A Mother's Love Never Dies
My body screamed through the sky. The wind tore at my wings, whipped my mane, whistled through the holes in my legs. How had those weakling ponies done this to me?
The world spun around me, dizzying spirals of clouds, bright sun, and the unforgiving – ever closer – ground. The lurch of weightlessness churned me, inside and out.
It felt like it would never end. I struggled, fought it, screamed at it. I spread my gossamer wings, only to see them shredded by the wind. I flailed my limbs, but it only worsened my tumbling.
The ground rushed up at me. Wind stung my eyes and tore the breath from my lungs. A cold, hard landscape waited below me, jagged and full of inanimate hate.
I clenched my eyes shut against the coming pain.
Everything was black. Stiff, stunned... my legs wouldn't move at first. Strangely, I felt no pain, only the unbearable tension, like some heavy weight crushing every inch of me.
My first breath came in a tight, painful gasp. The second came in a wheezing cough. The smell of old ash and rotting bones filled the air.
I opened my eyes. The ruined wreck of a withered tree trunk loomed overhead. While its bark was dark and weathered, freshly broken bits of bright grey wood showed in the splintered tips. Grim clouds roiled overhead.
My drones! My children, where were they?
I rose up – or tried to. I barely made it to my knees before collapsing again, my face grinding into mercifully soft sand between the sharp stones. I groaned. I'd been injured before; one doesn't live to be seven hundred years old without a few accidents. I knew I was hurt and knew the recovery process ahead. It wasn't something to look forward to.
It didn't matter though. Where were my drones?
I raised my head. I could do that much. The unmistakable Dragonbone Wastes stretched all around me. My mother had warned me about this place when I was young... She warned that an ancient war between the dragons and Equestria left this land a lifeless ruin, warned that I would find no love in its desolate mountains, and warned that the only thing I would find here was death.
A deep valley between razor-edged peaks engulfed me. Only rocks and skeletal trees rose from the ash and grit of the valley floor. A tiny, choked stream wound its way through the center. It ran so thin the dusty ground might soak it up at any moment, leaving it to dwindle into a fruitless expanse of mud.
Just beyond the stream, though... A crumpled little black shape sat in a crater. It was too black to be one of the dark grey stones.
A new tightness crushed my chest. It was one of my changelings. My children needed me, now more than ever. I had to be there for them.
Slowly and carefully this time, I wedged my legs underneath me, straining to rise. My right front hoof was numb, and my left hock wouldn't move... but I did it. I stood on my four spindly legs once more: wobbling, but strong. Strong enough to save my changelings one more time.
I lurched forward, barely catching myself as I stepped, but I did step. I could walk. I could save them.
Every step had to be a conscious effort. My legs didn't know how to walk after the damage done to them. The sight of that little black shape in the distance kept me moving, though. It kept me putting one hoof in front of the other, convincing me a thousand times to take just one more step.
My right hoof plunged into the tiny stream. Even the cold water rushing through its holes didn't register. It was completely numb. Nerve damage, of course. I winced, knowing that would take ages to heal. Still, the little black shape in that crater beckoned.
I plodded on, approaching it, finally close enough to touch it.
It didn't move.
The poor little thing's head was buried in the dust. His wings sprung out of his back at hideous, unnatural angles, and his tail hung limp against his motionless legs.
Stretching out my stiff neck plates, I reached down to him, pulling his head out of the ground by tugging on his disheveled wings.
He fell down, flopping sideways into his little crater.
A jagged rock jutted out from the bottom of the crater, covered in green goo. It had been hidden by the little drone's body.
I looked down at him. His soft belly plates had been cruelly torn. He never stood a chance. I looked away – I had no desire to see more of his tattered, discarded body. I had no desire to see more of the carnage ponies wrought upon my hive.
My new vantage point allowed me to see around some of the jumbled boulders. Two more of my children were together in a shallow depression. One sprawled in the dust, unmoving, but one was standing.
Once again, I began the laborious task of walking.
The standing one leapt to one side, thrusting with his horn at some little white shape on the ground. It darted back to a safe distance, but two more white things crawled out from under a rock behind him.
I hastened my steps. My children needed me.
While the drone chased the little white creature away, the other two moved in. They sidled up to the fallen changeling, skittering on slender legs and extending long white feelers ahead of them.
