The Age of Hunting

by SwordTune

The Queen

Queen Chrysalis smiled down at her child, watching the march of funny looking, oversized drones dragging a constrictor's body down to the heart of the hive. All at once, memories of her own succession flooded back. The Queen couldn't even remember how long ago it was.

She had seen ponies in the Pen grow old and die countless times, and it all clumped together in one blurred frame of time. But now was not the day to look back. Her daughter, appearing in no particular way unique, had managed to crawl back to her home, victorious.

Tenacity was a wild flame, eager to kill anything. But chatter among the drones confirmed Spectra had let that fire burn out. Majesta was an imposing figure but trusted in herself too much to change. Too much like the Queens of the past.

Chrysalis shook herself out of wonderment and focused on Spectra. Her drones filled the hive, forming rings around the main cavern. Beside her, the first pony she had taken from the surface stood meekly. The renewed pride was written on her aura.

Good. The Queen could only as to what she was thinking, but there was loyalty in her emotions. Spectra would need all of it. There was a long path to become the Queen.

"You have done well, daughter," Chrysalis said, for once speaking with joy. Spectra's eyes lit up at the scent, but her posture remained composed. "And at just a year old. It's been summer for quite some time. I believe your birthday was a few weeks ago."

The Queen's laugh was cold, even as her aura exuded a sweet peppermint smell. "I think it's time we had our little Queen to Princess."

Spectra fought the urge to jump to her mother's side. She gave herself time to collect her thoughts, turning around to look at all her drones. Her captain stood out from the pack, proudly wearing the ichor of his dead brothers. She nodded to him, casting her eyes over to Lunti, expecting him to know to bring her back to the pantry.

The rest of the drones could be organized by the other captains. Spectra hurriedly stepped up to the Queen, wearing a serious face. "My sisters are dead. Whatever the hive needs from me, I'll handle responsibility."

"I don't doubt it," Queen Chrysalis said, "but every Queen needs to know the importance of the mantle. Follow me. I'll show you what it means to be Chrysalis."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lunti watched the drones scuttle back to their holes and crevices. Compared to the cavern they kept her in, the main cavern was brighter, and a great deal bigger too. Her eyes had long since adjusted to the dark. It certainly wasn't as good as the Changelings' eyes, but she could pick each one out by their silhouette against the glowing fungi, and look them in the eyes by looking for the only glossy part of their body that wasn't covered in rough chitin.

That didn't make the layout of the hive any less confusing. Outside of her cavern, she knew nothing about the hive. The tunnels up and down from the main cavern were like parts of a maze. She only collected her sense of place when Spectra's captain grabbed her by the shoulder.

"Didn't expect you to do that," he sneered at him. "Ponies usually run the moment they can, not save their Princess. But do you think she'd let you go free just for that?"

Lunti brushed his leg away, staring straight into his glistening black eyes. "I'm not going back. I helped Spectra, saved her even. I can keep helping if she lets me."

"Maybe another time," the captain said, reaching for Lunti again.

She stepped back. "I know I'm her favourite. Meal, prisoner, I don't care what I am to her, but I know she keeps me for a reason. You'll have to hurt me before I go back to the cavern!"

"Pantry," he corrected, "it's more of a pantry, compared to the rest of the hive."

Lunti clenched her teeth, not willing to let the hunter-drone intimidate her. The other drones hummed around the hive, carrying out waste and organizing into new patrols, but one by one, the other captains and lieutenants started to watch Lunti talking back.

"I already proved myself. I can do more than sit around in the dark," Lunti said.

"You were definitely a surprise, " the captain retorted with a sly chuckle. "But that's not for me to decide. Princess Spectra expects you back in your cage. I have my orders."

"Why not surprise her again?" Lunti fought harder. The captain's grip was getting fiercer, but she didn't give up. "Tie me up, do whatever you have to do, but I am staying outside!"

