> First Contact
>  by The Psychopath
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Why are you like this?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The visitor from Equestria waded through the thick foliage of the dense and humid forest. A plethora of flying insects big and small infested the air around him, but chitin bore no interest to them. They were more interested in flesh and blood. A perk changelings possessed that regular ponies did not. Something the blue bug had learned from his time infiltrating equines and learning of their hatred for all things small and buzzy, like fleas.

The visitor looked up to the barely-visible sky and squinted. The massive leaves of the trees here made it difficult to see many details, but a changeling could easily adapt to such a thing. As for why this bug had come...He felt a hunch. Chrysalis never ordered anyone over the seas since she was so focused on what they already had around them. He heaved a sigh. It made sense. Plus, how would they even travel overseas? A few changelings could, but an entire hive? There were limits. They didn't have the stamina to stay transformed as sea or air creatures, let alone travel like them for several days straight.

A tiger hissed at the visitor before scampering back off into the foliage. Apparently, even felines didn't have a taste for chitin. 

The changeling sighed in relief. "There must be another hive here. I can smell their magic." He rubbed his muzzle. "Well, it smells weird, like cut grass, but it's here."

The blue bug turned into a bee and started to buzz around. Minutes turned to hours, and the sun above had started to set, leaving the forest even darker. He landed on a leaf and wiped his forehead of sweat.

"This is exhausting. This forest is too big!" he complained to himself.

Foliage shuffling garnered the bee's attention. It looked like the source was a small, red monkey. The bee focused on, suspicious. The bee's wings drooped at his side upon the realization that it was just a regular monkey.

"I--"

A sudden shriek followed by two enormous claws bursting out of the foliage to pull the ape in startled the visitor. Such a thing was not known in Equestria. If he couldn't bring back an alliance, at least he could bring back a new form for the new hive to use. Only stunned silence revealed itself to the visitor when he discovered what the 'claws' belonged to standing on an immense tree branch.

A changeling with immense mandibles crenelated with sharp, interior protrusions had killed the monkey and begun devouring it. The mandibles on each side of its face were the length of a full changeling's torso, and the visitor stared in awe as they gradually shrank and retracted into nubs on each side of the changeling's face. A second one popped out from the foliage by turning its head.

Evidently, these changelings had developed a natural form of camouflage as attested by their green manes and tails adopting the appearance of mossy branches covered in vines and a few leaves. 

"What's that?" the newcomer asked.

"A monkey." The first gave the changeling a sideglance then pulled the meal away aggressively. "It's mine!"

Whenever the two talked, the visitor could see that their mouths were covered by four pieces that formed a pyramid of solid chitin. The insides of their mouths, as far as he could tell, were line with a plethora of sharp teeth.

The first changeling coughed suddenly, reached into his mouth, and pulled out a few of his teeth. "Aw. Lost some." He shrugged and tossed them over his shoulder at his fellow.

"Watch it!" the victim complained.

The visitor found himself taken aback by the reaction. "Gross," he thought to himself. "Hey you!" he called out to the bugs.

The changelings immediately came to attention, but the first still carried the monkey in its mouth, letting it dangle about from his face.

"Who is there?" the first one called out.

"I am," the visitor declared. The buzzing bee transformed once more to reveal a blue changeling with a deep, resplendent mane and tail of gradient blues that made them appear like they were made of velvet at the right angles. They extended past his head into a tuft, and two locks went past his shoulders. His tail was equally 'false floofy' thanks to his changeling magic and shading. Darker at the roots and brighter at the tips, his large eyes followed a similar pattern of gradation from the pupils and out. "I am a changeling, like you," he stated.

The two stared, dumbfounded.

An answer came from the first changeling. "Mmmfffmfff ppfff a kmmff," he mumbled.

The second looked at him. "What? Spit out the monkey!"

The first acquiesced but pulled the meal away greedily. "She looks like a princess. I've never seen one like that."

"That changeling is broken," the second stated absent-mindedly. "She doesn't even sound right."

The blue changeling turned red in frustration. "I'm not a princess! I'm a prince! Don't you have those?!" 

A chuckle left the monkey-eater before he resumed chomping on his food.

"That's not a thing," the second changeling stated. "There's just drones with tasks, a princess, and a queen."

"I'm telling you that I'm a prince of Queen Chrysalis' hive!"

The monkey-eater scoffed and spat out a bone. "Yeah. Sure. There's 'another' queen, and you're a 'prince'." His dismissal enticed a cackle from the second. 

