Archive of Our Own

We were beautiful once. I was beautiful once.

There were many like me.

We lurked and hunted and seized our victories in all the dim corners where fools thought themselves safe. Our eyes lit the recesses of my kingdom brighter than any vapid star. Pits, cavities, and concaves ran scattershot through our dark chitin, no two patterns exactly the same. Sunlight passed through our body like a fishing net. Ah, but when we stood together, swarmed together, we gathered a darkness grander than night itself. Equestria’s maudlin shepherd of the moon would bow her head in shame.

My palace, my kingdom, our home, was a magnificent organism with geometries in constant flux, warping by the hour, the minute, the instant. Never it stood still. Never it slept. Never the same way twice. At its core: my throne. The Elder Queens, mothers of my mothers, carved it from adderstone found in a foreign mountain. A battle-scarred witches’ mountain that nullified magic—a residual gift from the hideous creatures that once dwelled within. Outside magic withered in The Hive’s presence. The ponies could not touch us. The alicorns could not touch us. Even the lord of chaos could not touch us, reduced to a powerless collection of spare parts sobbing in the dark for his friends.

Alas, poor Discord was only Discord. One being. One creature. Easily tempted, easily broken, easily leashed.

But we were nothing like him. We were Changelings, and we were many. Untouchable. Unbreakable. For we were shrewd, secure and watchful within our fluctuating Hive. There, we waited for the arrogant sun to blink.

And blink, she did. In the space of that blink, we rose: a great black plume to smother Equestria’s sky. Thousands upon thousands of bodies with one heart. One hunger. One objective. One maw unhinging to swallow. In my dreams, I still see proud old Canterlot crumbling into our jaws. Our teeth slashed Equestria’s bloated belly and let its love bleed into us. We swallowed their screams into our laughing chorus.

It was a feast for the ages. No mother of Changelings had ever dared to do as I had done, and I felt their praise and awe echo through my chest. I held fast to this memory and let it warm me in my lonely days. My hiveless days.

After the Canterlot campaign failed, the Elder Queens spoke less and less. After the coup, they did not speak to me at all. Ashamed of me—of us. I couldn’t blame them. Given the choice, I wouldn’t bear witness either. A foolish string of fear wondered if I couldn’t hear the Elder Queens at all anymore.

Impossible, of course. I, Queen Chrysalis, lived. Therefore, all past Queens lived within me as well. Nothing could take that away. Not defeat, not Twilight Sparkle and her flunkies, not even a decade entombed in stone. Weakened, disheartened, but alive. Bodies perished, but they were only bodies. Changelings never truly died. So long as the Queen still lived, sang, reveled, feasted, infested, so too did all Changelings. We went together. This was the way of things.

Was.

Once upon a time, there was a hive stronger and more beautiful than all the world. We were one body built from many, and I, their thundering Queen, heart of the hive. I, their one and only mother. I, who bore them. I, who named them after my body, so that they would always know where they came from. I, who would have kept them close to me until the end of days. I loved them like no other. I knew them like no other.

My strength was their strength. My rage was their rage. My hunger was their hunger. My voice echoed within itself, and when I spoke, I spoke in countless voices of all the children and Queens that ever were. I carried the centuries in my throat.

Now I was Chrysalis.

I was only Chrysalis.

A fact that I hadn’t truly realized until today. But Ponyville, they say, has a way of shaking sense into you.

She found me on the roof. “There you are!”

My ears twitched in acknowledgment, but I didn’t bother looking up.

“Sheesh, I’ve been losing feathers looking all over the place for you. What happened to waiting by the clock tower?” Cozy Glow landed hard beside me, clinking and clattering more than a shop wagon. She might as well have been, judging by those saddlebags. It looked as if she’d stuffed half a storefront in there. Her cheeks puffed, muttering a series of curses as she adjusted and readjusted and re-readjusted the bag strap along her barrel. “I think I need a new bag, this one doesn’t fit anymore.”

“It might fit if you weren’t so greedy.”

“It wouldn’t be a problem if you just met me at the rendezvous point. Keep skulking around on the roof like this and they’re gonna think you’re a creep. And did you really have to pick the one place in town with everycreature who’d recognize me?” She glared at the School Of Friendship’s heart-topped towers and pulled her hood farther over her head. “It’s the middle of spring; I look like an idiot.”

“You didn’t need my help, nymph.” I spared a glance toward the mysterious cloaked figure with berry-bright eyes leering out of the hood. Perhaps it might have offered some air of menace were it not pastel lavender and white. Well, lavender and beige after a year of use. “You flit about dressed as some robber vagabond—”

“Vagabonds don’t wear pastels.”

