Chrysalis has to admit that the simple physical exertion of pulling a cart with two recovering changelings curled up on it, after centuries of mostly just lounging around and giving mental orders, feels strangely relaxing.
She's been avoiding another trip into the hive mind, her argument being that she wounded both warriors rather heavily and they were in no position to pull the cart, which was...
...obviously a lie. Their wounds were rather harsh but would do little to prevent them from doing their job.
It was because every time I thought about it my legs started shaking again.
Thankfully, warriors heal easily so the seemingly terrifying wounds she inflicted on both of them during her last dive into the hive memories are now mostly closed, the incinerated chitinous armor replaced by smoother, fresh, skin-like carapace.
As her thoughts turn to them, the warriors wake up as one, their hive links growing stronger.
"So, I asked you two before my last dive - how does the cycle of changeling failure end?"
96 politely waits for 68 to talk first. For once, the higher rank isn't particularly happy about it.
"I'm waiting..." Chrysalis stops walking and takes off the goo-fixed harness.
"We, ummm, win? And, uhh, take enough territory over with... a good amount of ponies to feast on?" is the best 68 can say.
"96, a different answer that won't make me want to tie the heaviest rock I can find to my neck and jump into the ocean, will you?"
"I'm sorry, Your Majesty," 96 hangs his head, "I think 68 is right. Before the invasion, it might have been possible to... use diplomacy or something, maybe present our case, but now? I think we either win in 68's way, maybe after several more decades of waiting back in the hive, or we eventually lose everything."
"I see..." Chrysalis pauses before completely changing the topic, "Harness up. I'll try to take another dip into the hive memories. Two days was enough."
***
"Welcome back, Chrysalis. Glad to see you finally grew a pair."
Chrysalis steels her mind the second the voice echoes through her brain, but the trembling returns. Gritting her teeth and growling at the empty blackness earns her only a round of quiet laughter.
"We'll meet soon enough. Now go visit Carapace, I'm sure you'll enjoy seeing the worst our race has to offer."
For the first time, Chrysalis has zero control over the hive mind shifting around her and spitting her out in the past. Some kind of a hive in the past in fact. The walls, however, aren't the roughly hewn corridors barely holding together with resin she knows from the Badlands. These are proper halls, angular and filled with carvings of...
Chrysalis tilts her head and scrunches her muzzle as she inspects one.
"Drones... running away from some kind of a giant worm?" she mutters to herself while walking forward and examining the depicted events.
There's much more. Worms, giant bats, balls of teeth, spikes, ravines, carvings dotting the walls as far as the eye can see. Without too close of an inspection, they do paint a picture of class and history.
How much do I really know about what's in the depths under the Badlands?
"Waaaaaaaait..." she can't stop herself from turning her head as she spots something rather different from the corner of her eye on the opposite wall.
ESTÀS LLEGINT
They're EVERYWHERE!
FanfictionNo one really knows how many changelings were present during the invasion of Canterlot. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, it also means that the love explosion scattered them all over the surface of Equus. These are stories of their Queen and...
