Chapter 1
Hunger… Love… Freedom...
The last thoughts of a primal Changeling, before she collapsed on the floor. Devoid of love, they could not live on. Starving for love, she could not live on.
Time causes change. The eternal flow of time pushed the societies of creatures in a new direction, following Queen Chrysalis’ defeat.
Thorax and the Freed Changelings had left the land of Equestria, after the tragic loss of the Elements of Harmony, in search of someplace they could settle without conflict. Unbound by the curse laid upon them, they receive love from within a hive.
Primal Changelings, still bound by the Celestia-damned curse, travelled everywhere in search of love. Some vanished, and never returned after going into the Everfree. Some barely survived the assault of pegasi living in Canterlot, or what they also call Zephyr Heights now.
The time of oppressive Queen Chrysalis was long gone; the queens that followed valued each and every changeling’s will. Moreover, the queens have been attempting to feed everyling, attempting to free everyling, and attempting to reason with the ponies. Yet, something had changed in everypony and everyling around them - the supply of love was quickly diminishing, until where it was only occasionally that even a single changeling could find love; often, the air permeated with hatred.
As the last changeling, she had the freedom of thought and action; she also experienced the silence of the hive mind, and the loneliness of the Everfree.
She once had friends. Friends, in a village full of bright, soft, cuddly, and delicious ponies. Friends, never having to use her disguise. No primal changeling before has been true friends, but Chitin proved that it could be done. Swings, dares, and pranks; love notes, crashes, and heartbreaks. All were part of Chitin’s vocabulary.
Yet, time could change everything one knows. As the ponies grew up, they mysteriously disappeared, one by one, from the village. One told her, “it was for a continued effort of pony peace”, until Chitin was the only one left in the small town. She wanted to follow, but ones with both wings and horns are not welcomed at the destination.
She ignored callings from the hive until that moment. Returning to the changeling hive, she found nothing but chitin skeletons of starved changelings on the floor. She abandoned her old name since then, taking after those that died, bearing the weight of the species, as their last one. Bearing part of the burden with a name would make the burden lighter, right?
Perhaps.
She tried to find her way back from the hive, but she was trapped. The Everfree forest was a maze, those who did not have a guide were lost to its twisted ways. Also lifeless lies the fauna, all having moved away. Occasionally, Chitin would run past some dried up ambient love, stuck in the old trunks, the cursed trunks of the Everfree. The extraction was too exhausting to be beneficial in such a weakened state.
She could hope for a miracle. Perhaps a rainbow lazer in the sky, ready to turn the next disharmonic being into stone; it could also be a rainboom by a pegasus she admired, the flare of a magical sunrise, or even a pair of any creature passing by. There were so many things that could happen, so many wonderful ways love could make its way into the rumbling stomach again. Chitin’s imagination ran wild, the hive mind not fighting back at such an outlandish act for a changeling.
Hoping was futile, a waste of energy. Hoping is necessary, giving her energy to go on. Chitin knows she doesn’t have long, but Chitin believes she has enough to last until the next meal. When will it be? No one knows.
Trembling on her hooves, she was only able to get into a sitting position. On the second attempt, she fell to the floor again. Third time’s the charm? No, reality would never be defined by some arbitrarily numbered rule. Why is it not “fourth time’s the charm”? Tenth? Hundredth? Lying on the floor, Chitin tossed her bulky skull to the other side. She couldn’t make out the way she came from, and she didn’t know the way to leave.
On the edge of her vision, there was a patch of blue flowers glowing in the moody forest. Poison Joke, the plant that would magically alter somepony after an action as mild as contact, almost as if somepony else played a joke. Chitin wondered if the plant worked on Changelings. Before her fragile grip on the body was severed, perhaps she could be entertained? To die in the bliss of a poisonous plant?
She could only make it as far as the first blue bloom. She could perhaps munch on a few of the Poison Joke flowers, for the fake sense of energy.
In a tedious yet unrewarding routine of being lost in the Everfree, Chitin had two choices. To hope, and pass out on the spot; to cease hoping, in the bliss of a naturally growing toxin.
She had made her choice.
Mustering all her strength, Chitin made her way to the patch of blue. She submerged herself in the field, before yanking on a flower, sitting up, and chewing on it. Her vision blurred at the bitter taste of the stem, and her throat dried the extreme saltiness of the petals.
Holes in Chitin’s thin legs grew larger by the second. Her stomach acted up, forcing her to exhale the last bit of love inside her system.
She could not last until Poison Joke showed the symptoms. She could not sleep, to wait until the next day. She could only imagine what it would be like for a changeling to be poisoned. Floppy ears, and feathered wings? Sharp or hoarse voice?
A sudden gust of wind knocked Chitin to the floor. She laid there for a few minutes, thinking. She thought about what would happen after releasing herself, while the toxins made their way into her system, paralyzing her.
She could not feel.
She smiled.
She closed her eyes.
“Goodnight, world.”