“—and yet my disguise is perfection.” I gestured to the perfectly average and uninteresting green pegasus mare sitting averagely in the reflected skylight below us. I even kept my mane and eyes blue; most of these feathered ponies had blue in them. “You’ve some nerve calling a mistress of camouflage and infiltration a ‘creep’.” Whatever that was.

Cozy flipped the saddlebag open to grab a sandwich. Steam wafted off the roasted carrots as she ate. “Not all of us can just switch up their look whenever. I had to sew this. Also, normal pegasi like to sit in the clouds when we watch a game.” She gestured to the crowd below us. “Or the stands. You know, places where you can actually see?”

A siren rang out and the land erupted in a cacophony of screams and stomping hooves. “SCORE!” The loudspeaker echoed across the stands. “School of Friendship takes the lead at nine to seven!”

“I can see just fine from here.”

“But don’t count your cockatrice before they hatch, folks. Something tells me The Feelings Forum won’t let ‘em take the win that easy!”

The game’s next phase started and the Changelings’ center pulled ahead. Darker than the rest, he sported a respectable bottle-green chitin. Those decisive pivots and swift movements almost reminded me of Captain Pharynx, but my Pharynx would never debase himself this way.

Iridescent wings streaked across the field in a beeline for the ball. The drone stretched for the catch, but the rival earth pony’s tail got it first. For his failure, the Changeling’s comrades patted his back and smiled. They… congratulated him?

I blinked at the scoreboard. The header called this game a semifinal. An important match. I frowned and looked back at the field.

This drone had enough dignity to look upset, but it didn’t last long. His teammates laughed as if nothing had happened at all. He—representative of these pastel shadows of the Changeling Hive—failed his blood, his home, and his family before an audience of hundreds. And they congratulated him for it.

“Golly, Chrysalis! I never knew you were such a sports fan. Maybe next time I’ll swipe us some tickets.” The little nuisance hovered at my shoulder, smacking a mouthful of carrot and mayo on rye. “Aw, don’t look so sad. I know it looks pretty bad now, but it’s barely even middlegame. Why, I bet the Feelings Forum can turn it around before you can say pawn promotion!”

The ball bounced from the earth pony’s nose to the griffon’s wing to the unicorn’s basket. The score now stood eleven to seven.

“Or not. It is their first game against a real team, to be fair. Or the third game. I dunno, I don’t follow outdoor sports.”

I shook my head. “They’re not coming back from this. Friendship will take it.”

As it took everything. Insidious conquerors, these ponies. An honorable enemy would have slaughtered us, burnt our bodies, and let the wind take the ashes. A merciful enemy would let us all perish together. But no. They would not even grant us death. Instead, they spirited away my beloved children and dripped sugared poison into their ears to rot them inside out.

Molded now in Equestria’s image, cast in rainbow gloss, I could barely tell pony from Changeling. Yet even this was not the worst of it. Throughout the game, I’d seen the way the spectator Changelings took their seats beside ponies, griffons, dragons, and kirins before sitting amongst their own. No collective. No oneness. No community. At most, they gathered in separate little pods—family units. Units.

Why did they segment themselves this way? Were they not each others’ family? Or did they, too, know this hollow skin of themselves could not sustain? The body of the hive scattered into an assortment of pieces: wings in the stands, mandibles in the field, legs around souvenir cups. Not a hive at all, but individuals sharing space. Like all individuals, they would die alone. How could they stand it?

More than that… without a body, what use was there for the heart? I shuddered.

“Yeah, the School of Friendship’s pretty good.” A light blue Changeling hovered beside us. Blue with pink accents, the reverse of Cozy’s color palette. She’d snuck up on us unawares, though she did not seem to know it. “The Forum’s doing their best; I’m sure they can turn it around. Even if they don’t, it’s only a game, right?” She shrugged with a smile. “The important thing is they all had fun, that’s the most important—oh!”

Cozy ducked under my feathered wing, pulling her head close to my chest.

“Oh no, I’m so sorry! Did I scare you?” What an idiotic question. The alarm sparking off Cozy could be tasted all the way to the goalposts. Presuming she hadn’t lost her sense of taste, too. “It’s alright, little one, I won’t hurt you. Is this the first time you’ve met a Changeling? I can… I can look less scary if you want.” She folded her legs close and softened her features.

I fought back a hiss. You are no Changeling.

“Excuse you. My daughter knows better than to talk to strangers.” I looked her up and down. Something in this one’s delicate build and the curve of her tail rang familiar. I couldn’t say how. “How dare you slither up to us uninvited?”

“Please,” Cozy sniffled. She tilted her head just enough to let her tears stream onto the rooftop where they could be seen. “P-please don’t stand so close to me. I’m… I-I’m not re-ready to meet new creatures yet. I don’t—I don’t mean to be rude. I’m sorry, but…” Her voice crooned into a pathetic sob.