She bit him on the neck, cracking through the upper layer of his carapace. The soft flesh underneath was exposed, but already his magic was healing the wound. The captain looked more inconvenienced than he was angry. However, even though she couldn't smell thoughts and emotions, Lunti knew she was wearing his patience.

She fought hard to wear a calm face. "I didn't hear her say anything to you. How do you know what she wants?"

"I am her captain," he said. "I simply know. I don't expect you would understand."

"And that's your problem. That's all you are, another weapon for her to use. But if you're doing all the fighting for her, who's doing the thinking?"

The captain scoffed. "Princess Spectra wouldn't need you for that. She'll be a Chrysalis, more powerful than you could ever know."

Lunti rolled her eyes. The captain sounded more like a dragon from a filly's tale. Power, might, invincibility. Now the circle of drones was growing thicker, all of them watching and nodding along with the captain. Every drone in the cavern trusted Spectra's potential.

"All-powerful and all-knowing are not the same," Lunti replied, remembering something the Queen said. "How long has she lived among ponies? She's a year old. Couldn't have been that long. Me? I've lived among them for twenty years. A lot longer, don't you think?"

"That's what we're for," the captain hissed back. "I, and the other drones, have hunted your kind for as long as your kind as existed. We might even know your kind better than you know yourselves."

Lunti clenched her jaw, readying herself for a strike to come at any moment. But as long as she had their ears, she'd keep talking. "And that's enough to give Spectra advice? What if she's wrong, and you can't tell her otherwise? Don't tell me you actually have the ability to challenge your Queen's orders."

The very thought of that made the hunter-drones recoil. The captain hesitated, and for a moment his words were caught in his throat. And Lunti seized her chance.

"Ha! You can barely think for yourselves," she laughed, forcing her uneasiness back into her belly. She had practised hiding her feelings before. The councilmembers of Riverfork had a talent for reading expressions. To survive as a councilmember's daughter, Lunti had to be confident in her acting ability.

Suddenly, the fear subsided. She acknowledged the danger she was in, surrounded by hunter-drones without Spectra to claim her as a prize. But even the indignity of being a prize was subdued inside her. The only thing she needed now was control.

"Just let me stay out here," she said. "You and I both know escape isn't an option. But I can be her other voice, a second opinion that keeps her from making a mistake."

Slowly, the captain paced around her. Her eyes followed his steps, scanning him and the cavern at the same time. The other drones watched intensely, but there was a look of confusion written all over their faces. The captain closed his eyes and breathed, leaning closer and closer to Lunti.

He opened his eyes and glared at her, partly with hatred and partly with awe. "Where are your emotions? Your aura, it's as stale as a corpse."

A rush of air rushed from her lungs, but Lunti caught herself just in time and held her breath. She was surprised that her acting worked so well it suppressed her aura. She remembered how much Spectra had taunted her over the smell and taste of her emotions. For a Changeling, those senses must have been just as important as sight.

And in the lightless depth of the hive, she believed it. "Maybe Spectra could answer that for you."

"You'd never help her," the captain replied. "Ponies are weak, but you still have a sense of revenge. It's one of the best emotions your kind produces."

"We can also think with reason," Lunti forced herself to think of something else, something that made her angry. She remembered an argument she had with her father as a filly, about him always being at council meetings and never having time for her. It was a young memory, full of raw emotions. And it was just enough to produce a wave of false anger toward the captain's insult.

Ironically, the scent of anger seemed to relax the drones, the captain included. They stopped looking at her like she was an abomination and resumed their usual level of predatory glaring.

"If you're suspicious of me, then you really can't think like your enemies." Lunti raised a brow at him, shooting a mockingly curious look. "Not a good flaw, for a captain."

His wings buzzed, bristling with frustration, but Lunti continued before he could cut her off. "If Spectra becomes Queen, she'll have a lot more ponies to feed on. I wouldn't be special, just another poor soul trapped in her jaws. True, I'd rather be free than special. But, I'll settle for the latter if I have to."

