> It's good to be the Queen
>  by Fields-of-forever
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter one: sand and sunlight
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I woke up with a pounding headache, the sound of sand in the wind and the burning heat of the sun on my face. Slowly I opened my eyes, raising my arm to block out the blinding light.

Ow, my head is killing me, I thought to myself with a groan, where the hell am I? what the hell happened?

I raised my head from the brick-sized rock it was on and found myself to be laying on some kind of raised stone table, kind of like an altar.

Well, that explains the headache, I thought, looking at the black stone I had been using as a pillow.

I tried to think back to what I was doing before this moment but the best I got was eating a bag of chips from the local chipy down the road while watching the sunset over the harbour. It felt like an old memory though, like it was something I did last week, not yesterday.

Oh crap, did I go on a sesh with Ethan and the lads again?

I lowered my arm so I could get a better look around, actually now that my eyes had adjusted, I could see it wasn’t really an arm anymore, more like a leg really and the thing on the end was not a hand but something more like a hoof. 

At that point I lowered my new leg and had a good look at the rest of me and found I now had some kind of chitin plates all over me, like I was some kind of beetle mixed with a body shape that was reminiscent of an equine and I also seemed to have another set of smaller arms tucked up to my chest, these arms had hands but they looked more like the bastard child of a birds talon and an insect foot instead of my normal human hands. 

Oh yeah…defiantly a sesh with the lads, now how did I get to a desert? The nearest one is like 2000 miles away.

I slid off the stone altar and tried to stand up, I had some difficulty as it seemed I was now a quadruped but managed to get my balance fairly quickly and took a look around.

I seemed to be in the ruins of some old building, there was no sign of a roof, and looking up I could see a cloudless blue sky with the burning sun not quite overhead. 

The walls had crumbled to be only a little above my height and I could almost make out carvings in the old stonework, but it was too weathered to tell what they were meant to depict. 

I was about to leave the ruin and see what was outside when the black stone on the altar caught my eye again. 

For some reason, I had a strong feeling that shouldn’t leave it here, so I reached out with one of my new arms and grasped the stone in my odd hands. It was large, about twice the size of two bricks put together and about the same weight, its shape was an even oval, looking at it in the light I could see it wasn’t entirely black but had flecks of colour on the inside.

After picking up my stony pillow I made my way across the sand-covered floor to what was probably once a doorway and stepped out into a dry wasteland.

Looking around I could see a desert of cracked earth, rocks, and some mountains in the distance, I then walked to the side of the ruins and peered around the corner only to see more desert that slowly turned into sand dunes.

Ok, on the off chance I’m not just tripping balls in the park sandpit and am actually a giant bug and I’m somehow in a desert, what do I do now?

I tried to think back on survival shows I’d watched about deserts and all of them basically said stay with your car and water to make it easy for someone to find you. 

Well since no one is going to be looking for me in a desert and I have neither a car, nor water I guess finding some water is the thing I should do first.

Figuring the mountains were more likely to have water than the sand dunes I started to walk, with remarkably little stumbling, in that direction.

It seemed I arrived after midday, so I was lucky enough not to cook in my new shell, in fact, I wasn’t really feeling the heat that much at all, sure it was hot but not so hot that I was uncomfortable.

I walked and walked, the mountains slowly creeping closer hour after hour. I didn’t see another living thing all day, and it was silent other than my footsteps, or rather I should say hoof steps and the sound of sand being kicked up by the wind

After hours of walking the sun began to set and it started getting chilly, but once again the temperature didn’t seem to affect me all that much.

I guess whatever I am right now doesn’t really mind getting hot or cold, that's good, I doubt dying of heatstroke is a nice way to go.

After the sun had set, I found I could still see just fine, which was very helpful on my walk to the foot of the mountains.

As I approached the mountains I found that there was a little more life than there had been in the desert, some small trees and bushes grew in clumps and there was short hardy looking grass growing out of the dry soil, I think I even saw a lizard at one point.

Even though I could see just fine in the dark I was starting to feel tired after walking for most of the day, I looked around for somewhere to sleep but there was still not much around I could use for shelter. In the end, I picked a large boulder and after making sure there wasn’t any snakes or anything hiding around it, I lay down against it and did my best to get some sleep.

As fun as this has been, I would really like to come down now, I really hope I didn’t wander onto the beach and I’m just laying at Ethan's place with a dry mouth.


The next morning, I woke with the sun and found I was still in the ass-end of nowhere and still looked like a bug horse. At this point I was starting to get a bit worried but freaking out was the worst thing to do in this situation, so I took some deep breaths and tried to calm down.

Be chill, man, if you freak out here it could cost you your life. Ok, ok, find somewhere safe and then you can freak out all you want.

As there was still no water around here, I did the only thing I could reasonably do and started walking again, I picked what I thought was North and started to walk along the edge of the mountains hoping to find a stream or something.

After what must have been five or six hours of walking through the dusty grasslands, I was starting to feel hungry and thirsty, not starving by any means, but I wasn’t used to going more than a day without eating something, and I knew going this long without water in this kind of environment couldn’t be healthy at all.

I can’t believe this, how does someone go from being a normal guy to being a wired alien in a desert? Is this some kind of afterlife? Did I get hit by a car, maybe get mugged or something? If it is an afterlife then it can’t be one of the nice ones, not by the looks of it anyway. 

Why would I go to a place like this? Sure, I liked to party with the lads, but I never did anything bad to anybody. I’m just a normal guy with a normal life and a nice chill dead-end job… Actually, it could have been days for all I know, I probably don’t even have a job anymore.

This sucks! I don’t understand why this happening to me!

As I walked, I thought about eating some of the dry grass-like plants as I was now at least a little horse-like but thought I would leave that till I really had no other choice. 

By early evening the plants were starting to look greener, only a little but it gave me some hope that I was travelling in the right direction. 

As the Sun started to set, I could see the shimmering of sunlight reflecting off a lake only about half a mile off, there were even trees and other plants around the lake, I don’t think I had ever been happier to see trees in my life.

The only problem was that there was a steep drop off between me and the life-giving water.

Looking over the edge it was probably about a hundred feet straight down a rocky sandstone cliff, I could see little plateaus that I might be able to safely drop from one to the other but if I stepped wrong, it would be bye-bye bug horse.

The light was fading fast, and I wanted to get to the water before sleeping again, so I started to make the small hops from plateau to plateau. I was almost halfway down when I messed up and jumped out too far, my two left legs hit the very edge of the plateau and slipped off, pulling the rest of me with them.

I bounced off another plateau on the way down and hit the dusty ground with a heavy thud that knocked the wind out of me. 

After gasping on the ground for what felt like minutes but was probably only twenty seconds I tried to stand back up, and although I could my left front leg hurt to stand on. 

Looking down I could see a spiderweb of cracks running around an indent in the chitin plate on my lower left foreleg, there was greenish blood seeping out of the cracks, and it hurt a bit when I put my weight on the leg.

Oh great, day two and I’ve already hurt myself, I need to cover this up with something, I really don’t want some kind of infection under my chitin…Never thought I would say that in my life. 

I started to lick the cracks in my leg, like you do when you get a small cut, as I did, I thought about what I might possibly find out there to cover it up.

Huh, blood tastes a bit different than it used to.

After a couple of seconds, I stopped tasting bug blood and looked at my leg, to my surprise there was a layer of reddish-pink gel over the wound.

Did that come out of my mouth?! What the hell is this stuff.

As I was wondering why my spit turns into a gel, I noticed I didn’t feel any pain coming from my leg anymore and almost before my eyes the gel seemed to harden into a resin-like cast over the wound. 

I have built-in painkillers and resin spit? No, no don’t look a gift bug horse in the mouth, if this stops my leg cracks from getting dirt in them then good. The painkiller is also nice and it’s not even numb at all, it’s like it just stops the pain and lets everything else through.

I didn’t think nerves worked quite like that but what did I know, I was a bug horse now, nothing probably worked right inside me anymore.

I looked back up the cliff and could see the plateau I fell from.

Damn, I must have fallen almost 60 feet! I’m lucky I was only hurt this much and didn’t break my damn neck.

After putting some weight on the leg and finding it felt normal I started off towards the water, as I walked through the trees and saw that some had a yellow fruit the size of apples on them, not any kind I knew of but definitely fruit.

Ok, I can’t just go eating strange plants, but I’m actually getting really hungry now. There’s a test you can do right? You just rub some of the fruit juice on your skin and wait to see if you get a rash or something, if nothing bad happens I think it’s meant to be safe. Now I just need to find some bare skin on me.

After a bit of searching, I found the inside of my joints and some parts of my face were leathery skin rather than bug shell. In the end, I rubbed a bit of torn in half fruit on the inner elbow on one of my new smaller arms and went to go drink some water.

I would love to boil the water too, but I have nothing to do that with and no fire so I’m just going to have to risk it and hope I don’t die a slow painful death… Yay.

I drank a couple of mouthfuls and then had to stop after nearly throwing it back up, after that, I drank at a much slower pace.

After drinking I looked at my reflection, the creature staring back at me was not even a little like a human. 

My face was kind of like a horse but a little shorter and open at the side like a dogs maw and only covered by lips that ran all the way to the back of my mouth. My face was also covered with chitin plates anywhere that didn’t need to bend. 

Opening my mouth, I saw the sharp teeth and fangs of a carnivore with more molar like crushing teeth at the back.

Ok, those are not horse teeth, looks like I’m still an omnivore though, even if there are more sharp teeth than blunt ones, so at least my diet won’t have to change much, small miracles I guess.

I closed my mouth and looked at my eyes, they were a blood-like crimson and slitted like a cat or maybe a lizard’s eyes and forward-facing rather than on the side. 

Higher up on my head I had a horn reminiscent of a narwhal or a unicorn on my forehead, but it was thicker than any artwork of unicorn horns I’d seen and also kind of jagged rather than straight, it looked almost like something had taken bites out of the edges or something. 

Around my horn, I had sort and spiky crimson hair that reminded me more of spider hair than human hair, and behind my horn running down my long neck, I had a set of spins with a slightly see-through red membrane in between them.

I’m starting to see a colour theme here; I wonder if I’m poisonous? That’s what bright colours on some bugs mean right?

The sun had set by the time I stopped looking at my reflection, so I sat down like a dog and looked at the stars as I waited to see if my arm felt ok, I didn’t see any constellations I knew of, not even one. 

It was the last nail in the coffin, at this point I needed to stop kidding myself, this was no dream or trip or hallucination, I really had somehow turned a bug, horse, thing, and I would probably never see anyone I knew ever again.

I started to feel some panic again but slowed my breathing and tried to just stay calm.

I have water and possibly food too, I might not be human anymore, but my situation could be way worse than it is.

After twenty minutes with those thoughts and others like them running through my head, my mind drifted back to the fruit, my arm felt fine, no swelling or tingling there. With that I took a bite out of one of the yellow fruits, the taste was similar to some melon.

Ha, melon trees, whatever, it’s food and that’s all that matters right now.

After eating five yellow melon fruits I lay down under a tree with only my black opal stone for a pillow, the last thing I saw before sleep took me was the lightly cratered face of a moon I didn’t recognise.


The Sun woke me up yet again.

Looking down at myself and saw my bug horse body and, with a sigh, I got up, walked over to the lake, and drank some water before going over to one of the fruit trees to get breakfast. Even after eating last night, I still felt hungry, the fruit took the edge off, but it was like I had eaten a granola bar instead of a meal of five large fruits. 

As I was finishing off my breakfast, I heard a buzzing sound, kind of like a Bee might make as it was flying. Looking around I couldn’t see any bugs, other than myself, and the buzzing sound was getting louder, soon enough I could tell what direction it was coming from, and I could also tell there were more than one of the things making the sound.

With no desire to find out what a swarm of giant bees would do to me, I jumped into some of the bushes near the fruit trees and waited to see what the things were.

After about a minute, several smaller versions of me landed at the side of the lake.

Wait a second, I have wings!

I thought to myself, looking at my back and seeing the crimson shell-like plates going down almost to my tail. I tried to lift one from the side with one of my hands only for it to lift slightly reviling a red-tinted insect wing underneath.

God fucking damn it! Those would have saved me time and the fall if I had known about them… And knew how to fly…

After metaphorically kicking myself, I turned back to the smaller bug horses.

There were five smaller ones, they were probably only half my size and there were also two bigger ones that might have been about two thirds my height, the bigger ones were also more chunky, like their chitin was thicker or maybe they were more muscular.

They looked mostly like me but the colours were different, whereas I had a crimson red mane, tail and shell, these bug horses didn’t seem to have manes or tails at all, only the coloured head crest, tail membrane, both of which had a yellow-orange ochre kind of colour to them.

They seemed to be talking but from this distance, I couldn’t hear if they were even speaking English or some bug horse language.

Just as I was trying to decide what to do four of the smaller bugs moved to surround the fifth one while it was talking to the bigger one.

Out of nowhere the four smaller ones grabbed the fifth one by a leg each and held it to the ground, the fifth small one tried to struggle at first but quickly stopped as one of the bigger ones walked up and kicked them in the face.

That came out of nowhere, what the hell man?