I drew myself high in the way of the shiny Canterlotters with hats. “My daughter has—”

“Anxiety,” whispered Cozy. “No, wait! Agoraphobia.”

“Agoraphobia. It’s our first day out in some time.” My eyes drew towards Canterlot. “We’ve had a difficult year.”

Remorse washed off the interloper. “I’m so sorry to hear that.” Not sorry enough to go away and leave us alone.

I could have spat in her face. I could have snapped at her. I didn’t.

I didn’t… entirely want her to leave us yet. It had been so long since I’d seen my children, and even this warped ugly thing was better than nothing. I couldn’t shake the familiarity of her either. Did she feel it as well? If so, I couldn’t taste it. I sensed nothing from her except the tang of sunscreen lotion.

“You’re right, it was rude of me to barge in like that. I’m sorry. Here, let’s start over.” She pulled herself high and stared at me with eyes like blue marbles: bright, childish, and frivolous. “Good afternoon, welcome to The School Of Friendship’s buckball game. I’ve never seen you two around before and thought I’d come say hello, so um… hello! I’m Professor Ocellus. What’s your name?”

Ocellus? But that couldn’t…

I squinted at the splay of her wings, held at a slight angle under the carapace—trembling and ready. Friendly, but cautious. The stance of an infiltrator. Indeed, Ocellus of brood six-hundred-thirty-two had been reassigned to infiltration after a disastrous scouting attempt. Her voice had whispered in frail creaks, for my Ocellus rarely spoke at all, and only when spoken to. My Ocellus had been raised to respect and revere her betters.

This Ocellus only sported a similar name and build—similar, not the same.

“I’m Cloudcover. This is our first time here, but we’re just passing through. My daughter wanted to see the game.” My eyes narrowed. “In private.”

The thing that called itself Ocellus wilted and stepped back. When Cozy still refused to budge, her mouth pinched in a hurt little frown. “Sorry again. I really didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine. We’re just not used to strangers.”

The word sagged in my stomach: strangers.

She didn’t know me. At all. Even wearing the skins of bugbears or bunny rabbits, my hive had always known me, scented me, felt me from miles away. Whatever this creature was now—whatever it had become—it was not of my hive and not of my body.

Therefore, I owed her no further exchanges, nor farewells. She stumbled through one last mewling apology and flew away. I didn’t watch her go.

My gaze stayed with the frolicking pastel creatures in the buckball field. I waited for that familiar blaze of indignation to swell.

It did not.

I waited for sorrow to suffocate me.

It did not.

Yet I did not feel empty either. I knew emptiness. I had no name for what I felt now.

“It’s dead.”

For so long, I had refused to believe it. Refused to see. But I could not deny my own eyes. Not anymore. If there had ever been a time to reverse it, it had passed long ago. The corruption ran too deep. And I did not even have my rage to keep me warm anymore.

Everyone I loved. Everything I built. Everything I sacrificed. My drones, my soldiers, my nursemaids, my sentinels, my children, my children, my children. Gone. Gone forever.

“My hive is dead.”

“Took you long enough.” Cozy rustled out from under my wing, blue ringlets mushrooming out of the cowl. “Ugh, it’s a sauna under there. ‘Go away’. Two words. That’s all you had to say.” Her tail lashed against the roof shingles as she studied my face. “Like you’re the only one in the world with dead family. Join the club. We’ll throw a party and have cupcakes.”

“I believe your kind calls that a funeral.”

“Nope! When there’s food, it’s called a wake.”

The buzzer echoed across campus. Twilight Sparkle’s School Of Friendship won twenty-to-sixteen. The opposite team had come out strong and put up a decent fight. It wasn’t enough, though.

Cozy shrugged her wings. “Welp. At least you know for sure now.”

Typical ponies in Cozy Glow’s position would have offered consolation or hugs or solidarity with their own stories of loss. This one had never been the sort, though she pretended at it well. In another life, she’d have been the golden grub of any infiltration team. She breathed more lies than air.

Interesting that she’d chosen Ponyville for a supply run. Even more interesting how she’d specifically chosen a day when the former Changelings clashed in buckball, and parted ways with me minutes before the game began. Foraging trips took a half hour at most, but this time she’d lingered for twice that. Long enough for me to get bored and curious.

“How long have you planned this?”

Innocent eyes blinked at me. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean, but keep the charade, if you insist.” I let my long blue tail brush against her cloak. “You wouldn’t need this if you got a haircut, you know. Every creature in the land knows those absurd curls of yours.” After a decade in stone, they were more iconic than the sun on Celestia’s flank.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s a ’liability’ and a ‘hazard’ and it’s like wearing a big ol’ bullseye on my head. I get it enough from the old guy; I don’t need it from you.” In the shadow of the school bell tower, Cozy’s jaw clenched. “I don’t care if Rutherford can see it all the way from Yakyakistan. It’s my mane, and it’s MY head.” Her simmering glare leered toward the open field where we made our last stand. That field was a shopping center now. It sold smoothies and novelty keychains. “They already took my horn and ruined my endgame. They can’t take this too.”

