As Twilight and I headed back to Ponyville to collect tools to dig up crystals I had a few minutes to think to myself. And the more I thought about it, the less likely it seemed like they were going to outright kill me. Realistically it seemed like they were setting up to make me and my hive a vassal or puppet state to control the Changelings. In which case they wouldn’t kill me. They would explicitly keep me alive so they could use me. Which explained why they didn’t just let me die in the first place and why it seemed like they were trying to help me. They wanted me reliant on them and indebted to them so they could control me and thus control my children and any changelings who defected to my side.
Certainly not ideal, but not as bad as some of the most paranoid thoughts I’d had. It wasn’t nearly as illogical either. The thought helped me calm down a bit as well.
Twilight and I spent maybe an hour or so digging up crystals. Surprisingly there were a ton of them of all different types just buried in the place she brought me and a lot of them were really big. We managed to fill several buckets with them. There were rubies, sapphires, emeralds, amethysts, diamonds, and quartz among others.
Apparently crystals were significantly more abundant here in Equestria than they were on Earth.
As we were digging I asked, “So, if crystals can be enchanted to make light, can they be enchanted to do other things?”
“Definitely! They’re used for practically everything. One of the most common uses for crystals is making fire for stoves and ovens for cooking. The Friendship Express uses a steam engine that works pretty much the same way just at much higher temperatures. In fact the Friendship Express’ steam engine gets so hot that they have to use sapphires. That’s because sapphires have a high melting point and they’re more resistant to thermal shock than other crystals due to having a lower thermal expansion rate. So in an emergency if the engine needs to be cooled off faster than normal — like if the engine is overheating because it doesn’t have enough water — the crystals have a better chance of surviving! Isn’t that neat?” Twilight explained as she shoveled some more crystals into a bucket.
Crystals could make fire. Really hot fire at that if they had to use specific crystals to withstand the heat they could generate and could use them in a train’s steam engine. I just had one more question that needed to be answered about them. “They’re used in ovens? So does that mean they can be turned on and off or even set to different temperatures with a dial?”
“Mhm! The internal mechanisms are a little complicated but yeah! They can be turned on or off with buttons, switches, dials, or even levers. Why? Do you want to install dimmer switches in your hive or something?” Twilight asked.
“I just have some ideas in mind. That’s all.” I said, being intentionally vague
This conversation had given me ideas for defenses for my hive. Even just having the same system the train used to produce fire for its steam engine embedded in the floors could let me set up fire traps. They would be able to either burn intruders alive or I could close off sections and burn up all the oxygen within to suffocate them. Later, fresh air could be pumped back in with similar steam engines running pumps through specialized vents. Though that might be too complicated. Just burning them alive would almost certainly be easier and less complicated, if more messy. It would smell worse too.
I wondered if I could find a way to make a flamethrower out of enchanted crystals. I would have to look into that once I knew anything about enchanting. If it was possible, I’d be able to use my telekinesis to control a “swarm” of flamethrowers and just burn any of Chrysalis’ army that got too close to me. Though, to be fair, I’d be able to do something similar even if I only had a swarm of burning crystals. Having actual flamethrowers would just extend my range and lethality a bit. Still I’d just have to be careful not to burn up the oxygen around myself so as to not accidentally suffocate myself to death.
Though if they could produce fire, what about electricity? Could I make a taser crystal? If electricity was arcing off of it like a tesla coil, could I make something like an electricity grenade? Depending how long the charge lasted, that seemed useful for either taking enemies down non-lethally like a grenade version of Kid Win’s spark pistols or for area denial if they lasted longer than a moment.
That made me think, if they could generate electricity maybe lightning traps would be better than fire traps. Electrocuting invaders instead of burning them alive. They could be non-lethal too. Hypothetically, anyway. I wasn’t a tinker or an engineer so I had no idea how touching an arc of electricity outside of a wire would affect someone. As far as I was aware, being struck by lightning usually killed people. So maybe it was possible to make them non-lethal or maybe not.
Since the material my hive was made of could morph like I could, I also had ideas involving that. Constantly shifting maze-like hallways that would be nigh impossible to navigate, corridors that closed and sealed people in specific places, pit traps that could open and close with spikes soaked in funnel web spider venom, hallways that would slam shut and crush whoever was caught in them to death. Though a lot of that would depend on how much control I had over how and where the material shifted. I still didn’t know if I could control it at all.