As the two new ones approached the fallen changeling, the other drone seemed to finally notice them. He rushed back to the aid of his brother. Stumbling, he dropped to a knee, but he rose again. The two creatures flared their pale wings and took flight, flittering away just ahead of him.
I stepped close to them, just in time to see the first little creature approaching again.
The drone looked up at me. I knew him. Drizzt, one of my finest warriors. When he saw me, the corners of his mouth turned up into a smile. The hard glint of his eyes softened as they opened wide. “My Queen,” he said, in the clicking, chittering language of the changeling drones. “The bone-pickers... I've got to keep them away from Buzzik! I've got to...” He wobbled on his feet. His sides heaved, his legs trembled. One wing hung down limply while the other was simply gone, along with most of his tail. “I need to...” His eyes lost focus. “Help.”
His knees buckled, and his face hit the ground hard, eyes still open.
I winced. I'd never meant for this to happen. I thought I had done the right thing back in Canterlot... I'd been getting food for my loyal little drones, my family. It was an awful risk, yes, but for the sake of giving them the love they needed to survive.
One of the bone-pickers skittered up next to Drizzt.
Lashing out with lightning speed, I stomped on it. It cracked hollowly, like dry eggshells, and its spindly legs splayed out underneath my hoof. Its legs trembled for a moment, but then fell silent.
I hurried to the fallen changeling. He also sat in a little crater. This time, no jagged rock protruded and his head rested safely on the sand. But the compound facets of his left eye had been torn to pieces, and a disturbingly wide, long crack split his skull chitin. Thin bands of underlying tissue barely kept his head from falling apart completely.
His leg twitched.
My heart stopped. He was alive? I had to do something... something. I glanced up.
Dozens of bone-pickers lurked among the dreary rocks and broken branches, all of them with their thin white feelers extended toward us. Two of them scurried up to the one I'd killed and tore into it, peeling off the cracked plates to get at the smashed flesh beneath.
I needed to find the rest of my children. The injured ones couldn't be left here, not with those things around. My magic would be weak after my ordeal, but maybe there would be enough. I lifted the two drones in a simple levitation spell.
They slammed back to the ground after only a moment. My spell flickered and died. Buzzik twitched as he slapped down against the rocks.
I whimpered. Just minutes ago, I had been at the height of my power, flush with enough love-magic to conquer an empire... That was gone now. That was some distant world where happiness and power overflowed every bound. That might as well have been ancient history.
Leaning down and squeezing under him, I used the point of my horn to guide Drizzt onto my back.
The bone-pickers scurried away.
I repeated the process with Buzzik, steadying the two of them on my back with my shredded wings. Those wings would never fly again, I feared... but they could be useful for this, and this was what my children needed.
I stumbled on, my two drones unconscious on my back and an army of bone-pickers creeping after me. More changelings needed me to find them, more needed me to save them... so many more.
I steadied the two changelings on my back and nudged the little black carapace below with my hoof. He wasn't alive. This little headless body would lie here for the bone-pickers. Still, something inside me just forced me to check anyway. I couldn't just walk away from him, even though he wasn't even recognizable.
The little black corpse did nothing, of course. No movement.
I knew I should move on, find the still-living... move on before the bone-pickers found this one, before pony guards came to mop up what was left of us. I didn't want to watch, and there was no time to waste on caring for the dead when my live children needed me.
But still, I stood and stared at him. Who had he been?
A telltale clattering of tiny, pointed legs against rocks echoed up the shallow canyon behind me. The bone-pickers were close. Time to move on.
I picked my way over to one of the less-steep faces of the canyon, stretching my legs up onto the sharp rocks and climbing out. Once outside, I would have a better view. I could find more changelings.
I winced as my legs bent further than they had become accustomed to. They hurt now. I hurt all over... but duty called, and throbbing joints or torn muscles wouldn’t stop me. I climbed to the rim of the little canyon the same way I had moved through every part of this wasteland: step by faltering step.
Ahead, the battered landscape revealed three more changelings. Two sprawled on the ground, while another dangled from the crook of a withered tree.
I was tireless, a force of nature. I should have lain down to die long before now, but my children's need kept me going, kept me moving... made me unstoppable. I took another step – always one more step.