My ears pricked. I turned from the buckball celebration to the seething creature below me. I don’t think she noticed. Those eyes burned straight through me and out the other side. I saw every line of her ribs stretch and heave in her thin chest. A cavernous hunger howled there. Terrible. Corrosive. Endless.

My ears lifted higher. “…Go on.”

“Why? It’s nothing you don’t know already.”

“Humor me.”

“It won’t change anything. Can’t…” The cape hung listless, hood rippling gently in the breeze. Cozy swallowed hard. “Chrysalis, I hate this. I used to think nothing could be worse than how they used to look at me. Like some amateur too stupid to breathe by herself. Like a foal.”

“Like nothing,” I said.

“Same thing.” Cozy snorted. “Don’t know how Rainbow Dash flies when she’s denser than a tungsten blimp. Never stopped ponies from hanging on her every word, though. Even playing Big Chess, even with the school in the frog of my hoof, I had to tear out my teeth for a teensy bit of the same respect as anypony over twenty. Sometimes not even then.” A mirthless smile breezed across her face. “But not when I had the Bell. I nailed Celestia and Luna in one hit. Rook takes queen; ‘mate in two.” Little hooves grasped at the empty air. “Like… there’s power and there’s power. Golly, I wish you could’ve seen Twilight’s face. Nopony’s ever looked at me like that.”

“Frightened?”

“Hopeless.” Bitterness drowned under the sweet taste of stale euphoria. The smile grew teeth. “I’m gonna remember that forever.”

I nodded. “It’s not enough, is it?”

“You know it’s not.” The bitterness trickled back in, watered down but steady. “I can’t even go back to little chess. Even if I cut my mane—and I won’t—they still know my face. Can’t change that.”

Flocks of sparrows settled in the empty stands to pick at bits of abandoned pretzels and carrot dog buns. Their chittering echoed as they fought over scraps. Farther out, the groundskeeper swept up the trash. If the birds didn’t hurry, there wouldn’t be anything left to war over at all.

“It is a pity to hear that, Cozy Glow.”

The pegasus lifted an eyebrow and tensed, prepared to bolt.

I returned the look. “What?”

“You don’t use words like ‘pity’ unless you’re about to bite someone.”

Fair. “It’s a point of fact in this case. Always a pity to see the strong laid low by the weak.”

The other eyebrow rose. “You think I’m strong?”

“I wouldn’t put up with you otherwise.”

“Oh. Okay.” She relaxed. Not much. “Chrysalis?”

“Hm?”

“Are you, like… okay?”

I thought about it. “Yes,” I said.

Better than okay. I recognized the feeling now. Not emptiness at all, but something I hadn’t felt in centuries: peace. The Queen Of Changelings felt at peace.

Had the Elder Queens felt this way when their reigns ended? Supposedly they always knew when their time had come. I once asked Mother how one would ever know such a thing. How could any competent Queen abdicate at all? Should they not reign forever?

“If they reigned forever, there would be no Elder Queens. When the time comes,” Mother had told me, “you will know.”

She was right. Queens always are.

“Are you sure?” Cozy’s frown deepened. “You look different.”

“Do I? Hm. No matter.” I rose to my hooves and tilted my wings to her. Veins of refracted light shone in her pink coat. “Cozy Glow, you…” It’d been ages since I’d heard these words, and I never committed them to memory. In my arrogance, I assumed I’d never need to. “Cozy Glow of Equestria, today you have revealed the truth of my former hive. In doing so, you have done me great service. If it should find you well, The Queen would like to bestow a boon upon you.”

Or was it “bestow upon you a boon”? Close enough.

“A boon like a reward?” Cozy tilted her head with a sugared smile. Tinges of caution clung to her, but anticipation and greed sang louder. The scent complimented the traces of carrot sandwich on her breath. “Well golly, your majesty! I think that would suit me just fine.”

“I thought you might say that.” It felt good to smile. I’d missed it.

A springtime warm front rolled in from the west. Whitetail Woods, too, lay west. Good conditions for a flight. “We’re taking the long way back.” I lifted off without waiting for an answer.

The clattering heap known as Cozy appeared at my hip some minutes later, panting and flapping away all her carrot sandwich calories. “I’ve got like ten extra pounds back here! Slow down, will ya?”

I didn’t. “It’s such a wonderful afternoon. I would like to enjoy it.”

On that note, I cast off my pegasus disguise in a stretch of limbs and wings. The breeze rolled through my pits and hollows like a flute. Much better. Undersized bodies did the job but cramped fast, especially with Ponyville’s love tempting my stomach.

