Chapter 9: Going Alone
"I'm generalizing when I say us, of course. I'm not a person. Not like you."
"No!" Smolder exclaims. "Just, no."
Gallus pinches the top of his beak, reining in an aggrieved expression as he stares at Ocellus. She can hear something approaching disgust in his tone. "Explain to me exactly why you have to go alone?!"
Ocellus takes a deep breath.
Smolder and Gallus are standing on either side of Nightmare Moon's throne, framed by the huge, ogee-arched window on the far end of the Throne Room and the moon's gray wasteland beyond.
They look angry.
"I just talked to Luna," Ocellus explains in the calmest voice she can summon. "The next anti-Element is Pride..."
Gallus and Smolder glare. Ocellus falls silent, realizing how that might have sounded. Did they think she was saying they are vulnerable to Pride? Did they think Luna thought they couldn't handle this one?
Ocellus waves a hoof as if that might banish the thoughts she was projecting onto them. "...and it's in the heart of the changeling queen's territory."
Her friends' eyes widen. Ocellus sighs again.
"That's what Luna was investigating while she was gone," she tells Gallus. "Queen Elytra has pulled most of her changelings back to the center of her hive."
"Explains why the trip back from the dungeon was uneventful," Gallus says, accepting that. With a wave of jazz-talons, he adds, "And here I was hoping the magic of friendship was keeping them away."
That earns him a smirk from Smolder. Ocellus is happy to see an expression other than crossness on the dragon's face. She knows that won't last.
"Which means I have to do what only I can do," Ocellus concludes. A thought flashes through her head, and she corrects herself. "And, I guess, Headmare Starlight."
Ocellus braces herself. Not so much for her friends' response, but because saying this will make it real. "I have to sneak into a changeling hive."
Her friends couldn't follow her because only she could transform herself into a love-starved changeling. The last thing she ever wanted to become again. Even just in disguise.
Smolder steps towards her, arms out to her sides. "No way! That is way too dangerous, Ocellus! I... we won't let you go alone."
Simultaneously, Gallus sits down. "Right. Alone then," he says, accepting what Ocellus just said without further argument. "But first, make another saddlebag like yours."
Smolder turns to stare at Gallus. "What?!"
Gallus raises his eyebrows. "She's right," he tells Smolder. "I don't like it, but Ocellus is right. We could never pass as changelings. And any other plan leads to a fight we would lose. But..."
Gallus turns to Ocellus, his voice uncompromising, "You're not walking into the queen's lair with exactly what she wants. Smolder and I will stay here with Greed and Envy." He thumps his chest feathers. "We'll guard them with our lives."
Smolder flies over and lands in front of Ocellus, putting on a big smile. "Hey, how about you pretend to be a drone and I'm your prisoner! And you're bringing me to the queen."
A bolt of fear shoots through Ocellus. "No!"
Gallus says dryly, "It won't work."
Smolder huffs. "Why not?"
"Because they're changelings," Gallus retorts. "They sense love, remember? You two go in there, and they'll sense how you feel about each other in an instant."
Ocellus nods as Gallus outlines the exact dimensions of her fear.
Smolder's eyes go wide again, taken aback, her body language showing a sense of betrayal. In another situation, that look would worry Ocellus, or provoke a protective anger. But the lovebug realizes immediately what it means... and she finds it kinda cute.
Gallus knows how Smolder feels about her because Smolder told him.
"Come on, Smolder," Gallus says, rolling his eyes. "Ocellus can literally taste how you feel about her. She probably knew before you did."
Ocellus smiles at Smolder.
Smolder's mouth hangs open but nothing comes out. She closes it, her eyes shifting left then right. Ocellus can see a blush rising behind the orange dragon's scales.
"As for Ocellus..." Gallus continues.
"huh, what?" Ocellus feels suddenly trapped. She looks to Gallus, but the griffon is still focused on Smolder.
"I just watched Ocellus risk Equestria, not to mention her leg, to save you," Gallus comments. "Safe bet she feels the same."
Smolder watches the etheric lights flash, pouring out blue smoke and tendrils of oily black. They fall upon Gallus' saddlepack, sinking in, weaving new substance into it.
"Can we take these home with us?" Smolder asks when the three onyx pillars are done.
"It only makes things out of dark essence," Ocellus tells her as the nymph pulls the saddlepack off the third capital.
Smolder's disappointed expression is short-lived. "I have a powerful urge to dismantle the entire palace and turn it into gemstones," she says with a grin.
Gallus, who was examining the painting of Nightmare Moon's seal, looks up with alarm.
Smolder notes quickly, "That's not Greed. That's just normal dragon."
Ocellus gives Smolder a smile then flies over to Gallus, delivering his saddlepack and fetching her own. Gallus holds his pack open while she dumps the two anti-Elements into it.
Gallus puts his talons on her shoulders. "Good luck. Don't do anything stupid. Stay safe."
Ocellus awws, "But I wanted to challenge the queen to a duel."
Gallus blinks, then shakes his head, chuckling. "Right. Crossword puzzles at twenty paces?"
"I'll get all the vertical before she can get the horizontal!" Ocellus declares happily. This is good. Her friends are leaving her in high spirits before facing what she has to do next.
Ocellus waves to both of them. "I'll be back soon. Then, we get Wrath together."
