//------------------------------//
// CH. 15 The Feeding Chamber 
// Story: The Last Changeling Queen 
// by Atuhor Name 
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The Feeding Chamber


        Naudia awoke feeling rested, refreshed, and feeling an absolutely delicious flavor that was beginning to trickle out of the air. Gradually, though, the world began to seep in past the warm glow of love, and she began to become aware of lots of hooves touching her, and of voices speaking urgently.
        Naudia opened her eyes with the weary slowness of somebody who has just eaten too much of a filling meal.  She found a gaggle of concerned looking faces looking back at her. Vaguely Naudia began to list off their names in her head:
        First was Mattar, looking in from the back, but the most recognizable for his rock-filled pack.
        Second, there was Kiri, gripping her foreleg like she was afraid it was going to fall off--her secondary guard and a changeling she went to grade school with.
        Then came Twilight, sitting behind her, cradling Naudia's head in her hooves. Naudia leaned back a little, feeling Twilight's hooves around her head, and sighed before snapping her head up abruptly.
        “Who the hay are you?!” Naudia demanded of the changeling to her left, in a voice that masked confusion with anger.
        As soon as Naudia said that, all eyes were on the unfamiliar changeling. Shining, Cadance and Twilight barely reacted at all, but the changelings all around her began to take up seriously threatening positions, scuttling up the walls and ceiling for a better shot. Horns started glowing.
        The changeling in question had a different armor color, and was somebody Naudia didn't recognize from anywhere.
        “Whoa whoa whoa! Calm down!” Strangely enough the changeling actually turned to Shining at this point. “You know me Shining, we went through training together.”
        The changeling was replaced by teal flames and came out as a thestral guard.
        “See, I'm Powder Keg!”
        “Oh yeah?” Shining said, pushing closer through the almost solid wall of agitated changelings.
        Finally he came face to face with 'Powder Keg' and stared her down. The two remained like that, unblinking, for a couple seconds.
        “Yeah. I covered for you when you took time off to see your girlfriend.” Powder Keg leaned over Shining's shoulder to wave at Cadance. “I still haven't forgiven you for not telling me you were dating a Princess.”
        “Yeah, but anybody could have found that out about me. I went through the official channels and everything.”
        “Do you want to go through this in front of your wife, Shining?” There was a glint in her eye that was lost to all.
        “Yeah. Because I'm 100% certain I didn't serve for years next to a Changeling.” The acid in his voice wore through the veneer of politeness.
        “All right then, but don't say I didn't warn you.” Powder Keg smiled. “In the first week of training, you broke down crying in the middle of the hallway, longing for home. Nobody else was there. Your little sister calls you… what was it again? Oh, yeah, she calls you her 'BBBFF.' That got out to the rest of the barracks. And you put that stupid D20 in your helmet for good luck.”
        Shining sat stock-still for a moment.
        “I told you never to mention the D20 to anybody.”

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        It was several minutes later. Kiri had approached Shining about O&O, and the changeling Rajani had gone through every single test that Naudia's changelings could come up with. Including an ill-fated but chuckle-worthy one that required her to stand on her head.
        And now, Twilight and Naudia were interviewing her, trying to get a picture as to what happened in Canterlot after they left.
        “Before we get into that, what did you shoot me with? It was delicious.” Naudia asked.
        “Pure love.”
        Naudia's mouth flopped open like a fish.
        “We've got corrupted changelings up top, I didn't exactly have a choice.” Rajani still looked sad that it had to be wasted. “Anyway, Twilight, you're not going to like this, but rumors are going around that Celestia was taken down.”
        “Horseapples.”
        “I wasn't there to see it, but it's true. Luna confirmed it afterwards. Nobody quite knows who took her down, though.”
        “So Luna is free still?”
        “The answer to that question is technically ‘yes,’ but I'm honestly not sure how well you're going to take things when you see her.” The changeling shuffled her feet nervously.
        “Has she been disfigured or something?” Naudia asked.
        Rajani opened and closed her mouth a time or two.
        “That would be a matter of opinion, but, considering the current company, no...” Rajani looked between Naudia and Twilight. “Nope. Nope, definitely not. Maybe she's even been improved!”