Little white bone-pickers crawled – swarmed – over one of the changelings on the ground by the time I arrived. It didn't take a close look to see that he was already long gone. The one lying by the base of the tree, though... his sides still rose and fell, and the pale insects approached him with wary caution. None had yet ventured to crawl up the tree.
I stomped with extra force as I neared, bearing down on my relatively good leg. A peal of thunder shot out from the gathering storm clouds above, perfectly in time with my hoof.
All around, hundreds of thin, white antennae shot straight up. In a moment, the bone-pickers fled... not far away. They never went far.
I gritted my teeth. Sharp pain seeped through the shock of my landing now. I limped my way over to the changeling underneath the tree despite it.
Even more dark clouds rolled in overhead. Distant thunder echoed from the sharp mountain peaks. I knelt down to check him.
He had to be Vivitt. The odd pattern of tiny holes in his horn was unique among all my children. His eyes were closed, and his chest heaved. His magic flickered weakly, a cold emptiness in my senses.
“Vivitt, it is me.” I nuzzled him behind the ear. “Vivitt?”
His chest stopped moving.
“No!” I stomped my good hoof down again and winced. It wasn't as uninjured as I had thought. “No,” I repeated, softly.
My own magic was weak, almost nonexistent. I could barely expend any of it without leaving myself too weak to live... but I could spend some. Maybe it would be enough.
I opened the channels of magic within me, calling upon my love for my children – the one love no pony could ever take from me. Thin green tendrils of faint light snaked their way over to him, a feeble shadow of the power I was accustomed to.
It was foolish to think I could save him with so little, but I had to try. Too many of my little ones had died already this day.
The sharp pains and dull aches of my body doubled. What little healing magic I could spare left and sank into the huddled black shape in front of me. After a few precious moments, I had to cut it off. If I sent him any more, I would jeopardize my own survival.
Vivitt laid still, even as the last of the magic glow died away.
I collapsed onto the hard ground next to him, the weight of my two injured passengers bearing down on me. It hadn't been enough, of course. I was foolish to waste what little magic I still had on—
Vivitt coughed.
My heart skipped a beat and my eyes opened wide. “Vivitt! ... Vivitt?”
With a spasm, he breathed again, slow and deep, though still with a faint wheeze. His eyes didn't open, but he breathed.
I was drained, empty, and it was completely worth it. I smiled for the first time since my fall. “Your mother loves you, little changeling,” I whispered. Once again prodding my horn underneath a little black body, I lifted him onto my back, gently rolling him next to the other two.
I pressed with my legs, straining against the load on my back. My legs protested, my torn wings shrieked, and my back lurched with a sickening pop... but I rose again.
A few fat drops of water splatted against the dusty stones around me, quickly rising in tempo. The rains had come. The billowing black storm front rolled on as cold drops speckled my face. Distant thunder growled at me again. I needed to find shelter, and soon.
Also above me, though, one more little changeling hung in the tree, doubled over a branch near the trunk. After a closer look, I could tell there were no signs of life. Chukka was dead.
I breathed a sigh of relief, glad I wouldn't need to find a way to get him down, glad I wouldn't have to add to my burden... and nearly collapsed again at how disgusting that thought was. How could I have been happy to see my child dead? It was unforgivable. A new private, unspeakable stain on my conscience.
My children were my life. Everything I did, I did for them.
Only, I didn't, did I? My shoulders sagged, and my head drooped low. My eyes squeezed shut. We could have conquered the ponies slowly, gradually stealing their love and never breaking disguise. It had been my own foolish vanity that demanded a triumphant invasion, my own pride that demanded center stage, my own hubric greed that demanded the greatest source of love-magic for myself.
This was my fault.
On my back, a changeling coughed. My eyes flew open again.
Cold rain poured over me, chilling my unbearably tight joints. The day darkened more and more as the clouds above ate away at the last few rays of sunlight stabbing into this forsaken valley.
Vivitt coughed again.
I needed to find shelter. This cold would kill them. I shivered. It would kill me too, before long.
A steep cliff loomed close, towering over me. Perhaps I could find a cave or something there.
I took a step. Always just one more step... and then another.
The dust and ash of the valley floor stuck to my hooves, quickly becoming sticky, grey mud. It pulled at my legs, giving me entirely new pains as my joints pulled and stretched.