With that, Ocellus leaves the protection of the Throne Room, leaving her friends behind.
This time, the way she must go does not take her back to the Grand Hall, but rather farther down the hallways beyond the Throne Room. She walks a while, checking behind her just to make sure neither of her friends are following. She opens her receptors, tasting for traces of love in the cold air. There are none.
Ocellus finds a secluded place to transform. She does not want her friends to ever see her as a love-starved drone.
This is just a disguise, she reminds herself as she closes her eyes to concentrate. Just a form, no different from any other. She's not love-starved anymore. Far from it. The hardest part will be pretending to be so. She'll have to school herself not to think about Smolder, not to think about any of her friends, so her feelings won't betray her.
There are enough depressing things to think about that keeping love sealed away shouldn't be hard. She considers thinking about being trapped here on the moon after destroying the portal, living in this place alone after she gets Gallus and Smolder safely home.
Ocellus thumps herself on the forehead. She can't think about that. The thoughts of loneliness and despair are intrinsically tied to the loss of those she loves. She cannot think about no longer having them without thinking about them.
Gallus. Smolder.
This plan has a huge flaw.
Gallus was sent to the room with Envy. Smolder found herself near Greed. If one of her friends is here and has appeared near Pride, her ruse is going to fail the moment they meet. But she cannot worry about that right now. That's a problem for future Ocellus.
A flash of turquoise.
She doesn't want a mirror. She doesn't want to look down at her own hooves. But she has to.
They are black. She sees the floor through the holes in her forelegs. Short, drone-length forelegs, not those of a queen. The transformation worked. The part of her that doesn't want to just die is thankful.
She spreads her ragged wings and flies, hating the droning buzz of her own wings. Already, she can feel her hatred towards the sound racing against her need to get through this as fast as possible.
She darts ahead down empty hallways where the wall sconces have been replaced by wrought-iron, standing torches. Some of them ignite with familiar blue flame as she approaches. Most do not, leaving the passageway darker and gloomier than most others.
The other part of this disguise will be pretending to be a drone -- a non-individual.
That shouldn't be too hard, Ocellus thinks painfully. When was the last time I really felt like an individual?
It is a terrible thought. She shoves it aside.
Instead, Ocellus wonders about Gallus' question. Why doesn't the changeling queen just have her drones collect the anti-Elements and open the portal herself?
They literally have Pride right there in the hive... but then, how would a drone resonate with Pride?
Ocellus thinks back to her days under Queen Chrysalis. At best, they had communal pride, pride in the hive. But without individuality, they had no pride of their own.
I had no personal self-worth. If I had tried to use Pride back then, what would have happened? Ocellus recalls how Gallus was driven away from Envy by the way it made him feel. Envy and Greed augmented her friends' resonant vices. Would it have even recognized me as a creature?
It strikes Ocellus that maybe changeling drones simply cannot use Pride. It might even reject them. The same wouldn't be true for Greed and Envy, but if the changeling queen doesn't really know what the anti-Elements are, she might be operating under the assumption that changeling drones couldn't utilize any of them.
That would explain a lot. She makes a few notes in her mental notebook Unanswered Questions.
Ocellus finds herself forming a very different concept of Queen Elytra than she had before. Queen Elytra is clearly very clever. Even ingenious. But she also seems to be impulsive. And in that, she is very much unlike Chrysalis.
Queen Chrysalis was patient and methodical. She made sure every one of her pieces was in place before she made a move. She compromised her enemies before they even knew she existed. And she always had an end game.
Queen Elytra, on the other hoof, strikes Ocellus as an opportunist. When Luna started to open the moon portal, Elytra somehow sensed a chance and jumped at it. The fact she expected Ocellus to appear near Wrath tells the nymph that Queen Elytra had no idea who she would be getting with her spell. She may not have even known exactly what the spell would do. And she clearly isn't prepared to capitalize on the result.
Ocellus realizes she and her friends are an experiment of opportunity.
She pauses at a crosshall, checking her map. In theory, at this point every direction should lead either into the hive or back towards the Throne room.
A chalky stink hangs in the air like old smoke. And beneath it is the faint stench of the hive. The scent of changeling pods and royal jelly. The smell used to make her feel at home. One with the others, safe in the nest. Now it flenses her nostrils raw and electrifies the instinct to run. To fly away as fast as she can.
The walls are covered in peeling, rotting, spider-print wallpaper. Hall benches and sideboards are succumbing to ashen mold. Ocellus suspects the hive has somehow agitated the slow decay of Nightmare Moon's Palace. The changeling pods throughout a hive's architecture may add a component of moisture to the mix that is absent elsewhere.
According to her map, the crosshall shouldn't be here. Ocellus frowns at that. She thinks back to her own hive... No! She cannot call it that; must not think of it like that. Her first hive. Queen Chrysalis' hive. She is no longer like that, no matter how she looks right now.
Queen Chrysalis' hive was metamorphic. The architecture would shift, holes growing to open new passages, closing to seal others. Bridges and ramps forming and dissolving. Making the hive impossible to navigate for anyone without changeling senses. Even Thorax got lost after having been away, the taste markers having changed.
Ocellus opens her receptors, straining to use part of her palate that has atrophied from neglect.