The big bug seemed to say some more stuff to the pined one as the other big one walked up beside them, while still talking big bug one put a forehoof on pined bugs head with some force and nodded to the other big one…Who promptly ripped off the pined bugs head crest.

The smaller one looked shocked for about a second before it seemed to register what happened and start to let out a piercing squeal and went back to struggling.

What the fuck?! Why are they doing that?!

I thought as I started freaking out, properly this time.

Is this some kind of bug horse cartel execution?! What the fuck man?

As I was sitting there stunned, horrified and breathing so fast I was getting lightheaded, the pined ones squealing wail was drilling into my head, I couldn’t say why but the wail was really getting to me, I felt hot and cold, and the edges of my vision were going dark.

Something’s wrong, what’s happening to me?

I thought as I tried to shake off the feeling as the sound started going funny, all I could hear was my breathing and the crying wail of the small bug horse.

Make it stop. Make it stop! MAKE IT STOP!

And then something snapped and I felt myself stand up from the bush, my mouth opened on its own and from my throat came a horrible sound, it was a horrific screeching scream that seemed to echo back over itself again and again.

And then my body charged at the bug horses.
> Chapter two: Banished
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eight Days Earlier 

The Ochre Hive.



 

Inside the Queen's cavern, nearly 700 Changelings stood, both on the floor and also hanging along the walls and ceiling, or even just hovering in flight, but no matter where in the cavernous room there were, they all were looking at the two individuals on the stony rise.

I was standing at the front of the crowd that had formed around the raised area that the throne sat on. 

On the platform, the Commander of the Soldier caste was bowing with her head to the floor as the Queen sat on her stone throne seeming to look through the commander with her piercing orange eyes.

Just twelve hours ago I had been with the commander as she led a swarm to raid a rival Hive, I was not a Soldier myself, but rather an Atheneum Drone, a living repository of hive knowledge, I was with the raid swarm because I Knew the terrain, things like where we could find water and shelter.

I was also meant to tell the commander what the enemy Hive's most well-known stratagems were so that she could devise counters for them.

The only problem was that the rival Hive had chosen today, my first ever raid, to start acting different, the Emerald Hive is known for its head-on charges and use of raw strength to overwhelm rather than over clever strategy. 

Not today though, today they set up an ambush and caught us completely off guard, in just ten minutes we had already lost a full half of the Soldiers in the raid swarm and a good number of the back-line Workers had been picked off too, at that point the commander had called a retreat, but we lost several more Soldiers as they protected the fleeing swarm. 

We lost 35% of the Worker sent on the raid and a full 60% of the Soldiers, this was a defeat on a scale the Hive had not suffered in my lifetime, and I was partly to blame. 

I can’t believe the raid went that badly, I thought, as I tried not to draw any more attention to myself, why am I not up there with the Commander? 

In truth, I was very glad I wasn’t, the Queen had made this a mandatory Hive meeting and the only thing the entire Hive ever had to be present for was punishments.

As I was nervously musing on this the Queen stood and walked forward until she was only half a bodies length from the commander, as she stood there, she looked out to the rest of us and began to speak in her reverberating voice.

“My children, what is the most important thing we each must do?” She said in a dangerously calm voice.

Almost instantly an Attendant Drone stepped out of the crowd, "fulfil our role in the Hive, my Queen,” he said and then with a bow stepped back in line.

“Very good my child,” The Queen said with a small nod of her head, “fulfil your role in the Hive, it’s not that hard, is it? For us all to do our part, so that the Hive can grow and survive,” her gaze roamed over the gathered Hive, looking for any sign of disagreement.

After finding none she turned her face to the Commander, “but for some reason, this Changeling has failed to do her part, she has failed so badly that one hundred and nine of my Changelings are dead," the Queen said as she gazed into the Commander's eyes “Why did you fail to do your part, commander?”

With her head still to the floor, the commander replied, “my Queen, I failed to anticipate the ambush we were caught in, I expected the Emerald Hive to use their normal strategy of a head-on attack rather than setting up an ambush.” 

“So, you failed because of ignorance and a because you lack the ability to adapt? Because you weren’t prepared for a change to our enemy's pattern of attack?” The Queen asked, turning her head to the side slightly, almost like a nymph might when they are asking a question.

“Yes, my Queen,” The commander said, still with her face on the floor.

The Queen sighed deeply and picked up the commander in her magic.

“It can’t just be that you’re stupid, you have done your job before just fine, the only explanation I can think of is that you are broken somewhere, that is the only reason you wouldn’t be able to adapt like you are meant too, like all Changelings are meant to," The Queen said, as she gestured out to the gathered swarm.

Refocusing on the Commander, the Queen continued, "but, I can’t see any wounds on your body, it must be something inside you that’s been broken,” she said with a nod, “do not fear, Commander, I will find out what went so terribly wrong inside you and make sure such a tragedy never happens again,” she said in a calm tone.

Then, with a flick of her magic, she ripped the commander’s chitin chest plate from her body and dropped it to the floor next to her.

The commander shook in the Queen's magic but was unable to move a muscle as she floated Infront of the Queen, she wasn’t even able to scream, only letting out muted wails from her magically closed mouth.

I was thankful the commander’s back was facing towards us so I couldn’t see exactly what was happening, but I could certainly hear it. 

The sound of cracking chitin, bone, and tearing flesh would be in my nightmares for many days afterwards.

After dropping some rib bones and torn chunks of flesh onto the chitin plate by her side, the Queen leaned forward and seemed to peer into the Commander’s now open torso.

“No, everything looks to be working in here too, it’s not any of your organs, that can only mean one thing, the problem is up here, commander,” the Queen said tapping the suspended Changeling on the forehead, “and I’m afraid there is nothing I can do to fix that, it's such shame, I guess that means you’re useless now,” the Queen said, starting to turn away.

But then she stopped and slowly turned back to the Commander, “well, maybe not entirely useless,” she said with a rather unsettling smile.

We all watched as the Queen leaned her head into the commander’s open chest, the commander shuddered as the Queen roughly pulled her head back with something clutched in her maw, I instantly recognized it as the commander's Affectus Ventris, her emotional stomach.

The Queen tipped her head back and swallowed the energy-filled organ down in one go, giving a little shiver as her eyes took on a little more glow.

Right before our eyes, the commander's body began to rapidly deteriorate, her limbs quickly started to develop holes and her once smooth chitin started to become pockmarked as her body tried to pull energy from her extremities to keep her alive.

“Ok, that’s enough of that," the Queen said, almost lovingly caressing the Commander's cheeks with her grasping hands, "if I leave you too long, you’ll be nothing but bones and chitin."

Then with a sharp movement and a crunch, she roughly jerked the commander's head up and sideways before releasing it and letting it drop to hang limply down the Commander back, her wide-open eyes looking out into the crowd. 

The growing holes in the now-former commander’s chitin slowed and then, eventually, stopped forming as her brain shut down and was no longer sucking the energy from the rest of her body.

As I looked at her face, her once bright orange eyes were now shrunken in and dulled just like a starving Changelings eye would be.

I guess she was technically starving, in the end, I thought to myself.

The Queen cleared her throat and looked at us all before saying, “ok, the rest of you know your roles, get back to them and remember what happens when you fail the Hive.” she said in a cheerful voice as she walked back to her throne, the corpse of the commander still in her magical grip.

I left the throne room as quickly as I safely could, it was unfortunately not quick enough to save me from the sounds of crunching chitin and chewing. 





I quickly trotted back to the Drone sleeping chamber and went to my rest cubby, only to see some other Changeling laying in my designated sleeping hole, “h-hey, what are you doing? That’s my sleeping place,” I said.

The other Changeling opened his eyes, his pupils were oval slits like my own, and sat up, “no, this is my sleeping place now,” he said, calmly.

“What? No, it isn't, this is my cubby, it has been mine since I became an Atheneum Drone, now get out of it,” I said, standing my ground.

As the other Drone and I locked eyes I heard several hoof steps from behind me, breaking eye contact with the other Drone, I looked back to see a group of Soldiers had walked into the chamber.

“Atheneum Drone 23, Coreid, you will come with us,” the lead Soldier said, in a tone that brooked no refusal.

“What? But it’s my rest period, I just need this interloper to get out of my sleeping hole,” I said, lowering my head slightly but still trying to argue my case.

Gesturing to the Drone in the cubby the Soldier said, "this is your replacement, you are being reassigned, you will come with us.”

A chill ran down my spine and I stammered out, “r-reassigned? But that, I can’t, please don’t,” I said, taking a slight step back.

The Soldiers fanned out and took a step towards me, “this is your last chance, comply or you will be compelled to obey.”

I took a deep breath and then let it out slowly, “ok, I understand and obey,” I said in a defeated tone.

I was surrounded by the Soldiers and then they escorted me out of the room and down through several tunnels, after about 10 minutes of walking we arrived at a room I hadn’t seen since my hatching.

“By order of the Commander, you are to be resigned to Worker caste,” the lead Soldier said.

“By the Commander? But the Commander is- the Commander was punished by the Queen,” I said.

Seeming to almost be ignoring me, the Soldier continued, “the Queen has not yet decided on your punishment, in the meantime, a new Commander has been chosen, and she does not want a potentially defective Atheneum Drone at her side and has ordered your removal,” she explained as an Attendant Drone carried over an ochre orange cocoon, already filled with metamorphic gel.

“Please climb in,” the Attendant Drone said, in a calm voice that had a hint of multiple layers, like a lesser form of the Queen's voice, “and there’s no need to worry, a regression takes less time than an elevation would, so you should be out and ready to work withing two rest cycles.”

With no real choice in the matter, and knowing any stalling would only make things worse, I slowly climbed into the cocoon, the metamorphic gel raising as it was displaced by my body, I sank down until I was entirely submerged within the warm gel and within seconds my thoughts slowed and then ceased altogether as I was forced into unconsciousness. 





Two days later

As I regain my ability to think I felt the instinctual need to break free of the egg-like structure I was in, using my horn I stabbed at the wall of the cocoon and split it down the side, falling to the warm floor in a deluge of gel.

As I lay there shivering, an Attendant, the same one as before, walked up to me and began rubbing me down with a rough cloth.

As he did, I realized how much bigger he now seemed, almost half again my size, whereas before we had been almost the same height.

I looked down at my new body, not only was I smaller but I had become more compact, stockier, less elegant in form. 

As the last of the old gel was wiped off my chitin the Attendant spoke in his calm, multi-layered voice, “there we go, you won’t be dripping gel through the tunnels now,” he then went to the remains of the cocoon and began to clear it away.

“Wait,” I noticed my voice had become scratchy and less clear, “what do I do now?” I said, feeling lost.

He looked over his back to me, ”you have been assigned to the mushroom farms, go there and talk to the lead Worker,” he said, before turning back to his work. 

I left the hatching cavern and walked down several tunnels, after several twists and turns I got to the floor hole that led into the farm cavern.

Spreading my new, and smaller wings, I flew down into the cavern and looked around.

The cavern floor was broken up into growing beds and walkways that separated the substrate-filled indents.

I sent out a pulse through the Hive mind to search for the highest-ranking Worker, lamenting the loss of proper mind-to-mind communication that came with my Worker body.

After only a couple of seconds, I got a return mind pulse from near one of the substrate beds and flew in that direction, I gently alighted on the walkway to the side of the bed and looked at the Worker before me, she was dirty from working in the soil and her chitin was marked with signs of old damage and mild starvation holes.

After enduring my stare for a couple of seconds she glanced up at me, “are you going to get to work or just stand there like a hatchling?” She asked me in a gravelly but definitely feminine voice.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what I’m meant to do, I’m not used to working the farms,” I said, mentally lamenting the loss of my much nicer role that I would never see again.

The Worker seemed to take a proper look at me now, “Huh, a male worker? That’s not something you see every day, anyway, how can you not know what to do, weren’t you given you jobs with the rest of your hatch-mates?” She asked with a slightly confused look.

“I’m not a new hatchling,” I replied, hating the words that were coming out of my mouth, “I was- I was regressed and reassigned.”

She looked at me for a few seconds before bursting out in laughter, “oh that’s a good one, one of you well-fed higher-ups getting tossed down here with us? Priceless,” she said, still chuckling at my expense.

“It’s not funny!” I shouted, and then instantly dropped low and bowed my head, “I apologize, Leadling, I was out of line, I beg your mercy” I said, expecting my punishment to be swift.

“Leadling? Really? Wow, the upper Hive must really suck if it’s that formal,” she said with a last chuckle before slipping into a more serious tone, “you will call me by my designation, Planter 01, and you won’t raise your voice to me again, do you understand?” She said.

“Yes, Planter 01, my name is Coreid, I understand and await instruction,” I said, head still bowed respectfully.

“Coreid? No, you are Worker 427, and your designation is Field Mister 41,” Planter 01 said, “now go to the water vats,” She pointed with a grasping hand to some circular pools on one side of the cavern, “drink your fill and then go the fruiting mycelium fields and start regurgitating the water, it must be a fine mist or you will damage the mycelium, understand?” 

“Yes, Planter 01, I understand and obey,” I said before making my way over to the pools and drinking down as much water and my new body could hold, then I went to where I could see other Workers spitting water in a continuous fine mist onto the mushroom fields and went to join them. 