        “Ooookay...” Twilight and Naudia said in unison.
        “The important thing is that I'm going to take you to see Luna--and it IS Luna. Her time is limited, however, so we CANNOT afford to go through this whole 'who are you' game. The barrier will not hold without her for long.”
        “What barrier?”
        “The one keeping the corrupted changelings out.” Rajani said. “By the way, Naudia, I'm going to have to ask that you keep you and yours from siphoning off the barrier. It’s hard enough to keep it up now; we can't have changelings treating it like a free buffet.”

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        Shining was attempting to disengage with the changelings, but found the task rather difficult. Every single one of them seemed have played O&O, and they were all rather desperate to know the changes that happened after revision 3.
        “OK, how the heck do you ALL know about O&O? More importantly, how do you expect me to answer all these questions?”
        “Oh, that's easy! Every changeling in the hive is required to play, as part of their primary education. Creating alternate and balanced personas is important after all.” Kiri said.
        “Yeah, and yours were always C minus level Mary Sues. That's why you had to join the guard.”
        “WHO SAID THAT!?” Kiri spun around like lightning towards the crowd of changelings.
        Shining took the opportunity to slip away and try to find his sister. He found her and Naudia getting ready to head out again, and then Naudia rushed off to settle the dispute about O&O that just popped up. To say Shining was happy about this would be unprovable, as nobody was paying attention enough in the dim light of the cave to see his hair stop standing on end.
        “Hey, LSBFF.”
        Out of reflex, Twilight put one hoof on the key hanging around her neck.
        “Hey, Shining.”
        “Why so tense?”
        “I… I don't feel safe being alone right now.” Twilight realized the words that just came out of her mouth, and spoke quickly. “I mean that, after that time in the cell, my gut tells me not to trust my friends.”
        "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. Celestia was planning a full scale invasion of the Badlands and she insisted that I was there to help plan.
        "But now I AM here, and we know the truth, so I can start making up for it." Shining offered Twilight a hug and, after a pause where she looked like she was considering something, Twilight reciprocated.
        During the extended hug Naudia got back from settling the changeling dispute. She did not interrupt the moment, merely stood to the side unobtrusively to let it pass.
        "Hey, we're going to start moving out soon." Naudia looked at Twilight. "But I'll leave you two so you can make up with each other."
        As they started moving again, Shining and Twilight walked side by side through the tunnels, chatting.
        "So what do you see in her?"
        "I thought you already asked her that during your overprotective brother talk."
        "Well I know what she sees in you, definitely, but I want to hear what you see in her."
        "She gave up everything for me.
        "In the Badlands, before we returned to Equestria, she gave up everything so my friends wouldn't suspect me."
        A teal glow became apparent at the end of the corridor, neither noticed.
        "And we share a lot of the same interests. I mean, she'll actually listen to me when I start talking about books! I've never met anybody who could keep up with me on that."
        Shining nodded, having received a lecture from Naudia earlier about precisely that.
        "And... well she does have a very..." Twilight mumbled something inaudible.
        "What? I didn't quite catch that."
        "Well she has a..." Twilight almost dropped into mumbles again, before composing herself and saying out loud: "A very regal figure."
        "Oooooh you mean she's got a nice-" Shining was cut off by Twilight's hoof.
        "Keep it down! I don't want other ponies to know that I'm attracted to something as... shallow as that." Twilight looked around, desperately hoping Naudia hadn't heard.
        Shining stared at her, dumbfounded.
        "I'm not going to let you turn this into a friendship letter later, Twilight, so I'm going to straighten you out on this right here and now." Shining cleared his throat and attempted to clear his mind. "There is absolutely nothing wrong with being attracted to your special somepony's physical attributes, all right?"
        "But-"
        "No buts Twilight, I know where you got that impression, so I can point out exactly where it is wrong. It's when you form a relationship with somepony exclusively because of that, is when it’s wrong. I know you've heard the nobles and tabloids talk, but that's not how the real world works."
        "But I'm attracted to her-"
        "Don't kneejerk back at me, Twilight. Think about what I said for a second before you just blow it off."
        It was then that they passed through the teal barrier and both completely forgot about what they were talking about, as they stumbled into a waking nightmare.
