Chapter 48: Survivors
Harlequin didn’t flee the empty Canterlot Castle hallway. The only thing waiting down that shaft was a prison, and possibly capture at the hooves of the very pony she’d sent to stop Hydrus. And I didn’t even need her help.
Hydrus hadn’t ever planned on returning to the hive to gather his power. Once he was revealed… she could only hope that his threats against the ponies she cared about were similarly empty. Thorax and Codex and all the drones didn’t deserve to get blasted by Princess Celestia.
Besides, she had enough to do caring for the wounded of her makeshift swarm. If there was one mercy, it was that Hydrus had been so deadly that he either killed bugs or missed them. His guards had scored a few blows, and she patched them up one at a time, using hard green slime and a dagger she found among the dead.
They didn’t grow impatient, though she found herself wishing she could join with these bugs and show them how to treat their own wounded. There wasn’t a single adult here—all those would’ve died.
I don’t want to think about how many didn’t make it out of this.
It was a good thing changelings didn’t need to sleep much, because she worked for at least ten hours straight before she was finished. The bugs curled up in the hall, radiating gratitude along with the loss of some of their members. Though given how immature these bugs were, a pony losing a leg might be a closer analogy. They had so little individuality… somepony would have to change that.
Finally she heard hooves coming down the hall. Marching ponies, armor rattling around them. She didn’t even bother picking up any of the weapons. She wasn’t going to fight, and she would keep these bugs from fighting too. Their little swarm was much too weak to win against ponies in their own castle.
A pair of earth ponies closed the hallway off with massive metal shields, each one almost as tall as the passage itself and much too heavy for her to lift. She stood up, walking out through the bloody hallway past her bugs. There wasn’t much left of their tormentors. She hadn’t been able to stop these bugs from following their instincts. They were very hungry.
“You’re not going to be able to crossbow us to death,” she called from the other side of the shield wall, horn glowing. For reasons she couldn’t quite figure out, she hadn’t run out of magic. But she still had power. Enough to block a few crossbow bolts. “I’ve got magic for a shield. But we don’t want to fight.”
“You don’t want to fight,” repeated a voice from the other side. A mature, confident voice, though she’d never heard it before. “There’s an awful lot of blood over there for a creature who doesn’t want to fight. You were to be escorted to a cell for trial, and now you’ve staged a prison riot and murdered four ponies.”
Harlequin rolled her eyes. “Look closer, whoever you are. Ponies don’t have green blood.”
There was a brief pause, before the voice spoke. “Open.”
The guards straightened, and their shields twisted to each side. Behind them were ponies not dressed in solar gold, but a silvery blue and purple, with strange weapons strapped to their sides.
But then she saw the one who spoke, and she forgot all about the unusual soldiers.
Princess Luna wasn’t as tall as her sister, but she shared many of her same unearthly properties. Her mane filled the air, its own ghostly glow. Behind her, creatures skittered back along the cavern, sensing her power and not understanding it.
Don’t fight, she begged silently. Don’t run. Be calm. Stay where you are. She couldn’t send words, but she could feel those things herself and hope they copied her. It was what changelings did best.
Princess Luna strode out from behind the shield, inspecting the ground with a disgusted sniff. “This was… gruesome. Explain what happened.”
She did. There was no reason to lie, when the one standing in front of her could easily burn her alive at a thought. Even with all these bugs, she knew how long this fight would last. Not that she wanted to. This pony wasn’t her enemy.
“My agent told you not to cause trouble,” Luna muttered, as soon as she finished. “We thought your solution to caring for your physical needs was the best that could be considered, under the circumstances. Your actions have made things… difficult.”
Harlequin shrugged one shoulder, ambivalent. “Would you have left your ponies under the rule of a tyrant?”
The princess didn’t answer for a long time. She looked past her, her horn glowing as she illuminated the cowering insects behind Harlequin. “The fruits of our ignorance are a bitter dish. I can see exactly what you mean… these creatures, barely alive, barely intelligent, because of where we put them. There were many in the Solar Court who thought our accommodations were generous.”
She rolled her eyes, and her horn went out. She didn’t seem bothered by the near-darkness the way most ponies were, though her mane meant that there was always a little light around her. “And now your leaders are dead. Those who orchestrated the invasion that killed so many ponies have joined them in the oblivion beyond. This leaves Equestria in… a difficult position, Harlequin.”
She nodded. “We’re still invading soldiers,” she said. “Many of us didn’t know what we were doing. But that doesn’t bring back the ponies who died. You’ll still want to see us punished. And me in particular, I guess. I’ll face… whatever you think I deserve. But please, don’t hurt the others. They don’t want to take over your city, they just want to eat. And… I know a pony transformed during the invasion that would really like to see his family again. If he… survived whatever your sister did to my hive.”