The rest of my day went on like that, my rest cycle came up and that is when I learned Workers don’t get sleeping cubbies, the Worker dorm was a bare room with a smooth floor, there was already a great many Workers sleeping, so I quietly found a space and went to sleep.

The next morning, I woke up followed the other Workers on my cycle out into the cavern again, they all seemed to just be going back to their work, so I asked another field mister walking next to me, “are we not going to get love before work?”

She looked at me strangely, “Feedings not for another two days, why are you complaining? You look like you’ve been well fed already,” she said before continuing towards the water vats.

And so that’s how my next 3 days went, wake up, get water, spray water, repeat till rest cycle, over and over.

It was horrible, I was used to taking in knowledge and giving it out, not doing the same thing repeatedly in mind-numbing monotony.

On feeding day an Attendant Drone flew down into the large farm cavern carrying a storage cocoon, and a full twelve Soldiers came with him.

All the Workers got into orderly lines and one by one approached the Attendant and were given a single cup of love gel which they drank down before giving back the cup.

As I was waiting in line the Worker behind me quietly asked the one behind him, ”why do you think there are so many Soldiers today?”

“I don’t know, we’ve never tried to make trouble, I don’t see a reason to bring more muscle,” was the hushed reply he got back.

The line kept moving till I got to the front, just as I was about to take the cup from the Attendant, one of the Soldiers stepped up to me, “Worker 427?” he said, not that he could have mistaken me given the Hive link.

“Yes, Soldier, that’s me,” I said, lowering my head in respect and fear, Soldiers had been big when I was a Drone, but now they were truly huge compared to me.

“You will come with us, by order of the Queen, you have been reassigned to scouting, you will join scouting group six, they leave shortly,” the Soldier said.

I glanced over to the Attendant and the cocoon of love gel, “you will get your rations from your group leader, now follow me.”

The Soldiers led me out of the farms and upwards towards the outer tunnels of the Hive, as we entered the scout's chamber, I saw a good number of other Workers moving around bundles of collected resources from outside the Hive by the scouting groups.

The Solider walked me over to two other Soldiers that were already in the room and said, “This is the new Worker, they are the one the Queen has granted you personally, do not disappoint her Majesty,” as he gave me what to him was probably a gentle shove but sent me stumbling forward, barely catching myself from falling flat on my face.

The new Soldier, who I assumed was to be my new scout leader, looked down at me with an expression somewhere between annoyance and disgust, “understood, for the Queen and the Hive,” the scout leader said.

“For the Queen and the Hive,” the other Soldier replied before turning around and leaving the chamber.

“Get you Love ration from the Attendant at the back of the chamber and then return, we are leaving in ten minutes,” the leader said, turning back to his tasks.

I quickly went and got my love ration; it was bigger than what the farmers were getting but still barely half what I got daily as a Drone.

After drinking down my gel portion I made my way back to the leader and a group consisting of another Soldier and four more Workers.

With all of us assembled the leader nodded and we made the walk to the Hive entrance before taking flight into the hot desert air. 





Three days later

We had flown all day for the last three days, resting the nights in caves or under rocky overhangs, the mountains had been getting steadily closer as we flew so I knew we were flying to the West and seemingly a bit South.

That morning we had been flying for a couple of hours and although I couldn’t be sure, I suspected we had left our Hives claimed territory sometime yesterday and were now in either unclaimed land or possibly another Hives territory.

As we flew I saw a shimmer in the distance, it appeared to be an oasis of some kind surrounded by trees, it was fed by a small river running from the hoofhills of the mountains, it was the first body of water I had seen the entire flight and we seemed to be heading right for it.

After another thirty minutes of flying, we landed and the soldiers took turns to drink and then stood guard as my fellow Drones and I took out own drinks from the lake.

After drinking for half a minute I walked over to the scout leader and asked, “so um, Soldier, scout leader, sir, what are we scouting for this far out? We must be past the Hives borders by now.”

The soldiers turned to me with a slightly annoyed expression and in a deep voice replied, "we are on a special assignment, one given by the Queen herself.”

I took a small step back and nodded, “understood, sir, I beg your forgiveness for asking.”

He looked at me as the other workers came over to hear the conversation, “no, I suppose it’s good you asked really, the assignment is about you after all.” He said with a nod

Barely a second after his nod I felt each of my legs get pulled out from under me, and I fell to my stomach with a thud, I instantly tried to stand back up but each of my legs was being held by one of the other workers. 

“What’s going on, let go of me!”

I said as I struggled in their grip, I quickly stopped as I was kicked in the face, hard.

“Stop struggling Worker,” the Soldier almost spat, “don’t make this any harder than it already needs to be.”

“Whatever I did, sir, I’m sorry, I beg your mercy!” I said, panicking, fearing that my question had offended the Solider.

The Soldier leaned closer to my face and said, “the assignment we are here to fulfil is the removal of a traitor to the Hive.”

“T-traitor?” I stammered out as my eyes widened realising he meant me, “no, I’m not a traitor, I live to serve the Queen and the Hive!”

“Your failure to properly inform the previous swarm commander about the possibility of a change to our enemies strategy contributed to the deaths of 110 hive mates, 61 of which were soldiers, it will take considerable resources to regrow what has been lost, and for contributing to that loss, you are a traitor.”

No, this can’t be happening, I thought as I began to understand what was happening. 

“It wasn’t my fault, sir, I gave the commander the information she asked for, noling could have expected the Emeralds to change strategy so dramatically, I couldn’t have warned her of a danger that shouldn’t have existed.”

“You were meant to expect the unexpected, that was part of your role, and you failed,” he said as he placed his sharp horn against my shorter one, “the Queen decided she was full after her last meal, so instead of being executed, like you deserve, you are going to be banished instead.” The soldier said as he put a forehoof on my head right next to my horn, “Banished?! But that means!” I didn’t get any further in my thought as the leader pulled his horn away in a twisting motion with an ocher line of magic snapping away with him just as someling grabbed my head crest and pulled it up and back with a jerk, ripping it from my head.

The burning from the loss of my crest would have been this worst pain I had ever felt if I hadn’t also just been forcibly ejected from the Hive mind, that was a new and entirely different kind of pain, like a part of my mind and soul had been ripped out.

I was struck dumb in blind agony for what felt like forever before reality came crashing back to me and I started screaming.

Ignoring my screams, the Soldier began to speak in a calm tone as he held my head down, “traitor, by order of the Queen, I strip you of your colours and your place in the Hive.”

As he said that I felt my tail frill being ripped from my body, adding to the already unbearable pain I was in and the Soldier continued, “from now until the day you die, you are Banished, should you ever return to the Ochre Hives territory you shall be considered a feral and be treated as such, ” his speech went on, as I felt the other soldier take hold of my elytra. 

As I felt the pressure on my wing casings start to become more forceful and the joint start to tear from my back, I heard a sound that terrified me more than even the soldiers pulling my body parts off, the sound of an angry Queen.

I looked up and through my tear blurred vision, I saw a large, red Queen charging at a full sprint towards us.

The Soldier let go of my wing casings and moved to intercept the oncoming threat as the leader commanded the other workers to return to the Hive and tell the Queen this land had been claimed by an unknown rival. 

As the workers fled, leaving me lying limp on the ground, the red Queen had already got to the first soldier and jumped on top of her, forcing her to the ground with her larger mass, she then proceeded to smash a rock nearly the size of my head into the side of the soldier face with a sickening crack-squelch, it only took one hit to smash the chitin and deform her head grotesquely.

The leader let go of my head and took an aggressive stance, walking forward he tried to blast the Queen off his comrade with a kinetic bolt spell, but as it impacted the red Queen it only cracked the thick chitin on her chest. 

The feral Queen let out another horrific screech and, from a standstill, leapt the six body length to the lead Soldier, as she landed on top of him she grabbed his neck and the back of his head with her grasping arms and brought half his head sideways into her wide open maw, then bit down, her large fangs and front teeth going in just ahead of his ear frills, the Soldiers body briefly spasmed and then went still as the Queen snapped her head back, ripping the front half of the Soldiers head off in the proses leaving his lower jaw and the back half of his skull.

I whimpered at the sight of the large Soldier's quick and brutal demise, I then quickly regrated making a sound as the Queen's head snapped in my direction, the front half of the Soldiers face still in her maw.

As she saw me, she dropped the grisly thing and started walking in my direction, looking at her face I could see the Queen's red eyes, the normally oval slit pupils were just a line of black in the sea blood red of her iris.

I don’t know if it was the blood loss or the fear of being eaten alive, but I started to blackout as she stepped closer. 

As my vision started fading to black, sounds became dull and feelings numbly muted, I could almost swear I saw the red Queens eyes return to the normal look of a Queen, and as my vision left me entirely, and the world became a black void, I thought I could hear the sound of some-ling throwing up.

Huh… I guess the stress was finally too much for me…but... I haven’t eaten in days… I thought as I slipped into unconsciousness.
> Chapter three: Lickety-spit
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh my god! Oh my god, I killed them! Oh fuck, oh god I can taste their brain, I’m going to be sick!

Everything had finally become too much and I was breaking down… And throwing up.

My mind was racing, and the edges of my vision were fading in and out in time with my heartbeat, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. 

I just killed two people; they could talk and think, and I killed them! I want to go home, please, just let me go home!

I was panicking, the fact that I had completely lost control of myself wasn’t helping, I had heard of seeing red before, but this was on another level, it was like an adrenalin spike mixed with psychotic rage, at that moment had I wanted to kill them, wanted to rip them open and tear out their insides.

What happened? How did it happen? What they were doing was horrible and they probably deserved punishment, but not like that!

After retching a couple more times and having nothing left to throw up, I fell onto my side and just lay there. 

After a couple of minutes of coughing and almost sobbing, I finally manage to get myself under some semblance of control and shakily sat back up.

I looked around the oasis, purposefully not looking at the two corpses, I didn’t know if I could stomach that so soon. 

My eyes fell on the lone smaller bug horse that had had several parts pulled off, the other smaller ones were nowhere to be seen.

They must have scattered when I attacked the bigger ones, I can’t really blame them, I would have run too if I had seen something like me running out of the bushes, I thought.

Getting my hooves under me, I walked to the prone insectoid and looked them over, green blood was leaking from their head and the back of their neck where the crest had been, as well as along the top and bottom of their small tail, where their other frill used to be, their wing cases were also hanging at an odd angle, by the look of it they were barely still attached.

“Ok, I don’t know what or who you are, but your screeching did something to me and made me kill two people, you are not allowed to die, not until I get some answers.”

I said aloud as I looked at them, trying to think of a way to stop the bleeding.

Wait a minute, I have healing spit, all I need to do is lick their wounds… go on, Just lick them wounds, this is so gross!

I leant down and stuck out my tongue and started to lick the broken chitin on their head and neck.

“It tastes like the other one’s face, oh god, don’t throw up on its head, don’t throw up on its head, I thought the mantra over and over as I kept licking, after half a minute I couldn’t taste blood anymore and looked them over.

Ok they are still bleeding from the butt, well not the butt but close enough, I can’t lick that, maybe I can just spit on it?... Actually, that makes me feel wired too and I could miss and get resin where the sun don't shine, ok just do it, it’s to save their life, just do it

I used my new arms to gently pick up the smaller bug horse and turn them around, trying not to damage their wing cases any more than they already were.

“Ok, that’s a female bug horse butt, just don’t look at it and fix the tail wound.” 

I leant forward and, with very careful aim, licked the wound where her tail use to be.

Ew, ew, ew, just a couple more seconds and… Done, ok, I’m really sorry miss bug horse, I promise it was to stop you from bleeding out. 

I put the unconscious bug horse back on the ground and sat back, wondering what I was meant to do now, I noticed I was clenching and unclenching my hand caws subconsciously and suddenly realised something was missing.

Where did my nice rock go?

I thought as I looked around, my vision passed over the dead bug horses and I saw a glint of reflected sunlight on one of them. 

I stood up and hesitantly made my way over to the first one- the first one I had killed; my shiny rock was embedded in the side of its head like an axe in a block of wood.

I retched again at the sight but still had nothing left to vomit, after a minute I calmed down enough to reach down and grab the rock and pull it from the creature’s head. 

The head came with it for a couple of inches and then with a wet squelch fell back to the floor, and I swiftly went back over to the small bug horse.

What am I going to do now? I’m going to be a criminal for this, the bug horse cops are going to hunt me down and then I’ll probably get what she was having, I think as I look down at the battered bug.

Oh god, what if she’s a criminal?! What if I just helped the bug horse version of Jack the ripper and murdered the bug horse police!

As I was just about to start freaking out again my patient started waking up.

I put out a hand to stop them from getting up and said, “Hey, be careful, you’re hurt and moving too much could make it worse.”  

I then stopped as I noticed my voice was not my voice, not only was it definitely a women’s voice it also sounded like two or maybe three people were all talking from my mouth.

Ok, one more thing to freak out about… Wait, am I a woman now? … Ok deal with bug horse first, then see if I still have my junk later, I thought as the small bug horse started to look around bleary-eyed.

“I’m alive?” 

She seemed to be asking herself rather than asking me, she also had a rather masculine voice but how should I know what’s normal for a bug horse.