But this hive isn't changeling built. Would the queen's magic even have the same effect on pony architecture of marble, metal and glass? Then again, Nightmare Moon's Palace isn't really made of any of those things, is it? It is made of dark essence pretending to be those things, taking on their forms just like a changeling pretends to be other creatures. Or objects.
Ocellus shivers. She concentrates, but tastes nothing. Neither love nor... the one other thing a changeling's senses can detect.
Ocellus whimpers internally. For the moment, she is so glad her friends aren't here. They would ask questions. She would have to explain. And Gallus would never let her live it down.
She closes her receptors, puts away her map and turns left. The smell in the air grows stronger.
A low growl stops her. The sound builds swiftly, a grinding noise like blocks of concrete rubbing against each other. Then, abruptly, it stops.
Ocellus spins around.
The hallway she just came out of is gone. Where it was there are now only walls with ugly, tattered wallpaper.
Ocellus feels an urge to borrow from Gallus' vocabulary of profanities. At least her question is answered. The map in her saddlebags is dead weight.
She opens her receptors again. Trying to force herself to taste. But there is nothing. Either she has lost that ability or...
Ocellus sighs. Of course there is nothing to taste. There is no love on the moon to feed on.
Things are different for her than other changelings. She lives at the school. Eats meals with her friends. She doesn't have to; she can survive on the love generated by their friendship alone. But it is polite. And it is fun. Well, most of it. The rest is a new experience at least.
But changelings who survive only on love consume an emotion; they do not produce any tangible waste. The drained husk of an emotion that they do exude is something only another changeling can even sense the existence of. A gossamer absence of flavor. A tingling, almost numbing sense to their receptors.
Ocellus passes a fireplace across from a reading nook. The chairs have nearly succumbed to the ashen mold. She coughs as the chalky scent becomes more pungent, mixed with a nasty underlying sweetness, like a drop of cheap perfume.
Are the changelings using the palace's own rot to navigate?
With a grinding rumble, the hallway seals in front of her. The wall vomits up an oil painting of moonsharks bounding through the lunar surface. A moldy couch pulls itself out of the floor like a rising zombie.
Behind her, the mouth of the fireplace grows like a yawning maw, the stones sliding away, until it becomes the entrance to a room.
There are four guardian drones in the room beyond. One is standing guard dutifully while two others are facing each other across a table. The last is standing on the table, a nasty grin on her face.
Ocellus turns and flies into the room, buzzing past the guards with the disinterest of some'ling who knows where they are going and is supposed to be here.
Behind her, green light flashes. She tenses.
Don't look back! Don't look back! You belong here! Don't look...
"Yesssss!" one of the guardians hisses as she flies out of the room and into yet another hallway. "That's perfect! Now do Ocellusssssssss again!"
Ocellus nearly transforms in shock. Instead, she flies faster.
The hallway behind her seals, shifting the guard room to watch another area.
Ocellus lands, letting out a shuddering breath. Her disguise held up. The four hive guardians paid her no attention, barely noting her passing. She's just a drone. Like all the others.
She looks around. The hallway is a box, no entrances or exits. Just Nightmare Moon-themed tapestries and a couple rotting chairs. The changeling nymph sits down, deciding to catch her breath as she waits for a new opening to appear.
Considering her own issues, Ocellus wonders what would happen if she touched Pride. Without using the protective saddlebag. Would it help her have pride in who she is? Or just magnify pride in how others feel about her? She quickly discards those thoughts. The anti-Element of Pride isn't a healthy sort of pride.
Ocellus' thoughts turn towards Cheer Squad. That was about pride, school spirit. And being part of a group like that is something a creature could take pride in. Something they could call their own. Except... that wasn't why she joined. She wanted to make an impression with the other students that had nothing to do with changing shape. She wanted to be something in their eyes other than just "the changeling". But it was still their eyes she was thinking about, not her own.
How can Smolder love her when she doesn't even know who she is?
Ocellus considers Gallus' girlfriend comment during the fight with Smolder.
She knows how Smolder feels towards her. Love-starved changelings would kill to have that kind of love directed at them. Often literally. But Ocellus doesn't want to leech off Smolder's love. This is Smolder.
She doesn't have to be a parasite. She can be symbiotic. Why hasn't she reciprocated Smolder's love?
She knows she cares deeply for Smolder. Deeply enough to respect the dragon's love and not want to feed if she cannot truly give it in return. If she was counseling any other creature in this situation, it would be easy. She can tell from the taste if love is pure. She knows without questioning if the love she tastes comes from the heart, and if the love is for the other creature or just for what is gained from the relationship.
But Ocellus cannot step outside herself like that. Except for the most intense situations, changelings are blind to the taste of their own love. She cannot know that what she would be giving Smolder is as genuine as what Smolder is giving her.
The air fills with a sickly rustle as the wallpaper of the far wall peels off. The revealed stonework breaks apart, the stones avalanching away like flowing water. An adventurine rod slides into place just below the ceiling as the molding withdraws like a cat sheathing its claws. With a greasy flutter, rotting curtains tumble down from the rod to frame the new opening.
Ocellus stops, shaking her head, scolding herself. These are not the thoughts to be having right now! She gets up and flies through the curtains.
