Chance finished her story about the time when the orderlies took her half-eaten soup away, much to her relief. It wasn't as though the smell was doing anything other then make her vaguely sick, anyway. "You know the rest."

Twilight nodded. "I think I may be able to get them to suspend treatment for a day. Long enough to see if it does improve, like you said. But..." She sighed. "If I do that, it's going to make life difficult on us both for the next few days."

"Difficult on... both of us? Are you gonna get in trouble?"

Twilight nodded. "Telling a doctor not to treat you when he's given such a strong recommendations would be impossible if I wasn't a princess. If I do, it's going to start rumors, and we can count on a few complaints being filed about it. And if you're wrong, and the infection does kill you, then... then I'll be responsible"

Chance gulped. It wasn't as though she was even a little unsure about the safety of the Nanophage. Yet, the fact that Twilight was going to suffer for it almost made her reconsider.

"I... You don't have to do that, Twilight. Putting yourself at risk that way... Maybe I can just run away! How much time does it take to learn how to teleport? Could you teach me right now? Then I can escape when everypony goes to bed, hide somewhere until it gets better..."

Twilight shook her head. "I'm afraid it takes more than a few minutes to learn." She rose to her hooves again, her face grim. "If doing the surgery is really going to kill you, then I don't have a choice. Celestia appointed me to care for you, and that is exactly what I intend to do." Chance opened her mouth to argue again, but Twilight silenced her. "It's going to be hard on you too, maybe worse. They're going to wonder if you've been mistreated. I've already written to Celestia to send the court psychologist, since after everything you said earlier it seemed like they were going to want to look into that no matter what."

"W-why would... Why would that matter?" Chance did not like the idea of being examined for abuse that certainly hadn't taken place... at least not since she had arrived in Equestria. Her life before had been awful enough, but no more than any other child in her world.

"Because from what I've seen of psychologists, most of them use truth spells. With someone from the court, you can be honest and not worry about frightening ponies. Your world’s contact with Equestria isn't public knowledge, and we would like to keep it that way."

Chance whimpered. "I'm... sorry I ruined everything." Was she crying? She didn't want to cry, not now! "I'll... understand if you don't want to deal with me, when all this is over. I'd want to get rid of me too if I caused so much trouble. I ruined everything just so I could program again..."

Twilight froze in the doorway, looking down at her. Then, without warning, she rushed over and embraced her, her own voice cracking a little. "Chance, I'm not going to get rid of you. If anything, that's what I'm most afraid of." She drew herself up again. "Don't worry. I'm going to explain everything to Princess Celestia. She'll straighten it all out. Just... until she does, you're gonna be on your own in here." She pushed the journal towards her, careful not to knock over the quill.

Chance forced a smile. "When I get out, how about we invent a better quill? No more inkwells... we'll make millions."

Twilight returned her smile. "Sure, Chance. That sounds great. I'll be back before you know it." She hurried out the door, clicking it securely behind her. Even so, Chance didn't feel nearly as alone as she had before.

"I'm sorry it's taken so long for me to get in to see you. Procedure required me to speak with the doctors and your guardian first, and that meant a long wait for you. I'm sorry you had to be stuck in here all alone."

Chance blinked, realizing for the first time that she wasn't alone in the falsely friendly room. She quickly took stock of the pony that had joined her; a soft blue unicorn with a vaguely pinkish mane and a cutie mark like a smiling heart.

"I'm Swift Healer, from the Canterlot Regional Hospital. Your name is Second Chance, isn't it?"

Chance nodded. "Ever since I've been in this world, it has been. It was something else before, but I don't like thinking about it." No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she wanted them back. "I don't know why I keep saying more than I want to, but I don't like it!"

Swift Healer shut the door behind her, pulling up the only chair from the corner and sitting down. A clipboard hovered through the air behind her, levitating its way into her lap. It was then Chance noticed what the clipboard concealed; her journal! Her journal which, aside from the latest few entries, was written entirely in English.

"No, it's scarcely fair," Healer said, sounding sympathetic. "I don't at all approve of the technique, especially with foals. Unfortunately it has proven to be quite effective when it comes to rehabilitation, so we're both stuck with it." She lifted a pencil from her clipboard. "You're feeling the effects of a truth spell, Chance. One set right into the foundation and carefully charged whenever a patient is using this room."

"Oh." She sighed. "That's a pretty rotten thing to do to children."

Healer nodded. "But given the stories you told yesterday, it seemed necessary." She sighed. "Deception is a well-understood defense-mechanism in foals and adults both."