Straining, she pulled ahead to my withers. “Then enjoy it on your own time. They’re bringing in a storm tonight, and this breeze is—whoa!—becoming a gale.”

“You can handle it.”

We rarely recognize final moments when they arrive. The last warm sleep in your nest. The last words spoken before someone leaves forever. The last time you hold your child. The knowledge ruins it, I think. I had the luxury (or burden) of knowing this would be one of my last flights by my own two wings. I deserved to savor it.

As for the child, I spared her knowledge of her last pegasus flight. Let this temporary annoyance become a warm memory. Besides, I wasn’t the one who decided to haul ten pounds of garbage.

Cozy gave a judgmental squint. “Sooooo. You’re just staying like that? Not that I’m complaining, but aren’t you worried somecreature might see you?” She hovered closer. “And blow our cover?” Closer. Her teeth hardened into a vice. “The cover we worked all year to build?”

They’d have to make it back alive first. “Why dearest Cozy,” I cooed, “I do believe Lord Tirek’s lectures have finally sunken in. Won’t he be pleased?”

“Common sense, that’s all. Try it sometime.” Quieter, she added, “He’s not exactly wrong all the time, either. Even if he’s all paranoid and… different now.”

I huffed. “Weaker.”

“No. Different.” She spoke with a firm sobriety that I rarely saw in her. The pubescent crack in her voice diluted the effect, somewhat. “He’s as strong as he was when I saw him in Tartarus—”

Strong as a withered prune, in other words.

“—but on the inside it’s… I dunno. He’s not like he used to be.” Cozy climbed higher to avoid another westerly. “Before he left yesterday, he actually told me to be careful. Not like he thought I’d mess up the supply run, but like he was… anyway, it’s a weird thing to say. I’ve been taking care of myself for years, what’s a few more days?”

She zipped closer to let the saddlebag “accidentally” knock the side of my horn. “At least Tirek knows better than to open his stupid big fat stupid mouth when three Equestrian superpowers have a sword to his neck.”

A poor choice of metaphors. Swords dirtied hooves; precious Celestia would never. “Queens face oblivion with valor. I cannot say the same of infants and over-compensating centaurs.” I rolled my neck to let my regal mane banner in the wind. “Instead of mewling like breezies, it was I whose incredible power cracked our prison. I who covered our tracks and left those fools none the wiser.”

Beneath thin cirrus stretched Canterlot with its steady flow of aimless gentry and gawking tourists. Except for the castle. Equestria’s focal point sat empty, save for the staff and guards who lived there. In the gardens, hornet-yellow ribbons bordered an empty stone platform. Chunks of the stone doppelganger scattered across the flowerbeds.

Cozy huffed and lifted higher. “Yeah, great job with that. Super special trophy for the employee of the month. Next time, maybe give your spells a half-life longer than a year.”

“A year and a half, thank you.” Under the muscle and arcanal atrophy, I’m honestly surprised it’d even taken that long.

“Whatever. Whose ‘weak pony emotions’ spent a decade eroding that nasty tri-cast spell in the first place so you could take the last shot? Spellbreak’s the least you could do when you put us there in the first place.”

Cozy kicked and stomped through the cirrus with the toothless destruction of a toddler in rain puddles. “‘Let Discord go,’ you said. ‘He’s no threat,’ you said. Don’t take pieces off the board, let’s play with them some more and wait for them to break out and ruin the whole operation. ‘Patience, Cozy’, you said!” She wheeled on me, bristling. “We HAD it! I had ‘mate in three, but you, YOU—”

“Oh, poor thing. Did silly old Chrysalis ruin your whole day?” I allowed myself a chuckle. “You think you’d have done better?”

“Tch. I know I would have.”

Impudent little worm. If not for her masks, somepony would’ve stomped her to pulp years ago.

This was absolutely going to work.

The occasion demanded ceremony and gravitas, yet I couldn’t keep the grin away. “This is hardly the way to thank someone for a boon.”

“Yeah, about that. We’re three losers camped out in a shack. No minions, no artifacts, no fortresses, nothing. What could you possibly offer me?”

“I can make you Queen,” I told her. “A Changeling Queen.”

The wind slowed and died. Cozy’s cloak swung limp as she hovered there, the air stagnant between us. She stared. “What?”

“I can make you a Changeling Queen, Cozy Glow.”

“…You’re not serious,” said Cozy’s mouth.

You’re insane, said Cozy’s eyes.

Tell me more, begged Cozy’s heart. I think you are lying to me. Please don’t lie to me. Tell me more.

“I’m quite serious. You were right; your emotional chisel broke the stone. That emotion was fear.”

Cozy flapped into the westerly and rode it downslope. Her mouth twisted, eyes on the skyline. “And?”

