Recidivism
The room fell silent. Twilight stared at Pincer and let a hoof hover just above the ground, as though she weren't sure whether to push him to continue or wait for him to do it on his own. In the end, curiosity got the better of her.
"Pincer, I don't know what it is you're going to say, but this sounds like something we really need to know, so thanks for coming to me with it."
"You're not going to like it," Pincer said in a low voice.
"I've already figured it involves preying on ponies," Twilight said quietly. "But you don't do that anymore. You changed. And the other changelings can change, too." She smiled a bit at her accidental wordplay. "And in the meantime, you'll be helping us protect ourselves."
"No, I don't think you're getting it. It's not just taking love and leaving some ponies weak. It's worse." He swallowed. "A lot worse."
Twilight frowned, eyes going wide. She looked away for a moment before speaking again.
"Pincer? What do you mean, 'a lot worse'? Wh—what are you — they — doing?"
In a low, even tone, staring at the ground, he told her everything: about the kidnappings and the cocoons, how the ponies captured would never be able to leave, and his role as a scout picking out good targets. Twilight said nothing as he recounted this, and by the time he finished and worked up the courage to look up at her, she was looking back at him with a pale face and an open mouth. Her breathing was ragged.
"That... y—you're joking, right? I mean, they wouldn't actually need to..." She took a step and leaned forward, her face nearly touching the bars. Pincer could only look down at the floor and shake his head.
For a few seconds, the only sound was Twilight's hoof rapping against the stone floor. It was a few seconds before any more words spilled out.
"W—why... I don't... how could you..."
Suddenly, she slammed a hoof against the bars, glaring daggers at him.
"How could they do that? How could you let them?!" she yelled, as the clang echoed through the dungeon. "All this time I've been telling anyone who'd listen that you weren't bad, and you... you knew about this and you just kept letting them do it!"
"Twilight, I'm sorry!" Pincer said in a shaking voice. It was as he'd feared; everything was falling apart. "I don't like it, I want it to stop, but—"
"Then why didn't you say anything?"
Pincer looked down at his hooves. "I didn't know what you'd think. I didn't want you to hate me," he whispered. "And if Celestia found out... the others. My podmates. If she knew they were doing that..."
She stepped forward, and her horn took on a worryingly familiar glow. "So what were you doing? You talked about how I was your friend, and how you were starting to see us as people, but this whole time you've been helping them do something terrible!"
Twilight glanced away. "I'm telling Celestia," she said. "She has to know. Your people have been doing those things, and you've been keeping it from me while pretending to be my friend!"
Pincer drew his body tight, bracing himself against the ground. "Twilight, please! I'll do it! Let me tell her!"
Twilight simply gave him a hard stare, then turned around and began to walk away. Her horn's glow faded. "No, Pincer. I can't trust you to do it. I've got to make sure Celestia knows exactly what's going on."
He looked despairingly at Twilight's receding form. He wanted to say something, but no words came to him before she was out of sight. For awhile he just stood there and stared ahead into the dark hallway, as though he could will her to return he turned on the spot and bucked the iron bars of his cell. The ringing of metal echoed across the halls of the dungeon, but no one was there to hear it.
Suddenly, Pincer slumped over. With nothing left he could do, he trotted over to his cot and hoisted himself onto it. He lay on his backside, barely noticing the uncomfortable pressure it put on his wings. Perhaps his hope had been foolish after all; it seemed that the way things were, the only way a changeling could befriend a pony was through deception.
If these ponies could no longer trust Pincer, then Pincer could no longer trust them. Any second thoughts he had about Queen Chrysalis and The Hive were shoved aside by Twilight's clear demonstration that the changeling way of life was necessary if they were to continue to survive. As he'd always believed, ponies were the absolute and constant enemy of him and his kind.
He had to escape. He had to get back to The Hive.
Some number of hours later, Pincer heard the familiar sound of hoofsteps approaching his cell and pushed himself off of the bed. A few seconds later, two unicorn guards stopped in front of his cell, the one in front unlocking it.