"I did not lie." Chance insisted, forcing anger to take the place of pain. "I told the doctors I would be fine after a little rest, and I was right. I was right about being immune to most of the primitive drugs they tried to give me."

"But not immune to truth spells, I notice." Healer slid her chair a little closer. "This is good. It means we're on equal terms." In the glow of magic, Chance's diary lifted into the air, and opened to one of the later pages. This particular day contained notes she had made after perfecting levitation but before she had started writing in Equestrian. It was quite the transformation from some of her earlier sections, which had also been in English but had also been written in huge irregular letters with sloped lines and thick inkspots.

"Did you write this?"

Chance nodded.

"What language is it?"

"English, though in the last few years before my departure it was sometimes called 'Federation Common.' It was my native language before I got to Equestria."

She turned the page, to the doodles Chance had made in class of the insides of engines and the bits of technical description. Levitation meant the drawing looked nearly as good as something machine-printed, and she was certain it was technically accurate. "And you drew this too?"

Again she nodded. "I thought I could do better than the contractors Twilight hired to make our generator. Pretty sure I did."

"Twilight makes you spend all your time this way?"

"No!" Chance glared up at the doctor. "Twilight expects me to work hard, but she's never forced me to do anything!"

"Then you must be a genius for a filly your age, because your code is indecipherable."

"It's not a code; last I checked, every living Federation Citizen spoke it. English." She switched to her English, and continued on, knowing full well she wouldn't understand, but hoping at least her pronunciation sounded consistent. "Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts."

"I am beginning to understand why the doctors were wrong about your diagnosis, and why you were entrusted to the care of a princess." Healer rifled the pages of her journal once more, then set it down on the table beside her. "What are you?"

Chance tried to answer the question several times, but she found that in each case the words refused to come. Eventually she settled on the only thing the spells seemed to allow her to say. "I don't know. I am a young pony named Second Chance, Apprentice to Twilight. Yet... I'm also older. I traveled through the void between worlds, where time becomes circumscribed upon itself and stretches into infinity. Before that I was something else; the last hope of a great people."

"You really believe all this." It wasn't a question, nor was the way Healer slid her chair back a little. "It is frightening that there is evidence to support what you say." She scribbled something on her clipboard, and said nothing for several moments. "Tell me about your relationship with Princess Twilight. You've been living with her for nearly two months, right?"

Chance nodded, and the serious expression fled from her face. Like any child, she was eager to brag about her family. "Oh, Twilight's absolutely wonderful. I was pretty awful when I first got here; was tripping over my own hooves and couldn't read a word of Equestrian." She shrugged towards the journal on the table. "You probably gathered that reading my diary. If you read the later sections, you'll see I still had to use English to represent the big words. Annnnnyway, Twilight was super patient with me. She offered to let me be her apprentice, and I thought that was pretty much the most awesome thing in the whole world!"

"And what do you do as her apprentice? Do you work hard?"

Chance nodded. "Nopony ever had to watch me to make sure I worked hard. It's important to me to be able to be a functioning member of pony society. I have lots to catch up on. I still don't know your history, and I'm not writing at my grade level yet." She paused, then looked a little confused. "You... have grade levels, right?"

Healer nodded, her pencil scratching away. "So that. And maybe I haven't been happy with everything she did, but I've always agreed with her by the end. Sending me to school seemed like a waste, but I made some of the neatest friends and she was right about having a teacher being more effective than reading books alone. She's good with other stuff, too. Early on, I was having nightmares a lot. She was always there for me."

"Nightmares. You mean like last night?"

She nodded, retreating a little on the hospital bed, her face growing more fearful. Chance hated this spell, and she knew it was going to make her say things she didn't want to, not even to Twilight.

"Tell me about them. It can't have much to do with you being a pony; a sweet little filly like you shouldn't have anything to have nightmares about."

Chance tried to fight the spell, to hold her concentration in the trance Twilight had taught her was ideal for thaumic working. Would that make her more resistant to the effects of the room? In any case, her headache permitted no such easy manipulation, so she would never know. "I usually have nightmares when I remember things. Things I want to forget. You would want to forget too if you had seen the things I have."

There was another long silence, broken only by the scratching of the pencil. "Which memories are giving you nightmares?" She didn't look like she particularly wanted to know the answer.