I rode an updraft, twisting in a slow clockwise circle. “You faced the nation’s champions, the reigning alicorns, and a quarter of the Equestria united in a rainbow onslaught. You felt your breath freeze in your lungs and watched your body stiffen to granite.” I shifted closer. “Yet none of those things frightened you as much as whatever eroded our prison. I want to know what it was.”

“Why?”

“Context. It helps to understand who I’m promoting.”

We flew on in silence. Wind tugged the hood from Cozy’s taut face. She fought to keep it upright, but after the fifth time, she gave up. The mass of curls jolted above the billowing cape.

“Twilight Sparkle doesn’t decide who I’m allowed to be,” she finally said. “Reformation, schmeformation. I won’t be her pawn.” Cozy glanced over her withers. “Or yours.”

“Ha! As if I’d waste this boon for a common soldier or drone.”

Rounding a cumulus, Cozy flipped backward to make eye contact. “As if you’d willingly surrender your power.”

Two hours ago, she would have had a point. “I have no power to surrender.”

The statement surprised both of us. Even under these circumstances, my pride should’ve burned the words to ashes or parried with insults or retreated into silence.

I chose not to explore the implications. “I don’t think I could transform you into a drone even if I wished it. Don’t misunderstand me: I said queen and meant it. You would be the one and only monarch of your hive. Yours.”

Cozy Glow examined my eyes for a time. Her voice shrank. “Are you… dying?”

“Queens never die.”

“Then how do you get new Queens?”

“Accept the boon, and I’ll show you.”

Wind petered out as the clouds thinned into empty sky and meadows. Bordering the meadow, Whitetail Woods rolled out for us in a welcome mat of pine and shadows. It swallowed us like an old friend.

In the gloaming, Cozy’s merry colors blared like a dart frog. “I don’t get it. Don’t you have to be a Changeling first? Born that way?”

“Mistakes can always be rectified. It’s rare to carve new Changelings from ponies but, in times of need, it has been done.”

I sized up this pile of fluff, feathers, and ribbons. Skinny without much musculature to speak of, as Tirek often noted. The surplus of natural pegasus magic likely made up for it. Though no expert in pony biology, I’d have expected a fourteen—wait, we’d been out for over a year—a fifteen-year-old to be larger by now. She’d once been underfed or sickly, perhaps. A poor metamorphosis candidate, in theory.

My gaze snapped back to the pegasus.

The pegasus held it.

All theories could be refuted. I would not be—was not wrong.

“It’s rare to have need for it, but rarer still to find a capable pony as yourself, Cozy. You understand hunger as none of your peers do. You are relentless. Dauntless. A deceiver who does not flinch from brutality. You understand the difference between necessity and base cruelty. If you are not fit to be queen, no pony alive is.”

Cozy narrowed her eyes in silent concentration as she followed the thin silver creek through the trees.

At the creek already. Practically home. No prints or broken branches or other sign of the centaur’s return marred the woodland. Still, I preferred not to risk it. Now or never.

“My offer stands thus: you will become more than you are. You will amass more power than you would ever hope to have and live longer than you could ever dream. The legacy of your new hive will follow you long after you’re gone.” I gestured to the cities and villages we’d left behind the trees. “We don’t have lesser nobility, princesses, mayors, or any of that splintered nonsense. A hive has one center. You would be at the beck and call of no one.”

Cozy’s pace slowed.

“You would never need to be afraid or alone. Never again. You’ll live forever.”

“Forever’s an awful long time. This all sounds crazy.” She considered it. Considered me. Watched the minnows thread through bubbling silver water. “But I don’t think you’re lying. You’re kind of bad at it.”

North of the creek sat a homely stone cabin. Abandoned by the ponies, the woods had reclaimed it some years before our arrival. Generations of mice flourished beneath the floorboards. Holes jutted through the roof to feed the grass carpeting the floors. Green moss wallpapered the whole affair. A young yew tree in the kitchen bent up and out of the broken rooftop.

Tirek rebuilt holes in the walls and Cozy eliminated the mice. I sealed the roof with the bits and shreds of my throne I’d still had tucked away. Not enough adderstone to parry coordinated attacks, but enough to repel pegasus rain and scrying spells. The yew tree remained, hole in the roof and all. No need to rip it out, and besides, I rather liked the look.

Now, the flowering yew rose to meet us. Half the size of the neighboring trees, it had grown up fast. Cozy folded her wings into a smooth dive and landed in the crook of branches. “Alright. What’s in it for you?”

“Everything,” I told her. “If I don’t do this now, everything that came before will have been for…” I stared into the canopy and tried not to remember the scent of the nursery or the deafening silence of the Elder Queens or Ocellus’ bright marble eyes that didn’t recognize me. “I’ve run out of options. This… has to happen.”