"It's okay, Kryo. They're just a different hive with a different culture. You've dealt with this before," the prince told himself. "Look, my name is Kryostasis, and I want to speak to your queen!" he said with barely contained frustration.

"Okay," the money-eater blurted out.

Kryostasis froze, like his brain had shut off. "I...I can?"

"Yes," the monkey-eater confirmed.

There was a long pause. "Can I see her now?"

"Yes."

The second changeling stood in place, silent and judgmental. Kryo was left to his own thoughts.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

The blue changeling passed a hoof through his mane and paced about the immense tree branch and produced a deep exhale. "Are you going to show me where she is?!"

The monkey-eater looked shocked. "What, now? I'm eating!"

Kryo looked at the monkey and retreated in disgust. "Why are you even eating that?"

"Because it's food? Durrr!" he mocked.

"But...changelings eat love! We nourish ourselves on it!" Kryo protested.

The second waved a hoof at the visitor. "That's not even a food! That's just a concept! You can't eat a concept."

"Plus, it's debatable that 'love' is even real to begin with," the monkey-eater said between bites.

"You're right! That's really stupid. How do they even digest it or take it in?" The second sat down and thought deeply, then his eyes shot wide open. "Do they poop?"

His question was underlined by strangled coughing. "I'm eating! Stop talking about poop!"

"But--"

Kryo pointed at the second. "You! Take me to your queen! I have important matters to speak of!"

"But you know where it is."

Kryostasis changed his foreleg into an ursa major's immense limb and trapped the changeling's head between two massive claws. "Take me or else."

The bug looked down then at Kryo and rolled his black eyes. "Fine. Big larva forgot the way."

"Wh-djj-wh..." Kryostasis stammered in disbelief.

These bugs had almost no survival instinct or were just used to such things occurring. What was wrong with this hive? The blue bug quickly followed after the changeling through the air and dodging all the branches, plants, and dangling vines as best he could. The darkness didn't help either, but it was the best Kryostasis could hope for. The familiar buzzing of changelings started fill the air, bringing a bit of calming familiarity to the visitor whose nerves were on fire.

They happened upon an immense pile of fallen trees that stretched several dozen feet in all directions. Kryostasis could barely make out a few large rocks under the pile and a small cliff. This 'green hive' was climbing all over the place, and the blue bug found his eyes hurting from trying to spot the camouflaged bugs from the openly revealed ones.

"Just fly into the pile. She's somewhere in there," the second changeling stated dismissively.

"But-Oh. You left already."

Kryostasis sighed. This was going to be a real test of his patience if the queen was anything like her brood. The bugs that saw him coming stopped everything just to stare. All these immobile, silent, green bugs let Kryostasis get a better look at them. The chitin comprising their bodies seemed to be composed of overlapping scales. Rather large scales. It reminded the blue changeling of the shields ponies would use in combat.

It wasn't as unpleasant as he expected when he went through the brambles into the strange interweaving tunnels of rotted wood. The light was provided by a strange, bioluminescent mushroom that the green changelings were tending to. It almost made it seem like the interior was illuminated by the sun. It smelled like it, too. A rancid odor of rotting flesh mixed in with the stench of the moldy wood, burning the visitor's nostrils.

After several minutes of getting lost and being guided by the green changelings, Kryostasis finally happened upon the royal chamber. It was just a larger, rounder room with a pile of mulch in its center. That's where the queen was laying. A queen that shared the same traits as her brood, but enhanced. Her mane and tail creeped along her chitin like a greedy vine. Her green eyes were as empty and apathetic as the rest of the hive's. They seemed to be comprised of three green equilateral triangles whose peak pointed at a pupil floating in a transparent void. It was an oddity that even Kryostasis couldn't understand. Her body looked like it was composed of chitinous segments interlocked with a yellow glue, and her hooves glowed faintly through said cracks. Her wings were hidden underneath sturdy, jungle-green hemelytra.

"Who are you? It's my egg-laying time. Go away," she stated plainly.

Kryostasis bowed, surprising the queen before him. "I am Prince Kryostasis of Queen chrysalis' hive. I have been sent to seek other hives and to acquire an audience with their queens so that we may begin discussions on a potential alliance to depose the ponies of Equestria of their positions of dominance. Of course, I am here to negotiate potential terms to make this prospect advantageous as much to you as to us." Several seconds passed when the blue bug decided to look up at the queen staring at him, wide-eyed. "Your highness?"