The hall beyond widens into a gallery. Oil paintings of a plethora of sizes adorn the walls on either side of her. Moonscapes, batponies, moonsharks, the palace and more. Even paintings of her world as seen through the skylight in the Grand Hall. Below the paintings are columns with busts or small sculptures of Nightmare Moon.
A lime glow fills the gallery, casting the paintings in diseased colors. The light comes from streaks of royal resin; some'ling has used a royal jelly sprayer (not a "vomit cannon"!) to draw an arrow pointing at one of the many paintings of Nightmare Moon.
Ocellus flies closer, curious.
The moon pendant that the villainess is wearing protrudes slightly from the painting. It is the button for a void barrier, this one already shut down by the hive. At least she knows she is headed the right way.
Next to it is a painting of Nightmare Moon's Palace as seen from the shallow valley behind it. The painting is dominated by the kiss of sunlight on the dome of the dungeon colosseum.
Ocellus knows she has to focus on thoughts that will not cause her love to show. But instead, she thinks back to the battle with Smolder, and finds herself dwelling on the way she protected herself through memory of Smolder's love.
But instead of thoughts that would cause her own love to swell, she finds herself sinking into the memory of how hollow it felt to not sense love from the dragon. How much it reminded her of her dream. Of that mirror with no reflection.
The gallery elbows, but the other segment is shallow. Ocellus turns the corner and reaches the end of the hallway. She half expects to see a mirror there, showing her nothing. Or a painting of a mirror.
Instead, she sees the tall, gaunt figure of a grandmare clock. Black spires and gothic batwings rise up behind a numberless moon-face with silver forks. The clock is silent.
"From one faceless being to another," Ocellus quips, "What makes you tick?"
What makes me tick? Ocellus thinks in response.
Love. Obviously. Any 'ling would answer that.
Then what makes me an individual?
"It's perfectly normal for a changeling to struggle with identity issues," Ocellus says, perfectly mimicking Starlight's voice, parroting the non-advice she got from her one serious attempt at counsel. But is it really?
She isn't like Hyaline, fretting about what color she should be. Nor has she ever been in danger of forgetting she is a changeling and thinking she is a bugbear.
Back when she was much more shy, she would use other forms to hide herself. But she always knew they were disguises. And that hasn't changed -- she still very much knows which form is "her" and which are magical transformations...
Ocellus stares at the clock. The faceless clock.
Slowly, an epiphany rolls over her. She can see it coming. A slow-moving train, and she is tied to the track.
Ocellus can sense the love people have for her, and she knows that sense is real: undisguised and unvarnished truth. She wouldn't be able to eat it if it wasn't. At school, she has close friends who truly love her, in addition to teachers who care about her... it's almost enough to be overwhelming, especially for someone who grew up love-starved.
It's natural for creatures to see themselves, at least in part, by how others see them. Creatures often act the way they do to impress others, or make them happy, or be better than them. But she can tell exactly how her actions and her attitudes and her hobbies affect the love other creatures feel towards her.
With a sinking feeling, Ocellus attempts to examine the things she has done, asking herself how much of her behavior today alone was designed to provoke a positive response or avoid a negative one. How many worries were about losing love?
The very first thing I did waking up was hide so Smolder wouldn't get a bad impression. She would understand if I just told her, but I don't because I don't want her to feel bad about it. I don't want that to dampen her feelings.
That was... that was being kind too. Caring for her friend's feelings. But the nymph cannot trick herself into believing that is all that was.
Maybe start from the most recent.
She ran away from her friends and hid before transforming so Gallus and Smolder wouldn't associate her with a love-starved changeling.
How long ago did she start tailoring so much of what she did based on this?
It is so tempting to behave as the creature she wants those around her to think she is. She's sharing love, but is she still behaving love-starved? Acting however generates the most love? Even to the point of unconsciously shapeshifting to elicit reactions that satisfy subconscious cravings? Like she did with Smolder yesterday?
Not because her friends want her to. Or expect her to. Or would ever ask her to. But because she is recasting herself voluntarily based on what she wants to be in their eyes.
The gothic grandmare clock stares silently back. No tick. No tock.
Ocellus realizes she has given up all sense of who she is. She has no idea how she would behave, or the person she would be, without her friends. She has become a cipher.
No teenk. No tunk.
Ocellus slumps to the floor, burying her face in her hole-ridden forelegs.
I really don't remember the last time I felt like an individual. And I've done this to myself.
A hole opens in the ceiling with the sound of crumpling plaster and rippling concrete. Ocellus watches as stairs unfold from the opening, banisters rising to meet adventurine railings that snake down from the opening above. As the last step kisses the floor, the carpet washes up the stairs.
This would absolutely freak Gallus out, Ocellus thinks. On the other hoof, it is almost a shame Silverstream is missing this. She would love it.
Ocellus does not love the sounds coming from above. The buzzing of wings -- layers upon layers of the familiar droning built into a hurricane. Underneath the sound was skittering.
Ocellus closes her eyes and repeats the mantra: Just a drone. No tick. No tock. Just a drone...
Her own wings add to the buzz as she flies up through the hole and into the heart of the hive.
The air is cloying with the chalk-sweet stench of palace rot.
Ocellus opens her eyes to the sight of a huge morphic foyer and swarms of black carapace.