"Her Majesty Princess Celestia has summoned you," the other said curtly. Pincer lightly nodded, then fell in line between them. As they wound through the twists and turns of the dungeon, he steeled his nerves for what was coming. He would have only one chance, and failure would very likely cost him everything.
Soon after climbing their way out of the dungeon and into the more public part of the castle, Pincer could see the towering marble arches and fluttering banners of the Entrance Hall, and his heart began to beat like a cornered beast's. It was a room he had become very familiar with, having seen it many times when going out to town with Twilight. To the right was the entrance leading to the throne room, and to the left was his way out.
The moment they stepped into the Entrance Hall, Pincer's rear legs shot out, colliding with the breastplate of the pegasus guard behind him and sending him tumbling to the floor. The guard in front of him turned around, but by then Pincer had broken into a gallop towards the main doors. He heard the guard calling out for the others to stop him. Two unicorn ponies blocked his exit, standing at the doors and pulling them shut with their magic.
Pincer turned so he was on a collision course with one of the guards, hoping to take him down and distract his partner so that Pincer could slip through the doors. The guard Pincer was aiming for noticed, though, and began charging up his horn for some sort of offensive spell. He didn't get the chance before Pincer crashed into him, slamming him into the door and knocking him over.
The second turned to face Pincer, head lowered and horn glowing, and Pincer leaped over a crackling amber beam of energy that came from the guard's horn. Pincer rushed him with fangs out, but a second beam jolted his body with a surge of electricity. He fell to the ground, muscles jerking and unresponsive, body aching and burning.
His body's pain and spasms were still flooding his senses when he felt shackles clamping down on both his front and back legs. The guard then produced a strap, which he wrapped around Pincer's body and used to tie down his wings.
"He's subdued," the guard said, facing the entrance to the throne room. All around, Pincer could hear the sound of hooves clapping on marble and carpet, and he soon found the other unicorn guard and the two pegasus guards who had been escorting him glaring down at his prone form. He tensed as well as he could. One of the pegasus guards looked at the other.
"Tell Her Majesty what has happened," he said. His subordinate nodded, then walked away. Gradually, Pincer could feel his muscles becoming responsive again, for all the good it would do. Experimentally he tried shifting and moving his limbs, but every time he did, one of the guards would push a hoof against him and order him to stay still.
"You've made a mistake," one of the unicorn guards barked. "Princess Celestia doesn't take kindly to those who abuse her goodwill. I don't think you'll be getting out of those shackles for a long time."
Pincer would have liked to retort that, after what Celestia had learned about them, he doubted there was any goodwill left to abuse. Not wanting to give his captors an excuse to strike him while he was helpless, though, he instead lay huddled quietly on the floor. Several minutes later, the guard who had left returned.
"He's to be taken to the throne room." The other guards nodded and looked down at Pincer.
"All right, on your hooves," said one of the unicorn guards. After briefly hesitating, he braced his legs against the ground and lifted with some effort. Still twitching and hurting, he pulled himself to a standing position one leg at a time. The unicorn guards nodded to the pegasus guards and returned to their posts by the door.
"In line," the higher-ranking pegasus guard said to Pincer, eyes fixed on him. He shuffled his way between the two guards as he had before, the manacle chains pulling taut with each short step.
"Move." He started walking, occasionally being prodded by the guard behind him when he was unable to keep pace with them. They passed through the doors to the throne room and the guards moved to either side of him, bowing to Princess Celestia in unison.
"Well done. You are dismissed," Celestia said simply, giving them a small smile. The two guards bowed again and trotted out. Once they were gone, Celestia looked briefly at Pincer, smile vanishing.
"Sergeant Strike, Sergeant Watcher, remain outside while I talk with the prisoner. Close the doors behind you." The two unicorn guards likewise bowed and left. Seconds later, the door closed behind them like a trap snapping shut. Suddenly, the room felt even larger and more imposing than it had before, and Pincer's gut twisted with a dread certainty that he wasn't going to be leaving alive.
