PaP: Bedtime Stories

by Starscribe

Chip's Challenge

The world passed before Chip in a timeless eternity. She saw very little, felt almost nothing, moved hardly at all. She had been something once, but now was barely anything. So small her mind could barely string together thoughts, so cold that it took an eternity to reach each one. She wanted to grow, to expand, to mature, but found she could do none of those things. The icy chill all around her kept her small, obscured the world in a thin sheen of frost. Once she felt the whole world shake, and barely-developed eyes took in a brief interruption in the icy barrier. Cloth, maybe, or the edge of a hoof. Her whole world moved.

She let herself hope that maybe, finally, she was being taken somewhere warm, somewhere damp, somewhere she could finally hatch. Instead the cold returned, her mind slowed again, and her undeveloped body returned to its state of half-frozen suspension. Her mind was so cold it took years for her to connect otherwise simple ideas. Fear at how small and utterly helpless she was remained a constant in her perception, the knowledge that at any time anypony could reach down and crush her tiny world with a hoof. She would die then, not even fully born.

If I’m just going to be left here forever, that might not be so bad. She had lived many lifetimes. Broken many eggs. Yet in all that time, she’d served only one queen.

I won’t be there to greet you when you wake up, Chip, Riley’s voice echoed in her memory, one of the last things she’d seen. You’ve been my child so many times, remained faithfully at my side and always reminded me of my humanity.

Let me be your daughter then, Riley. You know how long I’ve waited. You know how much you need another friendly queen! I can feel how hungry you are, even now…

No, Riley had said, embracing him one last time. His own body had been gray and brittle, hers slightly skinny perhaps but still vibrant and full of life. As beautiful as ever Chip had seen her. So far as he was concerned, Riley was the perfect queen. His love for her had been enough to keep her fed all by itself, maybe years ago.

It couldn’t anymore. An ancient queen required the love of thousands. Every year she needed more, and he was still just one male. Even his unfaltering devotion giving willingly wasn’t enough.

I can feel the madness clawing at my mind, Chip. The hunger… if it gets much worse, I don’t know what I’d do to make it go away. I don’t know what I’d sacrifice. What I’d steal…

You wouldn’t! he shouted, raising his voice just a little. You’d die before you caught and hurt other ponies the way other queens do. I know you.

Riley hadn’t argued the point. I let myself hope… hope that Ezri might be a cure to all of this. But even after all these years, I failed. Lonely Day’s parting gift won’t be deciphered in my lifetime.

If it’s that bad… then forget I asked. Forget I asked for anything. Make me a drone, or… or nothing. I’ve already had many years of service to the hive. I can be content with that.

Maybe you can, Riley had answered. I can’t. I have a debt to pay. In return, you’re going to remember me like this. You won’t see what I become. You won’t kill yourself after I’m gone, because you’ll know I gave some of the last glamour I had to make you. Do you understand?

He hadn’t had the strength to talk anymore. He just nodded, tears streaming down his face.

Whatever pony had come up with the lie that changelings couldn’t feel emotions had been dead wrong. Chip had felt despair, felt like his whole world was ending. He’d died many times, been recycled over and over again, and each time Riley was his constant. She was a star, a demigod. What had he been but a butterfly, a brief flash of color or cleverness in her garden before dying with the winter. It seemed a crime that such an ancient and powerful being should be dying now. One who had done so much good… she deserved better.

It seemed like Lonely Day had made changelings part of her responsibility. She was going to cure them one day, they all knew it.

Except she hadn’t cured them. She’d died, and her gift had proven hollow. Any faith that she might ever come back was long gone now.

Chip felt bitterness welled up inside her at the memory of the one who’d abandoned them. The Equestrian’s had hoof-picked her as their guardian, picked her as their ambassador, and she’d been killed within a few centuries. All the power of their magic hadn’t amounted for much compared to the evil that was out there in the world.

That evil went unchecked now, ravaging the seas. Even Riley with all the power of her hive hadn’t been enough to stem his progress.

Chip knew nothing about the outside world now. Her mind was a very small thing, a faint spark of a memory, that was all. An egg, even a queen’s egg, was not very large. They also took an order of magnitude more time to develop than drones or males. By the time her sensory organs developed enough to recognize the distinction between inside her egg and out, she realized she’d been put on ice.