The only problem was, my future children and I would have to live there too so I couldn’t make it too dangerous for us to navigate. If someone hit the wrong switch by accident or stepped on the wrong pressure plate and suddenly caused the entire room to burst into flames, they could get themselves, their siblings, or me killed. Or if Chrysalis kidnapped one of my kids and had a member of her hive infiltrate mine and learn where my traps are, the infiltrator could potentially use them against me. I obviously didn’t want any of that. So I was going to have to consider my defenses very carefully.
I was also going to have to check to see how flammable the material my hive was made of was. I didn’t want to use a fire trap to burn some intruders alive and accidentally burn the whole place down. That would be counterproductive. Although… If I had an escape route and I was going to lose the hive anyway, maybe there would be some value in having a self-destruct system to burn the invaders alive while my future kids and I got away.
I continued this line of thinking as Twilight and I spent the next half an hour or so digging up more crystals.
Once we had enough clear crystals for the lighting, we headed back to the library.
We set the buckets of crystals down and I asked, “Hey, Twilight, do you think you could teach me how to enchant crystals? I’d like to be able to make lights on my own in case I need to expand my hive.”
“Of course! I can try, anyway. We still don’t know how compatible your magic is with unicorn spells. So I can’t guarantee it will work.” Twilight told me.
“We won’t ever know unless we try. This is a good opportunity to experiment with that, right?” I asked. I was surprised. I didn’t actually expect her to say yes. Then again that bit about the ‘compatibility’ of Changeling and Unicorn magic could be the reason she was so willing.
“I suppose. Enchanting is a little advanced though. I would prefer to start you with something a bit easier. But there’s no harm in trying!” Twilight said.
Twilight spent the next few hours trying to teach me how to enchant crystals and answering my questions. All the while she was enchanting pieces of diamond and quartz one after the other like an assembly line. She did set a few of the crystals we gathered off to the side and gave a large sapphire to Spike, who proceeded to eat it like an apple, much to my surprise.
Apparently dragons ate gems which was impressive. Just how strong were their teeth and jaws if they could chew through solid sapphire or diamond like a human could chew an apple? I made a mental note to study their biology later to see if I could replicate that if I morphed into one. Being able to chew through solid diamonds seemed like a very useful offensive ability. If I could chew diamonds, logically shredding flesh and shattering bones or carapaces would be as easy as biting through wet tissue paper. As long as I was okay with getting the blood in my mouth, anyway.
Unfortunately the way Twilight was trying to teach me to enchant felt very awkward and unnatural to me somehow. It was just… wrong. So, eventually I decided to try something else. Rather than treating my magic as a fluid or gas that I was using to fill a vessel, I decided to treat it like a swarm of tiny insects which I had burrow into the crystal. This caused pits and holes to start forming in it until it almost started to resemble my legs and horn.
“Uh… Weaver? What are you doing? That’s not supposed to happen…” Twilight stated, examining the process curiously.
“Trying something.” I commented simply as I continued. Once my magic hand fully burrowed into the crystal I had it begin forming something like a honeycomb or hive. Once that was done, I tried to ‘program’ or ‘mold’ the magic into a spell in a similar vein to how Twilight taught me to do it. Suddenly the crystal began to glow faintly on its own. I set it down and looked at the now glowing crystal which started to dim slowly now that I was no longer constantly fueling it with my own magic.
“You did it! What did you do, though? Why did those holes start appearing in it?” Twilight asked.
“I treated my magic like a swarm of insects rather than a fluid and had it burrow into the crystal. The holes formed because of that. Then I had it form a honeycomb-like lattice inside the crystal, treating it like the inside of a hive. Other than that I did pretty much exactly what you said. This way felt a lot more natural, and it was clearly more effective. I’m curious if the results would have been different if I tried to weave the energy inside into a web-like structure instead. Something to test out later, I guess.” I explained.
“Fascinating… So I guess that proves there are some differences between Changeling and Unicorn magic, but there are some really interesting similarities too! We’re going to have to do a ton of experiments! Anyway, you’re making amazing progress. If you keep practicing you should be able to get it in a week or two.” Twilight said, with two buckets full of glowing crystals sitting next to her. All the crystals she had enchanted were perfectly clear as crystals that had color would only produce light of that color. So rubies would only make red light and emeralds would only make green. Clear crystals were the only ones that made white light, like light bulbs.
A week or two wasn’t fast enough, in my opinion. I wanted to shorten that to a few days. “Alright. Would you mind if I kept these ones for myself so I can practice on them?” I asked, motioning to the one of the buckets of crystals that was left unenchanted due to being in various colors.
“Of course, you’re more than welcome to. We collected the crystals for you, after all.” Twilight told me.