"Why did you attack my guards, Pincer?" Celestia asked, an edge to her voice. She looked down at him as though he were a larva caught stealing a perch. He knew very well why he had made the escape attempt, but couldn't quite find the words to convey his many reasons. A deathly silence hung over the room a he stared at her.
"Be thankful you only gave Private Ironlink a minor injury. I'm willing to forgive what you've done, but I can't be sure my guards will be so charitable. Perhaps you thought this was a proper response to my student becoming upset with you?" she finally said.
"It wasn't just that!" Pincer said louder than intended, his voice echoing through the chamber. Celestia's eyes widened for a fraction of a second. Pincer's heartbeat quickened at his own boldness, and he had the nagging feeling that he'd overstepped. He couldn't stop now, though. Not without telling her. She could punish him after he'd had his say.
"I told her. She was my only friend. The only one I could trust. It was a huge risk. It didn't matter to her. She hates me. She hates us all. That's what'll happen if ponies know. There won't be any mercy. That's why I had to get out. So you couldn't kill us. I was right all along."
He slumped, chains clanking. "But you got me. It's over now."
In the silence that followed, he dully looked up to find Celestia scrutinizing him. Her expression was unreadable, and he found it impossible to imagine what her response might be.
"Pincer," she finally said. Her tone was even. "I need you to listen very carefully to what I'm about to say."
His muscles tensed, but he remained still.
"I understand that Twilight was upset by what you told her, and I certainly don't blame her. But you must understand that she was beginning to consider you a friend, too. She was starting to like and trust you, and you suddenly told her that you'd been hiding something terrible from her. Something that could very well bring harm to her friends and family.
"I don't say this to condemn you, though. I just want you to understand how this looks from her point of view. I recognize that you took a massive risk both to your own safety and that of your Hive to uncover, at least to one pony, an evil that you were no longer willing to stay silent about. That you showed such courage and selflessness has not made me want more to exterminate your kind. Quite the opposite, in fact."
Pincer looked up, eyes wide.
"I hope I'm not being presumptuous when I say that in most ways you seem to be much like any other changeling drone," Celestia continued. "In that case, surely you're not the only one to have the potential to do good. In better circumstances, I think, we could find a way to coexist."
As Pincer let out a breath, Celestia frowned.
"Now I'm afraid I must tell you the difficult news. I can't stay idle while my ponies are being kidnapped and forced into slavery. The only way to free them is to break into The Hive and get them out. You have my assurance that I will do everything in my power to keep casualties at a minimum on both sides.
"You can help with that, but you'll have to do something that I know will be very hard for you. I need you to tell me everything you know about The Hive — its location, its layout, its defenses, and anything else what will be important to know."
Pincer blinked. "You want me to help you fight my own people? You're asking... I mean, it's one thing to warn you, but..."
"Would you rather have aiding torture and slavery on your conscience?" Celestia asked coolly. "I will find The Hive and I will rescue my ponies, Pincer, even without your help. All you'll be accomplishing with your silence is letting their suffering continue longer than it has to. And, of course, leading to a battle that will likely kill many more of your fellow drones than it would otherwise."
"You'll kill them to punish me?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.
"Absolutely not. As I said before, I want to do this with as few dead as possible. But without the intelligence you can give me, we'll have to search the entire Hive for the prisoners rather than just rescue them straightaway. The more of it we have to fight for control of, the more changelings, and ponies, will die.
"There is also the matter of how my royal guards will behave during an emotionally charged operation. I don't condone conduct inappropriate to war among them, and if I find that any of them have committed violence against those who can't or won't fight, they will face my judgment. They know this, but even so, I cannot guarantee that I can completely prevent such behavior if it happens in the heat of battle. Their anger over what is being done to their fellow ponies will be difficult enough to keep in check. I think they will be a lot more manageable, though, if they don't get dragged into an extended battle that would surely result in more dead and wounded among them.