Cozy Glow’s ears twitched, and she took a step forward. “You need me. Not like an alliance or a minion thing, either. You need me for real.”

“Yes.”

She took a long look at her little wings, at me, at the adderstone roof beneath her hooves. Her eyes leveled to mine. “Your boon is accepted. I’ll do it.”

“Good.” As a show of goodwill, I magicked her heavy saddlebag onto the kitchen table ahead of her. “Now you must promise me two things: whatever happens in the next few days, you must trust me. I am doing this for you.”

Also for royal honor and duty, but with the boon now accepted, these things intertwined anyway.

Cozy slid down the trunk into the kitchen where she twirled a quick barrel roll over the stove to land on the table. I opted to glide through the hole in the roof like a civilized creature.

She tossed her cloak onto the grassy floor for someone else to clean up and dumped the saddlebag’s contents on the table. “What’s the other thing?”

“Don’t make it weird.”

“Got it. Become a new species complete with royal upgrade. Totally normal Wednesday.”

The supply run had indeed been a success. She’d plundered a month’s worth of bread, canned goods, dried fruits, and what I presumed were the usual ingredients for baking, cooking, and whatever else mammals did besides hunting. Little glass jars and vials from the cabinets lined the table in orderly rows, their tops already removed and prepped for filling.

I wrinkled my nose at the scent of peppermint and tried not to retch. “How much of that did you steal?”

One wing nudged aside a jar of foul-smelling cream while her hooves poured herbs and spices into their containers. “Just the stuff for my mane. The rest is all bought and paid for by the good citizens of Ponyville helping a sweet filly buy train tickets home. I could even afford Tirek’s extra supplements.” Cozy patted the massive stack of protein bars next to the hair product. “He’d better appreciate it; this stuff weighs a ton.”

She giggled to herself. “Wow, imagine ‘Lord’ Tirek’s face when he finds out I outrank him. He’ll blow a gasket.”

Tints of orange light lit the top of the yew tree, and the cabin’s shadows leaned long. Tirek usually traveled by night, but he’d risk daylight if he wanted to make better time. If he hadn’t returned by now, that meant he’d gone beyond Whitetail Woods last night. He’d be starting the journey back around sunset and probably wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow evening.

Maybe.

I would not stake the future of the Changelings on maybes.

“All the more reason to leave this our little secret for now. Between us girls.” I smiled. “Or rather, between us Changelings. Besides, the old thing’s such a wet blanket these days.”

Cozy frowned but didn’t disagree. “I wanted to rub his nose in it but… guess he’ll find out eventually.” She brightened. “Surprises are funnier anyway.”

That was one word for it.

With the last of the spices deposited, Cozy reapplied the tops and let the saddlebag flop on her chair. “So when do we start? Is there like lessons, or?”

“Right now. If all goes well, there will be a new Queen by Sunday.” I leaned on the table and laughed at her surprise. “We don’t waste time with lessons and training. Queens are born, not made. It’s a simple process: you consume the Royal Jelly, undergo a brief morph, and emerge. That’s all.”

She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “That’s all?”

“Perhaps a moment or two of discomfort.” I shrugged. “You’ll sleep through most of it.”

I closed my eyes and breathed. A deep inhale that rolled through every facet of me. A slow exhale through every hollow, pit, spiracle, and little cavity. I did it again once, twice, three times.

My heart throbbed slow and ready. It felt something like hibernation exercises. In a way, I suppose it was.

I perched on the table beside her. I’d considered staying beside the table for extra leverage, but gravity did the bulk of the work for this part. “Alright. Sit and open your mouth.”

The pegasus glanced at the spoons and jars and other vessels nearby, shrugged, and sat at my hooves. She watched the hinge of my fanged mouth open as my horned shadow rolled over her.

“Wait. The jelly comes out of you?”

“Where else?” Trying my utmost best to embody the grace and patience of a Queen’s last days, I withheld a sigh. “You promised not to make it weird.”

“I’m not, I’m asking a question.” Cozy sniffed the air. “Is that what smells like cotton candy? Honey comes out of bees… guess it’s not that weird.”

Ponies ate honey? Filthy degenerates.

“Okay.” Cozy shook herself off and braced. “Okay. I’m ready.”

“Good. Stay still; I can only do this once.”

Somewhat less eager than before, Cozy Glow opened her mouth and waited.

My wings flared wide. Through the green membrane, the sunset cast the table in a faint emerald glow. Underworked muscles strained. Stretched. Pushed, pushed, pushed, PUSHED.

A thin wheeze burst through my throat, and the air went sweet. I tasted the ghost of love in my mouth.

Everything in me screamed to swallow it back down. Screamed that this was all I had left. Screamed that I would not, could not get it back.

I ignored it. I strained harder.