“Thanks. I’m going to go take these to my hive then.” I said, grabbing the bucket of crystals with telekinesis.
“It’s getting late. You should wait until tomorrow. It would be bad if you got lost in the dark.” Twilight suggested.
I looked outside the window and saw it was dark outside. I sighed and set the bucket next to the door for me to deal with later. “Didn’t think it was this late. Fine, I’ll wait until tomorrow morning.”
“That’s probably for the best. Spike should be making dinner right now. Just so you know, I finished the schedule for your feeding this morning. Today, because I haven’t had a chance to visit the others to hand out copies of the schedule, you’ll be feeding on me.” Twilight explained.
“Okay. So should I do that now or while you and Spike are having your dinner?” I asked.
“Which would you prefer? It would be nice if you could have dinner with us but it’s fine if you’d rather not. I don’t mind either way.” Twilight told me.
“It takes all of a few seconds for me to eat. I’d just be sitting there while you two have your dinner. That would be incredibly awkward. I’d rather just get it over with.” I told her.
“Alright then. Go ahead.” She closed her eyes and familial and friendly love began to radiate from her.
I ate what I needed. As always it was hard to stop myself from taking more than I needed, especially since it seemed like I always felt hungry even after eating enough to survive. However, I restrained myself.
After I was done, I turned back into my human form and searched the library for a book on enchanting. I found one and spent the rest of the evening reading until Twilight and Spike went to bed.
Since Luna could visit my dreams, I assumed they would know if I actually went to bed or not. If I didn’t they might find it suspicious. So as much as I wanted to sneak out and keep reading or practicing enchanting, I went to bed.
Once again, I was plagued with nightmares.
I was in Ponyville. Everything was burning as shapeshifting creatures violently tore each other to shreds. Some I somehow recognized as my children while the others were presumably Queen Chrysalis’ swarm. Some of my children were in the shape of humans, looking like teenagers or pre-teens, and were wielding guns and flamethrowers. However, they were outnumbered, out maneuvered, and were getting absolutely shredded by Chrysalis’ swarm. I felt all of their fear and despair as they were being slaughtered, which was agony in its own right.
I was in my changeling form and was blasting Chrysalis’ swarm with everything I had. I grabbed the weapons of some of my dead children with telekinesis and used them to fight back, but it wasn’t enough. More and more just kept coming.
I felt the emotions of my children being snuffed out one after the other until there were none left and I was all alone. Fighting Chrysalis’ swarm all by myself with my dead children’s weapons. There were too many of them. I was being overwhelmed.
Whenever a gun ran out of ammo or a flamethrower ran out of fuel, I discarded it and used my telekinesis on fallen nails, rebar, and broken glass from buildings as well as on the changelings themselves. Anything I could do to fight and kill them, I did. And I was steadily becoming more and more exhausted as a result.
I was one woman against an entire swarm. I could only hold out for so long, and I knew it. I was going to die with my kids. It was just a matter of how many I took with me before it was over.
Suddenly I saw Queen Chrysalis, or at least the image of her that Luna had shown me, emerge from the flames of one of the burning buildings.
Then everything stopped. The sun turned into the moon as the sky turned black and filled with stars, Chrysalis and her swarm vanished, all of the corpses disappeared, the fires died, and the damaged buildings were restored as if nothing ever happened.
“More nightmares, Weaver?” Luna asked, appearing in front of her.
“So it would seem.” I told her.
Luna looked around. “This is different from your other nightmares. Would you mind telling me what worries you?”
“I just learned why you guys are insistent I make a hive. You think I’m going to lay a bunch of eggs like the queen of a beehive or something. So the stress of that is most certainly a big part of it. Judging by my nightmare, I’m also scared all of my kids are going to be murdered by Chrysalis and her swarm. Though, unlike this dream, I doubt they would actually be old enough to fight by the time Chrysalis attacks depending on when I have them. If you guys are right and I have them at all, that is.” I explained. I saw no point in hiding this fact from her. Twilight already knew the thought of Chrysalis killing my kids made me angry. So Luna knowing I was worried about that happening changed nothing.
Luna’s eyes widened in realization. “O-oh… Ehem… I see. My apologies, we had thought you would have already suspected the same thing…”
“Mhm… Anyway, moving on, I’ve officially decided that I’m going to stay in the Everfree Forest. At least for now. I might move to the Undiscovered West later on since it has more area to expand and then turn the hive in the Everfree into an Embassy or something. Or just give the Everfree back entirely, whichever works. However, until Chrysalis is dealt with, the Everfree is probably the safest place for my children and I. It’s also the most convenient due to its proximity to Ponyville. I already found the perfect place to make my hive and have started construction. There is one thing I would like to bring up though. There’s someone else who lives in the Everfree by the name of Zecora. She wants to remain within Equestria, so I’d like to factor that in when we draw up borders. I’d rather not have to force someone else to move out just so I can move in.”