The captain felt the situation falling apart. He gave her too much time, and not enough credit. A pony wasn't supposed to argue with a Changeling, they were supposed to grovel like food. Then again, a pony wasn't supposed to save a Changeling either. He turned to his fellow drones, but they weren't much help. The few lieutenants and captains in the crowd met his eyes with the same look of confusion.

Should he force her to go anyway? That was probably the best course of action, but she'd start biting again, perhaps she'd even hurt herself. Arguing wasn't going anywhere, either. The pony made up her mind. Plus, she was right about one thing. The captain didn't have any reason to imprison her if it wasn't for Spectra's orders. If she were any other prey, he'd simply drain her of magic and leave it at that.

He kept his eyes on the other drones. "Go on!" he suddenly yapped at them, "The Queen didn't order us to wait around. Organize patrols and make sure there aren't any hunter-drones still loyal to Majesta."

He turned back to Lunti. "Fine. You'll get your talk with Princess Spectra. But you can't stay out here. Sooner or later, a young drone's going to get sick with hunger from your scent. Even if you do that thing with your aura again, you'll still smell like a pony. That's enough to make a hunter-drone lose control."

"You have plenty of space," Lunti replied, waving her hoof around all the tunnels in the cave. "Where would you go, if you didn't have any orders?"

"I'm a captain, I always have orders," he answered with a smirk. "But there is a place for drones who serve special duties. Groundskeeper caves."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They walked a long stretch of the tunnel before the Queen said anything. Spectra thought she had explored every part of the hive as a hatchling, but as they descended down to the worker-drone caves, the stone walls began to look more unfamiliar. The Queen, however, walked with full confidence. Nothing but Changelings lived down here. Even glowing fungi and the insects that lived on them found no place to take hold.

Worker-drones waited in their eggs, curled up in their fully grown forms, just waiting to be needed. Hundreds of them lined the walls of the tight cave. Spectra had to fold her wings just to avoid disturbing them. She could smell the dreams they were having, the egg-memories that taught every Changeling the instincts necessary to live.

The two turned the corner and the cave's ceiling shot high above Spectra's head. The central area was much like that of the main cavern, wide and full of tunnels for the pale, eyeless insects that skittered on the ground. At one end sat a black puddle of water that could as easily have been a vast ocean to the bugs, but it was dwarfed by the tree that sprouted from the middle of the cave to the very top.

Out of curiosity, Spectra channelled a little magic into her horn and illuminated the tree. Its bark was as black as the stone beneath it, and the leaves, sickly green, looked as though they were about to fall. Suddenly, the insects turned towards the light, all charging towards her in a single skittering wave.

A quick shove back by her mother's hoof distracted Spectra, cutting off her light. Just as quickly as they started, the bugs stopped and resumed their aimless wandering.

"Try not to use magic here," she warned.

Spectra's eyes and jaw were both wide with awe at the strange scene. "How did this come to be here?" She asked.

"It has always been here. This tree," the Queen gestured to the bugs crawling in and out of its roots, "and its inhabitants, are as old as the mountain itself. They were planted here during an age of shadows and dark magic, a time when only monsters ruled the world."

Magic. Insects. Monsters. Spectra eyed her mother with suspicious interest. What did these bugs have to do with being the Queen? There was no way that Changelings could be related. The critters were as small as beetles and smelled of hardly any magic.

In fact, as she took a deeper breath. The whole cave lacked the smell of magic. If she closed her eyes, she could swear she was in an empty room. There was simply nothing.

"Don't try to figure it out," the Queen chuckled. "I couldn't for the life of me when my mother asked me what I thought about this place."

Flashes of egg-memories suddenly crawled their way into Spectra's mind, triggered by her mother's words. The longer she stood by the tree, the more familiar it became. She had been here before. She had been here a hundred times. Her memories overlapped, threatening to rob her of her sense of self.