"Of course, I'll be sure to tell them where any information you provide came from. I'm certain that knowing a changeling has willingly aided them will improve their perceptions of your people. So what do you say? Will you help us?"
He had no way to tell if she was bluffing. For all he knew, she would never find The Hive without his cooperation. Even assuming she was telling the truth, there was a glaring flaw in her reasoning.
"We still need to feed," he said, shaking his head. "We'll starve without those ponies. The sooner you find The Hive, the sooner that happens."
"You've been able to eat enough to stay healthy here without cocooning ponies."
"I'm just one drone," he said, raising a hoof for emphasis as much as the shackles would allow. "And I almost didn't make it anyway. I got lucky with Twilight. There are thousands of us. What could we do? There's no way ponies would come in and suddenly feel love whenever we needed them to."
"Surely you're not going to tell me it would be harder than kidnapping every single pony you needed against their will?"
"But that's all we know how to do." Pincer shook his head. "Look, maybe this was a mistake. I don't think you can save them."
Celestia slowly got onto her hooves and began walking down the steps of her throne. "And what do you have to lose by trying? I've already made it clear that I can't continue to allow you to prey on citizens of Equestria. I'm offering to help you learn a new way to gather love. Did you have some other option in mind?" She stopped, now a few feet in front of him.
Pincer looked down, but he could still feel the pressure of her gaze. "How can I be sure you'll find The Hive? For all I know, you could be bluffing."
"I suppose you can't," she said curtly. "Perhaps you should ask yourself, though, what will happen if you're proven wrong."
There was a thick silence as Pincer eyed Celestia. Nothing about her posture or movements indicated dishonesty, but he couldn't hope to read a millennia-old alicorn well enough to be certain.
"I know what Queen Chrysalis has told you. Now I've had my say. There is something you know better than I do, and I must ask. Which of us has given you more reason to trust her?"
Pincer bared his fangs for a fraction of a second, but something in Celestia's tone made him stop. He knew very well the sound of a question that implicitly had a right answer and a wrong answer, and that was the sort of question he was expecting. This wasn't that kind of question. It was more like the kind he'd expect Scarab or Antenna to ask him, an honest invitation to share his own views.
He bent his wings tightly against his sides, even more tightly than the strap required. "Well, Queen Chrysalis is my leader. She's the leader of all changelings. Whatever else she might've done, we're still alive. She's been our queen for eight hundred years, and if she wanted to get rid of us, she could have. I still can't be sure I could say the same for you.
"At the same time, though, I'm sure you've guessed that not everything she's told us was true. Ever since you've captured me, you've treated me far better than any changeling commander said you would. I have, or rather, had, a pony who cared about me and was willing to feed me, even knowing I was a changeling. It wasn't until I told her about what was happening at The Hive that she stopped.
"Even so, I know that you want to protect your ponies. I can't blame you, but at the same time I know you could do some things you might not want to if it means keeping them safe. Though I never thought I'd say this, I don't think you plan to kill me. The problem is, I still can't say the same for my Hive."
He tapped his hoof against the floor. "That's as well as I can answer."
Celestia nodded, but she was frowning down at Pincer. After scrutinizing him for a few moments, she drew in a breath and then let out a long, deep sigh.
"If that's truly how you feel, then I'm afraid that there's nothing else to discuss," she said. "I'll fetch the guards so they can return you to your cell. I will do what I can to convince Twilight to give you another chance or, failing that, find another pony who will be willing to feed you.
"In the meantime, I'll direct the Royal Guard's efforts to searching out the location of The Hive and apprehending any other changelings who might be in Equestria. Perhaps they'll be willing to answer our questions, and if not, at least we'll know they can't help kidnap any more ponies while they're in here."
Pincer's heart sank at those words, but he found himself wondering why. He'd done his job. It sounded like they'd given up on him, which meant that he wouldn't have to worry about resisting any more attempts at interrogation. He had done what he'd needed to do to keep The Hive safe, and now the burden was no longer his.
