Talking with Crystalia Part 2
Twilight groaned as she slowly woke up. She felt like a train hit her she was so drained magically.
“Easy Twilight, you haven't fully recovered from the spell.” A voice said that sounded like Princess Celestia. She rubbed her eyes with her hooves and asked.
“How long was I out?”
“It's been about three days. You did bring over a couple of beings from another dimension, after all. Quite the feat, if I do say so myself.” That got Twilight to wake up and of course panic. She put her fore hooves on Celestia's chest and looked up at her face with worry.
“I did!? Oh no no no. Are they okay?” Celestia chuckled a bit.
“Oh, me and my daughter are fine, Twilight. In fact, I'm pretty sure she's checking out this hive of your counterpart's right now. I wanted to check on you, so here I am.” It was then Twilight noticed the fangs in Celestia's mouth, those short, regal fangs. She scooted back a bit and nervously asked.
“You're a changeling?” The Celestia nodded.
“Yes I am, but I'm not your enemy, and I am not Celestia, though I wore her mask for over thousand years.”
“Wore her mask?” Twilight asked puzzled.
“It'd probably be better if I started from the beginning.”
Crystalia told this Twilight of her world. It was interrupted when one of Queen Twilight's kids came in with food.
“How did they know I was awake?” Twilight asked as she took a daisy sandwich.
“I told my daughter, and she informed her guide. This hive mind took care of the rest.”
* * * * *
Crystalia finished her story as Twilight finished her meal. Twilight was depressed. She had taken Crystalia and her daughter from their home. She felt a wing tip under her chin. It lifted her head up so she was looking at a familiar yet unfamiliar face. A face then had nothing but kindness on it.
“Don't beat yourself up over this Twilight. It was an accident. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm using this opportunity to see what could have been if things were different. You were just trying to get home and I certainly don't blame you for that. I tried to resurrect a sister after she was dead for a thousand years.” She paused for a bit. “I succeeded. The Twilight I know has never let me down on the important things and neither will you.” Twilight relaxed as the words hit her.
'Crystalia is right. I am Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, Embodiment of Magic. I WILL solve this.'
“Now, get your rest Twilight. You will need it, and soon. You and I have much to do later.” Twilight yawned and, despite the food, she did still feel exhausted.
“That (yawn) sounds like a good idea.” She laid back down and was out like a light.
"Sleep well, Twilight," Crystalia said.
* * * * *
Crystal Shimmer walked along the shipyard constructing this hives biggest contribution to this world's Equestria, airships. Crystal was rather impressed by what these changelings had accomplished in the Everfree with so few resources. Back in Diamond Shimmer, there were mountains and an over-abundance of mineral ores and other valuable resources. Fertile soil, fresh water, everything needed for easy living. the fact Phoenix's Roost was in so remote a location, and one with far less resources than Diamond Shimmer, made Crystal wonder how they kept it all going.
<Crystal, please tell the locals that Twilight is up and will need food.>
<Of course mother.> She looked down to the lavender drone next to her. “My mother says that Princess Twilight is awake.” The drone called Metric nodded.
“Done. Mom and aunty are glad to here that.” Crystal titled her head and looked curiously at the drone.
“You consider your queens as aunt and mother?”
“Yes. Mom gave birth to all of us with lavender fur, while the cyans are from aunty Rainbow.” Crystal looked around her and seeing the sheer number of drones around and considering that the hive was only a few years old with this many was staggering. “Why are you surprised. All hives are like that. Hey, before they got consorts, mom and aunty self fertilize. It's how we are designed. A queen in proto form lays four eggs a day till she has a couple hundred drones to get a hive started.”
“We are much different. I am mother's only daughter but all of us share a similar source. We have families and honestly aren't too different from ponies. Our hive started with eight thousand, or at least, I THINK it was eight thousand. It might have been more....”
“EIGHT THOUSAND!” Metric said with astonishment. “We are at about four thousand between mom and aunty. Granny Caddy's hive has been a steady four thousand but that's increased since we started sending them love crystals. The average hive has about ten thousand.” Metric looked at her with curious eyes. “How big is your hive now?”
“Oh, it's still my mom's hive, but last I checked, we had about fifty thousand.” She saw Metric's jaw drop and even the drones in view jerk suddenly.
'Did I just break them?'
“You-you could easily rival Queen Silandrus' hive! Maybe even take her out on your own.” That name sounded familiar to Crystal. From one of the old history books she'd read when she was little.
“Who is this Silandrus?”
“She's the oldest of the queens and has the hive to prove it. As Prime Matriarch she sets when a summit happens and the rules in the summit. She's respected, though we recently found out she was the one who ordered the attack on mom.” Metric frowned before she turned it into a smirk. “In truth she is responsible for all of this. Phoenix's Roost would not exist without her attack. I wouldn't exist without her.” Crystal felt the fear in her guide. Crystal started to understand why.
“So that's why all of your are so interested in Princess Twilight. She's a glimpse of what your mother would be like if that event hadn't happened, if Cadista hadn't come forward, which lead to the attempt on Twilight's life.” Metric nodded.