Like living in a dream, she felt as if the walls of the cave and the tunnel behind her were transforming into the roots of the tree. She remembered the walking dream from her egg, the very same dream that taught her to move her limbs. The most basic instinct, but one that had to begin somewhere.

She climbed up that tree, hungry, searching for something to eat. The tree had scant little to eat, but there had to be something. The dream blended with another, the instinct of smell, and Spectra followed it. She felt her own body stumble into the Queen, and for an instant, she almost forced herself out of the egg-memory.

But she felt her mother's voice whisper reassurance in her ear. It sounded faint, an echo of an echo, but she listened and continue down the memory. The smell was coming from outside the tree. It was moving. It was another Changeling! The memory dragged Spectra along, scuttling toward the smell of food.

Hunger gnawed at her stomach. But the Changeling in the memory was no Changeling at all. Its body small and round, supported by delicate legs that were thinner than hair. Spectra wanted to shake herself out of the memory. This wasn't some dream from her egg, it was a nightmare!

The thing in the memory, it was the same insect in the cave. What was such a primitive creature doing in her mind? But hunger stabbed her in the stomach, and the memory had full control. She felt her own mouth reach out, taking from the fellow insect in the memory.

Feeding. The instinct to eat came from this memory. A drop of murky liquid passed from the insect's mouth to hers, and it was like tasting life itself. She wanted more, or rather, whoever she was in memory wanted more. Spectra felt her own legs twitching as if she was the one chasing after the savoury liquid. There was more out there, and she wanted to find all of it, all of it until she slammed her head into a wall.

Spectra was ripped from the memory immediately, opening her eyes to see her mother looking over her with a wide smile. The insects around her scurried absent-mindedly, not even aware of her existence. But she was aware of theirs. Too aware. Spectra stood up and faced her mother.

"I've never had an egg-memory that strong before," she said. "Not even when I was in my egg, I think."

The Queen chuckled. "Trust me, you have. It's a powerful memory. Walking, eating, smelling, all vital functions that we take for granted. However, the more primal our instincts, the farther back its origins. Maybe we can be forgiven for forgetting something so old."

Spectra frowned and looked at the tree again, still shaking her head. "How is it possible? These bugs are, well, bugs."

"Give something enough time, and it will change," the Queen told her daughter, "remember enough memories and you'll understand how. But that's for later. I brought you here to teach you what it means to be Queen Chrysalis. Do you understand?"

Spectra looked up into her mother's eyes and read her. There was no trick. Spectra felt safe to honestly answer. "I don't," she said as she shook her head.

"Then listen carefully." The Queen's voice deepened. "The soul of the hive, that is the mantle of Chrysalis. Our kind came from nothing, from this black, lifeless pit where not even magic exists. The hive, Changelings, and us as individuals, are not ruthless and violent for the sake of it. The world gave us nothing. To survive, we must take from it everything."

The Queen reached a hoof out, and one of the black insects crawled onto her. She lifted the minuscule thing into the air with so much tenderness it was as if the insect would be crushed if she even jostled it a little. And then, from the very tip of her horn, she bled a drop of magic for the bug to feed.

The life-giving energy shot into it as quick as air was sucked into lungs. It then jumped from the Queen's hoof, weightless descending to the ground and scurrying under the roots of the tree.

"The ones lucky or brave enough to crawl their way out of this pit drank a cave full of magic," continued the Queen. "The same fungi-eating insects and lizards that live in our hive once nourished these bugs. And with enough time and magic, they'd begin to change."

The Queen smiled and rested a hoof on her daughter's head. She was nearly up to her chin now, taller almost every drone. But she still had growing to do. "Anyone can be Queen, Spectra. Remember that. Even in some pony cities, they place that title on their leaders. The mantle of Chrysalis is from a world before kings and queens. Our kind's history is passed down by magic, hidden within our dreams and instincts."