But what had he really accomplished? He no longer had the faith in his Queen and his home that gave him strength to begin with. His sole source of comfort was gone. Celestia had made it plain that she wasn't about to give up the search for The Hive. In the meantime, fellow changelings would almost certainly be captured. How would they be fed? It was a lucky fluke that the ponies were able to feed Pincer enough for him to survive, and even that was no longer an option.
Suddenly Celestia's horn glowed, and so did the doors behind Pincer.
"Wait!" he shouted. The charge in her horn fizzled out and she looked at him, eyes wide.
"You don't have to do that," he said. "I'll tell you."
"You'll answer my questions, then?" she asked. Pincer slowly nodded.
Celestia nodded. "I assure you that whatever help you can provide will not be misused."
She then frowned, and her eyes grew stern. "You mustn't feed us false intelligence, though. Remember, the Royal Guard will easily guess where their information is coming from, and they will know if you lead them into a trap. You wouldn't be doing anything good for yourself or your fellow changelings."
"Understood." Pincer had already considered and rejected the idea. He knew that as soon as they found The Hive, they would stop at nothing until they could rescue their ponies. Misleading them would only delay the inevitable and risk reprisal.
"Very well." She walked past him, towards the door, and turned her head to face him. "If you'll follow me, we can go somewhere more comfortable to talk about it."
It was a bright but cozy interior room, uncluttered by adornments and dominated by a long oak table in the center ringed with plush cushions. Pincer guessed that it was some sort of meeting room for military personnel or bureaucrats. He and Celestia sat facing each other, ready for a conversation that could change everything.
"Now," Celestia began, "I'm sure you've guessed what I'm going to ask you first. Pincer, before anything else, I need you to tell me where The Hive is located."
He thought about how to describe its location in detail and realized how painful every word of it would be. He was about to cross a point of no return, he realized, and he suddenly began to feel very hot. "Okay. Do you have a map I can point it out on?"
"As a matter of fact, there are plenty in this room," Celestia said. She turned her head to the left and her horn glowed, and a long, tightly-wound piece of canvas drifted off of one of the shelves. It floated down to the table between them and uncurled, showing a map of the continent on which Equestria lay. Thick black lines marked the many lakes, rivers, forests, hills, and other terrain features of the land.
After he silently cursed his luck that Celestia hadn't needed to leave the room to get a map, Pincer's eyes flicked to the expanse of badlands in Equestria's southeast corner. His hoof felt as though it were made of lead as he lifted it off of the cushion. He reached out in front of him and, for a moment, just let it hang over the map. Celestia silently urged him on with a look, and the only sound he could hear was his own raspy breathing.
His hoof dropped to the table with a bang, right on the badlands where The Hive was buried. It rested there for a moment before Celestia gave it a magical nudge, and he withdrew it with bated breath.
"I see," she said. "Well, you've certainly saved us some time just with that. That region wasn't scheduled to be searched for weeks. Now, can you be more specific? Roughly which part of the badlands is it in? Are there any particular landmarks that would be useful? And what in particular should we look for once we're in the general area?"
Here, Pincer realized, was truly his last chance to sabotage their planned attack.
"Celestia," he said in a tone that made it clear that he wasn't speaking up to answer her question. "Let's say, hypothetically, that you were able to carry out your operation. What would you do to us then? I'm sure you've realized that it wouldn't change our social order. We would still need love, after all, and most of us would keep trying to get it the way we know how."
Princess Celestia's eyes widened for a moment, but she quickly regained her composure and leaned in towards Pincer. "Yes. You're right. I know that a society's ways do not change so easily. Rest assured, I would not try to dismantle your existing social structure if I didn't have a plan to install another in its place."
"What will The Hive be like after you've changed it? And how are we going to get enough love for all of us?" Pincer asked.
Realizing the implications of his words, he tensed. "There are thousands of us. You might not hate us, but most ponies will, especially after they find out what we've done. And they'd find out even if you didn't tell them, when ponies they knew came back and telling them where they'd been gone for so long. From how you had Cadance handle things, I'm guessing you're not planning on forcing anyone to love us. What are you going to do? I need to know this before I tell you anything else."