Luna nodded. “That can certainly be arranged. As for your embassy idea, we would have to discuss that in more detail in person. We can do that as we’re drawing up the borders.”
“If things are really as bad over there as you’ve told me, then leaving it unattended again probably isn’t the best idea. So I suppose I’ll have to come to Canterlot for that. How does three days from now sound?” I asked. I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the idea of going to a city that was recently attacked by changelings and everyone would hate me. Still I knew I was going to have to eventually anyway if I was going to play politics, so I might as well get it over with sooner rather than later.
Luna reeled back in surprise. “Three days? So soon? Don’t you want a bit more time to rest and recuperate?”
“No. That’s what the painkillers are for. I would rather get all of this out of the way as soon as possible so I can start preparing myself for war with Chrysalis. I’m outnumbered, outgunned, and have less knowledge and experience with what magic I can use than my enemies do. I am at every possible disadvantage. I can’t afford to waste any time. Queen Chrysalis most certainly isn’t going to give me time to prepare for war. In fact, I’d head over to Canterlot to get this sorted out tomorrow morning if I could. The only reason I’m suggesting three days is to give you time to sort things out on your end. And no, I don’t expect to eat at all while I’m there for however long I have to be there, just to make your nobles or whoever feel better. If necessary, I’m fully prepared to go several days without feeding on love just to get the politics out of the way so I can move on and focus on other things.” I explained.
Luna seemed somewhat off put by this. “I… I see… Well, that last bit will not be necessary, I assure you. We shall make accommodations so you don’t have to starve yourself while you’re in Canterlot. That said, how exactly do you plan on preparing for this war?”
“I plan to learn more about magic so I can use it to defend myself and my hive as effectively as possible.” I said, being intentionally vague. I didn’t want to give them any more potential political leverage against me. Knowing I was going to be developing weapons, for example, could allow them to demand I give them the designs for ‘diplomatic’ reasons, and things of that nature. Not that any weapons I could design with my extremely limited knowledge would be anything particularly special. They probably already had better weapons than anything I could make anyways, considering they’ve always had access to magic and I was just learning. Still I would prefer to keep those cards up my sleeve as long as I could.
“I suppose you plan to use lethal force, as you were in your nightmare just now.” Luna said.
“Obviously. If they’re going to try to kill me and my future kids, why wouldn’t I kill them first?”
“Well, you are right. This will be a war and you will have to defend yourself… I’m very familiar with combat magic, and I am willing to teach you some of what I know. If you’re interested.” Luna offered.
I stared at her for a moment. “You want to teach me how to fight with magic?”
Luna nodded and smiled at me. “Indeed. You do need to learn, after all. With everything that’s happening I can only spare a bit of time, but I am willing to tutor you in what little time I do have at night.”
I stared at her for a moment longer. On the one hand, I didn’t exactly trust this. On the other hand, any knowledge I could gain could be useful. I could experiment with it and try to find other ways to use it to make it more effective later. So ultimately the pros outweighed the cons. “Fine. When do we start?”
“I can teach you some of the basics now and let you practice those by yourself within this dream for the rest of the night. Though I’m afraid it will have to be relatively quick. I only have a short time before I have to get back to my other duties. If no nobles demand my presence tonight, which I pray to harmony they won’t.”
As Luna said, she spent about fifteen to twenty minutes teaching me some basic combat magic before she had to leave.
I spent the rest of that night in a lucid dream, going over what she taught me and trying to adapt it to work better with my magic. When I woke up in the morning I went about my business as usual and informed Twilight that I would be going to Canterlot in three days.
I spent the next three days practicing enchanting, reading about enchanting, and building up my main hive. I was still thinking about building a second hive. If nothing else, having a second hive to evacuate to in an emergency would be a good thing. I just needed time to go look for a decently hidden spot to build it. Time which I did not have at the moment as my plate was already full as it was.
Every night a different pony came to the library to have dinner with us. First it was Rarity, who seemed excited to learn I would be heading to Canterlot soon. She had offered to make a dress for me. Initially I reluctantly turned her down as I thought I had nothing to pay her with. However, Twilight informed me Rarity used gems in a lot of her dresses and suggested I trade some of the unenchanted gems we had collected. So Rarity agreed to make a dress for my Changeling form. She immediately took my measurements and started drawing up designs she could finish quickly while she, Twilight, and Spike had dinner. From what I saw the designs were a bit… fancy for my tastes. I preferred outfits that were more practical and could be worn every day.
