What's good for one.
One thing went wrong after another. The insertion failed and then the princess and student escaped. That didn't bode well for any of us. Plan B. The last straw. A final assault on Canterlot. This was our last fighting chance at taking Canterlot. We didn't usually fight at all, we just ran. We hid from ponies. But I guess Queen Chrysalis had put so much time into this that she wasn't going to give up without a fight. I stood in the middle of a MacPones fending off several ponies. Things were not going well so far, I had been struck quite badly by one of them and I hadn't left a scratch on any of them. The next thing I knew I flew back and was smashed into the side of the wall. That was far too powerful to be one of the ponies.
I must have been knocked out by the blast as when I woke up there was no-one around. I tried asking the hive if they knew what happened. Quiet. I panicked and begged for any form of response in my head. What should I do? I cried out mentally.
Flee. Was the last words I remembered before silence. So I obliged. I ran and I ran through the cover of darkness. Through the empty streets and out through a gap in the lower quarters of the fortified city. I ran until my legs burned and my blood pumped acid. Once I was out of sight from any pony in Equestria I started to follow a road I found. I didn't know where it went but I just had to follow it. It was a direction that I could just follow. It calmed me somewhat.
But any split in the road made me curl up and cry out of fear of not knowing what to do. Every time I woke I walked the first path I saw and forgot the other one. I was on death's door. Mentally and physically. I was battered and bruised through my thin body armour. My love energy's were extremely low and I was starving. My vision was blurring and I could barely stand anymore. The last thing I remember was collapsing near a building, embracing death and all that followed.
"...What do you mean just leave it here?" A deep voice said, from what I could guess it was a stallion. "We can't trust that thing, hopefully it'll just fly off back to... wherever it came from," another lighter voice replied.
I awoke to blurred vision and the mixed taste of seething hatred, concern and worry. My brain hurt severely and my hearing was fuzzy. These negative emotions weren't making it any better. Their arguing made me twitch in repulsion.
"I think its moving! Should we run?" The probably stallion said.
"Stay calm, I've got this, alright?" The lighter voiced pony. I heard the hoof-steps of them getting closer to me.
"I'm not sure." The stallions voice sounded nervous.
I opened my eyes to see two differently shaded blue ponies standing a few meters away from me. When they noticed me looking at them they jumped back and retreated to behind a tree. After a few seconds they regrouped back at the spot they were at before. I could see them clearly now, the stallion was teal with a snowstorm cutie mark and the mare was light mint with a glacier cutie mark.
The teal stallion whispered, "We should just go before it gets up again."
"And let it get us in our sleep? No, we have to do something." The mint mare responded. With a faint courage, she walked up to me and lightly tapped me on the shoulder with her hoof . "H-hey. Get up."
I ignored her and laid back on the floor to await them finishing me off.
"Look, I'm going to give you one chance to leave. Just get out of here." She said. "It doesn't exactly look in the condition to do... well, anything." The stallion commented.
I wasn't injured severely but I was bruised really bad and I had barely any energy to survive. I was sure I was going to die here. "What do you suggest we do then?" She snapped, again making me flinch.
"Maybe take it back with us. Keep it in a safe place and let it go when it can leave." He replied, nervously yet also sympathetically.
"Are you insane!? Take that thing back to our home?" She nearly screamed. "Just trust me on this... when have I ever been wrong about this sort of thing?" He said, unsure of himself.
Wait. They're not going to kill me? Oh, Lord. I'm probably going to be on trial. I thought. There wasn't much of any positive energy around so I couldn't even put up any resistance.
The stallion approached the changeling and said, "Do you want to come with us? We can give you a safe place to stay for now."
I didn't know. I couldn't ask the hive. What should I do, what should I say? I attempted to speak but all that would come out was a faint hiss.
"I think that was a yes?" He said. The mare pulled him aside and they begun to quietly argue with each other. I wasn't getting the any positive energy so I was practically starving. I decided to just close my eyes and hope that I woke up sometime later.
Surprisingly I actually woke up but my head felt like a whistle with the pea rattling horribly inside. "I think it's waking up." A male voice said, slightly excited.
"Great..." The other said.
I had regained some energy - enough to see clearly - but I was still heavily drowsy. I opened my eyes to see the two ponies from before sitting on the far side of a room. The room was comfortably furnished with little personal nic-nacs scattered everywhere they could be. The room seemed to be designed with comfort at the forefront rather than style or function. The stallion and mare both sat on a sofa facing directly at me. In front of them was a coffee table with two mugs sat on vaguely on two drink stains. The table sat dangerously close to a fireplace that held a dwindling fire; on top of the fireplace was several small framed pictures of the two with several other similarly coloured ponies next to them. The teal stallion cautiously slipped of the sofa and slowly walked up to me. "Hey, sorry but I figured you'd like it a bit better in here. Are you okay?" He asked.
I looked at him confused. What was he doing? Wasn't he going to take me to the guards? I was in no state to lie though, even if I wanted to. "N-no..."
"I guess I should have expected that"- He said, slightly chuckling to himself- "What exactly is wrong?"
There were more positive tastes to this room than before but I was still very hungry. "En.. rgy." I was slowly drifting in and out of reality.
"Alright, you just need to rest... do you need anything?"
Oh great, I'm going to die here. I thought at that moment. I was starving and he was just sitting there. "Love.. Ener.."I trailed off the the last word. Hopefully gets the idea.