“The link between us and granny's hive gives us a lot of information on it. Three scenarios come into play. If Silandrus hadn't attacked at best there would be a peace treaty and likely trade agreement between Equestria and Stripped Gear. Me and my siblings wouldn't exist. IF Silandrus had succeeded in killing mom then I believe all the hives would be gone or just about my now. Silandrus underestimated how important mom is to Princess Celestia. The last is what happened. I'm happy to be alive, but I can see what mom's and aunty's life could have been like. Mom could have been an alicorn and, according to Princess Twilight, been the Princess of Friendship. Aunty was in the Wonderbolts and without the politics with mom she would have easily been second in command, and likely have become the next captain when the current one retires. Not to mention the relationship between mom and her pony mom.” That got Crystal's attention. She had met Twilight Velvet on one occasion, and thought of her as being proud of Twilight, no matter what happened. Heck, she'd been on the verge of tears when she'd found out Twilight had become an alicorn.
“What happened?"Metric sighed and answered the question.
“She never took mom's change well. While she was grateful for Granny Cady saving her and all, she was dead set on making mom a unicorn again, even though mom didn't want to. She eventually committed treason to try to force mom back into a unicorn.” Crystal felt the sadness from the drone and put her forehoof around her.
“A changeling's life is rarely easy. The first Queen of Diamond Shimmer only ruled it for one hundred years, but she was there for the thousand years prior it took to build the place. We've had a couple of major fights as well. Fate or chance has given you life. It's yours to do with what you please. Do your mom and aunt love you?” Metric nodded. “Then that's all the matters. Sure things could be different. I believe in their minds you and your siblings are worth it.” She felt her guide get better. “Now then, let's continue this tour, shall we?” Again the drone nodded and they continued on as Crystal thought on her own words.
'A simple choice caused so many changes between our world and this one. What choices alter mom's hive in this world?'
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cool, loved it
6372730 Make her more insane.
The story is enjoyable, but the writing leaves something to be desired. Lack of editing aside, it's rather bland, and doesn't convey the story well.
6426299 this has become a collab. however if you have time to edit i wouldn't mind at all.
6426332 I'd like to, but I'm a bit busy at the moment. Maybe some other time.
6427735 no hurries. if you do one I'll post it and cred you.
I've read a number of stories where a character meets with a version of themselves from another universe/timeline, and they're almost always quite fun. Unfortunately, this is one of the stories that puts the "almost" in "almost always".
For me the biggest problem is that the most fun part of such stories is usually seeing the characters' reactions to the different way their life could have turned out - and to the different choices their alternate self made. However, we see very little here about what Princess Twilight Sparkle and Queen Twilight Sparkle think of one-another's lives, and while we see a little bit of what the other characters think of Princess Twilight we don't see enough of that either.
The second biggest problem is that there is far too much recapping done of the events of the Hive series and Friendship is Magic. Chances are that most of your readers are familiar with both already, and even if they're not they don't need the level of detail seen in these recaps to follow this story. Solving the first problem would actually help this one as well; if the Twilight Sparkles were reacting more to what they were learning about each-other's history the recaps wouldn't seem quite as gratuitous (though even then the recaps could use a little bit of pruning).
The final major problem is the lack of editing. If you aren't a good enough self-editor to produce something you're willing to call a final draft, then you really should wait until you can get someone to edit it for you before posting it. Most people don't want to read rough drafts for fun, and first impressions count for a lot; if your story isn't well written now there's a good chance people not only won't stick around to read more, but they won't come back later to see what it looks like once it's edited either.
I also want to mention a few chapter-specific problems I've noticed.
In "Spike!", it seems odd that after several days Rainbow Dash had yet to even mention the fact that Princess Twilight had wound up in a different universe.
In "Freakouts" we learn that Queen Twilight had yet to inform any of her friends outside of the Hive of the appearance of Princess Twilight, unless she was really busy this seems out of character. It also seems a little strange to me that Applejack would just assume Princess Twilight is Queen Twilight when they look so different, but with her making that assumption I would have expected her to be a little more worried about how strangely Twilight was acting.
Furthermore, even with Applejack encouraging her, Princess Twilight should have been reluctant to enter a Changeling hive.
I'm not a fan of the "Q Twilight" and "P Twilight" naming scheme; I don't know what your motivations for it were, but as a reader it feels like you were being too lazy to type out "Queen" and "Princess". It's nice to see you abandoned the practice after a chapter, but why didn't you go back and fix it in "Comparing Lives"?
In "An Attempt for Home", I was surprised Celesitia didn't know about Princess Twilight yet - I thought when Queen Twilight contacted her back in "Spike!" to look into Princess Twilight's story she would have mentioned why she was asking about Sunset Shimmer and whatnot.
It's a little strange a spell designed to move Princess Twilight from the Hive world to her own world would instead summon ponies from a third world tot he Hive world. If the spell was going to go wrong, it would have made more sense to me for Princess Twilight to be transported to another world, just the wrong world.
Finally, I'd like to say that the last three chapters were much more fun to read than what came before (good work, ThePrinceOfTheNorth) but I think the story has had about as much of ponies sitting around talking as it can handle; within the next few chapters either some conflict should develop or the story should wrap up, otherwise it risks getting boring.
6541503 Conflict will happen next chapter.
6591787 working on it.
6775507
Alternia?