I took yet another step.
By the time I reached the base of the cliff, mud filled the lowermost holes in my legs, crusting over them. Normally, I would be horrified, disgusted, outraged. I just took another step. After a day like this, what was a little mud?
The water washing off the cliff streamed all around me, but I could only see a solid face of rock. No inviting cave, not even a crack or crevice presented itself.
Turning left, I took another step.
It wasn't a proper cave. It was barely more than a boulder overhanging a slight hollow in the cliff. Below it, though, laid dry dust, untouched by the pouring rain.
One more step, and my tired hoof touched dry soil. The dust clung to my wet chitin, but it felt warmer than the muck outside.
I stumbled in. I wanted to collapse, to fall into a long-needed coma... but three little changelings needed my help, and an untold horde of bone-pickers waited, scurrying between rocks just out of sight.
I knelt down. Excruciatingly slow, and one by one, I lowered my broken children onto the soft, dry ground. The dust caked them everywhere it touched as well, but there was precious little I could do about that now.
With one final act of will, I turned away from the wall, away from my children lined up against it. I made myself look as menacing as possible, caked in mud and lying in the dust. I had to deter the bone-pickers... and I needed to do it with as little energy as possible – I had none to spare.
Outside of the shelter, the storm raged on, pounding the battle-torn land harder and harder. Thunder crashed from one peak to another, echoing into a nearly ceaseless rumble. These were wild lands, after all; no pegasus ponies kept the storms in check here. I was glad of it. Ponies were the last creatures I wanted to see right now.
I allowed myself a tiny groan. Where would I ever find a new source of love here, though? My internal supply would only last so long... and draining my children through their love for me would be a repulsive and unworthy end. But what else was there? Nothing lived in these lands, save for the little crawling bone-pickers surviving off of long-dead dragon carcasses. I would receive no love from them. The lack of ponies had its downside as well.
I looked out. Even through the pouring rain, I could spot little white dots peeking out from under jagged rocks or broken trees. Would that be my end? Would I – in desperation – drain my injured children of energy for my own survival, or would I keep my honor and slowly die, waiting until I was too weak to fend off those things?
The breath left my lungs in one long sigh. There was no hope for me and my children. Only the long wait for the end of the storm... and then? 'Then, one more step,' a tiny voice whispered inside my head.
I shivered, and not entirely due to the cold water slowly drying off of my carapace. Would I ever escape this pitiful existence to return to power, or would I suffer, fighting for every scrap of energy until I finally ran dry... until I finally stopped and fell down for the bone-pickers? My empty stomach lurched. The injuries to my body were bad enough, but to have the hope torn out of my heart by these wretched ponies... that cut deep.
The remaining drizzle of rain pattered against the rocks in front of me.
Once again, my eyelids grew heavy. My head drooped.
I shot up straight again at the sound of tiny feet clattering between the raindrops. I couldn't rest, not until my little changelings were safe.
A weak cough echoed from the hollow behind me. I sighed. Vivitt's coughing had steadily become more frequent, but it was weaker every time. Was that a good sign? Doubtful. I never took the time to learn much of medicine; I always had my medical drones and my healing magic. Now I had nothing, not even a scrap of cloth to use as a bandage. All I could do was protect them from the bone-pickers, giving them a chance to recover on their own... as unlikely as that was with their depleted magic.
I could see the bone-pickers now. They edged forward and darted back, but they always slowly advanced, their antennae waving ahead of them. Dozens of them circled my overhanging rock. There could be hundreds more I couldn't see.
How long had it been since the scavengers of this valley had feasted like they did today? How many of my little ones had already succumbed to their tiny claws? The hollow feeling in my chest grew. How long would it be before I, and the few I still protected, met the same fate?
Vivitt coughed again, harder this time – more insistently. Was that a good sign? My insides twisted themselves in knots, wondering if these precious three, the only children I could still claim, would survive the night.
Drizzt would be in the best condition. Probably only suffering from simple shock and fatigue. Surely he would recover with time... and yet, it had been hours since he collapsed. Shouldn't he have woken by now?
Vivitt's cough rang out again, several long, choking hacks. I had no idea what might be wrong with him. How could being blasted with hostile magic and landing on rocks cause breathing problems?
