Can the disabled young Queen of Changelings claim her throne?
In the years after the dangerous Discord War, but before the banishment of Nightmare Moon, love is in short supply. Ponies are inclined to be fearful and mistrustful, and are only slowly beginning to adjust to a peaceful lifestyle, with kind rulers. This is bad news for changelings. The hive is getting hungry and becoming weak. It is accepted that the ailing queen will die. However, this old changeling has one last trick; her death will come about giving birth to the new hive leader. The changeling most closely related to her will step out of the woodwork and become regent to the young monarch. Strange that he was the runt of the hatch, and trailed the old queen like a weak shadow. And yet, it looks like good times are a'coming to the hive! But not all is as it seems. The child queen is weak in mind, as a normal young queen would not be able to survive on her limited rations. She is bullied mercilessly. The day she is granted her ritual Proving quest, no one expects her to survive. But if she does...she will gain her full rights as a ruler, and be granted a name, something rare among changelings. And she will wield her power supreme.
In a kingdom deep inside Equestria, where the only light source was the sickly blue of bioluminescence, changelings rushed around frantically. The Hive was agitated. Every inch of it with its honeycombed walls and twisting tunnels, buzzed with one thought; the Hivemind's thought. The Queen. The Queen is dying.
Although every changeling in the Hive was thinking of the Queen, they all seemed to be taking elaborate precautions to avoid her chambers.
The narrow, winding tunnel that led to her quarters were silent. No half-crazed citizen stumbled along the passage. Dark and mysterious, the only sign of life was the blue glow of a lone guard. His armor reflected his light, and he stood in front of the great stone doors which were the entrance to the Queen's private chamber.
He quickly touched the Hivemind. One with his rank had the ability to tune in and out of the Hive's consciousness, at least partly.
Fear, panic, hopelessness... a pungent mix of the rawest emotions. They coiled themselves around his mind, searched for a foothold in him.
With great effort, he shook them off, delicately untangling each sensation from him. The Hivemind's thoughts were dangerous when they were like this. They almost never were.
Perhaps he should go out and soothe the Hive. The rest of the Queen's guard was already attempting to calm the storm. And he was the Head Guardian after all...
At that moment, a changeling burst into the passage. The stone walls echoed with its clumsy hoof-falls. "Head Guardian! My Scout party has returned!" The changeling skidded to a stop right in front of him. Muddy and slightly bruised, her black cloak indicated she was a Scout Leader. She shared the default changeling build, with a smooth black coat; curved horn; pupil-less blue eyes, iridescent blue wings; fangs; a small flexible exoskeleton attached to the wings; and general appearance of an insect in pony form. A strange charged feeling around her indicated that she had collected love. But it felt weaker than expected.
"How much?" he asked.
" More than expected! We-"
" How much!"
The scout leader's forced cheerfulness wobbled, disintegrated and disappeared under the rage of her superior. Still, it was not unexpected. He did not like disobedience. Or bad news.
"Enough to feed several hundred changelings, Head Guardian."
"Several hundred changelings?"
Silence.
"Do you realize that the Hive consists of at least ten thousand changelings!?" "Yes Guardian, but-" "Silence! You yourself told me the Bright Ones have defeated the Chaos-Maker! Has that not given those pathetic ponies the opportunity to love again!?" "The Celestial Sisters have defeated Dis-" The Head Guardian bared his fangs and snarled, and the Scout Leader quickly realized her mistake. "You fool! Larvae-out-of- the-sack! Names are for none but the Queen!"
The Hive considered names strictly taboo for all but their ruler. Titles were the work of a lifetime, and you were addressed by them. The common changeling was "it" or "you", or he-she if they had chosen a gender. Only the Queen had a name, and the power to say names. This was the way the Hive had always worked, for as long as any changeling could remember. "Hail the Queen! May I never feel love again for my mistake, Head Guardian!" "It's not likely you'll feel love now, what with the rationing. Changelings don't feed on rocks. Next time collect more." "The ponies are still suspicious toward outsiders. Our subtle tactics can only do so much." " Haven't you tried imitating foals? That seems to work for the other Scout Leaders!"
" We have, Head Guardian."
" Well, find something that works, or you'll find yourself cleaning larvae slime!"
The Scout Leader was silent. It was a great honor to be chosen by the Queen to collect love for the Hive, but faced with the hypercritical Head Guardian, she wondered just how bad it would be to spend her life cleaning the slime of newly hatched changelings.
Like any changeling, she hated being less than absolutely perfect. Perfection was what the Hive depended on.
Her superior switched to another topic, baffling her for a moment. "Where've you left your Scout Party?" " Eh... the mossy tunnels!" " Where?" " Tunnels two-hundred ten to two-hundred thirteen." " So far from the Healer's Nest?" " We took a hidden entrance to the Hive to avoid any potential pursuers." " Well, bring your Party to the Healers immediately! They need to synthesize the love they carry to feed it to the Hive."
" Of course, Head Guardian! " The Scout Leader stumbled, and staggered away clumsily.