"That's a lot of words to say you want to talk and join forces, princess," she said plainly.

"I'm not-!" Kryostasis caught himself and cleared his throat. "W-well, yes, but I thought that normal decorum--"

"I don't remember having a changeling look like you, and my name isn't 'Chrysalis'."

The blue bug clenched internally. This was going to be hard. "I know your name isn't 'Chrysalis'. I come from another hive. From across the ocean."

The green queen looked to the side then smirked. "You're aquatic, then? Is that why you're blue?"

Kryostasis' eye twitched. "Wh-There's an entire continent over there!"

"Pffff. No there isn't," the queen dismissed. "Otherwise we would be able to see it."

"But that doesn't even-gnnngh! Then where did I come from?!"

Eyes scanned the blue changeling up and down before the queen shrugged and pointed to the ground. "Here?" she suggested.

"How come you never saw me before, then?!"

"A fashion statement hiding what you actually look like?"

Kryostasis exhaled loudly and angrily and turned away from the green queen. "It's for the queen, it's for the queen, it's for the queen," he repeated to himself in rapid succession. He spun around with the most forced smile the queen had ever seen. "Nooo, I come from over there," the blue bug specified. "Another continent. In fact, I didn't even know that this place existed."

"You only gained sapience recently? You're not a larvae, though," the queen mused.

"I'm reaching my limit," Kryo growled. "I just want to have a discussion with you about Queen Chrysalis and an alliance!"

The queen shrugged again. "I don't see why I should listen to that," she said as she fiddled with her bed.

Kryostasis started to think. There was finally some progress. "Because it would profit you?"

"Oh?"

"Yes! If we take over Equestria, then you would have new hunting grounds. We could harvest the love from the ponies and--"

"Do what?" the queen interrupted.

"Harvest their love?"

Perplexion and wide eyes covered the queen's face. "How would you even do that? Why would you even do that?"

"Because it's what changelings feed on..." the blue bug wheezed.

The queen narrowed her eyes. "That's not a food."

"That's just what we do!"

"But that's stupid. That's a concept."

"It's the magic of love!" Kryostasis shouted out in desperation. "We feed on that magic! It's rich and nourishing for our kind!"

The queen patted her bed several times as she laughed. "No wonder you're so thin and disheveled! You have to eat real food!"

"But it is real food!" Kryo shouted in desperation. "I'm going to kill her," he thought to himself. "There's plenty of animals over there that are immense in size, like cows and yaks. You could eat them! They could feed you for weeks if you manage their meat correctly."

He saw the queen's ears perk up. "Really now?" She stopped to ponder while Kryo hoped that she was the kind to only believe something when they heard what they wanted to. "Say this place is real and you're not just pretending, why should I: Queen Formicida, do anything for some other queen I know nothing of?"

Now they were getting somewhere. Finally! "Because of the vast amount of hunting grounds you could get, and the aforementioned food you could acquire! I-in fact, there are other lands full of large species you could hunt! My brood mates have gone to them as well to look for other hives. You could have all the-" the blue bug held back a sickly burp. "-meat that you want."

The queen looked to the side of her room where a plethora of meat cuts were held in some sort of amber-colored substance. It looked like they were stored in amber. "Well, I am getting tired of monkey and anteater all the time." She tapped her bed. "Fine. Go get me this 'Queen' of yours, princess, and I'll believe you. Mmmmaybe."

"I'm not a princess!" Kryostasis blurted out. "I'm a prince!"

"That's not a thing," Formicida said. She noticed his tensing body and reddening face and let out her mandibles. They were easily the size of a pony and far sharper and more threatening than the more rounded ones of the drones. The blue bug also noticed a strange odor filling his nostrils. He turned around to see that a few of the drones were peering beyond the entryway. "Ah ah. No need for aggression. We're using our words."

Kryostasis straightened himself out and smiled. "I wouldn't dare to do such a thing. This is diplomacy, after all." He frowned. "But I would ask that you refrain from insulting me or my queen in the future. That, I won't tolerate."

Formicida retracted her mandibles and stood up. "Then get going. I'm long overdue for my laying."

Kryostasis forced himself to bow. "Good bye, queen," he said before making for the doorway.

Right before he reached it, the queen waved him goodbye. "Bye bye, princess," she teased. Formicida received an angry yell in return followed by the blue bug storming out and disappearing, while the drones giggled to themselves. "So tense. He should sunbathe instead of pretending to that extent. Tsk tsk."