Luna tensed. “Princess Celestia did not harm the bugs in your ‘hive’. They were contained, and she traveled down to inspect what you had been doing. When she did not find the bug you described, she took no further action. Apparently there had been a battle there as well.”
Princess Luna gestured down the hallway. “It was rather like this, if you can believe it. Loyalists from Hydrus’s side attacked some bugs who liked your way of doing things a little better. Lots of… drones, I think you call them? Regardless, they were eager to tell us that Hydrus’s soldiers were dead. You bugs don’t do anything halfway.”
She finally rose. “Since Equestria’s ancient days, I have been the pony appointed to judge the creatures of the night. My sister sent me to judge whether there was anything worth preserving among your kind. Could we live together, or would we be forced to destroy an evil that would only return to vex Equestria again?”
Her horn glowed to life, with a violet light that hurt Harlequin’s eyes just to look at. It was the sort of spell that could scour her from the planet without a trace. It was the final judgement, the one she never should’ve trusted to ponies. Now she would die for it, and every other bug with her.
“Before I found you here, I was intercepted by a pony of the Solar Court. He spoke about you at great length, Harlequin. About the suffering you endured for your ponies—what you had done for him as a stranger, even at terrible risk to yourself.”
Her horn went from violet to soft white, illuminating the tunnel with a gentle light. “We are very different creatures. We’ve seen some terrible evil from you since the invasion. But I see enough good that you’re clearly worth saving. Even so, there will have to be… measures taken. Restitution paid for the harm you’ve caused, and a chance to reform. It shouldn’t be terribly difficult for creatures that can change their shape.”
She nodded, eyes wide with tears. She tasted a new kind of love flowing into her at that moment, so much that she almost choked. Alicorns were powerful creatures, and even the younger sister was still a force of might. The healing taste of mercy, worsening her tears. The bugs behind her stopped cowering, as one by one their stomachs were filled. There was more than enough love to go around, even for the injured.
“We have no leaders left to punish,” Luna went on. “So there are no creatures to put back into the dungeon. And given what happened last time, I don’t think that punishment is appropriate. I think we’re going to have to put you all on probation.”
“Probation?” She repeated the word, its taste strange on her tongue. “I don’t… I don’t know what that is.”
“It means we’re going to spread you out in Equestria,” she said. “Put you with ponies who need some help in one way or another. Farms, factories, hospitals… there are never enough hooves. Hydrus’s solution might’ve worked to keep you fed, but… no creature should be forced to debase themselves for others to survive. Perhaps a few of them will choose that life, but it didn’t seem to me like many of them were capable of choosing yet. You are… unique, among the bugs I have spoken to. A child of the invasion, yet… wise enough to decide.”
It was more mercy than she possibly could’ve hoped for. Really, it was a better future for the bugs of her little swarm than they ever could’ve had living with Hydrus. There were some unanswered questions in her mind, things they would have to work out together. These lonesome survivors of the tunnels would need care together for instance, until they were old enough to separate. To say nothing of the many creatures still sealed and sleeping in the old hive. Would they sleep forever, or be woken and spread through Equestria like the other bugs?
“As for you…” Luna continued. “We will keep you close. Still punished with the others, but… near enough to Canterlot that we can use your knowledge. We still know so little about changelings…”
“If I, uh…” Harlequin began, her voice a little nervous. “I know it’s probably… not my place to ask, but… I’ve got some friends in the City Watch. They seemed to think I did good work, before… they realized I was a changeling.”
Princess Luna smiled. “That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. It’s perfect.”
The next few hours were chaos, of course. The bugs she’d brought out of the old jail certainly didn’t want to be separated from her, and there were enough of them to cause trouble for Canterlot Castle. In the end they just traveled in a few packed carriages down to the old hive, where they could be around their own kind.
There would be plenty of friendly faces—Harlequin’s own friendly drones had been the ones to fight.
Not only that, but she discovered something that even Princess Luna hadn’t known.
And good thing too, considering she seemed to be looking for leaders to punish.
Pharynx and a small group of fellow survivors, whose arrival had initiated the violence in the first place. She could only wish she had been there to help with the fight. But they hadn’t needed her, and Pharynx didn’t seem to want her.
“The ponies know about us now,” he said, pacing furiously back and forth in Hydrus’s old office. Thorax sat happily in a corner, apparently just wanting to be close enough though he had nothing to offer to the conversation. Harlequin didn’t ask him to leave. “Asking for help was stupid and unnecessary. You’ve cost us everything, Harlequin. And you didn’t even let me kill that slime myself.”