And Buzzik... poor Buzzik. As much as I strained to, I couldn't hold much hope for him. It surprised me, honestly, that his head wounds hadn't yet proven fatal. Only a huge surge of healing magic would save him, and he wouldn't get it – there was none to be found in this unforgiving place.
An explosive series of coughs rose behind me, dying out to a slow wheeze at the end. I turned, but Vivitt still laid unmoving in the dust. He coughed again, and even through his unconsciousness, lines of pain streaked his face. There had to be something I could do.
Slowly, stiffly, I stretched my legs out and rose to my feet. Pain coursed through my body, lingering in every joint and muscle, but I rose all the same. Clumps of caked-on and dried dust dropped off of me as I moved for the first time since coming here.
The field of white insects in front of me whirled into motion, and in a moment, the bone-pickers were invisible again, all of them hidden behind rocks or buried in the dust.
I turned away from them. My son needed me.
Vivitt coughed again. The convulsions running through his body seemed strangely twitch-like, not a natural coughing motion.
Even though my legs felt like they were made of dry sticks and my tense muscles protested every movement, I limped to him. It was only three steps, but it drained me more than a trek across all of Equestria would.
I would be lying if I claimed my lying next to him was purposeful. It was more than half involuntary – my abused body finally gave up the fight against gravity now that I had reached my goal.
My lips trembled, and I felt a burning in my eyes I hadn't felt for centuries as I laid there on my side.
Vivitt coughed again. This close, I could see the little cloud of dust kicked out by his weak breath.
This was no time to cry. He needed his mother.
I reached out and pulled him close, as I rarely did even with my smallest foals. Any comfort I could offer, I would give him, even if he never knew it.
Still he coughed, twitching in my hooves.
I stroked a hoof over his scuffed mane, letting the holes in my foreleg caress over his limp spines. As a changeling queen, I rarely needed lullabies, and I had precious few to call upon. Still, maybe it would help calm him, even through his unconscious ears, even though it was full of bold promises that were now no more than sweet lies.
I held him close, and I sang.
Come now my children, please gather and lay
Night will soon burn
Out of the fires that brought us the day
Your Queen will return
I'll bring you your prize, a feast that is blessed
Here at the sunrise it's now you must rest
And dream of the night we break through the dome
And finally are sure that we have found home
hooome...
Little children, do not fear
Little children, I am here
My sweet children, do not weep
All my children, go to sleeeep...
I sighed and smiled. Vivitt's coughing had stopped, and he rested calm and still in my hooves. A warmth foreign to this barren land filled me – despite my failure, despite everything, I could still be a good mother, still soothe my children's hurts, still...
Vivitt was a little too still. Cold lightning ripped through that warmth, seizing my heart. Frantically, I lowered my head to him, moving a hoof to feel his breathing and pulse.
He didn't move. No breath moved against my cheek. My hoof didn't rise and fall with his little chest.
I let my head fall into the dust and clung to him tightly. Every little changeling I lost tore a piece out of me. My heart felt as full of holes as my legs.
I pulled Vivitt in close and nuzzled him, one last time. My eyes blurred, and I sang again, this time a soft whisper into his ear.
Little Vivitt, do not fear
Little Vivitt, I am here
My sweet Vivitt, do not weep
Rest my Vivitt, go to sleee—
My voice cracked. I couldn't sing more, not with that awful tightness in my throat.
The dust against my cheek darkened and clung to me. I couldn’t move to wipe it away. It wasn’t fair, what these ponies did to us. It just wasn’t fair. My body shuddered and my face contorted almost painfully. I needed some way to fix it, but of course there was nothing, only loss, death, and pain. Some part of me insisted this was a dark dream, that I would wake up. I didn’t. I just ached deep inside, and watched my tears dampen the dry grit beneath us.
Vivitt laid still in the dust, oblivious to his mother and oblivious to her sobbing. I released him, and we fell into the dust together, laying limply. I did the only thing left to me: for the first time in hundreds of years, the Queen of the Changelings cried.
Dawn crept over the sharp mountains cold, damp, and later than it should have. Last night's storm had left the valley floor a seething morass of mud and filth, yet there was a calm beauty to these lands.
A chill breeze wandered through the valley among the jagged bones and tortured trees, yet nothing moved. The chill of the night had even been enough to discourage the bone-pickers, and none of them had yet returned. High above, wispy remnants of last night's stormclouds slowly tore themselves away from the mountain peaks, running wild without any ponies to guide them.