Really! The Head Guardian could swear some changelings got stupider each day. He hoped it wasn't a genetic flaw. The last time that had happened, the Queen had to go through all the trouble of weeding out half the Hive. It was partly the Breeders' fault; they never got the Healers to check the genetics of their eggs.
He would have to talk to the Queen about that. If the Queen was still alive, that is...
The Queen had other problems. Gasping and groaning, her body contracted once more. She continued to struggle, even though with each push her vision became dimmer, until her chamber's mossy walls faded almost out of sight. Just a little more... Even though the room was filled with warm, life-giving slime, the Queen felt cold.
She had failed.
She, who was practically immortal, who was supreme ruler of this vast Hive, had completely and utterly failed. When the Great Chaos had started, she had rejoiced. At last, the Hive could feed with impunity! Surely the war between the Bright Ones and the Chaos-Maker would stir up emotions, make those little ponies love stronger than ever before!
She had not listened to the frightened words of the Scouts who had seen the battles, and seen that the ponies were too terrified to love.
She had not moved the Hive from Equestria, had not moved on to other lands.
No, she had kept the Hive in the dusty, lifeless desert that was the Badlands. And it had all gone terribly wrong. The Hive had starved, was starving, slowly but surely. She could do nothing. Even with all her magicks, she starved with them. What could she do? There was no love.
The Hive was too weak to move to lands beyond Equestria filled with love.
And then her illness had struck.
That, at least, had spurred her to action.
The moment her glossy black coat began to flake; the instant her bug-like eyes dimmed; the very second she began to have trouble breathing; she had known that her last change would be to a corpse.
And so she had picked the best of the many consorts that constantly buzzed around her, and she had mated, hoping desperately for a rare Queen Egg.
The Queen convulsed one last time, and the larvae-sack slipped out of her, and coated her in sweet, sticky slime.
Soon the the Guards would come with the Healers and Scouts,and search the room and take her dead body away from here.
Soon they would discover their newly-hatched Queen.
Little larvae, she addressed the unhatched Queen in her sack, I hope only one thing for you. Do not follow in my hoof-steps. At any cost, at any price, do not fail.
The entire Hive was watching a great rocky overhang. They did not know why they were watching it. They only knew that that they had been called to this place. Deep within the Hivemind, a pheromone had been released. A chemical, travelling quickly through the Hive, spreading a message into each changeling mind it touched. Gather. Gather in Tunnel Five Hundred Ten, the ceremonial tunnel. And the Hive had.
The room inside the overhang was usually dark and always cramped. A result of a great crack running through the rock, it served as a kind of backstage. Changelings would prepare within the room, and then emerge, center stage, through the tunnel-like crack, playing out elaborate ceremonies to the Hive.
"Will this take long?"
The Scout Leader could not answer, could not speak a word to the Head Guardian.
The normally dim room was bright.
The Scout Leader was Giving.
Coils of mystic blue light cloaked her, searching, seeking. Pure unfiltered love, it numbed her, burnt her, made the world spin crazily. Each of her limbs trembled, and they moved and jolted without meaning.
Wings buzzing, eyes bulging, she struggled to control the flow of energy, to tame it.
The Head Guardian had been right. It was so little. But it was also strong, and she was weak...
If only she could stand a second more...
There! It had Caught!
The light enveloped the Healer, and slipped noiselessly inside.
For a moment, the Healer's dull eyes were bright, as the changeling glowed from the inside.
The Scout Leader and Head Guardian both watched, too frightened to speak.
The burning blue turned the Healer into something unknown and strange, something terrifying.
Then it dimmed, and was gone, to be quickly synthesized for consumption. Something to be collected and doled out by any Scouts available in the Hive.
The Head Guardian was not asking how long it would take now.
He had seen many Givings, and knew all about Healers.
And he knew that they were never rushed.
They lived only in the deepest, darkest caverns the Hive had to offer, pitch-black except for Giving-light, and the wisps that clung to them afterwards. Their "speech"was completely pheromone-talk, making changelings feel their need and desires. The Hive mind always carried a trace of their emotion-whispering. Not only could they synthesize love, they could manipulate the energy produced to heal, and had remarkable potential to manipulate the changeling body.
Ironically, they were weak and half-blind, physically defenseless.
But they could touch a changeling's mind, fill them with desperate panic and fear, until they heedlessly ran headfirst into tunnel walls.
Pathetically vulnerable, they were also sinister.
With a jolt, both the Head Guardian and the Scout Leader were suddenly full of raging impatience, an unsubtle nudge from the Healer.
The Head Guardian pulled himself together.
" Scout Leader, do you intend to keep the Hive waiting forever?"
While the Scout Leader stood reeling, the Healer gave a gurgle.
Head Guardian gave it a respectful ,if forced,smile.
" Healer, the Hive needs you."
And he turned and set off, leading the small party to the top of the overhang. To center stage. To the Choosing.
On the overhang, all that could seen was a great, throbbing crowd of changelings. Their sleek blackness and bright, bulging blue eyes all mixed together.
The Hive was one. If it was broken now, they would rebuild it, piece by piece, generation by generation.