That was all well and good with Chance, since she didn't want to give it. How could she answer that wouldn't make her sound more insane than she already must? The spell all around her did not permit such conscious selection of truth, and she found the answer spilling from her mouth completely against her will. "Watching my family die."

Chance couldn't see how fast the pencil was moving now through her tears, nor could she hear it.

Some time passed, it was hard to say exactly how much. Healer stopped asking questions, though she didn't offer any physical comfort as Twilight or Spike might've done. Did it take her mere minutes to recover, or hours? She didn't know.

She didn't leave her alone in the interim, and when Chance finally stopped crying, those eyes were still watching her. "That's an awful thing for anypony to go through," she said, as though there had been no pause. "I think pain and grieving are natural, maybe even a few nightmares."

Swift Healer rose suddenly to her hooves, stretching and sighing like a pony casting off an enormous burden. "They didn't have a clue what was going on with you." She lifted her clipboard closer to her face, flipping through a few of the scribblings she had made there. "You've suffered through more than most. I've already spoken with your friends about your health. Absurd to even suggest Princess Twilight would have been a less than adequate guardian."

"So you're saying..." Chance sniffed, spent a few moments concentrating, then tried again. "She isn't going to get in trouble?"

Healer smiled. "I very much doubt it. She was given an enormous responsibility; to care for a contradiction. I believe she has done more than excellent under the circumstances. As for you, I would suggest avoiding... whatever it was you did to yourself. Don't do that again. It made lots of ponies worry about you unnecessarily."

Chance nodded. "I'll be more careful."

Chance had heard once that you never knew what you had until you lost it. The child Kimberly had surely not known all the blessings she had simply by living on her homeworld, and hadn't come to appreciate them until she had been banished up the gravity well never to return.

Yet for all that, she had not appreciated until that moment how much she cared about her new (albeit strange) Equestrian family. There was another night in the hospital, and another day of dreadful tests and interviews. She answered every question honestly (not that she had a choice), and waited patiently for the moment of her release.

She met them in the hallway, Twilight Sparkle and Spike both, and embraced them with all the relief and energy of one who has survived a great disaster. In truth she did not feel entirely like the disaster was over. It wasn't as though the memories Discord had dredged up would simply go away. Her second night in the hospital had ended with more screaming. Yet she wasn't worried. She was going home now.

"So, how you feelin'?" Spike asked, eying the various incisions all over her body. Incisions born of her numerous tests. Yet through them all, her health had only improved. Her performance on the cognitive tests had destroyed every expectation for the mental degradation inflicted by such a practice. "Twilight said things were gonna be pretty rough."

Chance whimpered in spite of herself. "I think now I understand why my older sister never had good things to say about seeing the doctor." She looked to Twilight, afraid of what she might see in her eyes. But if she had expected anger, or frustration, or contempt, she did not find it. It was love she saw reflected there, love and concern for her. It was almost enough to make her cry again.

"I think all of us have learned some important lessons." Twilight broke away, and led her from the lobby. Chance was only too happy to follow. Soon enough Spike was riding on her back, and Chance trotted along beside. She had no trouble keeping up, not the way she might have a few months ago.

"I think somebody ought to warn you," Spike said casually. "Some mutual friends have been trying for their party planning cutie marks all day, if you know what I mean."

"Any luck?"

Twilight giggled, but it was Spike who answered. "Turns out even Pinkie Pie can get frustrated if you push her far enough." Then he lowered his voice, leaning a little closer to her. "If you drink the punch, you might die."

Chance giggled in spite of herself, though part of that might have just been relief to be stepping out of the hospital and onto a dirt road. The air felt fantastic in her mane, the smells of grass and trees returning to her like old friends. She felt better already. There seemed no rush back to the library, and Chance reveled in it. Ponyville's citizens were out and about, buying and selling and laughing together.

Had life on Luna-7 ever been this good? Chance tried to remember.

Vision and dream twisted together in the chill of spring air, and Kimberly sat beneath the electric lights under a ceiling of glass. A dozen other students sat beside her, each at a desk. The air before each burned with holographic projections. She could remember what it was like to have spidery fingers again instead of clumsy hooves, and without magic her limbs danced through the projection.

Though some beside her were too confused to know what to do, she never hesitated. Functioning software grew up from nothing with the elegant twists of a child's hands through the air, assembling the disparate elements without once slowing down. The thrill of creation grew in her as she neared the completion of her program, tracing the invisible lines of light yet unknown.

One by one her fellow students departed, most in low spirits after the difficulty of the exam. Kimberly didn't feel sore on the metal bench, didn't even notice as she was eventually the only student left.