Changeling pods hang from the foyer's only static pillars and grow around a fountain identical to the one in the Grand Hall. Their light blends with the azure flame of torches, filling the foyer with an almost aquatic light. Fabric images of Nightmare Moon and Celestia jump between tapestries, doing battle.
Clusters of drones fly through openings in the ceiling as vaulted arches and ribbing shift as if the roof is breathing. Scores of drones follow up a curving stairwell that twists about like a snake, its head moving between openings. Dozens more enter or vanish through doors and hallways that appear and disappear.
There are over a hundred drones in this room alone!
This is why I had to come on my own.
Drone-Ocellus falls in with a stream of love-starved drones, hiding in the mass of many. Her ocelli watch for an opening with golden trim or an excess of lime green light. Pride isn't here. She needs to go deeper.
This hive is huge! Queen Elytra must have hundreds of drones. Maybe thousands!
But how? The moon is absolutely devoid of love. Are they somehow sustaining themselves off of the plants in the Conservatory? Ocellus thinks the food at the school would keep her going without love for quite a while. But it lacks vital nutrients for a changeling.
Now that she thinks of it, every drone in this hive should be terribly sick.
The nymph slides gracefully between flows of drones, hating how easy it is. She isn't love-starved -- shouldn't it be easier for them to tell? A loathing vibration in her breast wants her to scream at them for not realizing she is different.
Her ears catch the sound of rippling canvas. Ocellus turns to see an oil painting of giant spiders devoured by its frame, becoming an open window. Lime light pours into the foyer from beyond the frame.
With another slide between groups, Drone-Ocellus finds herself in the hissing company of only half a dozen drones as they fly out of the foyer through the window.
The hall beyond is static. Baroque golden trim and filigree climb the walls and weave across the ceiling like spider's webbing. Clusters of empty changeling cocoons line the walls and hang like lanterns.
The point of cocoons is to cocoon somecreature.
Maybe they were made for her and her friends? But that doesn't make much sense -- a changeling queen makes a cocoon around Her victim, not before they are captured.
Before she can ponder further, her thoughts skitter apart like cockroaches exposed to bright light. The taste that strikes her receptors nearly causes her to break form: onion and bitter root and overcooked cabbage. She gasps, shutting her receptors closed as she fights not to gag.
One of the other drones turns and looks at her as she falls behind. His questioning expression shifts into a nasty grin. He turns away from her and shoots forward.
Ocellus slows further, the other drones leaving her behind. She is reeling, the taste clinging to her memory. She knows what she just tasted, and she knows how the hive is sustaining itself.
Queen Elytra loves them.
It is the sickest love she has ever tasted. Possessive, dominating, without a shred of compassion. Like the flicker of love a changeling in arts and crafts might feel for a well-formed pot, but saturated with something deeply poisonous.
Still, it is a form of love. And they are feeding on it. Parasitically. There is no love whatsoever coming from the drones in response. Only obedience. As if that's all she wants from them.
How is Queen Elytra surviving?
What she has found is so completely different from either Queen Chrysalis' hive or King Thorax's that it leaves Ocellus reeling. For a while, the insects of her thoughts scurry about in her head -- ants whose marching order has been disturbed.
Her thought-ants suddenly find a new marching order, falling into a straight line.
The anti-Elements resonate with those who share their vice. Smolder and Gallus both resonated with Greed and Envy respectively, but not in a way that was symbiotic. She hasn't seen yet what happens when an anti-Element finds a creature whose vice is truly in harmony with it.
Ocellus stops flying altogether.
There is a reason Queen Elytra built her hive in this wing, right on top of Pride. It's somehow feeding her.
Changelings are blind to their own love except in the most intense situations. They certainly cannot feed on it. But when an anti-Element resonates nearly perfectly with a creature, the vice is amplified.
Ocellus realizes that Queen Elytra is sustaining herself on her own self-love in a bizarre self-cannibalism only possible because of Pride.
Worse, she probably doesn't even know it.
Ocellus stares down the hallway of golden filigree and empty cocoons.
Whatever is at the end of this hallway, that is where I will find Queen Elytra... and Pride.
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Well that's a thing and a half. Of course, this in turn means that removing Pride will doom this hive to starvation and death in very short order. Have fun with your moral quandaries!
I wonder how, when, and where she spoke to Luna without the others noticing?
"for her friend's response"
"for her friends' response"?
""huh, what?" Ocellus"
""Huh, what?" Ocellus", or was the lowercase for effect?
"her friend's resonant vices"
"her friends' resonant vices"?
"maybe changeling drones simple"
"maybe changeling drones simply"?
"That would explain a lot."
Yeah, uh. Thing is. You may indeed be quite right about Pride's reaction to a drone, but... when you think about Chrysalis, does the word "humble" really come to mind much? I wouldn't be too confident yet that none of these changelings can use Pride...
"tumble down from rod to"
"tumble down from the rod to"?
"gothic batwings raise up behind a"
"gothic batwings rise up behind a"?
"want her to. Or expect to. Or would ever"
"want her to. Or expect her to. Or would ever"?
"rising the meet adventurine"
"rising to meet adventurine"?
"On the other hoof, it is almost a shame Silverstream is missing this. She would love it."
:D
"A loathing vibration her breast wants"
"A loathing vibration in her breast wants"?