She slowly turned her head in my direction and slowly looked up to my face.

“Hello, how are you feeling?... Sorry, that was a stupid thing to ask,” I said rubbing my face with a hand, only to have it come away covered in green blood.

The bug horse’s eyes went wide, and she quickly averted her eyes from my face turning her face to the floor as she started shaking.

“Hey, it’s ok, Miss, I know you must be in pain but I’m sure it can be fixed.” 

“Please, I beg you, just make it quick," she whispered as she kept shaking.

“What? I don’t…”

I suddenly realised her only knowledge of me was that I was comparatively huge, I had killed two of her kind, that were themselves bigger than her, while also in a blind rage, and was now covered in their blood, so she was probably expecting me to do the same to her.

“I’m not going to hurt you, I know you have no reason to trust me, miss, but I swear I have no intention of attacking you. I mean I closed your wounds, right? I wouldn’t do that if I meant to harm you, would I?”

She slowly reached up one of her arms to the top of her head to feel the resin on her head and neck then while still keeping her head lowered, she looked over her back to her tail to see the resin over that wound.

“See, your safe now,” I said, trying to sound reassuring.

“But, why? I’m not from your Hive, your Majesty, I’m from th-… I’m a Hiveless worker and I’m in your territory, why haven’t you drained me to a husk or just eaten me?” She asked, still looking at the floor in front of me.

“I don’t know what you mean by draining you, Miss, or what a hive is in this context, also, no, why on earth would I eat you, you’re another person,” I replied, trying to keep up the friendly tone while discussing cannibalism.

“wha.. but... You’re an adult Queen, you must have a Hive, unless you don’t call it a Hive maybe, also every Changeling knows what being drained means, it’s being drained” she said, starting to slowly look up at me just a little but still not meeting my eyes.

Now that she was looking towards my face, I could see her eyes were the same colour as her shell, just like how my eyes were the same red as mine, although hers were more like a solid orb of colour instead of a cats eye.

“Changeling? Is that what you- I mean, what we are, Miss? And what do you mean I’m a Queen?”

She just looked at me with something between confusion and pants-shitting fear, “yes, your Majesty, we are Changelings and you’re definitely a Queen, by your physique and use of body-based magic I would say you must be a War Queen, also, you Majesty, why do you keep calling me Miss?” 

She asked before her eyes widened again and she went back to looking at the floor and quickly stammered out, “I-I’m sorry, you Majesty, c-call me whatever you like, I beg your forgiveness.”  

War Queen? Body-based magic? What does any of that mean?! And I keep calling her miss because, well, I saw her parts, I think, as it was my turn to avert my eyes.

“I’ve been calling you miss because I saw your, um, your parts when I was putting resin on your tail wound,” I said, feeling a rather awkward 

The Changeling looked down at herself and said “you mean my vagina, your Majesty? What does that have to do with me being a Miss? Every Changeling has one, just like every Changeling has a penis,” the Changeling said with a confused look on their face.

“Sorry I shouldn’t have assumed that- wait, sorry, what?! We all have what now?!” 

I said trying to look under myself and at my butt at the same time, nearly falling over in the process.

I obviously can’t see my butt at the required angle to confirm anything, but I did seem to have a slight gap in my chitin where I thought my junk should be. 

ok so my junk's internal, like a lizard? Well, my male junk at least… This day just keeps getting stranger, I thought.

“All Changelings have both, we are biologically hermaphrodites, your Majesty, how can you not know this?” They asked and then once again look at the floor. 

“I’m sorry, your Majesty, I beg your mercy,” they said starting to shake again.

“Ok, will you stop saying that! I’ve already said I’m not going to hurt you,” I snapped in frustration.

“I’m sorry, your Majesty, it’s just that I’m a Hiveless Changeling, we are normally killed on sight, I’m just trying to show you the respect you deserve.”  

I let out a sigh, “no, no I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped at you, I’m just confused and hungry… and scared,” I quietly admitted,  “I don’t know where I am, I don’t know what I am, and I just killed two people to save someone I’ve never even met before.” 

The smaller Changeling just gave a small nod as I spoke, “I apologise, your Majesty, but might I ask a question?”

“Um, sure go ahead.”

“What do you mean you don’t know what you are? Getting lost and not knowing where you are I can understand, but how can you not know that you’re a Changeling Queen?” They said, fidgeting with their hand claws. 

“I mean, you look like you’re in your second moult, so you must be at least 6 years old and even if you don’t have a Hive now, you must have been hatched in one, a Queen egg just wouldn’t have enough Love to survive and hatch unless it was being looked after,” the Changeling said, now looking up at my lower face again. 

I could still see fear in their face but at least it wasn’t cowering anymore.

ok, so, do I tell the truth here? I mean I will sound totally mad if I say I’m an alien from a different dimension, I mean imagine if some rando walked up to you and said “hey mister human, I’m a bug horse in human form!” yeah no I don’t think that would go over well, not yet at least.

As I was thinking all that, I looked down at my shiny rock and had an idea, “I umm, I hit my head a couple of days back. I woke up with a really bad headache and couldn’t remember much of anything, all I had with me was this rock,” I said as I held up my shiny rock.

The Changeling look at the rock and their jaw dropped, “I’ve never seen a star opal that big before! Did you make that yourself?!”

I was a little taken back by how excited the little Changeling had become, “umm, no, at least I don’t think so, it was with me when I woke up, is there something special about it? Other than being a pretty rock I mean.”

The little bug horse just nodded and said, “they are one of, if not, the best gemstone for enchanting, the Peytral of a wealthy Queens royal guard is meant to have a small one set into it,” they said, placing a hand claw over their upper chest, in I assumed the place this Peytral thing would be.

“With the right work an enchanted gemstone Peytral makes the Changeling wearing it stronger, faster and tougher, but those are only about the size of a tooth, a Queens Peytral might have a bigger one but even that is only said to be about one-tenth of the size of yours!” 

I looked at my shiny rock, or I should say my star opal, with new appreciation, then something the Changeling had said caught up to me, “wait you said enchanting? As in magic? Actually, you said something about body magic a minute ago too, are you trying to tell me magic is real here?!”

They looked at me with some confusion.

“Yes, your Majesty, of course, magic is real, how could we shapeshift, eat love or use our horns to move stuff if magic wasn’t real? And that’s not counting all the actual spells there are.”

Holy shit! I’m in a fantasy world! Wait, before I get too excited, I need to see this.

“Show me, do some magic on this fruit," I said as I walked over to one of the nearby trees and pull down a fruit that I then put it on the floor in front of the small bug horse. 

The Changeling looked at the fruit, then back at me, then their horn lit up with an orange glow and the fruit lifted into the air in front of them with the same kind of glow around it.

It was my turn to drop my jaw, I just couldn’t really believe what I was seeing.

It’s genuine magic and if they can do that, then maybe there is a way to get home! I mean I’m a Changeling now, and I have a horn, so I just need to learn how and then I can work on getting my life back.

“You need to teach me how to do that!” I said, leaning towards the Changeling.

“Umm, ok, your Majesty, I understand and ob-ahh!” The Changeling cried out and the glow around their horn cut out and the fruit fell to the ground as the Ling put their hands on their head.

“Are you ok?!” I asked with a look of concern.

Gently rubbing their head they replied, “yes, well, no, my Love reserves are getting low, I’m just a Worker, we aren’t given much love to begin with, and with my body trying to fix its self, I’ll likely be fully drained by tomorrow evening,” they said in a sad tone.

“Wait, so without literal love, you’re going to starve? How do you get more? Can I just hug you or something to give you love?” 

The little Ling looked up at me with wide eyes, “you- you would give some of your own Love reserves to a Worker? No Queen I’ve ever heard of has given a Worker some of her own Love before.”

I just shook my head and said, “well, I say you can have some of mine, I must have some love, right? Since I’m a Changeling and alive.”

The Ling nodded and said, “you must have some to still be able to walk around yes, and the Love you must have taken from the Soldiers would have definitely been a good amount, they had all the Love for the other Worker and I for the mission.”

I looked at them with a blank expression, “I didn’t take anything from the Soldiers, I don’t know how I would even take love from someone”

The Changeling looked at me and then seemed to catch on, “right, head injury, you can’t remember anything, right, ok just go over to them, open their chest cavity and pull out their Affectus Ventris, then you just have to eat it and you will get all their stored Love.”

Excuse me fuck?! Eat part of them?!

“Eat part of them?! But isn’t that Cannibalism?” I said feeling a little sick all over again.

“Yes, but what does that matter? They are still fresh, I mean they are probably still even warm so no rot will have set in, they are perfectly fine to eat,” the little Ling said.

I just stood there with a deadpan stare, “why do I get the horrifying feeling that eating other Changelings is not uncommon?” I asked, half rhetorically.

“Because it’s not? Your Majesty, why is it a problem? You’re a Queen, it’s your right to eat anyling you want,” they said, as though that was a completely normal thing to have happen.

“Is there no other way for me to get the love out of them?” I asked, really not wanting to eat part of someone.

“If they were alive you could just drain them normally, but you can’t drain something dead, and I can’t eat them, the amount of Love in a Soldiers Affectus Ventris would overfill my worker body,” the Ling said looking a little ill all of a sudden.

“I'd get love drunk, then experience Love poisoning, then die anyway from the overload, and if I have to choose starving or Love overload, I pick starving.”

Ok, so, something really nasty happens if a Changeling gets overfilled with love, got it, I thought to myself.

“Ok, so either I cut open the two people I murdered and- and eat some of their internal organs, or you starve, ”I ask before having an uncomfortable realisation.

“Actually, now that I think about it, I have been feeling hungry, even after eating those fruits last night, am I going to starve too?” I ask.

The Changeling slowly nods and says, “if you can feel the hunger then you only have a few days before you are in my situation, your Majesty.”

I let out a resigned sigh and took a couple of deep breaths, “ok, ok I guess I have to do it, but I don’t even know what I’m looking for, what’s an Affectus Ventris? And what does it even look like?” I asked.

“A Changelings Affectus Ventris is the organ that stores and processes love in the Changelings body, it looks similar to a stomach mixed with a lung and it’s located next to the physical food stomach behind the rib cage below the lungs,” the Changeling said, almost as if they were reading off an entry in a book.

“Wait, Changelings have a skeleton? I thought we were insects; I didn’t think insects had bones?” I said as I looked over to one of the dead Changelings.

“Yes, we have a skeleton and although we look like, and share traits with, insects we also share traits with mammals too, internally we share many of the characteristics with the local Zebra population that our shape is derived from, just with some extra parts,” they explained. 

I nodded along as I walked the twenty or so steps to first dead Changeling, the one whose head I had bitten in half.

With a grimace I dragged the Dead Soldier back over to the prone Changeling, trying very hard not to think about what I was about to do.

To try and distract myself I started talking to the Changeling again, “you seem to know an awful lot about this, I thought you said you were a Worker? Doesn’t that mean you carry things or collect food or something?”

“You are partly correct, your Majesty, I am just a normal Worker now, but I used to be an Athenaeum Drone, a storage for the Hives knowledge,” they said with a far-off look in their eyes.

“So, you’re like a historian mixed with a science book?” I asked.

“I don’t know what a science book is, is that like a scroll?” They asked.

"Um, Yeah I guess they are both things you wright information in," I said.

“Interesting, I've not heard of them before, anyway, yes, I do have knowledge of the Hives history, as well as other knowledge that the Hive has gathered over my lifetime, for example, the population of the Ochre Hive is…” the trailed off, not finishing the sentence.

“The population is?” I prompted, hoping they would continue.

With a look of profound sadness they continued, “I can’t remember, I have a perfect memory, it’s what I was made for, I mean I stopped getting new information when I was regressed, but I still had the old knowledge, how could it all just go-“ they abruptly stopped 

They seemed to have come to some kind of realisation as they said, “I lost my Hive link, it’s all gone, all the things I learned about the Hive, it’s gone,” they said in an almost whisper, looking almost lost.

“Hey now, it can’t all be gone, right? You were just telling me about the Affectus Ventris thing and how my sparkly stone can be enchanted.” I said, trying to lessen the blow for them.

After a second their eyes seemed to refocus, “you’re right, your Majesty,” they said, “I think I still have general knowledge, the kind of thing most Drones would know, but all my information specific to my old Hive is just blank, I- I don’t think I would even recognise my Queens face if I saw her,” the Changeling said sadly.

I felt genuinely bad for them, and like even more of a dick for pretending to have memory loss when they were actually suffering from it for real, “hey, I know it doesn’t mean much, but I’m sorry, for what it’s worth,” I said.

The Changeling looked up at me, and for the first time seemed to actually look me in the eyes, even if it was only for a second.
"Thank you, your Majesty, to have the sympathy of a Queen is-... it-... well that means an awful lot,” they said, before wincing a little and placing one of their claws on their stomach.

Realising that their hunger must be getting worse I took and beep breath, and after five long seconds let it slowly out, “ok, how do I do this? I’ve never done invasive chest surgery before.” 

The Changeling came a little closer and looked over the body, “well since you don’t remember any magic, you will have to do it the old-fashioned way, with your claws, teeth and horn.” 

I just blinked at them.

They blinked back, then after about five seconds of blinking at each other, they seemed to understand.