She shrugged. “Maybe you’d rather keep running this place… but spreading us out is a good thing. Bugs need love, and the ponies are going to give it to us. We’ll have to live their way, but… some of their ways are better than ours. The old queen promised us a life with as much food as we could eat. She might’ve abandoned us, but that promise will still be kept. Just not the way she thought.”
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Roll credits. (After all, it's the penultimate chapter.
)
"Really?"
"Some of our greatest heroes are similarly brilliant idiots. I will tell you tales of them in good time."
As I said, one chapter left. Looking forward to seeing how things go in a happy ending that went off of the Storyteller's rails.
... Assuming she'll allow it.
I'm still bothered by the arrogance of the ponies and the Royal Sisters in particular.
Their incompetence and indifference caused a lot of unnecessary suffering among the changelings, yet they both refuse to assume responsability or even offer any apologize.
Changelings have to pay for their crimes. I wish ponies would do too.
9901295
i.imgur.com/USxzrFa.jpg
Dammit, you beat me to it.
Title drop!
KNEW IT. You can't keep that bug down.
Bravo! This is a good ending, though I'm sure things are about to get a bit iffy in the epilogue. I'll save my full thoughts for next week, but for now...thanks, Starscribe. I needed this.
Roll cr—
Darn it. Not even the third to think of it.
9901479
Thorax will be fine.
At worst, he may never grow past being happy to sit in Pharynx's shadow for the rest of his life. That kind of personal growth went to Harlequin, since she was the one who worked to foster peace between them and ponies.
9901310
Gonna be a little hard to feel sorry for hurting the invaders who killed your people and started it in the first place, though. That kind of self reflection might happen only once they get to know the changelings better.
9901517
So the ponies who love to preach peace, harmony and forgiveness don't have any problem casting them aside the moment they become a hindrance?
Heck, even Luna casual comment of how close they were to commit genocide just to prevent the changelings from becoming an incovenience later just came....wrong.
Luna! You've been terribly absent throughout this whole story...about time you finally showed yourself.
So I was right! The brothel and Hydrus's actions ruling it (up until the prison fire) were permitted on the grounds that Luna (at least) couldn't devise a better arrangement at the time.
Roll credits!
...oh wait, I see everybody and their brother has already said that...
Well, what did you expect her to do? Let Hydrus kill her and potentially get away and cause more harm, just because you wanted the honor of doing him in?
Things are resolving nicely...maybe a little too much so. I think I have to concur with 9901310--the changelings punishment is fair, but it does feel like the ponies are getting off easy. To their credit, not all of their crimes were totally conscious, and there's deception and manipulation from a nefarious few also misled them on a lot of it to consider too, but still...they're not totally blameless either, and I feel like that needs much better acknowledging.
It also feels like it's wrapping up a little too quickly. Like, Hydrus is dead (good riddance), so now everything can just automatically falls into place all at once? Again, I think the plan of action is great, it's just coming together too easily and quickly...there should still be plenty of rough spots and logistics and planning to figure out first that I feel the story's just going to blur over now. I don't need in depth detail, I just need it acknowledged, y'know?
It also feels like there's a bunch of loose threads that the story presented, but have yet to properly resolve, or at least they don't feel resolved. Codex is the most obvious example--we need at least one more heart-to-heart between him and Harlequin before this is all over--but there's also things like Apple Cinnamon, on which there always felt like something was always building up there, but the story has yet to deliver on that. I also feel like we need more on Pharynx and Irongate's respective views and input on all of this than the brief blurbs we get here, spoken from their point of view (and not second hand through Luna like with Irongate). Things like that.
Maybe the next (and I assume last) chapter will cover some of all this, but I want it on the record nonetheless. Given the average chapter size for this fic, I feel like we should be two or three, maybe even four (pending on how things go), chapters before the end, but I'm getting the distinct impression of the opposite, and there's only one more that's more epilogue than anything. and I don't know if I'm on board with that. We'll see.
But I also want to make it clear that, even if all of the above isn't acknowledged to my satisfaction, this has still been a good fic overall to read, one of the better of Starscribe's that I've read (not that I've read that many, but who's counting?).
9889599
I had wanted to acknowledge it myself, but couldn't think of a good way to do so.
Oh good, I wasn't the only one who thought of the Jaffa at that line.
9901533
Dead ponies are a little more than a 'hindrance', though.
Even then, with Blueblood's schemes, the brothel, the treatment of the prisoners... it was already quite evident that this is a much darker AU with regards to pony culture and their xenophobic tendencies.