The Queen is dead! No, she's alive. She was betrayed...she planned it all. She could not have seen! We will all die! We'll thrive! We will live without rulers! Someone must seize power! Power to the Queen!
The babble of thoughts roared through the Hive, through the Hivemind.
On that overhang they felt it. Scout Leader, Healer, and Head Guardian; they were all were part of it. They could not do anything with the Hive. It would bend them, break them even. They were only here to soothe it, to croon sweet words to it, like a Breeder does to her hatchlings, before they are torn away from her forever.
The Head Guardian spoke.
" Will all of the changelings of Brood Thirteen-Thousand-and-Seven under the Dead Queen please step forward!"
The Choosing had begun.
The Healer eyes glowing, was absorbed in her task. Blue light once again poured out of her, but it was simply energy, the product of love synthesized.
The Scout Leader watched the Healer's every twitch. Every Scout and Scout Leader was trained to recognize when a changeling had over-exerted themselves, and needed to be Given. The Scout Leader would stand by during the Choosing, ready to fill the Healer with more love, charging it once more.
Head Guardian was simply there to keep an eye on things, to make sure nothing went wrong. To guard against any imperfections.
At the moment the Choosing was proceeding according to plan.
Each changeling in Brood Thirteen-Thousand-and-Seven, the Brood the Dead Queen had belonged to, was being Searched.
The Healer's blue light formed an aura around them, and they tried to stand straight and tall in it.
Of course, they failed miserably.
Twitching uncontrollably, their wings humming and eyes bulging, they behaved exactly the same way a Healer did at a Giving.
The Head Guardian thought it was a rather pathetic display. But he didn't fully blame them.
Having one's genetics poked and prodded is very discomforting.
The Healer was Searching for the brood mate of the Dead Queen who had the closest DNA to her. From what the Head Guardian had seen, it seemed to take a lot of time, and even more energy.
It was too bad that that Queen Hatchings were so irregular, thought the Head Guardian. A pattern to the creation of Queen Eggs would have saved the Hive all this fuss. But unfortunately, it just didn't happen that way.
Queens could live for centuries, but they were in no way immortal. Their genes did give them added protection against illness and injuries, and gave them longer lifespans, but Death, the Great Changer, eventually took them too.
However, their descendants might not appear for decades. Queen Eggs were rare, although they could be hatched by both Queens and Breeders. The most a Queen could do was surround herself with little buzzing Consorts, and hope for the best. Queens were constantly trying, but a Queen Egg was really a product of sheer luck.
If no Queen Egg turned up, a Choosing would happen, and the genetically closest changeling would be appointed Waiting-Leader. It was exactly what it sounded like. The changeling would lead the Hive, although they would never assume they were Queen. Their "reign" would end the moment a Breeder hatched a Queen Egg.
The Choosing was also used to pick Regents, changelings who would train and guide a young Queen, with the aid of Hive's most elite Scout Leaders, Healers, Breeders (when she reached the right age) and of course, him, Head Guardian.
He didn't think the Choosing was for a Regent this time.
He had, of course sent the obligatory team of a Guardians, Scouts, and Healers into the Queen's Chambers, but they hadn't reported back to him what they'd found. (The Hivemind was far too accessible for official reports.)
But then, it had only been an hour, and the Queen's Chambers was immense, with many different little parts and subsections. It would take time.
A feeling of certainty suddenly filled Head Guardian.
He dragged himself out of his private thoughts, and back to the Choosing.
He was sure what that feeling was.
The Healer had finally Chosen.
The certainty was a signal to the Hive as to what had just occurred. The emotion was sure to have been transmitted through the Hivemind, a wordless declaration.
Head Guardian took a look at the Chosen. Or the "Chosen", as he liked to call them.
Surprisingly, the Chosen looked rather...nondescriptive.
His stockier build was an indication that he had picked a gender, but otherwise he was the default changeling build. Bit skinny, even for a time of starvation. Sickly, even.
He was probably a "shadow", a brood mate of the Queen's who would follow her around for the rest of their life, seeking a sliver of her power and fame. Some were reverent of the Queen. Others were bitter. There was no harm to them, Queen's usually outliving them.
Come to think of it, he did remember the Chosen. It was one of the changelings who clustered around the Dead Queen whenever Head Guardian tried to talk to her, report to her.
Poor fool.
It was almost unheard of for a shadow to become a Waiting-Leader. Shadows generally choose to live as shadows because they were weak, and had no other opportunities than to cling to a Queen.
The Head Guardian cast a look at his companions.
The Healer eyes were still glowing, but that was a normal after-effect of a Choosing. Too much energy in the air. The Scout Leader was gasping for air, her knees buckling, but that was normal too.
It was safe to abandon them for a moment and check on the Hivemind, as the crowd that was the Hive seemed agitated, churning and foaming, a sleek blackness with only those blue eyes standing out.
That was normal too. The smallest, daily events stirred up the Hive.
He closed his eyes, and touched the Hivemind.