“Oh right, Ok, first you need to get through the chitin plate on their chest, use your horn to make a hole you can get your claws in, and make sure you don’t puncture the Affectus Ventris so maybe start a little higher up.”

I nodded and tried to sike myself up for what I was about to do.

Ok, you can do this, just stab them with your horn, then rip their chitin off and suck their love out… I hate this so much.

I lined my horn up the best I could, given the angle, and then thrust my head forward, with surprisingly little resistance the sharp tip of my horn went through the thick chitin and into the corpse’s chest.

“Ok, good, now get your claws in there and start pulling the plate apart, your Majesty,” they said.

Following the instructions, I grasped the plate on each side of the hole I had made and pulled them apart.

With a crunch and the sound of tearing flesh, the plate cracked down the middle and I was able to spread it open like the pages of a book, leaving me with a good view of their ribs and the organs under them.

“Oh god, I think I might be sick again,” I said starting to get lightheaded.

“Just take a deep breath, your Majesty, and remember these Changelings were your enemies, they would have done the same to you and besides that, you are a Queen, it is your right to use the bodies of lesser Changelings however you see fit.”

Well the first part makes me feel a bit better and it’s the thought that counts, I thought to myself as I started to snap and pull out the ribs with my hand claws, they made horrible cracking sounds as I pulled them apart, it again seemed far too easy to snap bone.

After a couple more minutes I had unobstructed access to the dead Changelings chest cavity, “ok, I’ve taken out the ribs and I can see the- the organs, which one is it?” I asked, still feeling unwell.

The little Changeling peered over and looked around before pointing at one of the organs, “it’s that one, the one with a lighter pink colour.” 

I looked at the organ, it looked almost like a third lung, “so, I just pull it out?” I asked, taking more deep breaths.

“Yes, but I would recommend doing it with your mouth, once the Affectus Ventris is out of the body it will start leaking Love into the air, fast, so you need to swallow it as quickly as you can to minimize wastage.”

“You want me to swallow that whole? Can my throat actually open enough for that?” I asked, looking back at the organ that must have been the size of a rugby ball.

“Yes, your Majesty, I can assure you that a Queen can swallow an Affectus Ventris whole with ease, trust me.”

I decided not to ask and just got ready, “ok, here I go, eating organs, let’s do this.”

I lent my head down into the hole I’d ripped in the Changeling Soldier and put my maw around the still warm organ, I started to pull back but after only an inch or two it stopped and wouldn’t come out any further.

Of cause it’s still attached, how could I be stupid enough not to cut it out first?! I thought to myself.

With a frustrated growl I braced my two front hooves against the corpse and jerked my head back with as much force as I could, the organ came free, and I fell onto my butt.

“Quickly, your Majesty, you need to swallow it!” The little Changeling said with some urgency as wisps of pink vaper started to leak from the perforated organ.

Wasting no time on thinking about what I was doing I tipped my head back and forced the thing down my throat the same way I’d seen some large lizards eat.

The organ went down with surprising ease and after only a couple of seconds the feeling of hunger had quickly vanished, in fact, I felt better than I had since I woke up in the new body.

“Wow, that’s… I don’t really know how to describe that,” I said as I felt an electric tingling rush go up my spine, causing me to shiver slightly.

The changeling nodded and said, “large amounts of love if consumed in one go can have that effect, the more you get in a feeding the better you feel, for anyone but a Queen it can be dangerous though,” the Ling explained.

“All lesser Changelings have a limit to how much Love they can store, but a Queen is the centre of the Hive, she can hold an all but limitless amount, there are even legends of Queens that could hold so much Love, they could carve out entire Hives all alone, with just their magic,” they said, talking in a tone similar to someone talking of a miracle a God they were devoted to had supposedly performed. 

“That sounds pretty amazing,” I said, shaking off the last of the tingles.

The Changeling looked past me to the other corpse, “there is still the other Soldier, it would be a waste not to take its Love too, your Majesty.”

“Right, right, I’ll go get the other one and then you can tell me how to give you some of the love energy,” I said with a nod.

As I walked over to the other dead Changeling, I didn’t see the sudden look of sadness on the Drones face. 

After bringing the corpse back I used my newfound skills with open love gland surgery to remove the second Affectus Ventris and, with some reluctance, swallowed it down, again feeling a rush of energy and rather pleasant feelings just like with the first one. 

Turning back to the Changeling, I asked, “ok, love organs eaten, now, how do I give you some of this love?” 

After staying silent for a couple of seconds the Ling looked up with a sad expression.

“You can’t, your Majesty, even if you want to give me such a great honour, it’s not possible,” they said, in a sombre tone 

“Only Changelings from the same Hive can transfer Love to one another, if you wanted to give Love to a Changeling outside your Hive, it would have to be with Love gel and that takes days to make, you also need to eat special herbs to make it and they don’t grow around here either.”

Their face turned from sad to a more resigned look and they again looked me in the eyes, this time not turning away.

“You’ve been really nice to me, to be honest, I think you might be the nicest Changeling I’ve ever met, so I… I want to request, to humbly ask, if you would kill me," they said.

"I don’t want to starve to death and there’s no way for me to get love fast enough to save me, so I would prefer to die quickly than have to slowly waste away… Please, your Majesty,” they said, bowing their head.
> Chapter four: The First of Many
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I looked at the Changeling sitting on the floor in front of me, they looked so small and thin, fragile would also be a fitting description, and they were asking me, no, begging me to kill them so they didn’t have to starve to death, while I sat here feeling better than I ever have before.

I can’t do that, it’s bad enough that I killed people that were doing something horrible but at least they somewhat deserved it for trying to rip someone apart.

 This Changeling has been nothing but helpful and given how easy they were restrained before I don’t think they are strong enough to be some kind of violent criminal. 

So, no, I’m not doing that, but I can’t just leave them to suffer, that would be worse than killing them, but what can I do-   I suddenly had an idea, a possibly crazy idea but I needed help and the Changeling was the only person I knew here.

“Umm, hey, Changeling? Sorry, I just realised I don’t know what to call you,” I said apologetically, "you said only Changelings in the same hive could transfer love, right?”

“Yes, that is right, your Majesty, and I don’t have a name anymore, I lost it when I was banished.”

Wow that sucks, don’t even get to keep your name? 

I thought to myself before continuing.

“Ok, we will fix the name problem later, you said a hive is led by a Queen, right? So, if I’m a Queen, like you say I am, then that means I can start my own hive, right?”

“I… well, yes, your Majesty?” The changeling said, looking confused.

I clapped my hands and said, “well the problems solved then, I can just start a hive, you can be part of it and that way I can do the love transfer!”

The Drone just looked at me like I had told them I was sent to bring them to the promised land, “but, but I’m a banished Changeling, that means I’ve not fulfilled my role in my old Hive, I’m useless," the little Worker looked like they might be about to cry as they said that.

“Hey, I have no idea what I’m doing, if you hadn’t told me what to do then I wouldn’t have known how to get the love gland things out of the Soldiers. Hell, I didn’t even know I needed to eat love and I can tell you now, I wouldn’t have ever figured that out, so you’ve basically saved my life and that doesn’t sound like the kind of thing a useless Changeling would do, does it.”

Hearing that the Worker did burst into tears.

“Why are yo- hic- are you being so nice to me? This isn't how you should be treating me, I don’t understand,” they said through their tears.

I looked down, a bit embarrassed by the Changelings outburst of tearful emotion, after a couple of minutes of getting my thoughts together and listening to their quiet sobbing, I said, “I'm doing this because you’re in trouble and you’ve already helped me, it would be pretty messed up if I didn’t do everything I could to help you back.”

The Changeling looked up at me, their tears slowing as I talked.
“Ok, so, I declare you part of my hive, now how do I do the love transfer thing?”

The Changeling let out a little choking laugh and tried to wipe the tears from their face as they said in a slightly shaky voice, “it- It doesn’t work like that, your Majesty, to make a Changeling part of your Hive you have to link your Hive mind to them.”

“My what?” I said looking confused once again.

“Your Hive mind, your Majesty, um, ok if you truly want me in your Hive, then just come over to me and touch your horn to mine, then just concentrate on the desire for me to join your Hive,” they said wiping the last of the tears off their face.

Doing as they said, I walked over and sat directly in front of them, I then bent my neck down so the sides of our horns were resting against each other and closed my eyes, I concentrated hard on wanting them to be in my hive and my desire to be able to help them the same way they had helped me.

I felt a jolt, like a static shock but without the sting, I opened my eyes to see red fire slowly moving down their horn towards their head. Needless to say, I started to freak out again.

“Fuck! Shit! How do I make it stop! I didn’t mean to set you on fire, I’m sorry!” I said, scrambling trying to find anything to put it out, I was just about to pick them up and throw them in the lake when they raised a claw to stop me.

“Your Majesty, stop, this is what is what’s meant to happen.”

At their relaxed words, I started to calm down.

The crimson flames slowly moved down onto their head, they flinched and grit their teeth as the fire washed over their wound, as it passed it burnt away the resin and, in its place, left the beginning of a new crest, they closed their eyes as the fire past over their face and down their body. 

As the fire reached their wing cases the damaged ones fell away and were quickly consumed by the flames as new ones appeared, growing with the fire as it travelled down their back. 

The resin on their tail wound was also burnt away and just like with their head, the beginning of a new tail frill was left. The crest, frill and wing cases had all changed colour from an earthy orange to the same blood red as my hair and shell.

As the fire reached the tips of their back hooves it spread out in a small ring around them on the ground and then suddenly surged up in a pillar of red fire, bright enough that I had to shield my eyes.

After the light faded, I looked back at them and saw they had grown to the same height as the Soldiers I had killed, only with less bulky chitin.

“Are you ok?” I asked, still a little concerned.

The Changeling opened their eyes, and I saw they too had turned to a crimson that matched my own, they even had cat-like slits, rather than the solid colour they were before.

“I’m… I’m ok, you really meant it, you really took me in… I, I’m…” he looked like he might start to cry again.

“Yeah, I said I was going to do what I could to help you, I wouldn’t lie about that, you do look a bit different though.”

“That’s… That is normal, your Maj-… My Queen, all Changelings in a Hive have the colours of the Queen.”

“Oh, no I didn’t mean the colour change, I meant your eyes and your size, and your voice sounds more like mine too, it has the odd echoing effect.”

He looked confused, then looked around and shakily got to his hooves, and made his way over to the side of the water, once he got there he just stood, staring into the water.

I walked over and stood next to him and looked at our reflections in the almost still water, after about thirty seconds of silence I looked over to him, he just sat there, staring at his reflection.

“Hey, are you sure you’re ok?” I asked with genuine concern.

“I’m not a Worker anymore,” he all but whispered before turning to me, “my Queen, you… You elevated my cast, I’m a Drone again, and a higher form at that.”

“Oh, well that’s a good thing, right? Being a higher caste, I mean,” I asked, not totally sure how the caste thing worked yet.

The Changeling nodded his head, “in the Hive, there are several different castes of Changeling, each has a different role and the higher the caste, the better the Changeling, physically at least,” he said, again starting to sound like a teacher reading from a book.

“Worker is the lowest you can be… well you could be a captured Worker, one not born from the Hive but taken and converted after a Hive take-over.” 

“Dose that happened a lot?” I asked.

“Conflict is common between Hives, but I can explain more about that later,” he said before getting back on track.

“So anyway, there are different castes in the Hive with different roles, I'll get back to Workers in a minute but before that, I'll go from the top," he said, getting back into lecture mode.

"First are the Attendant Drones, they see to the Queens day-to-day needs, look after her eggs and the nymphs and also distribute Love to other castes, they are also good magic users too,” he said as I nodded, committing the information to memory.

“Then there are the Infiltrators Drones, they are in charge of collecting love, well at least when it’s not being taken by force anyway, and they are very good at taking on the identity of other people to gather Love from their disguises loved ones.”

"Ok that sounds a bit more like the fae Changelings I know about," I thought.

"What's a fae? My Queen," a voice that was not my own said inside my head.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" I screamed as I may or may not have jumped several feet into the air, "what the hell was that!"  

"I'm sorry, my Queen, I didn't mean to startle you, I'm so, so sorry!" the Changeling said bowing his head to me, "I heard you say something through the link, but I didn't understand the words, I apologise if I wasn't meant to hear it."

"The link? You mean when you said Hive mind you meant that literally?! Not like pheromone trails or something?" I asked, starting to wonder if my thoughts would now be broadcast to him and leave me with no privacy at all.

"Yes, my Queen, the Hive mind, or Hive link, is a way of communicating to any other Changeling in the Hive, although workers have a very limited capacity for it." He explained.

"I can turn it off, right? I'm not hearing your thoughts so how do I choose whether or not you can hear what I'm thinking?"

"You, um, already are, my Queen, I haven't heard anything since your exclamation," he told me, looking like he still expected to be punished, although thankfully not cowering like before.

I stopped and specifically thought, "can you hear this?" at him.

I got an immediate reply, again in my head, "Yes, my Queen, I hear you,"  and now that I was expecting it, I could easily tell it was his voice.

I then thought the same thing again but this time without meaning it as a question to him but rather just as a set of words in my head, after five seconds of no reply I asked, "did you hear me the second time?"