"Love? Why, is that some kind of metaphor?" The stallion tilted his head in confusion.
"No, they feed off of love. How do you not know this?" The aqua mare sighed and glared at the stallion.
"Well, I'm sorry I don't know everything about a species that hasn't been seen for years... Look, just go to bed, I've got this." The mare grunted and walked off.
"Sorry about her, she's a bit... bitter sometimes, but she means well." The teal pony walked over an looked at me sympathetically. "But don't worry, you'll be safe here. I promise." He put carefully put a blanket over me and returned to the opposite sofa. "She'll come around in time, always does. All you need to worry about it getting better." I could taste his sympathy and guilt for me, being terrified of me only hours ago. He laid down on the sofa to face me and drifted off to sleep.
The removal of the mare in the room helped me calm down a lot. She gave off very negative energy and that wasn't helping my matters much. I laid awake until the fire died fully, thinking about my lost hive and what I could do now. It was obvious that I couldn't go back. I had failed the hive and I had failed Queen Chrysalis. I slowly faded into sleep once the fire was gone. The stallions mental warmth was enough to keep me calm enough to sleep.
I woke up early that morning. I still didn't have any idea where I was, in relation to the outside world. The stallion was still soundly asleep in the morning. I heard noises from the other room and decided to investigate. I saw the mare from before rummaging through cupboards looking for presumably same cereal. She grabbed a box from the cupboard and nearly dropped it in surprise when she saw me. I tasted fear from her and I did the only thing I could think of. I spun on the hooves and ran in the opposite direction. Back to where me and the stallion has slept. The stallion was sleeping quietly on the sofa before he woke up abruptly to all the noise we had both made.
"Is something wrong?" He asked, startled. I looked blankly at him out of fear and not knowing what to say. I could have done something to frighten the both of them.
"What's wrong was that it was staring at me!" The mare came into the room with an audible stomp.
The negative emotions from the mare tasted bitter and I recoiled from them. I jumped to the stallions side for the same positive energy that he gave me last night.
"Stop it, you're scaring it!" The stallion yelled at the mare, not noticing me getting more frightened by his sudden outburst. "I'm sure its just curious. It hasn't even seen anything aside from this couch all night."
"I wouldn't be making such a big deal if it wasn't scaring me. You just had to bring it home with us, didn't you?"
The negative energy from both of them tasted horrible and I devolved into hissing at them to ward them away from me. Both of them jumped back away from me out of fear and surprise. They looked at me weirdly and I could taste confusion and fear from them.
"Sorry about that." The Stallion said, trying to calm both himself and me down. "We've just been shaken up by this whole thing... I'm sure you have been, too."
"Yes" I quietly replied.
"Let's just kind of start things over. We haven't really introduced ourselves, so that might be a good place to start. My name's Flurry, and that's my sister, Glacier." He pointed over to the aqua mare. "Hey..." She muttered, both trying to comply with Flurry and not talk to me.
I looked over to Glacier and saw her fiery eyes glaring at me. The mixed blend of her horrid taste of hatred and her terrifying glare sent shiver up my spine. "Hey."I simply replied, out of fear of her.
"Do you have a name?" He asked, trying to keep a positive mood in this war of tensions.
"We don't have names." Names were not a part of our hives so I didn't have a need for one. We could just use our mental scent to identify each other.
"Huh... well, what do you want us to call you?" He tilted his head in confusion as Glacier muttered something under her breath.
I pondered this question for a second. What could they call me? I could use the name of one of the ponies' I have infiltrated. But then someone might get confused or suspicious of me. "I don't know." I resolved to say. I could cross that bridge when I came to it.
"Its fine... I think you might just need to take things easy for a bit. This seems like a lot for you." Again, Flurry wasn't wrong but I was starting to wonder what his intentions were.
"Why are you helping me?" I finally asked.
"I just couldn't leave you there, even if you were a... well,"-
-"A monster, he's trying to say that nicely." Glacier interjected, scowling as she did so.
I tasted embarrassment from Flurry as Glacier said that. "Thanks..." I said quietly.
"Sorry about her." He glared over at Glacier. "But what I meant to say was that it just felt wrong to leave you there, no matter what you were."
I repeated "Thanks" again, this time in a normal tone to try and show my gratitude. Flurry stood closer to me and smiled sincerely at me. I smiled back at him. He made me feel more comfortable than what I would be if I were alone.
"You're welcome. You're free to stay here as long as you need to, and you won't get anymore trouble from Glacier, right?" He looked over at her in an attempt to make her try and be friendly with me.
"Yeah... right." She half faked a smile back at Flurry whilst refusing to give me direct eye contact.
As much as that made me glad I wanted to go home as soon as I could, with Glacier here it was going to make things difficult. "Thanks." I said again trying to sound appreciative.
"Anyway, sorry for waking you up, you should get back to resting for now. I promise we won't wake you again." He said, backing off to stand next to Glacier.
"Thanks." I watched them leave and when they finally closed the door I retreated to a corner of the room for a sense of closure.
I didn't really need to sleep from all the rest I had gotten before but they presumed it would give me time to heal physically. That day was a quiet one and I hated it, I missed the hive. The constant chatter was soothing. I missed their physical presence. The blanket that Flurry left for me was a small comfort but nothing like the warm of your fellow siblings. Sleep was rough and I woke up periodically to the crushing emptiness of the room. I needed to get back to the hive.