At least I was going to have some actual clothes soon.
Next was Pinkie Pie, who was as excited and hyperactive as she had been during the party she threw for me. She mainly wanted to know when I’d help her make a dish that tasted like love, to which I told her I was busy.
Every night I also had a different nightmare and was subsequently visited by Princess Luna in my dreams, much to my annoyance. Having chronic nightmares was rapidly getting very annoying. Though she did honor our agreement and tested me on what I had learned from her the previous nights before teaching me a bit more in what limited time she had.
Finally the day I was going to head off to Canterlot had arrived.
That morning there was a knock on the front door. Twilight opened it and Rarity came in with the brand new dress in tow. “It’s ready! It was quite a challenge, but I managed to finish it just in time! Weaver, darling, I would love to see what you look like in your new dress. Would you mind trying it on before you leave?”
“Sure. I was planning to put it on before going out anyway.” I said, grabbing the dress with my telekinesis and taking it from her. “Hang on a second. I’ll be right back.” I told them before turning and heading to the bathroom to get changed.
Putting on the dress I looked at myself in the mirror. The dress was a mix of gray and red, complementing my black carapace nicely. It had several rubies sewn into the fabric, some of which I assumed were from the bucket of gems I had traded Rarity. This made me wonder if the crystals could be enchanted in such a way as to be useful in a fight. If they could be enchanted to generate a one way energy shield, for example, that could be incredibly useful. Or if they could be enchanted for single use offensive spells or something, for emergencies. Otherwise I saw little to no point in them being part of a dress in the first place. The only problem was, my method of enchanting would eat holes in the crystals which would ruin the dress. Maybe I could enchant some crystals then have Rarity design clothes around them?
I would have to investigate that in the future. I didn’t have time for this sort of thing right now.
For now I stuffed a plastic baggy with several days worth of my medication into the dress before I came back out and asked, “Well? How do I look?”
“You look absolutely gorgeous, darling! I only wish I had a bit more time… I’m sure I could have made it ten times better if only I had a few more days.” She felt conflicted. I could sense she was being genuine when she said it looked good on me, but she also wasn’t nearly satisfied with it.
“It’s fine as it is. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. I know I gave you those gems, but I’ll try to pay you back for this in the future.” I told her.
“I already told you, darling, that really isn’t necessary. I couldn’t just let you go meet the princesses in Canterlot without a proper dress!”
“Well, we’ll see… Thanks again for the dress. I guess I should head to the station now. My train’s gonna arrive in like fifteen minutes.” I said, looking at a clock on the wall.
“Alright, we’ll see you later. Oh, and tell the princesses and Shining Armor I’m sorry Spike and I couldn’t come with you. I have some chores and I really need to get done here in Ponyville.” Twilight told me.
Rarity sighed wistfully. “I wish I could come as well… Alas, I will have to wait. Still, do try to have fun in Canterlot, Weaver.”
“Thanks. Later.” I said before I limped out the door.
Once I was outside, I used my wings to hover just above the ground and flew the rest of the way to the train station.
I didn’t have to wait long for the train to arrive. Rarity really had come in with the dress just on time.
Celestia had apparently paid for my train ticket, so I had the entire VIP car to myself the entire ride. There was complimentary food and drinks. Though I didn’t try any of them, not just because I didn’t need them but because it had been several days and there was a possibility Chrysalis had heard of me by now. I didn’t want to take the risk that a changeling might have kidnapped and impersonated an attendant and poisoned any of it.
The ride was boring since I had neglected to bring a book. Twilight had informed me Canterlot Castle had quite a library of its own, so I didn’t want to risk bringing and losing one of Twilight’s books. Fortunately the ride wasn’t quite as long as I had expected.
Exiting my train car I was greeted by Shining Armor and a host of Royal Guards waiting for me.
“Hello. Nice to see you again, Captain. Or should I say, Prince? I’m sorry, I’m really not familiar with customs like this.” I greeted him, trying to be both polite and formal considering this was a public setting and I was here on official business.
“It’s good to see you again as well, Queen Weaver. Since I’m in uniform right now, calling me Captain is perfectly fine. If I was in my dress uniform, and standing next to Cadance, then you should refer to me as prince. Now, since you’re currently lacking guards of your own, we will be escorting you to the palace. Please follow us.” Shining Armor stated, in a similarly stiff and official tone.