10163943
Plus, in between starting to starve and dying of starvation, they're presumably going to desperately hungry! That'd probably be fun for Ocellus to be around all on her own, especially if/when they only have just enough rational thought left to remember that it's her fault.
...Yeah, hopefully there's an available way to teach them sharing love. For multiple reasons.
10158773
Huh. I never noticed that before. Okay, fair enough, thanks for clearing that up for me. 👍
I feel bad for Ocellus. Just because she volountarily does these things doesn't mean she's not an individual. It just means she cares that they only see her for who she is, not what she becomes. Also, I'm assuming by what you said about Elytra's love feeding them and starving herself, that when Thorax shares his love with the rest of the Hive, they share their own love with him, so they don't end up like Elytra's servants?
At work, not a lot of time to do an in-depth response. Will do so later. I adored this chapter, though, so no worries on that front.
Honestly I am super nervous for ocellus here, because of the sheer number of things that could go wrong here. Deep in enemy territory, needing to steal Pride from the queen, and make it out without dying. Every Changeling drone knows how to react to everything already, she doesn’t. They’re used to the flavor of love, so they don’t have a reaction when tasting it, like her. Frankly, I’m surprised nobody noticed her wearing saddlebags. Unless they’re black like she is then they would stick out easy. I tend to have an eye for how people should react to things, so this tends to stick out to me. Of course that never applies in games, so it never works.
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I think some of them have saddlebags too? They carry around equipment sometimes anyway.
And here we hoped they were just dark matter creatures. Whelp, the surprise is over, roll for initiative!
Oh gosh, I wanna see that now. First one to finish takes all!
Well...on the upside...if Ocellus steals Pride, then that's a blow to Elytra's hive. Keep it away, and it'll rob them of their livelihood...not that Ocellus will really want to do that.
On the downside...this probably means Pride is going to be fiercely protected, and the hive on a whole will surely notice the moment someone tries to remove it from its customary spot...which in turn means the odds of Ocellus pulling this off without getting noticed have just about vanished.
Now then. We've had Luna standing in for January as mission controll. What I've been wondering is who's gonna be Alex? I think we're about to find out.
I wonder why, though?
I have no idea why. Unreformed changeling Ocellus is a cutie.
i.pinimg.com/originals/9d/09/52/9d095294ff8597b3f68113fb7a882b02.png
See? I told you. Cute.
Normally that's not a good attitude to have, but given the circumstances I can't really blame her. There's too much going on and she is on a time limit.
At some point before the conclusion of this story I may go through it and actually make a list of all her unanswered questions. Just for funsies.
The changelings seem oddly obsessed with Ocellus. I can think of a few different reasons for this, chief among them being of course that she's a changeling herself, but also possibly because she's been thwarting their plans. Or playing right into them, potentially. Either way really.
Aw, poor buggy. She does raise a good point, though. She's largely been defining herself and making choices based on the perceptions of others rather than her own desires. I can't really say that I blame her for that; a life of starvation isn't just forgotten overnight and it's pretty natural that she'd still subconsciously be trying to make sure she could get love.
Still, recognizing a problem is the first step towards solving it. There are definitely things that she likes of her own accord, like pillows and books. And Smolder.
Ooh, looking forward to this - I want to see what Elytra is like. And also which of the Y6 is with Pride.
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It's gotta be Yona, no? Yaks think Yaks are awesome. Unless of course Yona managed to escape the vines and someone else was grabbed instead...
Ocellus’s internal crisis in this chapter hit me hard, not feeling as though your an individual because of how much your connected to your friends/social circle, as though being connected to them is all that makes you you is heartbreaking
Party is growing, they have half the plot coupons, and a ton of questions they should really, really be trying harder to get answers to. And going by the title.. Ocellus, are you about to do something very stupid?
Well, lots of context that could mean more in, so yeah, that's one that it's almost impossible to really say anything about without knowing the context around it.
She just told them she wants them to stay here I take it?
Yup, and this should be a good one.... let's hear it.
Gee, whyever might that be?
1. Called it!
2. Yona time?
3. So, well still another option, plus you know, you all can go outside now to sneak around.
And I don't see that Totem really hitting either of them that hard.
I thought that was near the conservatory with Wrath? Or did Luna do some scouting through the mirrors? Also, I get it, you think you can slip through better alone, even disguise yourself as one of them if need be. Having back up would still be very, very helpful! Yes, Ocellus wants to keep them safe, but this is the wrong way to do it.
Ahem...
WHY!? Seriously, you lot have really, really got to start trying to figure out some motivations here or you will have no idea when you are doing the wrong thing.
Heh, SEE! They made it through a bigger hive, built BY the changelings, with three non-shapeshifters!
No sense trotting into their hive with the ones you already have afterall.
So, is he really giving up that fast, or just realizing they aren't going to talk her out of it, so letting he go and planning to sneak after her?
Correction, what you think she wants!
And heh, just had a thought, the pull back was to reinforce the hive from the Yak who has gone full bore on Yak Pride and is smashing ALL the things.
He's not wrong, and he is the craftiest one of the group. See again, perfect rogue. Need a plan based on physics or other hard sciences, Ocellus, need one based on manipulating others, Gallus.
That said..... yeah there are many ways this could go wrong and having help around would, you know, help. Go scout the exterior, see if you can slip around, something else but going this route so quickly.