New Waiting-Leader! He's a shadow! Why? Why not? New leader! Someone to guide us! Should have been me. Wonder how long the Waiting-Leader will rule.
He opened his eyes with difficulty. There were just so many emotions!
Joy, anxiety, optimism, doubt...and a large amount of bitterness. Anger too. Not so normal.
But he could do nothing about that.
He began the long, official, proclamation that would tell the Hive of the shadow becoming the new Waiting-Leader.
"On this day, in Tunnel Five Hundred Ten, this changeling, originally a shadow, will now become the Hive's great-"
His budding speech was cut of by the arrival of the group he had sent to search the Queen's Chambers. They shuffled onto the overhang. One of them, a Healer, seemed to be holding a bundle.
The bundle was silently passed to him.
It was soft, and warm. Made of cocoon-like material that was half-way between silk and slime, he could feel something stirring in it.
Giving a signal to the Hivemind to wait, he began to unwrap the bundle, the whole Hive watching.
It didn't take long. A few seconds and a face was revealed.
The face of an only hours-old Queen.
She was a sleek blackness, with nearly transparent wisps of turquoise hair; a crown-like antenna already sprouting from her head. Her horn was tiny, but jagged; like a dagger of black bone. Her eyes were brilliant green, with the slitted pupils only a Queen had.
She opened her mouth to bawl, and revealed sharp little fangs.
Her cries echoed within the silent Hive.
The Head Guardian finally blinked, feeling as if he had just come out of a trance. He cleared his throat and repeated his speech, changing it to accommodate the new Queen.
"On this day, in Tunnel Five Hundred Ten, the once-shadow becomes regent to our new Queen, beautiful as the love that feeds us, powerful as the wars we have waged for it. May our Queen become the most illustrious leader the Hive has ever had. May she rule with the wisdom of one who has Changed a thousand times. May all her enemies vanish under her fiery gaze. May all the changelings who help her, serve her, and love her, be praised. She is our hope. She is what will remain if Death, the Great Changer, takes all, one by one."
It was a speech as old as all the dark, beautiful, terrifying things that lurked in Equestria.
The Hivemind received it reverently, as they had all the times before. It was the only thing that gave them stability in their changing world.
And it was tainted by bitterness, hatred, the anger of hundreds of changelings who had been passed by, who never felt a hint of the power.
It was ours. the Hivemind whispered, Ours!
Hostility. Rage. A burning desire to rid the world of the bastard Queen.
Hostility was normal. Anger was normal. It was quickly forgiven, forgotten.
But one changeling's grudge was not normal.
It would lie dangerously, a sleeping dragon, for years.
Flip! Flap! Brown and black, wings like me, black and brown-
" Queen, are you paying attention?"
The child-Queen looked up, playing innocent.
The Shadow-Regent scowled back at her.
He was exhausted.
In most ways, the Queen looked perfectly normal. She had grown taller, her dark hide taking a more adolescent form, complete with holes and wings. Her hair now streamed around her face, framing her large eyes. Her horn was long and jagged, allowing her to channel the vast amounts of magic in her.
Yet she wasn't normal. The magic in her might be powerful, but it also needed to be fed.
Although the Scout Parties had increased their love collection in recent years, it was still scarce. Barely enough to feed a Hive that had grown smaller with starvation.
Definitely not enough to fill a growing Queen.
So she had not really grown. Her exterior fully showed the passing of more than a decade, but she was still a hatchling inside; foolish, and unaware that there were consequences to actions.
Actions like watching moths while the Regent tried to give a lesson on power dynamics, gleaned from years of careful watching.
He gave off a feeling of disapproval, anger.
The Queen tried to concentrate.
Regent is speaking...flip! Flap!
No! Regent is speaking. Betrayal...betray your enemies... Queens fight back...
Flap! No, Regent will make me feel bad again. Weakness...use them, and Regent gives me the thing-that-makes-me-unable to face him, and the thing-that burns me.
Another flip-flap!
Someone told me about the-thing-that-makes me unable-to-face-him, and the thing-that burns- me. She was muddy. Her cloak was soft.
I took it from her, but she gave me the-thing-that-makes-me-feel-mixed-up. The cloak wasn't even worth anything! Muddy, like her. I saw her give the-thing-that-makes-me-unable-to-face-him to the big changeling in hard, shininess. H-Guardion.
No! Regent says to abuse power... did Regent abus power? What is abus?
The Regent was not pleased. The great, almighty Queen probably did not understand a thing he said. She might not even want to, choosing to devote her life to...moths. There was almost no point in trying to shape her, mold her into his personality.
And there was no way to get her to pay attention, unless he tried to hunt down every moth in the immense Queen's Chambers.
So he decided to simply abandon her.
"Lesson's over, Queen. I have to take care of important duties. Amuse yourself in your chambers. Don't go out!"
And then he was gone, darting off into the private tunnels that led from the Queen's Chambers. Like a shadow.
The Queen waited a moment after he left. She strained her ears, trying to hear hoof steps that were simply not there.
Regent was really gone.
Good.
She turned around, and bolted into a tunnel, her hoof-falls clumsy and jarring.