“Alright. Is it a problem if I hover rather than walk? I’d rather not have to limp the whole way there.” I asked.
“Not at all. In fact, most of the guards present are pegasi for that very reason.” Shining Armor responded before turning and leading the way towards the castle, taking the head of the formation.
The pegasi guards hovered slightly higher than me. Likely to better guard me from potential assassins on the roof tops.
Crowds gathered and stared at me as we headed for the castle. Hundreds of ponies. And I could sense all of their emotions. Fear. Curiosity. Hatred. Disgust. Trepidation. Almost no positive emotions whatsoever. What very few positive emotions I did feel were all directed at the guards or people the ponies knew. That was all pretty much exactly what I expected though. If anything, I was more surprised that there were no assassins that attempted to kill me, or that the crowds weren’t rioting in an attempt to murder me.
We reached the castle without incident. No riots or assassination attempts. Just big crowds moving out of our way and watching us pass by.
We entered the castle and the guards led me to the throne room. Inside I felt the emotions of several dozen people. Most of whom were guards and nobles, I assumed.
They pushed the door open and the precession paused as someone announced, “Introducing Queen Weaver. Ruler of Hive Weaver and respected ally of Equestria.”
The guards parted to allow me to enter the throne room by myself.
I hovered inside and landed just in front of the three thrones at the far end of the room. Celestia, Luna, and Cadance were all present.
Since I was supposed to be the Queen of my own hive now, I didn’t bow to them. I nodded respectfully but that was it. I wasn’t about to show any signs of subservience towards them, whether they wanted to use my hive as a puppet state or not.
They nodded back. “Greetings, Queen Weaver. Thank you for coming.”
“Of course. So, what’s with all of this? Are we going to be discussing borders here, or…?” I asked.
“Ah, no. This is mainly a formality. A show for the nobility and the few foreign dignitaries that are present. We’re officially recognizing your hive as its own nation, separate from Chrysalis’ Hive. You’re going to have to declare your independence from her Hive too. Just bear with us for a bit. This is going to take a while.” Celestia explained.
This put me on guard as I was worried they were going to try to pressure me into swearing an oath to them. This, however, did not happen. Just as the Princesses said, it was a whole huge display where I effectively declared myself an independent kingdom separate from both Equestria and Chrysalis’ Hive, and the Princesses recognized the legitimacy of my kingdom. As did several of the foreign dignitaries that were present, most of whom were ponies. But there was a minotaur, a dragon, and a bipedal dog present as well. About half of the dignitaries didn’t recognize the legitimacy of my kingdom, citing the fact I currently had no citizens and thus my hive could not be considered a kingdom. However that was standard fare for politics I supposed. All in all it was a long, boring, and tedious affair.
When it was over, the princesses dismissed everyone and led me to a meeting room. After we all sat down in our respective chairs around the table, Celestia sighed. “I apologize for all of that, Weaver, but it was a necessary step in all of this.”
“It’s fine. Though you do realize that by recognizing my hive as having any legitimacy as its own separate kingdom, Queen Chrysalis is going to be all the more likely to declare war. Are you sure it was worth doing this now rather than at some point later on?” I asked.
“Yes. This way Queen Chrysalis will have a harder time undermining your hive on the international stage later. It’s honestly a miracle that we managed to convince as many dignitaries to recognize your hive as we did. Let alone in such a short time period… Fortunately many of them seemed willing to go along with this just to spite Chrysalis. She has made quite a few enemies it seems.” Luna said.
I frowned. “I told you the three days were so you could prepare, otherwise I would have come sooner to get this out of the way. You could have told me you needed more time and we could have easily rescheduled. I wouldn’t have held it against you.”
Celestia winced. “That… would certainly have been more convenient… Luna, why in the name of harmony didn’t you ask Weaver to reschedule this to a week or so from now?”
“W-well… I… Weaver seemed to be in a hurry to prepare so… I…” Luna sighed. “I have no excuse… I really didn’t think this through as much as I should have… I’m sorry, sister.”
Celestia took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “It’s alright, Luna. I’m not mad… A little frustrated maybe, but not mad…” It was true. She wasn’t angry, just very annoyed. At least if she wasn’t using a spell to fuck with my empathy. “Ehem… Well, everything worked out in the end anyway. Now, borders. So Luna tells us you’ve decided to stay in the Everfree Forest for the moment, but you plan to turn it into an embassy and move to the Undiscovered West eventually. Is this true?”