Chip had supervised this very same thing be done to eggs many times before. Changelings were notoriously sensitive to the cold—unprotected drones could freeze in just a few hours. But their eggs… their eggs were quite hardy. An egg kept below freezing could store… forever, so far as anypony knew. Riley couldn’t control how many eggs she produced, exactly. The drive to mate came when it came, and demanded fulfillment. Often it was so intense that a dozen males were required to satisfy her, and thousands of eggs were the result.

Chip thought she knew where she’d ended up, from the soft contours around the bottom of her world, just through the film of ice. Deep in Riley’s most sacred temple was a spell built by the legendary Joseph himself, a charm of perpetual freezing that kept warehouse-sized rooms a few degrees below freezing. No queen had ever been stored here before, but she didn’t know any reason it couldn’t be done.

I’ll be here forever, she thought to herself, staring out the imprisoning wall of her egg in the vain hope she might catch sight of something moving in the world beyond. Aside from the once, she never had. Her eyes were only developed enough to sense light and dark anyway, really, so she could only get patches. Like the time hooves had touched her egg, and she’d wondered if they would kill her.

At least she didn’t have to work hard to pass the time. With a brain only partially formed, it was easy to drift away. It took a conscious effort to keep a single train of thought for very long. The more she despaired, the more she let herself drift into merciful oblivion.

Until one day, something changed. It took a long time, but slowly her mind began to stir. The coldness was gone. Organic processes her body had almost abandoned began again. She twitched muscles she’d never expected she would get to use, her young body beginning the process of development again. She feared the frost would come again, hoped that the shock would be too much and she would die… but it didn’t come.

The world outside her egg was very dark now, and damp. Occasionally she felt her universe vibrate as someone passed her egg, maybe even moved it. It was very hard to tell.

But none of it mattered, really. Either Chip would survive to escape her egg, or she wouldn’t. Either there was enough glamour left for her in the egg, or there wasn’t.

Time passed, and she grew. It seemed less like she was floating in a sea and more like she was locked up somewhere, bound together by her legs, tied and immoveable. Eventually the sea of pure glamour she swam in began to dry up, consumed by her desperate body as she grew stronger.

I’m going to put you somewhere safe, Chip. Somewhere nopony will find you when I die and the swarm eats itself alive. But one day… one day, you’ll be found, and you’ll be born. Remember me, then. Take all your sisters I never got to raise, and make the best swarm you can. Maybe your daughters won’t try to kill you like so many of mine did. Maybe… maybe you’ll be the one to finally crack Ezri’s secret. Maybe not. I won’t love you any less either way.

She kicked against the hardened glamour holding her in place. It gave under the pressure, but didn’t break. Chip inhaled with brand-new lungs, and found no air waiting for her. She was beginning to suffocate.

She kicked again, more fervently this time. She rocked slightly to the side, but still the egg held her. I’m not going to die in here! Not after waiting so long! She kicked again, just as she was rocking back the furthest in the other direction. She rocked forward again, further than the last time. The world wobbled as it neared the end of its period, then came back.

Chip kicked with the last of her strength, and this time it was enough. She rolled forward through the air, smashing into the ground a second later. The fall wasn’t very far—only a few feet, really. Even so, the impact was enough to crush the egg under the pressure, spilling her out onto the cold stone ground.

She lay on her back for a long time, hacking and coughing and, well, crying like a baby.

For the longest time, nopony came. That was fine with her—it was warm here, there was moisture all around her, and it was dark. Those three factors combined for a very comfortable environment indeed for a changeling. She was no pony foal, helpless and weak. Chip was something more, something different.

Make it count.

* * *

Newborn changelings were even more independent than young ponies, who could already walk within an hour and run within their first week. Queens were no exception—if anything, Chip was even better-formed upon her birth than a drone.

Like any of her rebirths, Chip’s personality had survived far better than her memories. More distant rebirths and their memories were more like dreams, boiling away in the presence of the morning sun. Memories of her most recent life were clearer, in particular the moments before her “death”.

Chip stood on a rough stone floor, soft hooves struggling a little to find purchase on a layer of straw piled onto the ground. Her nose was assaulted with a horrible barrage of scents—rot, mold, moisture, blood… like the worst hives she’d seen while touring with Riley. Riley’s nurseries had always been clean, clinical, safe.