He shook his head, "no, my Queen, I'm sorry."

I sighed with relief and said, "no that's fine, I was just seeing how this worked."

Ok, so, don't think while concentrating on him, or he'll hear it, got it. I thought to just myself.

"I'm sorry, I interrupted your explanation of the Hive castes, please continue with that," I said, apologetically.

"It's no problem at all, my Queen," he said before clearing his throat and continuing, “next is Athenaeum Drones, they are the lowest Drone caste but are still important, they keep track of the Hives knowledge and are mostly adviser to the other caste leaders and even the Queen if she requests it.” 

“Then there are Soldiers, they are the main fighting force of the Hive and are bigger and stronger than all but the Queen, although not as magically talented as Attendants, they do have some skill in offensive and defensive casting,” he said, the mention of magic once again stirred my hopes of finding a way home.

“Right at the bottom, you have Workers, they, as their name suggests, are the basic workforce of the Hive, they build and farm, they also help the soldiers in battle, often by carrying things but mosts Hives also use Workers as light troops” he finished.

I sat for a minute and thought back over the new information, as I did I found I could remember the exact words he had said rather than just the infomation.
Huh, that’s new, but also very useful, I thought.

Looking back to the Changeling I said “so, you were a Worker before, what are you now?”

He looked back down at his reflection before saying, “I’m an Attendant, only the Attendants and the Queen have voices like this, I'm also a bit bigger than I was as an Athenaeum Drone.”

He was quiet for a couple of seconds and then said, “My Queen, a Worker might get elevated to a soldier if they did something in a battle that showed they were worthy, and an Athenaeum or Infiltrator Drone might be elevated to an Attendant on very rare occasions, but a soldier would never become one and a Worker most certainly wouldn’t and I… I’ve gone from a Worker- No, not just a Worker, a converted Worker, basically a slave, all the way up to as high as it's possible for a Changeling to be…”

They just stood there, looking into my eyes.

“This isn’t real, is it? I’m passed out after having been banished and this is just my mind trying to comfort me as I die from blood loss, that has to be it, right?” 

His legs seemed to give out from under him and he started to fall, luckily, I managed to catch him and bring him into an awkward kneeling chest to chest hug as he just held onto me with shaky claws.

“Hey, hey, you’re ok, I promise this is all real, you're not dying, and you’re not banished, you’re safe, you're with me now, ok?” 

I said, gently stroking the new crest as my Changeling shivered in my arms.







We stayed like that for a good fifteen minutes before he stopped shivering and stepped back onto his hooves.

"Do you feel better?" I asked.

"I do, my Queen," he said, rubbing the back of his head with one of his claws before saying, "my Queen, thank you, I may not remember my old Queen but I'm almost certain that she wouldn't have held me for even a second, let alone several minutes, so thank you for not destroying me for my weakness."

I lay one of my own clawed hands on the shoulder of his grasping arm, "you've been through a lot, and even when you thought, best-case scenario, I was going to kill out of mercy, you still helped me," I said giving his shoulder a light squeeze before dropping my arm.
"I'll be honest, I'm going to need you to keep helping me, I don't know anything about this land, or about being a Changeling, or about magic, so if you're ever feeling bad or need a hug or just want to talk, you tell me, ok?"

I could see his eyes moisten a little and he rubbed at his muzzle with a sniff, "thank you, my Queen, I’ll do that, and as for the rest, I live to serve," he said, giving a little smile.

"Good to hear, I think?" I said, not sure if we would need to talk about that at some point.

Shaking my head, I asked the question that I felt was top of my list of things that really needed an explanation, "So, speaking of you helping me, I have a question, right before I attacked the Soldiers I had some kind of mental break, I was still me but I wasn't really in control," I said as my Changeling nodded along.

"It started off as a headache that got worse and worse while an intense high pitch whine blocked out almost all another sound, other than you I mean," I mentioned with a sympathetic look.

"I just got so, so angry, the rational part of my brain just seemed to stop and I ran out and attacked, it's all a bit of a blur but I can still feel and- and taste their blood when I think about it," I gave a little shudder, "Do you know what happened to me? Is it normal? What coursed it? is it going to happen again?" I asked, stepping forward with each question.

My Attendant looked deep in thought for a couple of moments before saying, "that sounds almost exactly like a Queen's reaction to a nymphs distress call, but I don't know why it would have happened to you, even with my screams it shouldn't have triggered it, not only am I not a nymph but the reaction is only triggered by the cries from nymphs of the Queens own Hive and I was an outcast," he finished.  

"Ok, well it's the best explanation, for now, maybe my maternal instincts are just really strong or something?" I said in a joking tone.

"Not likely, my Queen, please forgive for saying this but war Queens aren't known for their compassion, it's one of the reasons I was so confused about you being so kind to me," he said and then looked in thought for a moment, "actually maybe that does make sense, you're kind, at least you have been so far, maybe that's what's triggering it?" he said with what I think was a shrug.

"Well, I really hope it doesn't happen to changelings from other Hives," I said, walking back and forth as I talked, "what if we get attacked? As much as I would really prefer not to get into any fights, I also don't want to suddenly feel the need to protect the Changelings I'm in the middle of fighting, that sounds like a quick and stupid way to get killed."

I stopped and looked back at my Attendant, "sorry, I just realised we haven't done the Love transfer thing, how do I do it?" I asked.

He looked at me a little confused and replied, "my Queen, you already have, when you elevated me, without a cocoon I might add, you left excess Love behind, I should be ok for at least four or five days, after that though we will need to gather more Love though," he said.
Suddenly he went wide-eyed, "my Queen, we need to leave! The Workers that fled will be flying as fast as they can to their Hive and if their Queen gets word of another Queen so close to her territory she may send a force to attack in an attempt to remove you as a threat." he said as his wing cases opened and his wings started to buzz.

"Shit, that's bad, I'm bigger and stronger than the Soldiers but I have no illusion about how a fight without the element of surprise is going to end," I said before looking back to him, "but, where do we go," I said to myself.

After thinking for a moment I said, "we will need more Love soon and a place we can hide, somewhere we can go back to if things get bad, where is the nearest, and preferably the safest, source of Love? We can go there and sort out the hiding place after our food is guaranteed."

"An excellent plan, my Queen, secure Love and then build a Hive so you have somewhere to lay your eggs," he said with a nod.

I stood completely still for a few moments and then looked back at him.

"Lay my what?" I said in a strangled voice.
> Chapter five: according to all known laws of aviation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello there, sorry for the republished chapter but I didn't know of any other way to try and make the edited version show up in the feed so people know it's been done.

This is an edited version of chapter 5, as some people pointed out, the older one was not up to the usual quality that I'm going for and I agreed, so here it is! There are about 500ish more words and some sentences have been altered to make them seem more like they are actually being said by a person and less like they are being read off a script. I have also clarified some things that needed a little more info to make clear.
All in all, I hope this is better than how it was before and if not well then at least I tried lol





After I had a small freak out from being reminded exactly what one of the main roles of a Changeling Queen was, I calmed down and got my mind back on track.

Turning to my Attendant, I asked, "so, which way did you say we should be going?"

"I hadn't yet, my Queen, but the best idea would be to head North, sticking near the hoofhills until we get near to the old bones, after that, we should head East into the Hive lands and try to find a Zebra village that is not in another Hives territory," he said.

As he talked, I could swear I was almost able to see the landmarks he described, rocky hills bordering the mountains, the shape of bones so large I have seen so-called mountains smaller, all the way down to how a Zebra village would look.

"Are you sending me images over the Hive mind?" I asked.

"Yes, my Queen, I apologize for their lack of detail but I've never been to the old bones myself and I don't know the specific village we will be going to so I'm having to go off my imagination," he explained.

I nodded my head, "no problem... my Attendant, You really need a name," I said, looking him up and down.

"I would be honoured to be named, my Queen," He said, bowing his head to me.

Ok, I don't think a normal name is really going to fit, well, it should be something cool but also meaningful. He is helping and supporting me while I learn how to function in this world, but this is also a new start for him as well so maybe it should be something to do with that. I thought to myself.

After a couple of minutes of thinking, I looked back to him and said, "ok, I have an idea but I want your input on it, I wouldn't want you to end up with a name you don't like."

"A name is a gift given by you, my Queen, I would never dislike something you gave to me," he said, sounding like he really meant it.

"I'm sure you wouldn't but I think it will be better if it's a name you also like," I told him before continuing, "my Idea is Scarab, I thought it sounded right since your starting a new life in my Hive and they represent new life," I said to him. 

"Hmm, I've never heard that name before, my Queen, but I like it, and not just because you're giving it to me," he said with a small smile.

"I'm glad you like it, Scarab," I say with a nod.

Scarab had a beaming smile on his face, "Thank you, my Queen, I am honoured to receive a name," he said with a low bow. 

"You're welcome, Now, we should get moving," I said as I looked towards the water, "we should also drink as much water as we can."

"As you say, my Queen, I will also carry some with me just in case we don't find another source of water on the journey," Scarab said.

I looked at him, noting his lack of water bottles and said, "as much as I would like that, how do you plan to carry it with no containers?"

"I will just make some extra chitin and leave cavities to hold the water," Scarab said as he walked over to the water's edge.

Suddenly the crimson fire washed over him again and when it was gone he looked a bit chubby, it was actually kind of cute in a horrifying nightmare bug kind of way. His grasping claws had also fused together into a cup shape and he started scooping up water and pouring it into openings on his back. 

"I know you said we could look like other people to get Love but I didn't expect us to be able to do things like that! Is there anything about ourselves we can't change" I asked

"We can change most things about our bodies, my Queen, but it takes Love to make the change and the bigger the change the more Love is used, there are also some things that you can't gain from the change, like magical powers you didn't already possess," Scarab said as he finished filling his new water cavities, a small set of elytra like coverings moving over the opening like a lid.

"Ok, we have water for the journey, also you need to teach me how to do that at some point but we should really get moving now, we don't know how your old Hive will react and I would rather not hang around to get swarmed by a load of angry Changelings," I said, turning and starting to walk to the North.

After taking a couple of steps I heard the buzzing again and looked back to see Scarab hovering in the air, "if we fly till sunset then we should be able to make it almost half of the way to the old bones, it will probably take about two days in total, or maybe a little into three, my Queen," he said, looking off into the distance.

"Um, Scarab, I can't fly, how long will it take if we have to walk there? And will our Love supply hold out that long?" I asked.

The Changeling looked down at me with an expression of concern, "on hoof it will be at least eight days and that's if we trot all day, my Queen. Luckily we should have enough Love but we will have to minimise making any changes or using magic to conserve our supply."

Shit, what I wouldn't give to have a dune buggy right now... haha buggy.

Shaking off my stupid thought I looked back up at Scarab and said, "is there any way to teach me to fly quickly? you could show me stuff over the Hive link so could you just beam the knowledge into my head?" I said, imagining some matrix-like skill upload.

"Yes and no, my Queen, I can share the feeling of the muscle movements and the theory of flight but that will only help speed up learning, it isn't a replacement for real experience," Scarab said, landing next to me.

"Ok then share the feelings and I can practice while we move, we don't have time for me to sit around and learn," I said.

Scarab gave a nod and then seemed to concentrate for a couple of seconds, as he did so I started to feel a light pressure in my head, I rubbed just below my horn to try and get rid of the odd sensation.

"You need to let me fully link, my Queen, I can't transfer feelings over the normal communication link I can images," Scarab said.

Realising it was Scarab doing something over the Hive link and not the onset of a headache I relaxed and felt the pressure dissipate, then I suddenly felt like I had two bodies, the sensations of the smaller body were a little muted but definitely not coming from me.

"I will go over the movements now, my Queen, as you say, you can practice them as we walk, I don't know how much flying you did before your memory loss so you may also need to strengthen your flight muscles," Scarab said as he opened his elytra and started to move his wings, going through a load of different movements that would be used to pitch and angle himself while flying.

I committed the movements to memory, my new ability to remember things with perfect recall proving very helpful in the task.

After about ten minutes of going over wing movements, we set off north at a fast trot, my wings buzzing away on my back as we travelled.
By the late afternoon, I could actually get off the ground but I could only go straight up and stay there for a minute or two before getting tired.
Landing, although not terrible,other than the first couple of times, ouch, was defiantly not smooth either.

That night we slept in a small cave barely deeper than I was long, it was no more glamourous than my other sleeping places over the last few days but at least it kept the wind off and with another body laying against me it was almost comfortable.

The next three days went on much the same, trot and buzz over dry rocky hills and sleeping in a cave or under a rocky outcropping at night. By day four, I could actually fly forwards but my max safe speed was only a little faster than a gallop and I could only hold that for half an hour before having to land and landing had gone back to being a painful endeavour.

My bouts of flight did cut our travel time though and by the end of day six, we were resting near the top of a tall rocky hill, a little before the sun had fully set.
Off in the distance, under the glow of the still setting sun, I could see something that, quite frankly, shouldn't have been possible.
Laying on top of a distant plateau, that on its own must have been several hundred feet tall, was a truly enormous skull and what I could just make out as massive ribs going off into the distance behind it. The closest shape I could liken the skull to was that of a T-rex be longer in the snout and with what I thought were horns sweeping backwards, the fact that I could make out that much at what must have been at least eighty to a hundred miles was absurd.