Spectra nodded meekly. The responsibility was clear enough to her, having had lived through the memory itself. But the weight of it was still tugging on her chest. And for once, a rising dread that she'd never live up to the task invaded the back of her mind.

"You will be ready," her mother assured her. "You are no less capable in magic than I am. The only difference now is time. It will be years until you can be both Queen and Chrysalis, but every princess before you had to take time to learn. Even me."

That was right. Knowing her mother was once like her put Spectra's mind at ease. "So, which will I have first?" she asked.

"Queen of course," her mother scoffed. "I can't manage the hive and prepare you to take the mantle. Hunting and creating new drones will be up to you now. My part in all of this will be to prepare the memories you'll need to learn from our past, and then make sure you learn the right lessons from them."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The last groundskeeper barely let out a scream before it was shredded in Halfwing's maw. The dragon had torn her path to the hive, striking every patrol and nest before the Queen could be alerted. This was her revenge. She'd announce her own return. No one else.

Septarian sat more comfortably on Halfwing's back. Armed with a bundle of sharpened sticks on his back, he watched motionlessly as the Changelings failed to even come within a spear's reach. The hive was in sight now. The last time he was brought south, he never got to see it.

He remembered it like it was a lifetime ago. Marblestop was attacked, but rather than be taken prisoners, Majesta recruited him to try and kill Spectra. How would everything be if he had succeeded, he wondered. Would he be serving Majesta instead? He never would have been free from her, just as he wasn't free now. Changelings had a habit of turning ponies into their tools.

"How are you going to draw her out?" he asked once they approached the mouth of the hive. "Isn't the first cavern really deep down?"

He peered to the side Halfwing's shoulder. The entrance to the hive was a massive cave, larger than anything in Marblestop's mines. Wide enough even for a dragon, it looked like the maw of an upward-facing giant, swallowing the jungle. Trees grew so high their branches stretched beyond the cave as if they were trying to escape the hive below them.

"This is the only way in or out of the hive," Halfwing told him, "just being here makes me a threat. And then she'll come out to face me."

Septarian grasped Halfwing's back tightly as she shook, spreading her wing to cast a wide shadow over the cave. She claimed she was more a dragon than a Changeling now, but he swore she seemed to grow bigger. With a voice like thunder, she boomed an echo into the cave.

"Mother! Your daughter has returned. You took more than just my wing. You took my life. And now I've found a new one, with better treasures than a dirty old hole in the ground. Face me, and let's be done with it!" The cry was deafening to Septarian, but he had heard worse. He recognized when she was angry, and this wasn't one of those times. Her voice carried solemn determination, nothing more. She was simply declaring that her revenge would finally be complete.

No answer came. But a quiet buzzing from the bottom of the cave told Septarian that her challenge had been heard. "Sounds like a lot of Changelings in there," he said. "What's our plan? They won't just run into your fire. They'll use magic, get close enough to get under your scales."

"I hope they do," she said, reaching back a claw to lift Septarian to the ground. "I want to face them all so my mother knows I've become stronger she'll ever be. She'll know she made a mistake, crippling me. And when all their eyes are on me, I doubt they'll even notice you and your little spears."

Comments

[Time Reaper]

I really like how this is building up to a "end of the first arc" kind of story. Nice to see this update, best wishes.

[QueenChrysalisForever]

Oh my, I'm all caught up... Why must I be all caught up?
I'm really loving this tale, please continue as I gotta know what happens next! :D

[SwordTune]

10053681
Don't worry. I had a long break because I had to rewrite these past 2 chapters three or four times to give it the right feel. Now that the path has been set, I can move forward more efficiently in my writing.

[QueenChrysalisForever]

10053807
Good I'm glad you hear so. :D By far this is one of my favorite pre-show timeline fanfics. Will it eventually reach show timeline, or end before then?

[Just_Me123]

Well, this story is certainly progressing. I wish I hadn't been away from my computer for quite so long, but it's good to be caught up. Looking forward to the next chapters when you are ready to post them.