This wasn’t that. Chip stood up to her knees in the bits and pieces of old eggs, many of which were covered in a thin layer of mold. She recoiled involuntarily, staggering away. Stone walls rose above her, so high she could hardly see the roof. The only light came from ahead, through a set of heavy steel bars.

Chip couldn’t see anything clearly yet, her eyes still clouded, her wings years from growing in, teeth not formed. She was almost completely helpless.

At least she wasn’t alone. She could feel them more than see them, dozens of figures crawling or cowering in the corners of the room. Drones. They weren’t her drones—those parts of her weren’t developed enough yet. Even so, she could sense their confusion, their loneliness, their despair.

Time passed, Chip found herself somewhere clean in the corner of the room, trying to make herself as small as possible. She was cold, lonely, missing a mother she knew she would never have. But even the worst queens Chip had ever met didn’t treat their newborn brood this badly. What was the point of locking up newborns? As time went by, as her eyes began to clear and her body stopped hurting, Chip saw the result of this treatment—the ground wasn’t just covered with eggshells, but corpses as well. There weren’t any eggs left, only other drones… at least half of them were dead.

Even freshly born, the drones could tell there was something different about her. As time wore on, more and more of them drifted across the tiny prison, clustering around her, each pitiful form desperate for her attention. Chip didn’t have much to give—she didn’t have much more glamour than they did. Once it ran out…

Help they thought to her, begging for her to take control. It wasn’t a word exactly, so much as a primitive, desperate need. Even Riley in her enlightened hive had not forced drones to grow up alone. Instinct demanded the hive, the mind that was many bodies and one. She had experienced it over and over, even if she’d been born intelligent each time. There was something comforting about knowing that she was never alone. If Chip was overwhelmed, frightened, or confused, she’d always been able to fall back on the knowledge of the hive, and ultimately of the queen herself.

Never again. I have to be their strength now.

Yet as the drones clamored for her orders, her control, clamored for her to take their suffering away in impressions that weren’t words, Chip was forced to deny them each and every time. She couldn’t control drones, not yet. She could only express her sympathy, her love, a promise that somehow, they’d find a way out.

She tried to reach beyond their little room, searching for other changelings. Another queen to explain why Riley’s ancient young had been so mistreated. Maybe they’d been forgotten, maybe she could call for help. Maybe there was a drone somewhere who would listen. Chip tried to reach further, but ultimately failed. A few hours were not long enough for a development that might take years.

Metal ground in front of her, the floor shaking as the door was swung open. Several ponies stood there, wearing thick metal armor. They shouted, but their words didn’t register with her. Chip didn’t understand their language.

She considered calling out to them, wondering if maybe these were the ponies that had come to help. Then they stomped into the room, trampling the fallen and prodding at the living with their spears. They want us out, she realized, and immediately all the drones began to follow. Chip wasn’t controlling them—but she didn’t need to. They would imitate a queen if they saw one.

There were four of them in all—earth ponies in heavy metal chain armor. Their legs had sturdy guards they used to prod and kick. Chip was soon at the center of a dense crowd of drones, perhaps two dozen in all. All with the same faint green frills, the last suggestions of long-dead Riley.

They moved down the hall to a room with a tile floor, a large drain, and attendants wielding buckets and soap. Again their escorts shouted, before shoving one of the drones towards the cleaners. The child kicked and struggled, snapping at the guard. The earth pony wasn’t impressed. He kicked, snapping thin chitin and sending the drone flying through the air to land in a limp heap on the ground.

Chip winced—she couldn’t feel the pain of a drone not in her swarm, but she could imagine it. The poor drone squealed in agony, bleeding green ichor from the wound. She died in twitching misery before their eyes.

She couldn’t understand what the guards said next, but they didn’t seem to be talking to them. We’re not prisoners. This isn’t an accident. We’re… animals.

Stop fighting, she thought, begged to the lonely drones. Most of them obeyed. They didn’t resist as they were herded individually up into the room, where the assembled attendants rinsed them down with ice-cold water and sent them dripping into the room beyond. Chip cooperated without objection, staying ahead of the prodding hooves or the kicks they might give her for disobedience. Their unicorn attendants scrubbed her raw, but she could guess what they wanted and always turned over cooperatively to make it easier for them.