It was a desolate place, but a place where one could be alone. The landscape warned away any would-be trespasser, unyielding and unforgiving, yet that gave it a stark, rugged beauty all its own.
This could have been a home, if it weren't for the lack of any ponies to feed on.
Groaning, I stirred in the depression in the dust I'd made into my bed. My legs and back were incredibly stiff, with an unbearable deep ache inside them any time they stretched. My injured and abused body had stiffened as it laid still all through the cold, wet night.
I let myself relax, slumping back into my shallow hole for a moment. I had to get up, of course. I needed to check on my changelings, I needed to find the rest of them, I needed to find some source of love that would help me heal them... but for now – for just one moment – I could rest. I'd never been so tired.
The clouds stretched away overhead, and the pale light of day lanced into the valley. I rested there for far too long.
A pair of white antennae popped up above the blackened bark of a dried-out log nearby.
I winced. That was my cue to wake up and care for my children before resuming my duty of protecting them from those vile insects. As the valley slowly warmed, they would return.
With a heroic strain, I pulled my front legs underneath me, tilting my body more upright. They felt as if they were about to snap off, and my joints were almost too stiff to move. I held my breath, rolling and pushing up, rising to stand another day.
I almost didn't, nearly collapsing back into the dust. I would have – it would feel so much better than straining to keep my sore, trembling legs underneath me – but I couldn't. My children needed me.
I took a step – always one more step. Luckily, it only took three steps to reach my two surviving children. I couldn't know if there were any more in me. Perhaps there were. I would have done anything for them.
Buzzik's head wound had opened further during the night, though it had finally scabbed over and no longer leaked. His chest still rose and fell, worryingly slow, but he still lived.
I turned to check on Drizzt.
He wasn't breathing.
I crashed down next to him and laid my hoof across the soft joints in his neck. Nothing... not even the slightest twitch of a pulse. And he was cold, as cold as the stones around him.
My breath left me in one strained sigh, and I fell to the dust again. What had happened to him? He had been the best of them, and now this? How could he have just died in the night? My growl came out as more of a strained gasp. To think that one of the finest of my warrior drones would be taken from me like this, without a struggle, without fanfare, without warning. He had just slipped away, unnoticed in the dark.
Was I that bad? Had I failed so hard as to deserve this? I would have liked to say I tried my best, but that wasn't true. The invasion had been compromised for my own petty vanity, and because I underestimated those pathetic ponies. I shuddered to think where it had brought me, abandoned in the wastelands, struggling just to keep my children alive... and failing at that, too.
Why did they have to pay for my failure? Why were ponies punishing my children, rather than me? I sneered at the hard, unjust world around me. I deserved this – they did not.
Only one was left to me, now. There had to be more out there, scattered in the rocks and dust. More must have survived... right? For now, though, I could only be sure of one survivor. Of all the drones in my hive, I was down to one. The hive once boasted thousands, but now all that was left was poor little Buzzik.
I had never seen any drone recover from such a severe injury, not without magic, and I had none to spare. Yet, he still clung to life. He was a fighter, more of a fighter than Drizzt in some ways, I supposed. I owed it to him to show the same strength in myself, to keep going, no matter what, just like he did. I couldn't let him down, not if he still endured.
The day stretched on, and I maintained my perpetual guard, sitting between my children and the bone-pickers.
Apparently I was still enough of a threat to ward them away... but that was a lie, even if they hadn't guessed it yet.
I could barely move. I was steadily weakening; I could feel it. I might not even have had enough magic left to heal myself.
Which left one final option.
As I sat there, guarding my little alcove, as the hours stretched on and as the sun slowly crawled across the sky, the thought of it grew on me. It became clearer and clearer what I had to do, how this would end. How it must end.
It would be fair, after all. I was the one who deserved the punishment, not my children.
I blinked. It was the only motion I had indulged in for hours. This procrastination had stretched long enough. There was nothing to gain by waiting, and my reservoir of magic would only become drier as time stretched on. If I was sure about what I had to do, why hadn't I done it yet?
Mortality is a difficult truth for anyone to face. It's even harder for someone raised on the promise of eternal life.