Dark. Dark and big and lonely. Flip-flaps here?
The Queen was beginning to suspect her own judgment. Surely the pretty things that looked like her couldn't be here?
Nevertheless, she had seen them fly into here.
But maybe was an illusion. Cloaked-One showed me what illusion was. Made Scouts look different. Turned into something... strange. Colors hurt my eyes. Called them Punies. Ugly. Turned into me. Look like changelings, but better. They say I'm pretty. Other-me looked pretty. Didn't like her. Only one Queen. Queen is me. Hive calls me Queen. Most Beloved Queen. Not Regent. Why? She turned a corner in the tunnel, and froze as something blinded her.
Bright! Too bright! Punie bright!
The light was unlike any she had ever seen. It had none of the subtle glow of bioluminescence, nor the ethereal mist of a Giving. No, it was bold and brazen and daring, and burned her slitted pupils.
Her stomach gave a sickening lurch, forcing her to curl up on the ground, and squeeze her eyes shut. It was the most undignified position she could think of. It made her look like a hatchling.
But she was in too much pain to care.
Minutes trickled by slowly, and when she regained consciousness, the light wasn't so terribly bright anymore.
But she didn't take too much notice of it. Her attention was focused on the thousands of moths that flittered around her.
Flip-flaps!
The tunnel was full of them. They rested on the mossy stone walls, with its deep crevices. Their wings were sleek black, dark brown, the palest grey, and made a faint papery-fluttery sound. A few brushed softly against the Queen.
They mostly clustered around a large, jagged fissure in the tunnel's ceiling, where the not-so-bright-now light poured in.
The old tunnel was unstable, as it rested just underneath the surface of the Badlands. At some point in the past, it had collapsed. Although rebuilt, it was no perfection, and had thus long since been abandoned, leaving it to insects.
One particularly pretty moth caught the Queen's eye.
Brilliantly golden, it was almost as large as her head. An impressive specimen.
Flip-flap! Look like bright-light. Big. Big like me! Queen of Changelings is me. Flip-flap Queen of Burning Light. Look nice! Queen hurt Queen. Come here, Queen!
She lunged toward it, and crashed into the tunnel wall. Luckily, the soft, if damp, moss absorbed most of the shock, leaving the Queen with only a brief jolt of pain.
Hissing, she expressed her anger and humiliation.
Regent said that Queens fight. Fight, Queen of Burning! Queen of changelings will give you thing-that-burns! Queen of changelings will use fangs!
She reared up on her hind legs, and leaned on the mossy wall. Stretching her foreleg, she tried to stamp out the beastly thing, to squish it under her hoof.
No such luck. The dratted thing was just out of her reach.
Her anger built up inside her, scalding her, filling her with intense heat.
The Queen of Burning is my enemy. Regent says to betray your enemies.
She was a Queen. She was powerful enough for betrayal.
How?
A burst of magic was her answer.
At first it was a cloud of blue, the color of bioluminescence.
Then it flared green, a dazzling emerald green. It crackled from her horn, radiating pure power. It lapped at her slender frame, like tongues of fire.
She focused on the moth, directed the greenness toward it.
The poor thing didn't stand a chance.
The energy curled around it, and solidified into a warm, soft gelatinous cocoon.
It would die in there, suffocated.
The Queen had won her battle.
She smirked.
Burning Queen weak.
Intoxicated with her victory, she lost interest in the moths.
Spying a sizeable crack in the tunnel, she wiggled through.
The Queen blinked, and stared at her surroundings. It was all so...strange. A huge cavern was spread out before her. It's occupants were busy. Busy at play. The place was crammed to the capacity with young changelings. Thousands of hatchlings ran amok. The younger ones called out to each other in egg-speak, an odd, insect-like language made of clicks and chirps. They laughed, cried, loved, and hated. They swarmed up the stalagmites and flew in circles around the stalactites. The older ones buzzed around in groups, mindful of their "elder" status. They were only a few years younger than the Queen, living out the last of their youth before they were Judged and made to work, to become Scouts and Guardians and Breeders and all the other numerous types of workers the Hive needed.
The Queen was looking at the next generation.
This was the place they came from, they place they were sent to after they were pulled out of a Breeder's warm embrace.
They were so...noisy.
Don't they have a Regent to tell them to hush? What are they doing!? They are too small! Too loud!
A few Caretakers patrolled the Nursery, specially trained to take care of its inhabitants. They Gave to the unruly hatchlings, not only to simply feed them, but also to quiet them.
What seemed utter chaos to the Queen was relative peace and quiet to the Caretakers.
The Queen's feeling of power was diminished when she saw them in their full glory, an endless sea of changelings. She was simply one of them.
Nonsense!
Queen is Queen! Queen of changelings, defeater of the Burning One. They call me Beloved Queen. Scouts and Guardians and Breeders and H-Guardian. Even Regent calls me Queen.
Regent says Queen has subjects.
These things are Queen's.
My subjects.
She launched herself into the fray, and knocked down one of the hatchlings.
"Watch it, larvae-brain!"