Celestia placed a hoof on the table. "Well, Pincer, that's a question you will have to help answer. I've been thinking about how to do that, yes, but none of us know much about your people right now. If you can answer some questions about your feeding needs, I'll change my plans as necessary."
Pincer swallowed a humorless laugh. He'd changed the subject because he wasn't ready to tell her everything until he knew her plans, but she apparently needed more information to finish formulating those plans.
"What are you looking for?" he asked.
"Tell me, how much love do you need to survive? How many changelings could one pony likely feed without endangering her health? Could you sustain yourself on the love of pets, such as cats or dogs?"
Pincer shuffled. "Yes, we can feed from the love of pets to a degree. It wears them out a lot more quickly than it would a pony or a gryphon for example, though. If I had to guess, I'd say a pony could feed one of us without getting bedridden, while it'd probably take three or four cats.
"Most of us that serve in Equestria don't lean too heavily on one pony to feed us. It won't kill them, but it tends to be a bit off a tip-off if their legs give out every time they're around us too long. Not to mention finding one can be hard. Usually there's few enough of us in a town or city that we can get some good friends to feed off of."
"'Friends'? I'm afraid that doesn't sound much like friendship to me," Celestia said flatly.
"Well, if they weren't friends, they were the closest thing to friends a changeling could get from a pony."
Celestia tapped the floor. "That's one of the things we're here to change. Now, can you tell me roughly how many changelings are in The Hive?"
The word came out of Pincer's mouth before he realized it. "Why?"
He continued before Celestia finished rolling her eyes. "Sorry. The question was rather sudden, that's all," he said.
Celestia waved her hoof. "Of course. I wanted to know how many of you there were so I could get some idea of how difficult it would be to ensure that you can all get enough love. I imagine there can't be terribly many of you if you can kidnap ponies for it without being detected."
Pincer never would have imagined that ponies knowing their low numbers would be an advantage, but he was sure they'd appreciate knowing they wouldn't have to be bled dry. "At the last count I'm aware of, there were eight thousand, one hundred ninety-two of us. That can't have changed much while I was gone."
"That's great news!" Celestia said. "With millions of ponies in Equestria, if even a small portion of them trust you enough to form friendships, I think every changeling that is willing to live in peace can have a place here."
Pincer smiled. He could feel hope beginning to bubble within him again, as it had when he'd first befriended Twilight.
"Of course, before that can happen, we need to rescue the prisoners," Celestia said, her voice suddenly serious. "And we need your knowledge to do that. Pincer, are you ready to help us?"
For a few moments, Pincer simply stared down at his hooves, conflicting thoughts flooding his mind. He imagined columns of royal guards storming The Hive and cutting down his podmates, but then he imagined his podmates being able to live as though they were on espionage duty all the time, without having to report back or worry about being caught. He thought of a new queen, a more even-hoofed queen, one who would not want or need to be as harsh as Chrysalis was. He thought of what Chrysalis would say if she knew what he was doing. He envisioned Celestia going back on her word and erasing changelings from the Earth, but wondered how she could possibly be pulling off a deception more convincingly (to him, at least) than even Chrysalis could ever hope.
"Okay. Tell me what you need to know."
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IT LIVES IT LIIIIIIIIVVVVVVEEEEEESSSSS
2^13 ch8ngelings. Why that particular num8er?
~Vriska Serket
She's going to massacre you all the moment she gets a chance, you stupid son of a bitch
Better to die silent and not let her blackmail you into getting all of them killed.
Whoa, this was one hell of a tense chapter. Guess the slice-of-life mask is down for the count now.
On more lighthearted news, this has just broke 1000 likes! Wooo!
3913697 aaaand clearly you do not realize what trigges celestia. hurting ponies pisses her off............. killing them doesn't even give oyu the time to realize you are about to die.
"CLIFF HANGERS FTW" - Every author ever.