Nopony seemed to notice she wasn’t a drone—didn’t notice how different her eyes were, or that unlike all the drones, she didn’t have wings.

Compared to the chill of the washroom and the harshness of the soap was a room of sweltering heat, where a long iron poker rested in the heat of a forge. Oh God.

Chip soon understood why the drones who came in here sent such pain into the room behind them. A single unicorn and a single guard stood within, forcing them through one at a time. With Chip’s involvement, the guards didn’t have much to do. At her direction, the drones had stopped struggling. At least no more of them were dead.

Chip whimpered and cowered as her turn came, and she walked up to the unicorn waiting by the forge. He looked almost pained as he levitated the white-hot metal from within the fire, and brought it against her flank.

She was on fire. Chip collapsed, one leg twitching, green blood oozing from within her outer shell. She wanted to curl up right there, unmoving, crying herself insensate… but she didn’t. The pain faded into a dull ache, and Chip dismissed it, rising again. She wouldn’t risk a kick and the likely death that would represent. I must survive.

The survivors cowered together in another tiny room, waiting for their fellows to join them. Chip felt their pain anew, their desperation and absolute despair. If they could form words, they would probably be asking why she’d let this happen to them. Why had she abandoned them? Why did she want them to suffer?

I don’t! she tried to tell them. I don’t want this! I’m in as much pain as you! But we have to work together if we want to escape.

They didn’t escape that day. When they’d all been washed and branded, the handlers led them to a long, dark room, with only tiny barred windows near the ceiling for light. There was straw on the ground, and a pair of troughs in the center. One had icy cold water trickling through from parts unknown, the other slightly rotten meat.

The doors slammed closed behind them, locking. There were no older drones here, no ponies, nothing but a straw floor and plain rock walls.

At least they had food. Changelings could eat almost anything, though adults almost never did. The only nutrition they really needed was love. There was another way, one only the worst of the queens had ever learned. The meat of sapient creatures could be eaten, and in that way a changeling could consume the most fundamental love shared by nearly all beings: the love of life itself.

It didn’t really matter that the meat was half-rotten. A growing drone needed mass with which to build a growing body, but that was secondary. It was the love they really needed.

The drones were less discerning. Many of them had woken before her, and were desperately hungry. Chip waited in the back, waited until hunger compelled her to make her way forward as well. It’s eat now, or die.

She ate, even though she could see the bits of colored fur and hooves poking out from the bottom of the trough. Ate even as her stomach turned in absolute revulsion at what she tasted. When she’d had her fill, she crawled her way to a dark corner to cry.

Make the best swarm you can, Chip. Be the queen you always expected me to be.

I want to Riley, she sobbed into the quiet and the dark. I just don’t know how.

Comments

[Ciber]

I am sad now.

[Booster Spice]

Factory farm for slave workers? Just what did it take, time of abandonment, damage etc, for Josephs Vaults to be breached?

[Neece]

Goddamn it Star. Why do you need to make us hurt so?

8029470 don't think it's that. If they're using ponies to feed them it doesn't make sense for them to be only slaves. There's certainly more to this than we can tell, yet.
But that just means we have to wait for more.
Star is still evil for that, though.

[KMCA]

8029470 Remember though, the kingdom that declared war on Alex pre-ascension was based in Alexandria.

Does this seem that far removed.

Also Star, buddy?
This isn't what I was hoping for when I asked whatever happened to chip.

Not sure if I should be thankful or not, so I'll just sit here and enjoy the ride.

[Doppler Effect]

Aw, a sad ending for Riley.

And a fairly horrific new beginning for Chip. I wonder what they want the changelings for anyway, if they think of them as animals and not even as people to be enslaved? Sacrifices for the blood magic, maybe? It looks like a pretty horrible time to be trying to create an idealistic new changeling hive at any rate.

[Yami Vizzini]

And so another character we haven't seen in a while ends up trans by plot necessity.

Seriously though, I'd kind of forgotten about the hive. Now another curious wrinkle in the civilizations of this world.

[Helium]

Having read evoli's story before this is certainly going to make things interesting. Wonder if chip will eventually meet with whats his name's hive and if he'll "evolve/become whole" too. Have to admit i dont remember a lot of characters from evoli's story.

[Divine Path]

It’s not exactly realistic to instantly switch pronouns based on a character changing sex in an unorganic way, but okay.