"Queen does not have larvae in head! Queen say subject should not give her thing-that-burns! "
"Look!" shouted the hatchling to her companions, " An oozy-brain!"
Almost immediately a group formed around the Queen, pushing and shoving to get a ringside view, to make sure they saw the full extent of an oozy-brain's oddness.
Imperfections were strange.
"Does she talk?"
"Does she drool on herself?"
"Is she crying?"
"Are her wings torn?"
"Does she have a leg missing?"
"Bet she has two heads!"
"Ewwwww!"
"She might!"
"Apparently, she talks, but really funny.", said the hatchling the Queen had bumped into.
"Queen does not "talk funny"! Queen does not have two heads! Queen is Queen! Regent says so too!"
"What's she babbling about?"
"No idea!"
"Queen is talking about Queen! That's what Queen is talking about, you...you slime scum!"
A silence fell upon the hatchlings. It could almost be seen, a throbbing stillness in the air.
It lasted only seconds.
"I think I know what's wrong with her!" piped up one of them. "What?" asked one of the eldest. "She thinks she's the Queen!" The group tittered. Their childish laughter seemed pure and innocent, but it scalded the Queen's very soul, and she shrank against a stalagmite.
As their laughter reached a crescendo, the sound of chuckles, and full, deep, slime-snorting belly laughs became unbearable.
Queen is Queen. Of course! Regent says so...and scouts... all changelings. Queen is Queen. Possibly. Maybe.
The young ones descended into silence again.
"Hey," another almost-fully-mature changeling asked, " If she thinks she's Queen, shouldn't we all give her a royal welcome? You know, pay our dues to our glorious monarch?"
Yes! thought the Queen. Exactly! Big words- big words- more big words!
The words sounded perfect, just like the speeches Regent gave.
But... doesn't sound like Regent.
There was something in those words the Queen could not identify. Airy and light, it somehow bordered on cruel. It felt like a joke she could not understand.
"Yeah!"
"We should!"
"It's the only way to treat royalty!" "First, we should throw the ceremonial ground larvae sack dust into the air, to signify how our most glorious Queen gives our Hive life." " I don't think we have ceremonial ground larvae sack dust." "No, we don't seem to, do we? We'll just have to throw something else." A hoof-full of dust was suddenly thrown at the Queen's face, filthying her coat, and choking her. She coughed and hacked up slime, trying to get the stuff out of her. "Next we have to robe her in fine cloth. Usually changeling-silk's used." An old, dried up piece of hatchling-slime was roughly draped around her, with a crinkling noise. Dirty...dirty! Filthy! Icky! Get it off Queen!
"Is any of this real?" "No. Haven't you ever heard of making stuff up?. "But it sounds fancy!" "And so does our Queen's ramblings."
"Finally, we've got to sing her illustrious praises!"
"One...two...three... all together now!"
Their voices burst into a clumsy, make-shift song.
"Oh our glorious, oozy-brain Queen, there's no changeling as fine as she! With larvae for brains, which give her strange pains, she's our leader for eternityyyy!"
They broke off, and dissipated into hysterical giggles.
For the Queen, the song was the very last straw. The whole thing had been a nightmarish experience, but to see herself named and shamed in poorly-rhyming verse was just too much.
Regent says not only Queens like Burning Queen can betray. Subjects can betray too. Regent say betrayal must be dealt with.
The magic once again flowed from somewhere deep inside of her, filling her limbs with fire.
But this time, her mind was full of ice. Cold, sharp, clean ice, allowing her to see every detail with crystal-clear intensity. The energy wasn't overpowering her. No, quite the opposite.
She was channeling it, gathering it for one perfect attack.
The Burning Queen was a Queen. Betrayal among Queens was strategic, and the emotion born of it, the humiliation, the pain, was only the shame of oversight.
But this, what her subjects had done to her, was personal. Deeply, deeply personal. She had been ignored, taunted, mocked.
And for that, they would pay.
They will go same way as Burning Queen.
It was already happening, the air was full of blue mist... no, it had changed to green, her green, her eyes, and she could see the hatchling's faces; puzzled and confused.
And then the green touched them, only lightly, lovingly brushed them, and they understood.
And they screamed.
It would have been the last noise they ever made if a small group of Guards hadn't burst into the Nursery, their stampede breaking the magic, shattering it into fragile emerald wisps that clung to the air, then finding nothing to cling to, drifted away like smoke.
A few gazed at the terrified hatchlings in confusion, wondering what had happened, before linking the green to the Queen's still-glowing horn.
Most, however, had no intention to be distracted from their task.
Head Guardian had been racing across the Hive for the last hour, trying to find the Queen. At the moment he wouldn't have cared if she'd sprouted moss on her coat.
His task was over.
Regent's however, had hardly begun.
The moment he stepped out of the group, the Queen knew she was in trouble. Particularly painful trouble.
As expected, he gave her the thing-that-burned almost the moment he saw her.
Then unexpectedly, he turned away.
Head Guardian explained.
"The Healers have finally decided to give you your Proving, Queen. We're proceeding to Tunnel Five Hundred Ten."