"No living creature could possibly ever get that big, surely it would be crushed under its own weight! And what would it even eat?!" I said out loud, shaking my head at the ridiculousness of this world.

"No-ling knows, my Queen, I don't know of any reliable information on the old bones, but the Zebras have legends that say it was one of the gods that made the world, a builder of mountains and canyons, and that when it had finished its work, it simply lay down to die, giving its flesh to the earth that life might grow," Scarab said.

Huh, well it doesn't sound any stranger than some of the stuff back home I guess, I thought to myself as Scarab continued to talk.

"The Zebras don't often go there, they believe it's dangerous, not that the being was meant to be evil but that it is unsafe to walk where an old one rests, something about becoming one with the stones of the earth or something," Scarab explained.

Huh, creepy.

"So no villages there then?" 

"Unlikely, my Queen, but there might be one in the planes below, most tribes try to stay away from the place but some smaller ones don't have much of a choice," He said as he scanned the flatlands to the West, "we should stay here tonight, my Queen, we can look for any sign of fires from our high vantage point and then head for any we find in the morning."

Scarab suddenly stopped and looked at me, "I will also need to show you how to shapeshift, you're a war Queen so your mimic field will be basically non-existent, I'm an Attendant so mine should be ok for this, but we will still have to make up some Zebra identities for ourselves."

"Ok one, what's a mimic field? And two, why does an Attendant have a better one than a Queen? I thought Queens are meant to be the most powerful cast," I asked.

Scarab looked rather uncomfortable all of a sudden and lowered himself slightly, seemingly trying to be as small as he could, "forgive me, my Queen, I mean no offence but it's not that Attendants have good mimic fields, not at all, ours are the same as any other non Infiltrators, it's just that, as a War Queen, you are most like a Soldier and Soldiers are known for having particularly weak mimic fields." 

"Huh, well I guess that makes a kind of sense," I said before noticing Scarab was still trying to shrink into the floor, " will you please calm down, we have been travelling for days now and I haven't given you any reason to think I will suddenly turn on you," I said.

Scarab was getting better but even after what I had thought was a pretty intermate moment between us, he still would slip back into being afraid of me, like he expected to be harshly punished just for saying the wrong thing.

Your old Hive really messed you up, didn't they bud? I thought to myself.

At my reassurance Scarab straightened up a bit and began to explain in his textbook-like way of talking, "a mimic field, my Queen, is a magical and chemical aura that Infiltrator Queens, Infiltrators and to a lesser extent all other Changelings all have that makes non-Changelings see them either as friends or just unimportant while they are in disguise, it also makes them not notice inconsistencies with a Changelings behaver compared to the individual they are mimicking, it is a great passive supplement to more direct mind magic but only skilled Infiltrators or Infiltrator Queens really use that for more than minor spells." 

That sounds absolutely horrifying but also really useful... If Infiltrator Queens get that, then I better get something cool as well, Scarab said I'm most like a Soldier but it better not be that I'm just really good at hitting stuff because if it is I will be royally pissed. 

I had a sudden thought as we started to dig a shallow bowl to sleep in, "Scarab, I'm not angry or anything so don't freak out again but I feel like shapeshifting is something I should have been learning on the way here, it sounds like it's going to be more important than the flying is if we are going to go into a village so soon."

Despite my reassurance that I wasn't angry, Scarab quickly bowed his head again as he said, "I apologise, my Queen, the only reason I didn't show you how to do it sooner is because it will take less time to learn than the flying did. Muscle memory may not be able to be shared over the Link but how to feel for your magic can be, and once you can touch your magic, shifting is as simple as willing it so, it's simple to learn but can take time to master though, as you must add the detail of your new shape entirely from your mind, that is why taking the form of another being is easier than making up an identity from scratch. That being said we are only trying to mimic some nomads, not infiltrate the guards of a tribe chieftain so if our Zebra identities are a little bland then it shouldn't matter too much."

"Ok, that makes sense but what are we actually going to do once we get to the village? I mean I know we need to get Love but I don't think I would be able to hide my- hide my eggs in some small Zebra village," I said, still really not looking forward to my apparently imminent Queenly duties.

Scarab seemed to contemplate for a moment before saying, "you are right, my Queen, it might be best if we split up, I will go into the village and start to gather any love I can and you can search for a place to start the Hive. Once I have gathered some love I will make an excuse for leaving the settlement and rejoin you to start construction."

"Ok, sounds good, I assume I should look for a place with water and maybe somewhere defendable, just in case your old Queen sends someling after us."

"A rocky outcropping is often the sight of a new Hive, my Queen, water is easier to dig for than it is to find on the surface," Scarab said as he finished the sleeping bowl.

"Ok I will take a look around and see if I can find anywhere that seems suitable, you should still show me how to feel for my magic though, that sounds like it will be helpful even if I don't need to pretend to be a Zebra."

Scarab looked to the sky only barely illuminated by the last bit of the already set sun, "of course, my Queen, I will show you now and then we can get to looking for the fires of a village."

We laid down in the bowl and then, just like when he transferred the feelings before, I could feel what Scarabs body was feeling. This time instead of feeling his wings like before he instructed me to focus on his horn, it lacked the crimson glow it had had when he had used it to lift things but I could feel it doing something as he lifted a hand and I watched as it changed from a hand to more of a chisel-like shape. 

I could feel, something, kind of like a warmth mixed with a light thrumming coming from the core of his horn and running down into his forehead and then deeper into his brain. I could feel the flow of Love energy being pulled from his affectus ventris and channelled up into the part of his brain just below his horn, felt how it was changed to become the crimson fire that let him change and how the fire was directed with his willpower.

"That is the feeling you are looking for, my Queen, now just mimic it and want the change to happen," Scarab said, still making the small change, over and over.

I lifted my right clawed hand and started to focus on the feeling of how the Love would move through me and then how it would be changed and willed into the red fire.
I fell into an almost meditative state, the rest of the world being blocked out as the feeling of moving the Love energy was all that I focused on, then before I even realised it, I had done it, the red flames rand over my hand and it turned into a solid chisel, just like the once Scarab had.

"You did it, my Queen, I knew you would take to it with ease, the change is part of body magic after all and that should come easy to a War Queen" Scarab said, a smile on his face.

Ok, maybe hitting things really good isn't all I get as a War Queen.

I focused again and this time the feeling of the energy was near-instantaneous, I looked to my chisel tipped limb and simply wanted it to be a hand again and just like that, the fire ran over it and I had a Changeling hand once more. 

I let out a very manly giggle and smiled at Scarab, "this is going to be awesome, Thank you for showing me what to do, Scarab," I said as I grasped him in a hug, he only flinched for half a second too, before relaxing into my embrace.

"I live to serve, my Queen," he said, sounding more tired than he had only moments ago.

"Hey, are you all right? You sound like you're about to fall asleep," I asked him with a tone of consern.

"I'll be ok in a moment, my Queen, normally such a small change would not be a problem even done over and over but after travelling and having no top-ups of Love, doing the sustained rapid changes took a bit out of me," he said, suppressing a yawn.

"Why didn't you just say you were running low? You can have some more of mine," I said, leaning back so I could look him in the eyes and asking, "how do I do a Love transfer?" My tone showed that it was not up for debate.

"Grasp the Love in the same way you would to change but instead of changing it to the flames direct it to me," he said.

I pulled on the Love, taking about 30% of what I could feel and directed it to him as he said too.
Scarab opened his mouth and a pink mist seemed to seep from my horn and was drawn into his maw as he seemed to take a deep breath that went on far too long to actually be what he was doing. It was an odd feeling, giving away the Love, it was like it tried to cling to me, almost like my body didn't want to give it up and once it was gone it left a cold feeling behind in the place where it had been.

"Thank you, my Queen, you honour me," Scarab said, bowing his head again.

"You're welcome, I need you performing at your best, you are going to be collecting the Love we need, I'm counting on you and it's only fair you stay fed," I replied, giving him a light pat on the shoulder.

We went back over to the edge and spent the next hour or so looking out into the night darkened planes, in total we could see 4 villages but Scarab said there could be more that were simply not burning fires big enough to see at such a distance.
After that, we went back to our bowl in the dirt to sleep.

So, tomorrow, Scarab will go on the hunt and I will start looking for a place to make a Hive, I thought to myself.

I wonder what my family is doing right now, it's been more than a week at this point, they will have got the news that I'm missing and even if I could talk to them they wouldn't even recognize me, I let out a sad sigh and curled my large body around Scarabs smaller form, swiftly drifting off to sleep.
> Chapter six: The local flavour
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I awoke next to my Queen, the light of the rising sun pulling me from unconsciousness, I climbed out of the bowl we had dug the night before and stretched with a yawn.

after working out the stiffness in my limbs I opened the elytra lid on the water cavity on my sides and took a drink from a cupped hand.

As I was drinking, I heard my Queen shifting around and turned to see her standing and stepping out of the sleeping bowl, after a couple of steps she stopped and stretched as I had moments before.

"Good morning, Scarab, sleep well?" My Queen asked in her reverberating voice.

"I slept well, my Queen, you honour me by asking," I said giving a small bow.

My Queen shook her head, seemingly finding something amusing, "no need for that, Scarab, I was only asking how you slept."

She truly is strange for a Queen, not that I would ever dare say so, but I think I like this strangeness more than a normal Queen anyway. I thought to myself as my Queen finished her stretching and walked over to me.

I offered the open cavity to her, "please, take a drink, my Queen, I must leave soon if I am to reach the villages by midday, I feel I will have more luck if I arrive in the daylight rather than under the cover of night," I said as she took some water in her own cupped hand.

After taking a long drink, my Queen, looked Northwards, "Sounds good, Scarab, I will head north some way and see if I can find a good place to set up a Hive," she stopped for a moment and looked as though she was thinking, "Scarab, is there a maximum range on the Hive mind?"

I thought back on everything I knew and once again found holes where there should have been information, luckily I still had enough to answer my Queen's question, "there is, my Queen, but it is at least a hundred miles even with just the two of us so there shouldn't be any problem and when your eggs hatch each one will increase the range by adding their minds to the Link."

For some reason, my Queen looked a little uncomfortable, "maybe she is already feeling the need to lay, I must find a reliable source of Love soon, I can't fail my Queen!"

Hoping to distract my Queen from any discomfort I continued, "When you find the place you wish to claim as your new Hive simply call to me over the Link and I will make my way to you with all haste and if I don't hear from you before I have filled my affectus ventris I will come to you to deliver the Love."

My Queen nodded her head, seeming to forget whatever discomfort she was feeling a moment ago, "ok, sounds like a plan, Scarab. oh and don't hesitate to contact me, even if it's just to talk, I know we have been travelling for almost a week but most of that was me lea-... Me re-learning to fly, talking about flying or just sleeping so I still have some questions I would like to ask at some point," my Queen said.

"Of course, my Queen, I will check in daily and answer any questions you might have."

"Great, ok I'm going to head North along the hoofhills, I won't go further than the plateau so if I don't find a place by then we can regroup and think of what to do next," my Queen said with a nod.

"As you command, my Queen, I wish you luck in your search," I said with a bow before turning towards the North-East.

I walked to the edge of the cliff and with a jump took to the air, beginning the flight to the plains below.  

As I flew through the quickly warming morning air I began designing the Zebra identity I would use to gather love for the Hive, I decided on a male with a strong yet lean build, a short mane and tail, and some light scarring, just enough to make my story of being a travelling nomad believable but not enough to seem rough or dangerous. 
I would explain away my lack of possessions as having been the victim of bandits and that would also give me a reason for coming to the village in the first place.

With any luck the fact that I'm a victim of bandits will win some sympathy, not as good as love but certainly better than suspicion.
I thought as my flight took me down to the plains, I flew low, only a couple of body lengths above the ground, hoping that by doing so I would remain hidden from view and thus be able to fly until I was only an hour or so from the village at a trot.

After a couple of hours of uneventful flight, I could just about see the shapes of the huts in the distant village.

I slowed my flight and then landed in a patch of long grass, laying down in hopes of masking the red flash of the change. With a directed thought, the fire washed over me and my Changeling form was gone and in its place stood a young yet strong looking Zebra stallion. 
I did a few small alterations to make myself look mildly dehydrated and then rolled on the ground to add some dust and dirt so I looked like I had been walking without much rest for a day or two.  
After taking a last look over myself, making sure I looked just how I intended, I started the trot to the village.

After about an hour of walking through the short grass of the savanna, I finally made it to the village just after midday.

As I approached I could see that the village had a short wooden fence, its top being just below my eye level, it looked more to be for deterring wild animals from entering rather than defence against any attacking force. 

TThe Zebras here had some fields growing some kind of grains and some other plants that I was not sure about the use of off to one side of the village, it too had a fence that was connected to the village main fence with the entrance leading straight into the village enclosure.

I could see several Zebras working within the field, some seemed to notice me as I made my way around the small wall and I could see one trot over to the wall separating the fields and the village, they seemed to be talking to somezebra on the other side, most likely warning of my approach. 