        They had walked into an enormous cavern, not just large, or huge, but ENORMOUS and gigantic on a truly humbling level. But that only stopped them dead for a mere moment, before their minds dipped into overdrive and they instinctively fell into a battle stance.
        There were pods, thousands of them. With ponies in all of them. And queues, hundreds of queues of ponies, waiting to be sealed into pods by changelings.
        Every stalactite, every crack and crevice, every surface, floor to ceiling, and even spacing out sometimes onto the Cavern floor itself, was covered in such pods. At the center, there was a changeling queen, floating in meditation and drawing in huge flows of emotional energy.
        Nopony, no changeling, had ever seen anything like it. Everypony turned to Rajani with seriously dirty looks on their faces. Everyling turned to her in awe. Everybody silently demanded an answer.
        "It was the only way." Rajani replied.
        Twilight, Shining, and most particularly Cadance, were now bearing down on Rajani angrily. Twilight even went so far as to pull her knife on Rajani.
        "Explain. Now."
        "Hey, hey HEY! No need to get violent, I can assure you there is a perfectly reasonable, heck, even a logical explanation for all this." Rajani was looking pleadingly at Twilight, who was holding her knife in a very un-Twilight-like, very authentic battle stance.
        "Explain." Even Shining and Cadance had noticed, and were taken aback by Twilight's fury.
        "OK, so we're fighting nightmares up top, actual physical nightmares manifest straight out of ponies dreams. It’s even bad enough to skeeve me out, and I've had to do some pretty serious patrols especially during that Discord incident.
        "And whatever Nightmare has done up top has blocked Luna out, so everybody is still having nightmares. And the closer they are to Canterlot, the worse they get. On top of that, we've got corrupted changelings working with them as well."
        Naudia glared at Rajani.
        "That's impossible. Nothing and nobody has been able to get them to do anything."
        "Tell that to the guards that were injured during the first attack. Nightmares swooping down, corrupted changelings seeping out of any crack and crevice they could get through. They were attacked from ways nobody is trained to be surrounded from. Nobody expects to have to be on guard from a drainpipe or a roof gutter."
        "So the only solution we have right now is this: Ponies need to get into pods and feed the queen so she can maintain the barrier, and also so we can stop them from succumbing to even more nightmares and start feeding attacks at us from within."
        "They would never willingly agree to that!"
        "Most didn't, not until their first nightmare. Now we've even got changelings sleeping in pods too, the nightmare is that strong."
        "So what does Princess Luna have to do with all this?" Naudia asked, being the first to recover.
        "What? How can you just accept what they're telling us, Naudia?" Shining demanded.
        "Because I can corroborate what they're telling me. I can trace where that love energy is going from here and it’s definitely not being stored up anywhere. Very nearly ALL of it is being used."
        None of the ponies were convinced.
        "I'll have to schedule you a meeting with her, if anything else she will be able to convince you."

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        Twilight once again moved in-between Naudia and another group of pony refugees. They were sitting on a hodgepodge of whatever they could manage to bring with them: folded-up curtains, blankets, a couch cushion here and there. It was hardly the worst refugee situation that had ever happened.
        However Twilight noticed something, something very wrong, and very important. There was a distinct lack of food.
        "Don't let them get to you, Naudia, this isn't your fault."
         "I'm trying not to."
        Naudia had been looking strained ever since they had moved into larger crowds of ponies. If it was because she was nervous, or simply from the emotions weighing down on her, Twilight wasn't sure.
        When they did finally reach the cave that was transformed into an administrative department, Twilight found an oddly familiar sight.
        It had been a long time since she had last had to get her ID done, and despite the room's off-the-wall furniture, this was an almost perfect recreation of the line she had faced there. Ponies in various states of uncomfortableness made a line that nearly lapped the entire room. Twilight couldn't see who was at the front of the line answering queries, but she did notice that the "desks" they were working at consisted entirely of a line of bookshelves laid on their sides.
        They got into the back of the line, and unlike anywhere and everywhere else in the refugee camp, nopony gave Naudia a second glance. The atmosphere here felt off and wrong compared to everywhere else.