“Yes. If you’re right and I am going to undergo parthenogenesis like most hive based insects, I’m not sure how many kids I’m going to have. It could be one, a dozen, a hundred, or even a thousand at a time for all I know. So depending on that I might need room to expand, which means I might need to move to the Undiscovered West eventually. So it might make sense to turn the Hive I’m building in the Everfree Forest into an embassy or something at some point in the future. Especially considering its location.”
“That makes sense. That, however, brings up the question of borders. Do we declare the Undiscovered West your territory now or later? That is an important distinction politically since the Undiscovered West is technically unclaimed territory and anypony could try to move in at any time. Claiming it now would mean no one else could try to move in without it essentially counting as an invasion. However, you don’t currently have a means of defending such a large territory. So if an invasion like that happened, you would be unable to do much to stop it. And while Equestria is willing to help you against Queen Chrysalis and her swarm we would not be willing to get involved with a territorial dispute like that.” Celestia stated, in a diplomatic tone.
Thus my meeting with the Princesses in regards to my borders began in earnest.
I say Magic BS. That makes it the most appropriate for the show.
ants actually do not undergo asexual reproduction. virgin elate queens and males go on nuptial flights, where the males mate with the queens and then die, having served their biological purpose. the pregnant queens then break off their wings and go on to cloister themselves away in founding chambers to lay their first generation of Worker ants, called Nanitics. during this founding period, both the nanitics and their mother survive off of a nutritious 'soup' thats made from the Queens now useless wing muscles. the details vary by ant species of course, but thats the general birth of a new ant colony...
11615955
They do both, actually. Scientific article on the reproductive process of ants. In ants, workers arise from sexual reproduction while queens arise from parthenogenesis.
11615959
ok, quick problem, that paper is over a decade old, so its data is very badly out of date, any scientific data more than five years old is more or less no good anymore. second, its talking about a specific grouping of ants, Cataglyphis cursor, so thats not inclusive to all ants. my data comes from actually seeing queen ants of several species start and grow their colonies from scratch, including but not limited to, yellow crazy ants, black crazy ants, fire ants, weaver ants, carpenter ants and much more.
all of my observations come from an antkeeper who maintains his own you tube channel, starring the ants
11615967
Okay. Fair enough. I'll accept the fact that I'm wrong and concede the point. I'm not an expert on insects and their biology. I only recently learned there was another type of parthenogenesis then Thelytokous.
That said, there are still two different types of parthenogenesis. That was the main thing I was asking about near the end of my author's notes even if the insects I used to reference it were incorrect.
there are subterranean bees~
BS option?
Egg
Grub: Gender-less starting out.
Pupation: acquiring male or female traits during this process.
Nymph
Molting process
Mature Drone
hows that sound?
11615987
Sounds fine by me. The few people who've commented on this at all, here and on Space Battles, seem to agree that Changeling Magic deciding the sex of the hatchlings is a good idea. I haven't ironed out the details on how it would work, so I just might use this. If that's okay, of course.
11616001
yup, you can. glad to help~
11616001
Yup, this is more than believable. I mean there are plenty of species where temperature and population stressors determine the baby's gender. So for Equestrian Changelings, magic being a determining factor more than makes sense.
Also, ay! It looks like Weaver has reluctantly determined that the Ponies aren't plotting to murder her and her children. She has instead logically determined that they plan to politically enslave her instead. Oh that poor girls head. Well, progress is progress I suppose.
Lastly, I don't know what Luna was more disturbed by. The fact Weaver was having a nightmare about her children being slaughtered, the matter of fact way she discussed it, or how readily the Changeling Queen brushed off starving herself for several days just to get some paperwork finished marginally faster...
It's usually for the "spicier" takes, but "physical sex of changelings is mutable and inconstant" is another reasonable take. Like, if you're not using your bits, why have them manifested? If you can shapeshift either, why commit the rest of the time? Separate from expressed or habitual gender, of course. it would make sense for infiltrating doppelgangers to have thorough understanding of personality, but also probably wasteful trainingwise to have every infiltrator able to do both.
This kind of protaganist... the more anguish the enjoyable it is. She's pretty much nothing likable if she lose her weird lonesome edgelord quirk.
I proposed let's her hive burn down a couple of time. The first time she rejected help and the second one made her have a stockholms syndrome to the person who saved her, but that person just want to use her only. Stormking or Zombra? Both of them can utilized lsubtle brainwashing magic on her too.