The Queen knew what a Proving was, of course.
The first thing every Queen knew was that she was not truly Queen. Not until a Proving, that is.
The Healers in their dark caverns spent years trying to figure out when to finally give a new Queen the dangerous task that would give her the full rights to the throne.
A Proved Queen would be able to cast all Regents and advisers aside. She would have true, indisputable power, the power to punish and reward, the power to rule.
The overhang in Tunnel Five Hundred Ten was as large and imposing as it had been all those years ago, the day the Queen had been made Queen.
This time though, it was covered in Healers, catatonic except for a few rolling eyes and twitching limbs.
The crowd, also, was different. It was not that it was smaller, although it certainly was; hunger did that to a Hive, but that it was formed differently.
The Queen and the group from the Nursery were directly under the overhang, their flanks still heaving from the effort it had taken to run all the way to the tunnel. The common changelings stood behind them. They were seperate; special.
All eyes were on the Healers.
And they spoke.
The words were images, feelings, ideas, all whispered through the Hive Mind.
The Queen, Unproven, could not hear it. She was not linked to it, had never felt its sensations.
For the rest of the Hive though, it was perfectly clear.
Boldness, danger. A dangerous quietness. No, it was the silence of a stalking changeling. It hunted, and when it could not pounce, it seduced with, sweet, sticky, slimey words.
The surprise was of its unsuspecting prey; pony or griffin or dragon, it did not matter, any race would do, any strange, ugly, foreign race, known only because Scouts had seen them and fed information about them to the Hivemind.
And the Healers showed an image, something trapped inside a cocoon, struggling to get free... no it wasn't struggling anymore, it had submitted to the will of the Hive, and its love-energy poured out of it, feeding the gluttonous changelings.
If it ever emerged from the cocoon alive, it would wear the colors of black and blue, the colors of all changelings. It would be unthinking, a part of the Hive existing only to be drained further, until it was a shriveled corpse.
The Healers were describing a Husk.
The Regent paced the Queen's Chambers frantically, angrily.
The Proving Ceremony, as it was dictated by the whims of Healers, was much less strict than others.
Changelings were free to leave as they wished, in crowds and throngs, or one by one, each rushing back to their place in the Hive, to their stations.
The moment the Healers had announced that the Queen's Proving Task was to make a Husk, the Regent had grabbed the Queen, and made off for the Queen's Chambers.
There he had had the privacy to hiss like a cockroach and bare his fangs at invisible enemies.
All he had wanted, the only thing he had wanted, was to be recognized, to have some meaning in the Hive!
And he had never gotten an opportunity.
Like all changelings, he had many memories of playing in the Nursery, but the first memory that really mattered to him was when the Old Queen had been Chosen.
It was a memory tainted by bitterness, and faded by time, but he could still remember the raging injustice of it all, the chance of power he had lost.
The majority of his life he had been a Shadow, lurking in hidden corners around the Old Queen, hoping for some of her greatness to rub off him.
He had once spent his time plotting rebellions, betrayals. They had come to nothing, because they had never been anything. Simply dreams to comfort hidden shadows.
Even becoming a weak Waiting-Leader would have felt wonderful after being a shadow.
But he had been thwarted there too. The now-dead Queen had once more gotten lucky, and laid a ridiculously rare Queen Egg right after she realized she'd been a failure, and was about to drop dead.
And so he hadn't become a Waiting-Leader. No, he'd gotten an even worse position. He had become a Regent, a glorified nursemaid to the Queen, trying to teach her everything he knew before she cast him aside.
He had thought, at first, that he could shape the child-Queen to his personality, mold her into a likeness of himself. If he couldn't have fame or glory, a copy of him could.
He had been sure she would bend to his will, and he had become almost fond of her, of his copy-version of her.
And suddenly a few years had passed, and he realized the Queen wasn't anything like him at all. Like a hatchling, she had relied on him. But she had never become him.
Immediately he had soured to her, begun to distance himself from her. The Queen had shattered all his dreams and it was her fault.
He would no longer even call her "Queen"; wouldn't address her by the title she and her mother had stolen from him.
Not that he had shown his true feelings so obviously. He had learned as a Shadow that emotions were best kept hidden if you wanted to remain in power. And he would cling to his power, his fragile power as Regent.
If nothing else, he would be sure to never be a Shadow again.
And now the whole charade was over.
To find a creature to turn into a Husk, the "Queen" would have to venture out of the Hive. All his lessons, all his time spent on her, were wasted.
The Scouts and Scout Leaders had told him that The Bright Ones had brought stability to the land, organizing their people, building villages, and even ordering the construction of a capital. But they also told him that the edges of their domain, the area around the Badlands, was still dangerous.
The moment the "Queen" set hoof out of the Hive, she would probably be killed by something.
Her death would send the Hive into political turmoil, and changelings would fight, heavily and bloodily, for any hint of power.
What with the fact that the Scout's love collecting was still faring poorly, the whole thing spelled disaster for the Hive.
There seemed to be no way other. The Hive was doomed. End of story.