        Twilight and Naudia actually stood in line in various states of confusion for almost a minute before Naudia woke up from her line-induced stupor and came to a realization.
        "I'm a Queen."
        Twilight looked at her quizzically.
        "That means I'm darn well not going to wait in this line. Come on, Twilight, we're going up to the front to make a complaint."
        As they cut through the line, which Twilight noticed was efficiently laid out to spiral through the room, ponies began to give them dirty looks. And for every dirty look, Naudia had a haughty, decisive, and even quite official-sounding retort. What also helped out immensely was their foreign-looking armor which had significantly more coverage than normal Changeling armor, and was designed very differently from most armors in Equestria.
        Twilight actually made a mental note to jot down "Stand aside for the emissary of the Malum Desertum Protectorate." Possibly for use later.*
        *It is important to note that "later" for Twilight meant "in some kind of library emergency," and the actual likelihood of that situation coming up in Ponyville was 0.
        When they finally got to the front of the line, Naudia having used her last and particularly official sounding retort, which Twilight quickly translated out to "Official Grand Poobah of the Hayburger Supreme play area," they found the last pony they ever expected to see at the "desk."
        "Rarity?" 
        Rarity flinched back from Twilight, holding up a book to block whatever magical attack she was sure was coming her way.
        On the other side of the book, Twilight had unconsciously grabbed the key hanging around her neck, and was standing with Naudia in between her and Rarity.
        Twilight tried to say something… and failed. Then Rarity did, with the same result. Each of them desperately trying to find words at this moment and failing. It was Naudia that had to break the silence.
        “Why don't we go into the back and discuss this like proper mares?”
        That woke Rarity up, possibly because the word “proper” was used, and possibly because she wasn't used to hearing a changeling queen's voice.
        “Ah yes, that does sound like a good idea.” Rarity did not meet the changeling queen's eyes, though.

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        “So… Darling. There are a lot of things I want to say right now.” Rarity took a deep breath to center herself. “Things like 'you have to understand' and 'I assure you I had the best of intentions' but…
        “All of that feels very hollow, like I'm trying to make an excuse for what happened. I wish I could go so far as to say 'I would have done things differently' but without knowing what I know now...” Rarity swallowed hard and took another moment to collect herself, and to her credit, nearly made it look like she was okay. “Without knowing what I know now, I can't say what happened between us would have gone any differently.”
        Rarity half expected Twilight to glance at Naudia and confirm what she just said, but she didn't.
        “Why do you say that?”
        “There are times when you have to look at yourself, and the ponies you look up to,” Rarity glanced back at the waiting room. “And face some unpleasant facts. I mean they aren't all bad, not by a long shot, it's just the worse ones, I could see a reflection of myself in them and I didn't like it. I couldn't be honest to those ponies, I always felt the need to stick with them, look good around them.
        “So I wanted to say, Twilight, that I'm sorry for not believing you.”
        Twilight let all of that sink in, the words mulling around in her head, fighting against her previous trauma. Eventually she came to a conclusion and wrapped Rarity in a hug.
        After the hug was over, which Naudia wasn't jealous of, at all, in the slightest, Twilight and Rarity got down to business.
        “So where are the others?”
        Naudia flinched back from the rapid shift in mood.
        “Ahh, about that Twilight...”
        As Twilight's mood dropped, and then dropped again farther, Naudia braved the cloud of emotions to walk over and comfort Twilight.
        “If it’s any comfort, we've never had any reports of corrupted changelings killing anybody. I'm not going to say they'll be perfectly fine, but don't give up hope.”
        “Really?”
        “I know a lot of people say things they don't mean, or say a lie when the truth hurts too much, but I wouldn't do that to you, Twilight. If we win here, they will be alive, but they might be changed…”
        “You don't mean...!”
        “Not into changelings. I mean… emotionally. They'll have seen things, but they should recover.”
        Twilight looked up into the strained face of Naudia, and it didn't inspire confidence in the slightest.
        “Oh dearie me, I seem to have let the mood down a bit there. How about we get you to Spike so you can fast-track your way to an appointment with Luna?”
        “Spike's OK?”
        “Oh, yes. He's the one practically running this whole establishment here.”