Also, still noting none of the others have directly interacted with Luna... that's beyond suspicious.
Heh, can't not slip that in.
Or because he seems to have a pretty damn good 'sense motive' check, and the stories made clear you two aren't really rolling bluff checks to hide it.
You need dark essence to fuel them.
That said, why hasn't Luna told anypony else about these? Between them, I'm sure Twilight and Starlight could figure out some other way to make them work.
How would that work? If she ate stuff made of the essence, that would then get used by her body, making it part of her, but then if anything hit that essence with something that would turn it back to essence, she'd be screwed. So, would eating transmuted stuff from this be safe?
If anything it's Gluttony. Nom nom nom!
Quick, use the replicators to make a Yu-gi-oh deck! That will be an easy way to fix this, winning a game of cards can have the entire fate of the world riding on it and no one thinks it's at all odd.
But will they stay there? If nothing else, gotta be getting hungry.
Ah, so she thought of this one, damn.
Also, why not go bat or some other small, easy to hide as creature right away?
Yeah, likely more then one.
See, there is just one, also, why not plan for this and try to figure out which one it would be.
I see Trixie has already started teaching them her ways.
Doesn't she have the same sort of wings anyway? Or do the holes make it buzz louder?
Well, another reason you really should not be alone. Also, wow, somepony get a real therapist over to that hive ASAP, Ocellus can't be the only Skittlebug with issues like this.
Yes, good question, and it can't be the barrier thing, because for some reason, only the one wing had them tripped, despite Luna saying it was caused by them attacking the throne room, which should trip all of them, so yeah, what is going on?
Okay, Ocellus, you are overthinking it at this point. You had those vices, they just weren't major for you or had anything they could hook you with. If it turns out you need to resonate with the Totem to use it, that would explain the Queen needing others if for some reason she doesn't have that resonance. Though Chryssi has Pride to spare, and really, really held onto her wrath, plus she wanted everything, but that was less 'greed' then 'gluttony' related, and more 'Pride' in that she just knew that she was so awesome, everything should rightfully be hers that she wanted. Same for 'Envy' she wasn't really envious she was the type to go sour grapes on anything she might envy and file it away as worthless because she doesn't have it.
This Queen might be colder, more logical. But, what does it matter how it resonates with you Ocellus? the less it effects you the better.
Hmmm, that would work, if Pride wasn't the one closest to her Hive, the one she is most likely to be able to use, going by other Queens. But, if it doesn't react to her, she might assume there is some trick she doesn't know..... maybe...... But why would she assume Ocellus knew how it worked?
Hmmm, that's not wrong. Chyssi could very much plan out a scheme and wait for things to be right to strike, but she also had issues with holding back as her goal got closer, getting sloppy as she believed she'd won. Not sure what makes you think Elytra is impulsive though.
Ehhhhhhh, she tended to have a lot of
Step 2:???
Step 3: Profit
going on with her 'endgames'. She would know how to get to the main goal, her in charge and the threats neutralized, but she never really thought much past that point on how she'd keep things that way, or what problems her plan might cause in the long term. She was great at tactics, not so good at strategy.
A bit too fast, though that's assuming it was her that messed with the mirror.
But how did she expect something like that if she had no idea? This is another part that doesn't make sense.
Again, you are making assumptions about what it is she wants, and basing your take on her on how well her actions seem to be failing to get her what you assume she wants. There is too much unkown about this to make these kinds of conclusions.
likely, not like she could know the mirror portal was going to open.
So yeah, something odd on top of all that, how much can the Queen alter the building?
Well, that answers this...... mazes that alter themselves are no fair!
Good time for that.
It could work, just head for the strongest stench.
Good, the real way to not get stopped, act like you are supposed to be there, and are in a hurry to get where you are going.
Practicing taking on their forms to use against them?
Going by the story so far? because you have a whole host of trauma and issues tangling up everything related to how you feel about anything that are making it really hard for you to sort out how you feel about anyone in any strong ways.
You are SO overthinking this.
Too late, it's been so named!
huh, useful, and in case some drone trips the damn alarm again and can't find how to shut it off. Which you know has happened, otherwise why would they need the giant arrow pointing to it?
It's almost like that's becoming a motif or something.....
She's going full philosophical! Someone pull her out of it before she reaches Socrates levels and we never hear anything from her again that isn't a question!
Also, clearly taking the Totem, the question isn't what, but why. And what very, very bad thing will happen after all four start ticking.
Given what we've seen, I'd say yes. Granted there's not a whole lot of a base for knowledge on overall Skittlebug psychology, but that is something that seems utterly logical for some of you to deal with.
Wow, that is some impressive imagery for that.
Well, that's quite the train of thought..... and yeah, she is still massively overthinking things and seeing herself in the worst light possible. It is a good point about how interactions with others can often generate a kind of feedback loop where you do things because of how others respond to them, causing you to act that way more to keep that going, and slowly changeling yourself on a fundamental level if it goes on long enough. For a perfect example in show, Discord. Slowly growing less and less of a massive douche-nozzle and actually helping out, being an actual friend to the others as he learns more and more, both how to do so, and how much he can enjoy doing so.