Let's her trusting tge ponies be final arc
11616213
You should absolutely read Worm, then. Taylor suffers a lot in the main story. I'm genuinely not sure I can do anything to her here in the My Little Pony universe that can top the crap she went through in Worm. That dream sequence in chapter 4 where she is cut in half? That's canon. That actually happens in Worm. She survived because of something someone gave her. I don't want to spoil it if you haven't read it. And that's arguably not the worst thing she ever went through. So if you want to see Taylor suffer, read Worm.
11616360
well.... I really don't know how this protagonist is going to be likeable. She's likely going to be a mary sue soon too, considered how much she prioritized learning on combat and magic early on.
If I were to be write future chapters for this story, I would either that or add a secondary protagonist into the story.
Worm is a superhero story and its power level assortment system made me cringe than reading my hero academia.
Like, it's grinding my gear very badly when I see something like this
is like Tinker 5 Mover 2 Shaker 7 .
It's as ridiculous and useless as our real world's ship class, which is also cringed.(giant nuclear sub is considered as a boat, like are you kidding?)
11616375
Well, in that case I imagine you won't like this story. If you don't like Worm, then you won't like this either since they have the same main character.
I personally like the power classification system. It makes sense in that it gives the heroes a general overview of the types of powers they're going to be up against and working with in a given situation. I imagine people in real life would develop something similar for similar reasons if super powers were real.
But to each their own, I suppose.
11616375
If you don't have at least a passing familiarity with the crossover source material, then you're gonna have a bad time.
And if a canonically battle-hardened and pragmatic protagonist with trust issues making the best of her new circumstances is so unlikable to you, then you'd better do yourself a favor and drop that fic right now, because TenebrisScholar is here to give us the story they want to write, not the one you want to read.
11616213 Dude, the whole point of sending her to Equestria was for respite. So, no.
11615976
if i might offer some small suggestion, should you decide to go even more into ants with Taylor's brood, then perhaps taking traits from several ant species rather than just one? for example, fire ants have powerful venom and are excellent swimmers, they are militant enough to make a potent warrior class. add to that the marauder ants with their semi nomadic traits and specialized workers known as majors and super majors who are larger than the average worker and perform such tasks as processing larger food items, defensive actions along swarming trails and in the case of super majors even acting as living transportation for their smaller sisters. black crazy ants have nests that are literally immortal as there could be hundreds of egg-laying queens within, and as every ant is genetically distinct they can mate brother and sister within the colony, no nuptial flights. some ants even dont have queens at all, instead they use whats called a 'gamergate' system, theres a WORKER ant who lays eggs for the colony, and when she dies, a new Worker takes over as the new gamergate egg layer...she still needs outside fertilization, but the system works.
Here's a neat idea. Since this is an AU, why not have it be something unique to this fic? That'd be good.
Have Taylor shape some paste into some egg containers. Have her fill them with fluid. Then have her bleed in them. Then eggs would form in them. When they are ready, have her move the eggs to a pre-built hatchery. The eggs would stay there, soaking up on love. Then they would later hatch.
The changelings would hatch as fully formed foals. Say somewhere about the age of the Crusaders. Then they would grow naturally after that.
There are times when you should do your research, try to stick close to the established so readers don't have to suspend their disbelief too far over the cliff. However, there are also times when you should lean into the mystique. The magic. This is a world where bugs eat love, and you have an opportunity to take a unique approach to important lore. Use this chance to ask "what would be a THEMATICALLY appropriate means of reproduction?" Keep in mind that Chrysalis must, logically, use the same method. Or does she? Ambiguous moments like this provide you the means to add personality to the characters and your world. Do what feels right.
I’ve really loved this story so far, Thank You for the read!
great chapter
Yo! I like this story, just finished reading it. I love the whole concept. I am eager for more.
nice story
it seems like it might be a long one
and im for it and i am looking forward to seeing weaver learn to chill and realise that things in equestria are a lot more relaxed and a super world ending event only happens once or twice a year and even then they are more or less annoyances rather then super end game threats, well minus 4 major events (terik, the storm king, the draining magic event in the school arc and discords fuck up in the final season)
Update When?
11661381
Technically last night. But I made a LOT of mistakes with how I handled Chapter 6 and disappointed a lot of my readers so I had to delete it. I fully intend to rewrite it in the next few days, however. The original version is technically still up under "Apocrypha" on Space Battles if you're curious about how bad it is and why I deleted it to rewrite it. Here's a link.
most time it's What the mother or the young one
Choose to be
tine of aging ...varies
maybe few days or week to grow up ?
I
Oh, that's pretty much what I meant. Guess I could have waited to post that last comment.