Unless...
He had seen in the Nursery those wisps of green. He knew what they meant. He had seen the dust-covered Queen, with the cloak made of slime sack.
He had perfectly comprehended the course of events, although he had judged them insignificant.
But suddenly, everything was turned on its head, and he saw a glimmer of hope. A way to end the nightmare.
The Queen's magic seemed to be activated by strong emotions. Things like hatred, humiliation, pain.
Those feelings were easy. They were nothing to produce in a changeling.
He glanced at the Queen.
She had ignored him since he had brought her back to her chambers, staring at the moths. If he had bothered to pay attention, he would have realized the Queen was staring at them in contempt.
Flip-flaps weak. Subjects of Burning-Queen. Weaker than her. Not worth bothering about.
He gave her a fanged smile, that she might have noticed if she had bothered to pay attention.
He moved toward her, noiselessly. Like a shadow. That was what he was, wasn't he? No use denying it.
When he was right behind the Queen, he paused.
She and the Queen before her had torn his dreams apart. But he could still recover them. He could still be remembered in the Hive.
All he would need was a sacrifice.
But he was afraid. Shadows sacrificed others. His fear only lasted for a second.
It would all be worth it.
With a cool, clear mind, a Shadow's mind, he kicked the Queen as hard as he could, hoping to hurt her a little, but not to kill.
He saw her eyes, slitted and angry, furious, burning.
And then the green surrounded him, a soft warmness, and the air died in his lungs.
Hours passed before the Queen was discovered; slow, tedious hours. She stared at nothing in particular, tried to keep her mind empty. She was not sure what she felt about the... thing beside her. She knew she had been burning, she had been hurt, and she had made it. What should Queen feel? Regent isn't here to say. Queen will feel nothing.
In the end, it was a Healer who found her. Healers didn't do things at random. They waited, waited for years, and then acted when everything was perfect.
There was a reason they had waited so many years for the Proving. And the Queen had Proved herself spectacularly. The Healer looked at her with those glowing blue eyes. The Queen looked back. She was Queen. She could look all she wanted. She could look and judge and give and take. She could bring things to life and kill them just as easily.
Queen is Queen.
The Healer was no longer looking at a hatchling. The Queen felt far too old to be a hatchling, too angry, too sad, too confused.
She had a numb feeling of loss, but she had no idea what she had lost.
The Healer knew. It saw the thing beside the Queen.
It spoke to the Hivemind, showing them the thing, giving them the sensations of a Husk.
The word spread like a wildfire.
The Queen has Proven herself.
They thronged together, formed a great crowd, and headed, in the thousands and hundreds, to the place they had felt the Healer's call.
The Hive filled the Queen's chambers.
They all saw the Thing. It was difficult not to see it.
Larger than the Queen, it was a soft, gelatinous cocoon, attached to the chamber's walls by plenty of thick, sticky slime.
Green as her eyes, it was thick and swollen, curiously both comforting and repelling. If one looked closely, a thin, twisted outline could be seen inside of it, the lifeless form of the Shadow Regent.
The air of the Queen's Chambers was charged, full of love energy, the remains that had been in the Regent's body.
The Healers took it in. Later, the Scouts would collect it, and give the Hive a feast. It was the Regent's gift to his enemies.
The Hive saw the cocoon.
They saw the chrysalis.
The chrysalis, symbol of death and rebirth. How fitting.
The Healers knew it was fitting. They latched onto Head Guardian, fed him the speech they had built.
"On this day, in the Queen's Chambers, our Queen, stronger than death, stronger than life, strong as the love we devour, truly becomes Queen.
She gains the true power that comes with the title; we as a Hive willingly give it. She has Proved herself, shown that she is not only the Hive's great friend, but also Death's, the Great Changer. She has made a Husk, and she feeds us its energies.
For a symbol of her power, we give her something we do not have; a name. May it be on the lips of the Hive for thousands of years."
As Head Guardian finished, the Queen smiled, a serpent-toothed smile. She had no idea what she had done, if it was good or bad.
But apparently, it had made her Queen.
The Hive is mine. Queen is Queen. Not Regent or hatchlings will ever take it from me, take Queen's power.
She stood before all of the Hive, and silently accepted her power, spoke her wordless consent into the Hivemind.
The Healers had only Opened it to her seconds ago. The constant roar of voices in her head was strange, but comforting.
Now, she only waited for a name.[/
And it came.
Her name, is Queen Chrysalis.
All hail Queen Chrysalis!
May she rule forever.
Queen Chrysalis heard her name, heard her power, heard the Hive's praises.
She was in no way modest. Queens had no need to be modest. They accepted that they had won, and left all their enemies behind, to die alone.
She laughed, a mirthful screech that came from deep inside of her, and the Hive resonated with the sound.
She was Queen. She was young. She was beautiful and powerful.
She would rule supreme for hundreds of years, lose all her weakness over the decades. She would become dangerous and ruthless.
And one day, more than a thousand years into the future, she would fail.
But for now she was Queen Chrysalis, the undefeatable Queen of Changelings.