BUT! Doing so never changed his core nature, yes he learned to not be an asshole all the time, but he could still be a dick, and still be quite malicious if he got pissed off. Just because being around people makes you act differently because of how they respond doesn't mean anything, everyone does that. Okay, not everyone as there are some who either are too incapable of reading others response to get the feedback to register, or simply do not care. But a majority of people. It does not mean you are doing anything wrong, not with what you are doing, as you aren't lying to them, aren't deceiving them, it's still you.
And yes, the biggest issue here is that while most do engage in this kind of social feedback, she's acutely aware of it on multiple levels most would not be, thus going into massive, Twilight level freak outs over thinking it. With it tying into her deeper anxieties about her lack of feeling like she has a sold self identity. Yeah, she needs some heavy counseling from somepony actually qualified to deal with these issues. Or at least some long talks with Pinkie Pie. Yes, Pinkie Pie, out of all the Mane 6, she's the one whose dealt with this situation the most, as she also places a massive amount of her self worth on how others see her and has trouble understanding who she is when deprived of that social feedback. It's just Ocellus is introspective enough to directly point out the issue and over think it.
Heh, you are not wrong.
Okay, fine, it was necessary. Still not a good idea though.
More and more facts that just don't add up.
Pffft. "You all suck! you let an enemy infiltrator sneak right into the heart of the Hive! What is wrong with all of you imbeciles!"
Yeah, that sounds about right for a Queen.
Ah, so, the Totem is making her so prideful, that she's able to generate enough love for all of them, just by how proud she is of herself for having so many obedient little drones. Well, fuck.... mostly because, how the hell are you supposed to steal that and get away from a bunch of really pissed off moonlings? Also, you know, destroying it afterwards would be kind of bad for them.
Things just got even more complicated didn't they?
Assumption!
Well, this is going to get complicated very fast. Wow they are so beyond lost and really needing to find out more about what the hell is going on.
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I'm afraid that Queen Elytra could order her drones to transform into a Yu-gi-oh deck as her wish, she would got five parts of Exodia on hoof at the beginning of the duel, and Ocellus had no chance to win. OTK!
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Nah, as long as Ocellus believes in the heart of the cards she'll be fine.
Oh dear, now we start getting to heart of Ocellus' identity issues. Like she says, tons of people behave in certain ways so people respond better to them. For most people it wouldn't cause any problems, but with her past she's so ashamed of, and the fact that she's so introspective causes massive issues. Not to mention she's even started changing involuntarily, which can't help with her lack of self-image at all. But even a changeling like her can't always simply act the ways others want all the time. She was incredibly brave the way she managed to save Smolder from Greed. She obviously didn't do that just because she wanted love from her.
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Poor girl needs a hug. Several, really.
Wow I can't believe that Gallus pick that up so easily about smolder and ocellus Relationships smart griffon 😎
That's a problem for future Ocellus.
Nice reference to the episode it's about time
Ok They sorta have a plan now they had to get pride but unfortunately it's in the throne Room where Queen Elytra is Something tells me This is not gonna be easy to get specially with all the Rogue changeling around her And I'm sure she doesn't want to look at herself what she looks like back then i hope she'll be ok
This was mentioned in the last chapter as well. How did Ocellus risk Equestria for Smolder? I don't get it. Where was the choice? What was the choice? She did her best to save her friend and in the process she got the element of greed, which is exactly what they were searching for anyway. What was the alternative?
Can someone explain this please? because now it bugs me...
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With Greed eaten portal to Equestria isn't sustainable, thus Equestria would be safe
I couldn't help but laugh at Gallus spelling things out for them. I know they're kind of in a pinch right there, so it makes sense, but I'm imagining Ocellus thinking, "Hey, I'm right. here. you know?"
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I'm thinking about the logistics of Ocellus sneaking into the hive, and her interactions with love. She can store love away for the future, right? Maybe she should store all the love away somewhere it won't leak out. Or, if changelings take love and then pass it on, can she pass some on to the other changelings as a diversion, should things go sideways?
The changelings on the moon seem to have an almost supernatural ability to coordinate, so I wouldn't be surprised if the plan fails before it even begins. Although, if I were them, I might want to let Ocellus get all the way in before springing a trap.
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In regards to Elytra's personality, if she is resonating with Pride, maybe she merely thinks that her every idea is a great idea, even when it's clearly just the first thing that came to mind? Unable to consider the possibility of her own flaws might make someone less methodical and cautious.
If this were a sci fi and I saw Ocellus going into a moldy hive that seemed to be devoid of the substance that the inhabitants feed off of, and covered in mold and decay, I would immediately worry that the hive was actually abandoned and that the mold was putting her in very real danger.
On the topic of love reciprocation: "Most people don't need a government certified love inspector to tell them if its real. Generally it's your partner's job to decide if it works for them."
Honestly, sometimes I feel like people do themselves a disservice by putting labels on feelings and relationships, when it ends up limiting the possibilities to fit into an archetype or caricature.
With regards to acting differently around other people. It *might* be kindness to give people what they want, but it's generosity to give them what needs to be given.
What needs to be given between Ocellus and her friends? What state of being makes everyone's lives better, more enriched for the experience? This is a very deep and interesting question... that's also really not the questions you should be asking and causing yourself a full blown identity crisis in the middle of this daring commando style raid!!! Aaaah!