As I made my way around the fence I saw an opening about two body lengths across, obviously being the main entrance to the village. 
Looking through the open gate of the entrance, I was able to see the buildings of the village, there were around twenty-five small huts, all made of wood and pale mud walls with long dry grass for rooves.

It was then that I noticed what must have been some kind of village militia as ten or so Zebras trotted out ready to meet me several lengths before the entrance.

A muscular stallion at the front of the group stepped forward from the others, "hello, stranger, who are you? We don't get many visitors out here, what brings you to our village?" He said in the Zebra tongue in an authoritative but not threatening tone

Ok, you can do this, for the Queen! I thought to myself as I opened my mouth to answer.

"Hello, my name is mzururaji, I'm sorry to bother your village but I'm in some trouble. I was held up by bandits two nights ago and they threatened to kill me if I didn't give them all I was carrying, they took all my food and water, even my sleeping mat, I have nothing left. Please, I'm willing to work if you will help me," I said, trying to sound a little desperate but not grovelling.

"Well you do look like you haven't eaten or drank anything in a while, I suppose if you are willing to pull your weight we can feed you, but be warned, we will be watching you so don't try anything," the lead Stallion said before his face softened a little, "My name is Kwato Kali, I'm the lead stallion of this village, don't make any trouble and I'm sure we will get on fine," Kwato said beckoning me to enter the village with him, two of the other stallions following us while the other went back to whatever they had been doing.

We walked to the centre of the village where they had a stone well dug deep into the ground, Kwato grabbed a rope in his mouth and hooves and began pulling up a bucket of water, after a short time a wooden bucket with the rope looped through two holes at the top was pulled out and offered to me.

"Drink slowly, if you drink too fast it will make you sick, now you stay here and drink that and I will go and see about getting you some food," Kwato said as I took the bucket and started to take sips from it, "after that, we can find you some work that won't be too hard on you in your weakened state," he said as he turned and walked over to one of the huts, it was a bit bigger than most of the others and I could see some smoke rising out of a gap in the roof.

Most likely a communal food hut of some kind then, I mussed to myself.

As I drank I also noticed that the other two stallions had stayed with me.
Makes sense, I would be suspicious if they trusted me right away, anyway. 

After about five minutes of slowly drinking to keep up my deception, Kwato came back with a wooden bowl on his back, "lunch was just about ready for the field workers so you can have some of that, you can also help them when they go back out, and don't worry, they won't make you do anything too back-breaking," He said, hoofing the bowl to me.

"Thank you, your kindness is truly appreciated," I said as I started to drink from the bowl, it seemed to be some kind of stew, but I hadn't eaten enough Zebra foods to say exactly what was in it.

As I sat and drank from the bowl I saw many Zebras coming into the village and all heading to the food hut, chatting amongst themselves as they entered, then coming back out carrying a bowl like my own and finding a place to sit and eat.

I had finished the bowl in fifteen minutes and stood up to take the bowl back to the hut, Kwato and the other two stallions seemed content to simply follow me as I entered the building.

It was reasonably large inside with a fire pit in the middle that had a large clay pot gently steaming in the glowing embers. To one side of the fire, there was a table where a few mares and stallions were cutting some kind of plants and root tuber before adding them to the pot, while on the other side there was another table with bowls being filled by a younger looking stallion. 

I noticed there was a slowly growing pile of used bowls being added to by a Zebra.
I walked over to the table and added my own bowl to the pile and said a quick thank you to the stallion, who nodded with a smile as he continued to fill bowls from the clean pile.

Leaving the hut I looked around again before feeling a hoof on my shoulder, I turned and saw it was Kwato who had touched me.

"Come with me, some of the farmers will be heading back out soon and you should get introduced," he said as he began to 
lead me to the entrance to the fields.

We walked past some more huts on what seemed to be a well-walked path and after only a minute or so reached the entrance to the fields.
There seemed to be a collection of Zebra nymphs or rather foals all being talked to by a young mare, she seemed to be telling them about the importance of weeding and removing harmful insects from the crops.

Kwato walked around the herd of foals and headed right to the mare.
"Moyo Wazi, I have another who is to join your group," he said as the mare turned to look at us.

Looking at me she smiled and said "He seems a little old to be under my care, Kwato, but I see he is also looking a little thin, light work?" She asked.

"You are correct, Moyo, he is a nomad that fell foul of some bandits, we are giving him food and shelter while he recovers and I figured working with your team wouldn't put too much stress on him," the stallion explained.

The mare nodded her head and looked at me, "My name is Moyo Wazi, but you can call me Moyo. I teach the foals who are to be farmers the basics, I guess I'll be showing you as well," she said with a little kind smile, "what's your name, nomad?"

I could almost see the positive emotional energy coming off of her, with most of the Zebras I could feel some contentment and friendliness but this mare was practically letting out waves of kindness.

This is perfect! I couldn't have ended up near a better source of love if I had planned this! 

My internal celebration was ended when I felt another nudge from Kwato who was looking at me with a smirk on his face, looking back to Moyo I could see she had a hoof up to her mouth trying to hide a laugh.
I then realised my foolish internal self-congratulating had left me basically string at the young mare.

Fix this, you idiot! If you mess up like that again you will make them suspicious. If you are found out then it doesn't matter how kind the Queen acts, there is no way she will let you off for messing up a task directly given to you by her!

I quickly left out a cough into a raised hoof and said, "sorry, miss Moyo, my name is Mzururaji, it's good to meet you," I said giving her a slight bow of my head.

With a smile still on her face, Moyo nodded and said, "it's nice to meet you too, Mzururaji, now follow me and we will get you working."

She then turned and looked to all the foals standing before her and said, "come along, young ones, it's time to get back to work," as she lead them and myself into the fields.









I watched Scarab jump off the cliff and heard the buzz of his wings get quieter and quieter as he flew off.

Alone again, well not really, he's just a directed thought away but it's still uncomfortable being physically alone again.

Shaking off the feeling I looked out Northwards along the mountains, thinking about what exactly I wanted in a Hive location.

That is not something I ever thought I would be thinking. For now, I'll just get going and see if anywhere jumps out at me.

I was about to take off before I realised I was still holding onto my star opal, I definitely wanted to keep it after what Scarab had said about them but it was rather large to just lug around in my hands all the time.
I then had an idea, taking inspiration from Scarabs water holders I closed my eyes and concentrated, trying to visualise the change I wanted to happen.

I tried to hold the image of a ring with a gem in it, or more specifically the way the gem was held onto the ring with an indent and little claws to hold it in place and then imagined the same thing just on my chest between where my arms attached.

After a few seconds of concentration, there was a flash of red fire and I looked down the front of my body to see an indent big enough for my opal with what looked almost like clawed fingers around the top and bottom edge. After a few minutes of experimentation I found I could move the claws back and forth and with all the fingers out straight I could place the large gemstone in the indent and then flex the claws back to grip it leaving my hands free.

Not going to lie that is hella creepy, being able to do this is both cool and kind of horrifying, I'm like the monster in some sci-fi movie. I thought to myself.

After shaking off that thought I unfolded my large translucent insect wings and slowly buzzed into the air and started moving North over the hills.

It's odd to just be flying, I mean this is all odd but the way it already feels natural is really strange, This body adapts to things far faster than my human one did. You know I think I'll miss this part when I get home, if I get home. 

As I flew over the arid hills my mind wandered back to the short journey Scarab and I had already made, despite having travelled for days we didn't really talk all that much, to be honest, only really having a conversation if I started it or asked a question.

He's still afraid of me, I know his life can't have been great, his own Hive cast him out and was going to cripple him then leave him to die after all and... I suddenly realised I hadn't actually asked why they were doing that to him, ok that will be something I should ask but maybe once we meet up again, I don't want to bring up something painful while he is trying to keep a cover.


I flew for hours along the hoofhills, mostly checking out rocky cliffs and gullies to see if there was anywhere that jumped out as a good location but every time I found a place I thought would be good there was either something I didn't like about it or in the case of one cave, they were already inhabited, FYI there are lizard dogs here, they would have been kind of cute if they hadn't tried to jump me!
Luckily I could fly and the lizard dogs couldn't so I was able to get away from them without having to fight.

By the time the sun was setting, I still hadn't found anywhere that seemed right to me, so I decided to settle into a small cave that was in a rock face next to a small stream that flowed down from further in the hills.

I wonder if Scarab's day has been more productive than mine, couldn't really be worse, well unless something bad has happened but he would have contacted me if that happened... Right?

I suddenly felt the need to check up on my Changeling, not that I didn't trust him to look after himself but I also had my doubts about if he would actually tell me something was wrong because of fear or just from a desire not to bother his Queen.

"Scarab, can you hear me?" I thought, trying to will my thoughts to my Changeling.

I hear you, my Queen, I was just about to report in, what do you need of me?" He replied, I felt that had he been standing before me he would be bowing right now.

"I'm just checking in, I haven't found a place that feels right for a Hive yet so I will keep looking tomorrow. How has your day been?" I asked.

My mission is going well, my Queen, I have infiltrated one of the Zebra villages and might even have secured a reliable source of Love! They have both fed and watered me and I have been allowed to sleep in one of the unattached stallion huts."

"Really? Well, I'm glad the Zebras are so friendly, with an entire village to collect from we shouldn't be in danger of starving any time soon," I said, quite happy to have one less thing to worry about.

"Well, maybe not the entire village, my Queen, not that they are unfriendly but they are naturally a bit wary of an outsider, I am even now being kept an eye on by a guard outside the hut. There is one Zebra that is far friendlier though, a mare that is in charge of teaching the villages young and she is positively brimming with Love! I have taken the form of a young adult male in his prime and with her caring attitude it should not be too hard to get her infatuated with my disguise and from there she will be easy to feed off for as long as we need."

That did not sound very nice to me, I really hope I'm misunderstanding here. I thought privately.

"Scarab, are you saying you plan to trick this Zebra into loving your disguise? That doesn't sit well with me, I get that we need the Love but that just seems really cruel. If she falls for your disguise she will be devastated when you suddenly leave, not only that it's just wrong to mess with people like that so if that was your plan I'm going to have to veto it." I say over the link.

"I live to obey, my Queen, but may I respectfully ask a question, your highness?" Scarab said in a nervous tone, once again it was like I could feel how he would be acting if he was standing in front of me and I could tell he was nervous to ask the question.

"Of course, please feel free to ask."

"Well it's just that, I'm sorry but I don't understand, my Queen, she is just a Zebra, why does it matter if she is upset? She is just food and it's not like we can't just pod her later anyway."

I had to stop for a second and process that.

The Zebras here are literally people, I know we eat their emotions but that doesn't mean we should abuse them! Bloody hell and so far Scarabs seemed like a mostly ok kind of guy and if this is his opinion on the Zebras I hate to think what other Changelings must think, I thought to myself, having trouble seeing how treating the Zebras as just food could be anything other the wrong.

"Look, Scarab, the Zebras might be where we get our food from but they are still people, we can't just abuse them because it's easier for us." I thought at him, shaking my head a little, "jeez, how would you feel if someone you thought loved you just abandoned you?"

My eyes widened as I instantly realised what I had just thought, it was a reflexive response to someone saying something like that, you know? How would you like it if that were done to you? It's the classic response when trying to get someone to see they should have empathy and without really thinking I had just tacked it on without really considering that he would already know exactly how that felt.

"Look, Scarab, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that in the way it sounded," I thought over the link.

"It's... It's ok my Queen, you're right, that's not a nice feeling, I'm sorry," he said in a smaller voice.

"No, Scarab, I shouldn't have said that, it was insensitive and cruel and you don't deserve to have what happened to you thrown in your face for not understanding something. Now, although I shouldn't have said it like that, I need you to understand we aren't going to treat the Zebras like that, we shouldn't hurt others just because it's easier to get what we want by doing so, do you understand what I'm trying to say?" I asked, trying to get across my point and apologetic feelings with the tone of my thoughts.

"I think so, my Queen, but you don't have to apologise to me, you're my Queen, you can say and do whatever you want to me."

"No, Scarab, just because I'm your Queen doesn't mean I should hurt you just because I can, just like we shouldn't hurt the Zebras for no reason." I thought while letting out a sigh.

I stayed silent for a few seconds and tried to think of a way to get actually Scarab to see the Zebras as more than just food.

Ok, here's what I want you to do, Scarab, I want you to try and make friends with this Zebra mare and I want you to try to actually mean it, I may not know Zebras all that well but I know most people I've met can love their friends and it might be good for you too." I thought to my Changeling.

"It will be done, my Queen," he replied.

"Ok, good to hear, I will check in again in the morning, let me know if anything happens before then, ok?" I said before letting the link fade from my mind.

I let out another sigh, as I curled up in the small cave.

I really need to be more careful with what I say, I don't think Scarab is going to hold it against me, he seems almost obsessively devoted to me but I don't want to say stupid shit that hurts him, he's been nothing but good to me so far, if a bit odd sometimes, I let out a large yawn, my mouth opening far further then felt normal, almost unhinging like a snake's, briefly reminding me of the battle with the other Changelings and that I could easily fit someling's head in my mouth now. 

Shivering a little at the memory I tried to get comfortable and closed my eyes.
Once we are back together in person I should give him a hug, he seemed to really like the last one. I thought as I drifted off to sleep.