Dying was for drones, for pony peasants, for mortals. It wasn't something a queen should ever face. It wasn't something I should ever have faced. How could I walk into that, having never prepared myself? There once was a time I sneered at the pathetic mortals and their fear of the end. Now, with it staring me in the face, my blood ran cold. My mind raced, frantically searching for some escape, some excuse to back out of it, some clever alternative.
There wasn't one, of course.
My mind set, I prepared to stand... to turn around and do what needed to be done.
I didn't stand. I meant to. I could have sworn I ordered my legs to move. Yet, there I sat, not budging an inch. My body was so incredibly heavy, yet hollow inside, and fragile. If I stood, that would be it: the irrevocable first step toward the end of a queen.
A few of the bone-pickers skittered forward, edging too close for comfort, calling my bluff.
I rose to my hooves, ignoring the shooting pain of strained tendons and cracked exoskeleton.
The insects scurried away, but that wasn't good enough. Eventually, they would find their courage; eventually, my strength would fade... and it would take time to finish this. I needed to do it while they were still frightened of me.
I turned and limped to the back wall where my last child waited for me.
I looked down at Buzzik. He was patient, this one, waiting for me to realize what needed to be done, dutifully hanging onto his life long enough for me to save it. I smiled, slightly, for what would probably be the last time.
Shoving a pointed rock into one of the holes in my good front hoof, I sat down in front of the wall. Buzzik deserved to know what happened. His mother wouldn't leave him alone and confused.
Only alone.
My eyes burning, I raised my hoof to the dark stone of the wall, and began scraping a note. The bright scratch marks left by my sharp rock showed through perfectly, letting me scratch out a note in the tight, angular changeling script.
My dear Buzzik,
I am so sorry. I had a duty to you, to all of you. I took a great risk, and committed my fatal sin: I failed. Now the ponies have won, and we are lost.
I do not know what the world will hold for you. I do not know where you will go or what you will do. Now is your chance – your only chance: the last gift I can give you.
But even if no one in the world ever loves you, you should know that your mother loved you, with all her heart.
Good luck, my little changeling, and goodbye.
Chrysalis
With a long sigh, I let my hoof fall away from the smooth wall. I moved to dislodge the sharp stone from my leg, but then stopped. What difference would it make now?
A more important task beckoned.
I bent down and to the side, lowering the tip of my horn to Buzzik's head.
I had no magic to spare, but I still had magic. It was barely even enough to keep myself alive, but it was the magical core of an immortal, a royal. It would be more than enough energy for a single drone. I could heal him. I could even fill him with his own magical energy, ready to fight, to fly, to change.
He would have a fighting chance, with the whole world open in front of him. I hadn't left him any instructions in the note. I could have ordered him to search for other survivors. I could have ordered him to bring fiery revenge to the ponies. I could have ordered him to build a new hive... but was I in any condition to be giving orders? Did I dare to give orders, after what happened in Canterlot?
No, Buzzik would have a blank slate, and he would decide his own destiny. That was the gift I could give him.
I called up my last reserves of magic, sending them out through my horn in healing patterns. I could feel the holes it left as the power rushed out of my body, as if it was tearing part of me out with it. It wasn't painful, but it felt wrong. There could be no way to mistake the harm I was doing to myself.
Glowing green tendrils of energy – of love – curled around Buzzik. The fissure in his head slowly pulled back together, the crack sealing itself without the slightest seam. His breathing grew steadier and stronger, and the gash in his eye smoothed out with a shimmering ripple.
The green glow weakened, flickering. There wasn't much left, but I gave him all of it, everything I had.
The glow ceased completely. I crashed to the ground, hitting my head hard on the rocks, but the impact barely registered. The corners of my vision blurred dark and fuzzy, and I felt numb all over.
My head still faced Buzzik, though. I could see him.
He stirred, twitching a little, then his eyes opened. He lifted his head and propped himself up on his hooves, looking around. His eyes shot open wide when he saw me.
My smile before hadn't been my last. I smiled up at him, proud to see my little hatchling strong and free, even as my sight faded completely.
“My Queen, are you okay?” a strangely distant voice called to me, in the chittering language of the changelings. “Queen? ... Chrysalis! Chrysalis, can you hear me? Wake up!” It paused for a long moment. “Mommy...?”
It was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.