Harlequin's backstory is complete, question is will Star have the next chapter be a transition to the sequels or not?
What about all the bugs that died from the ponies negilince? There needs to be justice!
Freeze frame, flash 'to be continued' 2 seconds, roll credits.
Waitin' till next week for what's next!
Swallowing your pride in the face of fools is all good and well. But what annoys me that she did not push Luna to state if she and the ponies stand with the storyteller or not before agreeing with anything. This all still might work perfectly into that things narrative.
And allowing Changelings to be distributed among population so they can be abused more if this shameful display is any proof? I do not think any sane being would go with that. But then again, indulging monsters and fools who are full of their own manure is something which might be need to be done at this point of time.
9901547
Not conscious? Remember that builder which was informed of the dietary needs of the lings? How they had Ling leadership locked up and drying of starvation right before their eyes? As stated before this was either utter incompetence, lack of caring or active act of malevolence. I do not really see any other options here. Personally my money is that they Ponies are Storytellers creatures and this is all its design.
9901886
While I perfectly understand why you'd say that, it's also a very slippery slope, because that could serve as justification to attack anyone and anything seen in anyway in line with the storyteller, and could get truly bloody very quickly, as it could devolve into a "purge all of the storyteller's pawns" genocide very quickly, and that's the last thing anyone wants.
Further, it's clear that not all of the storyteller's pawns were consciously aware they were pawns. After all, Hydrus straight up said he was no fan or ally of hers, and yet the storyteller made it clear that she had still used Hydrus to her own ends anyway--the only reason she wanted Hydrus dead when she did was because she had no further use for him. And Hydrus clearly didn't realize this. If the storyteller's pawns can be manipulated in such a way that they can't even be consciously aware of being manipulated so, how can you ever be sure someone is or isn't in line with the storyteller?
No, I see too much risk and too little gain from going that route. You'd be better served trying to hunt down the storyteller herself and "remove her from the story" herself, if that's even possible (or advisable--she may be the only thing keeping the relative sense of peace in the world altogether, for all we know).
To be sure, there is that risk. But as you yourself will point out, trying to seal the changelings away and forget them isn't going to work either, and the ponies have just reason to be concerned about just letting all of these changelings--more than enough to make another invasion-capable army--go free. They're going to want to keep them apart and where they can be monitored until they can earn the trust of the ponies. And considering that pony lives were lost at changeling hooves too (I know some of the changelings were either forced into that or literally didn't know better, but there's still no changing the fact that there have been changelings who killed ponies too), I can't blame them for having that concern.
Further, the only way for the ponies to overcome their hatred for the changelings is to be able to interact with them, see them on a more personal level and be able to judge for themselves whether or not the changelings can really change morally. If they're always out of sight, out of mind, then that gives the ponies no motivation to want to abandon their hatred--the changelings need this chance to interact with the ponies like this so they can prove they can be trusted allies instead of hated enemies, and whether or not that's even possible is up to the changelings and how they behave henceforth.
Besides, this will bring the changelings into public view, and that publicity will help make any abuse leveled on them be visible to the public at large. That hardly curtails any chance of abuse, true, but it means that if an individual pony is going to get away with it, all of the other ponies witness to it have to be willing to turn the blind eye too. So the publicity can also double as some protection against that.
(This of course all assumes the changelings aren't all scattered throughout the land in secret and kept in disguise, but we won't know that for certain until next chapter, and even if it is, then all the ponies are going to see is another pony interacting with them, so long as the disguised changeling keeps up the act)
It's not an ideal solution, nor really even a final one--eventually both sides are going have to step up to finding a better one still sometime in the probable near future--but it's still heck of a lot better than everything the changelings have been put through up until now. So it'll suffice for the time being.
First, I need to stress that I said they were not totally conscious of all of their crimes. So some they did without knowing or understanding what they were doing, others they fully did (or chose not to dwell on the consequences thereof).
For example, the builder you speak of was just some nameless worker probably not even that high on the chain of command who was asked by what he thought to be a naive young pony on how to keep the changelings fed, and thought she was joking (as did everypony else in the room), and likely went no further than that because of those reasons. Ignorant? Yes. Knowing, though? No. It's stressed the ponies knew pretty much next to nothing about the changelings prior to the invasion, and there was no way they could know otherwise. Sure, Harlequin tried to bring it up that one time while disguised, but no one took her seriously, she didn't have the determination and bravery yet to press the subject, and realizing anyway that she'd have to prove how she knew this, thus revealing what she was, she kept quite about it after that. The subject didn't come up again to any pony who actually cared (Blueblood) or was in a position to actually do much about it (Irongate) until quite literally during Harlequin's tell-all to Celestia in court.
