defense. Most disturbing of all, was a pair of elytra that attached to his torso in the limited space between his wings, and clasped to his sides when they encased his feathery appendages. They were similar in coloration to his armor, but with one individual plate each, rather than being composed of several. He glanced back up at the bed, where Pick was quietly lying on her stomach, holding her lower jaw up with her hooves, and said, "I... I bring a message... from..." He had a plan, dammit. He had to stick to the plan. He just had to inform her that her former husband was fine, ask a favor of her, and get the heck out. "Your husband... He's living happily, with a pony, and he's sorry for being such a narcissistic, undeserving..." He trailed off, before punctuating the statement with a word he'd never used with such a forceful tone of voice, "-klir!" Her eyes narrowed, and her gaze focused on his left eye. He tried to return to his fully pony form, but struggled to work around the fact that part of his chitinous leg wasn't responding properly, failing to recognize that it was part of a changeling. He forced upon that part of his body an excess amount of his reserve love energy, attempting to basically unclog the misunderstanding in his aura, and only managed to transform after a pair of words had left Pick's mouth that he dreaded. The name she had spoken echoed through the air, and both creatures remained entirely still. They both spoke at once, before going silent at the same instant, then offered to let one another speak first. Silence filled the room, dominated the existence of both creatures involved, and gave way when Fangheart finally said, "He... He wants you to know... that he regrets almost everything about his life, especially failing to be a good, or at least not a terrible husband. He... He hates himself for failing to even recognize you as a person, and promises that he won't let anyone suffer in a place like this ever again." He held a hoof up to quell her interjection, and choked, "He... He should have been a friend, not just a bedmate, or a lover, or a whiny mouth to feed. He should have treated you with the same- Neigh! -more respect than that which he showed the queen. And he failed to even listen to you on the last night you spent together." He swallowed the lump in his throat, and stomped his hoof in time with the end of each clause as he said, "He knows that you can't forgive him, that you shouldn't, but that the least he can do is apologize!" He stood there, taking heavy breaths as he watched Pick's expression for any sign that she saw through his act, that he was busted, and for any indication that she was satisfied with his apology. She walked towards him, a sympathetic look in her eyes, and sat down in front of him. She craned her neck so her eyes were level with his, and said, "Answer me honestly. I won't tell a soul what you say, or that I even met you. Tell me the truth, and I will gladly do whatever you want me to." He nodded slowly, looking down at the floor. "Is your name Love Bite?" she asked him. He shook his head, and murmured, "Not anymore, I promise." She nodded solemnly, and asked, "Where's the queen?" He clamped his eyes shut, and wrinkled his nose. Pinning his ears back, he began to cry, all the while commanding himself not to. He'd never get over Pick if he showed any attachment or trust in her that his alibi wouldn't have. And yet, a tear rolled across his left cheek, which the mare in front of him wiped away with a hoof. "Hey, hey," she cooed, lifting his chin up with her left hoof. She waited for his eyes to open before she added, "I miss her too." He sniffled, and held back his sobs by speaking over them, "I... I fell in love... but I still miss you." She reached her right hoof behind his back, and softly said, "I miss you too." He closed his eyes again, and thrust his head against her chiseled chest. He allowed his breath to catch and his tears to flow, wrapping his forelegs around the mare he had once spent so many a night with, for the first time, in such a way that was not of a purely physical nature. He had no ulterior motives, he wasn't hungry, and he wouldn't pretend to love her like the husband he should have been. He was just sad. He was far away from home, from his best friend, his marefriend, his only companion, the only family he had ever known, and from his late parents, one of whom he had never met, and the other of whom had never really been a mother. His only family was probably in the process of forgetting him, of moving on, of giving up on him, and he couldn't even scream loud enough to make her hear him. He could almost see her turning away from him, walking away, letting him fade from her mind as he drifted further and further from his commitment to her. "T-Twilight," he sobbed, as Pick's remaining foreleg added to their hug. "Don't go." He clenched his jaws, and held his breath, trying to will her back to him, to explain why he was even speaking to Pick, why he simply needed it to keep going, that if she gave up, he'd never get home. He tightened his grip on the mare in front of him, and shook his head against her chest. "Do-o-on't..." he cried, and the blackness surrounding his senses engulfed him completely.