Oh good, things are moving along! I'm looking forward to seeing what sort of plan Celestia will come up with for the attack on the hive.
I proof read this.
Go me!
That was a pretty fatal drop in hope for Pincer there...but it seems not all is lost.
Keep it up!
"That's great news!" Celestia said. "With millions of ponies in Equestria, if even a small portion of them trust you enough to form friendships, I think every changeling that is willing to live in peace can have a place here."
Celestia, methinks you're overestimating the willingness of your subjects to allow formerly hostile invaders anywhere near them, much less becoming friends with them. Making friends isn't the answer to every problem, you know.
Yay new chapter! :D I love this story x3 I love your portrayal of Celestia with her expert balancing of pragmaticism and warm fuzzy idealism, as well as Pincer's unique perspective. Keep it up! Can't wait for the next chapter o3o
It has updated.
yay
Bad pincer, Bad. I'm willing to throw my nonexistant monopoly money that they do plan to exterminate the hive, or atleast the military commanders go for revenge, or maybe they actually hope to starve them. Honestly, he can't know if he is being manipulated. yes, ponies might be nice, but it doesn't mean the pony government doesn't have motives that arn't so....cheery.
Here's hoping that Princer's willingness to provide intelligence for the assault on the Hive helps him reconcile with Twilight. It would be easiest if he could continue to be fed by the pony who is used to feeding him.
3913697
Wha buh huh? Are we talking about the same pretty pony princess here?
3913940
Maybe not every problem... But it did solve Nightmare Moon, Discord, Sombra's return, the grand larceny of the Element of Magic, the tentacular vines of chaos...
Obviously it's a very powerful force if it's able to bring down gods and demons.
3914039 It was either tell the hive location and let the commanders know a changeling told them, or not tell them and the military finds it anyways but not as quickly. Either way, the Hive gets found and attacked. Even if the Hive moves and they have to recheck locations, Celestia wouldn't stop until her subjects are freed.
3913940 not to mention that the ponies who are friends with changelings likely don't know it.
3913806 omg it's horse dude
i dont know what to feel. coming from a bit of a warrior-like self-history, i know what it feels like to have conflicted emotions and loyalties. I hope that it will work out in the end
3913697 3914039
Celestia. Is. Not. A. Xenophobe. Get. That. Through. Your. Skull. Haters.
3913940
Blasphemy! Shun the non-believer, but not for too long. And then welcome him back with a plate of cookies and hug.
Pincer is best traitor. Twilight is worst friend. Seriously though, it's nice to see an update on this. Good chapter.
3914539 How do you know man? I mean, good intentions or not, Celestia is known for her manipulative nature. So it is quite possible that she would resort to less than moral tactics.
Also, there is the issue of the starving changelings. Yes, the ponies can feed them now, but what will the changelings do while they don't know this? what are they going to do, tell the changelings they are going to feed them while they happen to be in the hive for a violent retrieval mission? and even then, the changelings have to leave the hive and abandon their entire social structure in order to move to Equestria for the off chance that a kind-hearted pony will willingly feed their emotions to a shapeshifting bug pony.
It is all rather bad for the changelings either way you go, but he could at least put up a fight and not bow to her just because "she was nice to me"
3913806 Indeed go you. I didn't notice any spelling/grammar errors in this chapter, which I can hardly say for any story ever on this site.
3914578 I'm just saying.
3914299 That, too.
3914223 Friendship solved Sombra's return. I thought outright killing the guy solved that. Also, turning someone into stone and sending someone else to the moon aren't really all that friendly.
But they're the bad guys and Celestia is the good guy, so we're not supposed to question it. Then again, she is pretty darn naive sometimes, just expecting the best from her subjects like that.
It may all sound good but nothing turns out the way we want it
I have a bad feeling about this
I'm tempted to think Celestia will tap the Crystal Heart (it's a love reactor after all) to feed the Changelings until enough ponies can be rounded up to take over. Obviously guards can't be used since they're far too tainted with resentment and hatred. Surely there's ponies somewhere in all of Equestria that will give the Hive a chance.
