Ponywatching

by ThunderTempest

Prompt #312: Backup

Queen Chrysalis stared at the slowly pulsing green pod. No expression crossed her face. Not even when the pod began to splinter and crack did she make even the slightest change to her face.

It had been the Canterlot debacle that had forced her to do this. Chrysalis, for all of her ambition, planning and shapeshifting talent, had neglected to consider one very important question: what if she was defeated? What if she was killed?

Above all else, Chrysalis was a survivor. She had survived the blast at the end of the wedding, and while her forces were not yet back up their former numbers, she was no stranger to the concept of laying low. Her hive, with the reduced numbers, could subsist on what food they had for a while yet, but her defeat at Canterlot had forced Chrysalis to consider the questions that she never had to before.
Inside the green pod, something scratched and pushed at the membrane. With a mental flex, she directed two of the nearby birthing chamber assistants to begin stripping away the outer layers.

Chrysalis was a survivor, but she was queen. That meant that she had to think about the future of the hive. And that meant doing something that she had refused to for a long time: producing a changeling Princess. They existed for one sole purpose: to take over the hive when the previous queen died. Prior to this, Chrysalis had always preffered breeding more drones, because drones couldn’t think. They couldn’t question, and a princess could. A princess could reason, and argue. Of course, they couldn’t simply take control of the hive, but they couldn’t be issued orders through the collective mind either.

And more to Chrysalis’s sensebilities, they were largely useless for most of the time. Chrysalis was not fond of things that didn’t have a use. Some of the other queens in the past had had multiple princesses, but Chrysalis only wanted the one. It had been a long and arduous process, getting the mix of chemicals in the pod just right to produce this single changeling.

As the drones finally burst through to the semi-liquid centre of the pod, the new born changeling Princess spilled out onto the floor. Still uncaring and impassive, Queen Chrysalis stepped forward, until the princess lay at her hooves.

“Mother?” hissed the changeling princess. Chrysalis sneered. It looked weak, but she was not going to go through the whole process again to get a better one. It would have to do. Besides, it was not like Chrysalis would ever need it, but it was good to have a weak princess as opposed to no princess.

“No,” said Chrysalis, “I am your Queen. You are Cocoon, since you were so reluctant to be removed from yours. Now, don’t bother me. I have an invasion to plan.”

It was harsh, perhaps, to simply leave the princess there, she mused, as she stalked off, heading back to her throne room, but Chrysalis believed that experience was the best teacher. She didn’t have time to raise a weak, silly little princess, and once she conquered the world, she would have it killed.

Author's Note:

Written for prompt #312: “Spring Has Springed”
The Prompt: A new life.