The Regime

by Wheller

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Carmine spent another night in the changeling hive. She relished the chance to be close to Queen Chrysalis. The hive was her mother, and she felt that she belonged here.

Chrysalis disagreed.

Carmine sat on her lap on the obsidian throne, looking up at her Queen with a frown on her face. 'I was hoping to stay, we've had so much time apart, and I would really love to know you more. Must I go?'

Chrysalis frowned and nodded her head. 'The Praesidium, as a rule, finds collateral damage unacceptable, but they would have no way of knowing that you're here. I could leak the information to them, but I have enough dignity not to use my own daughter as a living shield,' she said simply.

Carmine smiled at that. Her mother had given off an air of callous disregard for life in their earlier talks, but just like everything else in changeling society. It had been just for show.

'I'm going to miss you terribly,' Carmine admitted.

'And so shall I, so shall we all. Fret not my darling daughter. I will always be close by, just as I always have been,' Chrysalis added with a bright smile. 'But say not goodbye yet, I will be escorting you home personally,' she said and stepped off her obsidian throne, and reshaped into Ryswell's form.

'Does it not bother you to be a stallion, mother?' Carmine asked, cocking her head to the side.

Ryswell chuckled. 'Mare, Stallion, asexually reproducing hermaphrodite, no difference at all really, not when you really think about it,' he commented, with an idle wave of his foreleg.

Carmine rolled her eyes, there was no point in arguing.

…

She'd been surprised how different the landscape seemed now that she knew the secret of the Regime.

She realised that there were eyes upon on her at all times, and hidden changelings were all around. There was a squirrel that took too much interest in her and Ryswell as they walked. There was a bird that pecked at the ground idly and let them get far too close for it to be any natural bird. When they stopped to have a bite to eat for lunch, she could swear that the rock she sat on had enjoyed it.

Ryswell only smiled without comment.

Carmine had a newfound appreciation for the wilderness of the Regime. She knew now that she knew the loving eyes of her new family were upon her, always on her. She never had to fear loneliness again.

A thought dawn upon her, and she looked to Ryswell with a blush on her face.

'Mother...' She said.

'Call me Ryswell, but what is it, darling?' He asked.

'Do we have any privacy in the villages? For when... you know...' She asked, blushing hotly.

Ryswell grinned. 'Why? Worried about something? Something embarrassing you wish to hide from your mother?' He asked, playfully.

'Well, I'll be a grown mare soon and...'

'Ah, have a stallion in your eyes?' Ryswell asked.

'Well no, but...'

'A mare then? There were a few in your village that I liked the look of when we were last there. Very pretty.'

'No—you are insufferable!'

'I know, isn't it grand?' Ryswell asked with a bright grin.

Carmine couldn't help but chuckle. She was going to miss the changeling's playful outlook on life.

They set a brisk pace as they travelled. A good steady trot. Without the wagons of the caravan to slow them down, they would reach the village by nightfall.

As she walked, she began to feel glum. Ryswell, of course, as a changeling picked up on the shift in her mood immediately.

'What's wrong, my sweet?' He asked as he waved her off the road.

The two of them sat down in the grass and Carmine's emerald eyes began to water. 'I don't want you to leave me,' she said.

Ryswell wrapped her in his forelegs, hugging her tightly, and resumed the form of Queen Chrysalis.

Carmine smiled up at her. 'Please... I've lived for fifteen years without a mother... I don't want you to leave me.'

Chrysalis gently pet her head. 'Sweet child, I understand the fear of being alone. It is every changeling's most terrible fear, being without the warmth and light of the hive mind... I can only imagine it to be the most terrible experience in this life,' she said, glancing away over Carmine's shoulder.

Carmine nodded her head in affirmation. It made Chrysalis look terribly guilty.

'It is impossible—I won't lie. I can see the appeal, being wife to your father, and raising you properly into a respectable young lady—'

'The exact kind you never were?' Carmine asked, teasingly.

Chrysalis giggled. 'Of course. I'd say: "do what I say, not as I do", and you'd never listen of course because you have too much of me in you,' she added with a smile and leaned back against a tree. 'I can picture it now, how perfect it would be,' she trailed off, as a frown formed on her face, and a tear ran down her cheek.

'It cannot be though. No matter how much I might wish it. Being a changeling is just too dangerous, and I would never be able to devote enough time and attention to give you what you deserve, sweet child,' she said.

Carmine frowned. 'You told me once that the hive could focus on doing thousands of tasks at once without being distracted—'

'That I did, and it is true for mundane tasks, but for moments like this one? What we are doing now, it requires a great deal of focus from the hive. Our awareness is currently focused here, and now,' she said and reached over, placing one of her jagged hooves on Carmine's cheek. 'I want to say yes to you. Carmine, we all do. More than anything else. We are all so conflicted about what to do, many of our voices wish to give our full attention to you, the sentimental dreamers long for it, the practical voices know we cannot without sacrificing much control elsewhere. I—'

Carmine raised a hoof to her. 'Say no more mother, I understand the impossible choice you make, you cannot sacrifice the good of the hive for your feelings for me—it was selfish of me to try and convince you otherwise,' she said and gave her mother a tight hug.

'Not selfish, no,' Chrysalis said as she embraced her daughter back. "It is not selfish to want a mother's love. And our love you shall have, even if it is not as often as we both would like.'

Carmine smiled and hugged her mother tightly, she had never loved anyone more in her entire life.

Author's Note:

I never completed this story due to a computer failure in 2016, that took my attention elsewhere. However, after finally getting around to getting the data recovered, I found the more or less complete final chapter sitting there. Enjoy!

Comments

[Davidp1522]

Wmg Wheller, you cant just be laying this on me before I head off to work.
or maybe you can.