Point is, going from the builder's perspective, I totally get why no note was taken of the true changeling dietary needs at that time. There was no compelling enough a reason to. Was that right? Heavens no! Was it driven by latent hatred for the changelings as a race? Quite likely. But I can't call it conscious either, because the participating ponies didn't know better.
Later, as the 'ling leadership degraded, that should've been the clue that the ponies were missing something, but we now know there were other factors keeping knowledge of this from reaching the ponies of power--Celestia and Luna both indicated they were not fully aware this was even happening until the prison burning incident, and that was because there were conspirators in-between that were blocking that information from getting out. Can you say Blueblood, for example? Hydrus, as well, took steps to keep the reality of the changeling situation secret from the ponies, because he stood to gain from it, and because it'd reveal the conspiracies he was involved in if it did, endangering himself and his plans. Further still, the storyteller played a hand in all of this, and while I can only guess at the details of how she did it, she's clearly taken steps to keep the ponies oblivious of the changeling situation herself, because it served her plans of destroying the ancient changelings she has such a grudge against and reform the select few willing to obey her into changedlings to do so.
So no. Not all of the pony actions were done consciously.
That does not mean I think they're blameless either. Someone should've noticed something was amiss and started asking about it much sooner than it did (and I think it's only because of the storyteller's involvement that it didn't, honestly).
This thought has crossed my mind too, and it worries me...but I don't think flat out resisting is going to work, because if this is true and the storyteller can have pawns at any level of Equestrian government and thus possess power to manipulate things at pretty much any level so long as she has a complying pawn, it wouldn't be hard for her to stop any direct attempts to stop her plans by simply using law or violence to quell the dissenters and get away with it scott-free.
No, I think the secret to stopping the storyteller is to beat her at her own long game, and do it with some subtle manipulation of their own, and I think that can still be done with this arrangement if one is careful. The trick is going to be staying a step ahead of the storyteller, which will be a challenge when we still don't know with certainty what all of her rules are, or what her end goal even is, per se.
And there's still that nagging doubt in the back of my head--is it even worth going completely against the storyteller? For the changelings, it still would've ended in a reformation, a good ending over all. The problem was less the goals to be accomplished and more the steps the storyteller was willing to take to get it, and everyone who'd be harmed getting there. That can't be the only way to do it. So if the storyteller can be convinced the same goals can be achieved without 'lings or ponies coming to harm, then her direction MAY not be so bad...but that assumes her end goals are actually benevolent, or just hungry for power, in which case she's no better than Hydrus--just a heck of a lot more powerful.
I guess at the end of the day though, all sides have to concede there's no clean solution to this. Someone somewhere is always going to lose out. Rather than try and find that "perfect" solution for all, it might be smarter to just concede to work with what you can and make the best of it--a "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" sort of deal.
Looks like it's smooth sailing from here. There probably would be some rough transitions but looks like we can finally have some peace. Hopefully, the Storyteller won't become a problem later on but I'm sure Harley's gonna deal with it.
Pharynx! I knew that crazy bastard would survive!
Not fighting is really the only available option.
Luna enters the story at last.
Sometimes trouble causes itself.
Hey, nice.
Alicorns are made of love, apparently.
A decent solution, as long as they don't let it turn into a permanent indentured service system. Also, with that story title drop we really must be near the end in case that wasn't already clear from the story arc.
Oh it is, on both accounts.
Pharanx wants a fight, but Thorax is really just happy that his brother is alive.
Nice.
9901702
I think it's better it just ends soon.
9905033
The next chapter is the last one by the calendar.
9905521
Oh. I don't know where to see the calendar. My bad. Anyway I'd like it to not have a sequel mostly because I can't keep up with the gajillion of stories Starscribe does. Personally I feel kinda sad that I have to read so many stories I don't care about just to keep up with others in the audience that recognise references from other fics. I feel stolen. Like I missed the fun or the joke. It's too many to keep up.
9908496
He usually posts them to fimfic via journals, or if not, you can always check the Patreon, since they're always on there.
And, you should read the stories because they're great and not because you want to understand some connections the comments have figured out. I've pretty much loved everything Starscribe has written, so take that to mean what you will.
9908880
It's not that he's done something bad I just feel a bit cheated when I see people commenting about inside jokes I don't have time to understand because I have 2 postgraduates and another qualifications program to do. :/ I was there when Earth with Ponies fics begun. And I couldn't keep up. Much less begin new fics.
Canny or peacekeeping? Nice either way