Slowly, the glow brightened. The table rocked as my hooves braced against the petrified wood. Vision flickered. My ears plastered flat against my skull as my body jolted forward with one last heave.

Veils of tattered mane fell across the both of us. Cozy twitched at the strings of mane on her shoulder, but didn’t move.

The air hung heavy and sweet. A blinding translucence pooled in my jaws. The caverns of my body—every pit, every hole, every dent, every empty space that could fill—rang with light. Gleaming crescents reflected across the table in a crosshatch of bright tiny smiles. Steam wafted from spiracles.

Deep within my body, a great mass tore itself free. It sounded like the time Tirek ripped a dictionary in half. Stomach lining bled and oozed and congealed around the mass until it liquefied. Bubbling. Crackling. Melting. Moving.

Once, it had been an egg sac. An arcanal breadbasket. An ancient unyielding thing of life and death.

Love. The love passed from generation to generation to generation, seasoned by the centuries. Love passed down from all Queens before me. Still here. Still alive. Still hungry. Always hungry.

The christening swam upstream like salmon dragging scythes.

My throat burned. Everything burned. Good.

I leaned over young Cozy Glow and let the royal jelly flow into her throat. Indeed, it tasted like cotton candy.

Translucent and steaming like blood in snow, it spooled into her. Viscous globs dripped with a steady plop.

A pained noise crawled from Cozy’s body. Her wings splayed and twitched, every feather an exclamation point of agony. Steam curled from her wet red throat. Tears pooled in the corners of her pinprick eyes. Her shoulders jolted and buckled. She tried to pull away.

My horn lit. Magic fixed her head in place and pried her mouth wider.

A blackening molar clattered on the table. Two incisors followed.

Loose feathers scattered into the air, swooping in the half-light. Her thin chest heaved so deep I could count the ribs. She tried to scream, but the battered vocal cords only managed a dull whimper. Curly mane tumbled down her withers in sticky chunks.

The royal jelly oozed slower. Almost done, little nymph. Be patient.

The slick table slipped out from wet sweaty hooves. Front legs curled tight in the grip of magic. Back hooves skidded, kicked, flailed, pulled. Dust and leaves and granules of spices swirled through the kitchen as her wings flapped a hurricane of protest. All her carefully arranged spice bottles crashed and shattered on the floor.

Pity I couldn’t use a prey cocoon for this. A proper feeding dulled the senses with the fog of the prey's own love. Nothing soured love quicker than terror, and Cozy stored so little love in her already. Nothing to be done about it now.

The jelly tapered off in a thin glowing rivulet that splattered across the pony’s wet cheeks. It seeped into the fur and slowly smoldered through skin. White bone shone through the smoke.

Cozy tugged weakly in the grip of my magic with a little sob. I released her trembling jaw. She tried to close it. She failed. The remains of her tongue sloughed out of where her teeth used to be.

“I am doing this for you,” I reminded her. Gently, my teeth closed around her neck. I bit down. Nice and clean at the base of the spine.

She sagged heavy and went limp. The room stilled. Tumbleweeds of feathers and fur rolled in the breeze. In the distance, crickets chirped. I magicked the broken glass into a trashcan, shook off the excess jelly, and went to Cozy’s room.

On the way, I caught our reflections in a mirror above the chore wheel. An amusing sight: I, seeping internal fluids from every orifice, and Cozy dangling in my jaws like a felled antelope or an infant kitten.

Tendons bulged under my tongue. One bloodshot eye rolled up to stare at me. The tips of her hooves dragged stiff and rigid, tinged green. Little wings had dislocated to curl around her withers. I thought I’d have more time before this part. Always count on Cozy to rush.

Her canopy bed sat in the corner—a silly pastel thing of lace and toile with a cumulus mattress. Splitting the curtains, I spat layers of silk across the headboard. Swiftly as I dared, I spun Cozy’s legs from hoof to pastern in a thicker silk layer and let it attach itself. Her head swung upside down to rest upon the cloud pillow. It sat there a moment before slowly sinking through the mist.

With my last reserves, I cocooned her. A weave of silk and ichor saturated in Royal Jelly, the process demanded more intricacy and detail than a mere prey capsule. I’d never woven anything like this before, never seen it, never even known of it until tonight. Instinct knew better than mind, and guided my threads.

Two hours later, I beheld a masterpiece.

A turquoise jewel hung in the sequestered cave of her room, surrounded by soft trappings of an old life. Light pulsed with her heartbeat, and the shadows jumped in time with it. An opening gaped at the bottom to shed her old things.

Cozy Glow’s eye stared through the translucent walls. Raw muscle puckered where skin had melted. Her mouth hung parted in a frozen scream.

I laughed, though it hurt my raw throat. “Rejoice, my lovely little Cozy Glow. You are going to be beautiful.”