This is all assuming Crysalis doesn't go bezerk and stomp the olive branch Celestia is trying to extend in one hoof... and a large baseball bat in the other.
3914539 How do you know that?
3914985
I happen to watch the show. You should try it sometime.
Oh, Twilight
3914987 How does the show prove that she isn't a xenophobe?
3914994
Seeing as how different races than ponies (minotaurs, gryphons and others) come and go in Equestria as they please, without any hint of there being a social distinction between them and ponies, I would say it's quite obvious. But no, of course Celestia couldn't actually be nice and kind, bah, the idea! No, she has to secretly be a monster or something, so that best Princess (Luna) can dethrone her evil tyranical sister and install a superior republic to Celestia's obvious awful rule.
Seriously, what the trout? If, after watching the show, the first thing you think when seeing Celestia is "Xenophobe!", then I don't think the message of the show is quite reaching you. If she can give the biggest threat to the entire world (Discord) a third chance for redemption, I really don't think a few thousand changelings, who are a bajillion times less dangerous than Discord, will form any problem for her to accept. Celestia is just a kind and just ruler, with no strings attached. Just because we can't have that in the real world doesn't mean you have to insist one can't exist in a fictional near-utopia.
3915013 I never said that Celestia is xenophobe.
3915061
Then why question it?
3915069 You are obviously thinking that I see Celestia as a xenophobe, which is NOT the case. I simply wanted to say, that people are always going the 'Celestia is always good and does everything right'-route and think about her as perfect. In my opinion you can never know everything about a person/character, so saying that Celestia isn't a xenophobe is pretty much only a guess.
I mean, she was able to let her ponies forget about her sister, the Elements of Harmony, Discord and Sombra. Twilight thought that most of them were simply myths or pony-tales!
Maybe there was already a conflict between Celestia and Chrysalis? Do we know it? No.
3915096
That's not so much her doing as it is simply the passing of time. Thousand years is a long time. Do you remember every important king and queen, for example, who lived a thousand years ago? Do we not have historical figures who have become the subject of myth?
Does there have to have been one? Not every villain who comes up in the show is required to come from Celestia and Luna's past, you know.
3914714 A large part of him agreeing to help though is that through his time here, he's seeing ponies as people and not as sources of food, so he has the weight on his conscience of knowing that there are prisoners in the hive being fed on until they wear out and die, and the knowledge that he brought some of them there.
Ahhhhh, I do love this story. It's always nice to see a new chapter for it. Of course, then that immediately leaves me frustrated when I run out of words to read. Such is the double-edged sword of a good tale.
Thank you so much for updating this.
This is one of those situations where inactivity is just as bad as taking action. If Equestria does nothing, ponies die. If they do, changelings face forced deportation and mass xenophilia. If one must happen, let it be the latter.
Poor Pincer. He is right in the middle of all of this and it pretty much all depends on him. Best changeling ever.
3914770
Hey, they got better.
3915605 Uh-huh. Sombra didn't. Chrysalis didn't either.
3915605 Well, yet for Chrysalis. We'll have to wait and see.
3915616
Well, they don't technically count, having been defeated by the power of love rather than friendship.
3915233
I think changelings wish they had this problem
3915627 Friendship is love though, albeit in a less intimate sense.
3914745
Honestly, there was only one in beginning that I fixed, the rest was all the Author's perfect spelling and grammar.
But thank you anyway
3915114 The hive does what it does out of necessity. for what, hundreds of years there has never been an alternative to what they are doing? And Celestia expects them to uproot their entire culture and population all at once and without any warning after she steals an entire races only sustainable method of food production? She doesn't even want to transition slowly so the changelings can have time to adapt.
Look at this from the point of view of the farmer. one might basically enslave animals and confine them to fields with the ultimate goal of killing them and then cutting them up to make yummy yummy meat, but we do it because 1: we naturally need to, and 2: to do otherwise is often inconvenient and difficult. Yum, bacon.