A tall, male figure appeared in the surface above the desks. "You finished the test three hours ago, Kimmy," he said, his voice echoing around a room that was now mostly empty. "You know you're free for the rest of the day. You should get out and do something!"

Kimberly was built like all the other children of Luna, stretched taller and thinner than an earthbound child. Her dark hair hung to her shoulders in the current style for children, though it clung in mosey clumps that resisted untangling with the determination of industrial nanofibers. She wore a child's jumpsuit, which like all such jumpsuits was poorly tailored for the proportions of a child raised in space.

She ignored the voice of the projection, at least until he froze her display and stepped into it, shrinking down as he did to fit on the child's desk. "Go be an organic for a few hours."

The gray-eyed girl squinted at the screen for a few seconds, and seemed to blink a film from her eyes. "I'm almost done," she protested, her fingers resting in the holospace where she wanted them to move next. "Two more hours, and this compression will be better than any in the textbooks."

The figure nodded. "Your program isn't going anywhere." He waved his hands through the display, and it all faded away. Only the figure and a slowly spinning projection of the earth remained, the default welcome screen. "But you are. I called your sister, and assigned you both two hours on VR. I'm not letting you touch another desk until you've cooled down."

"You're the worst, Dante." Kimberly folded her arms and glared at the projection, in the way that sometimes moved adults to adjust their opinions. Maybe it worked on adults, but it never worked on Dante. He was, after all, an OMICRON Core. "I want to help! I can't help in VR!"

"Physician, heal thyself," replied Dante, though he was smiling. "You are an immature asset, Kimmy. If you are not nurtured properly, you will not mature correctly and your future productivity will be significantly hampered. Nobody expects you to be productive for another decade at least. Use this time while it lasts."

She groaned. When that failed to elicit a response, she bounced to her feet, floating nearly a foot up into the air before she sunk back down, in a standing position now. "Whatever, jerk."

"That's not what I would say to the person who gave us a week's worth of VR rations for nothing." Alexi stood in the doorway. In many ways she was exactly an older version of Kimberly, her hair dark and her eyes gray. She was a little less thin, what muscle she had a sure sign she was devoting many hours to fighting the muscle-degradation inherent to low-gravity life. Her hair was short and boyish, and her jumpsuit had several glittering achievement pins.

Kimberly never got achievement pins.

"Yeah, I know." Kimmy glanced over her shoulder, scowling at the projection one last time before he vanished. "We're friends, so it's okay."

"Your only friend is a personality simulation." The older girl sighed, then took her hand. "Come on then. One of the pre-war games? We could pick up where we left off in Skyrim if you want."

Kimberly smiled. It wasn't a big smile, but it was a smile. "Only if we can stop fighting for awhile. I wanna work on my blacksmithing!"

Chance blinked, and reality came rushing back. They were standing in front of the library door. Twilight looked at her expectantly, just as Spike said, "You can go in first, Chance! I know how much you must've missed it!"

The filly shook her head once to clear away the memory, then pushed the door open.

If she had one consolation, it was that the whole town hadn't been invited this time. Shouts assaulted her, streamers and confetti raining down on her not in elegant showers but in thick brown globs that stuck to her coat before sliding slowly off.

Of course the crusaders were waiting for her inside, along with every other member of her class and several of Twilight's friends. "Happy Cutesinerra!" came the shout, and she was taken up into the crowd. Chance managed to meet Spike's eyes in something like an angry glare before she was swallowed by an enthusiastic mob of her fellow fillies and colts.

"So it's a ball?" asked one. "Is it for juggling?"

"It's not a ball, it's the world!" somepony else insisted. "It means she's good at geography!"

"Everypony knows she's terrible at geography." There was no mistaking Silver Spoon for anypony else, even when she was being polite. Not that she would've described that behavior as anything like polite.

Scootaloo helped extricate her from the thickest crowd, though she shared no less in the excitement than anypony else. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle weren't far behind, each one wearing proud grins. She had to remember not to drink the punch. "So what is it?" she asked. "Your talent, I mean. I don't think it's ball bouncing or geography. Exploring maybe? Is that what an exploring mark looks like? Daring Do has a compass, so I guess the world could make sense."

The filly frowned, unsure of what she ought to say. She was fairly certain the cutie mark wasn't for exploring. "I... how would I know?"

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. "How'd you get it? Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle said you got it while fighting Discord, but it doesn't look like a fighting cutie mark either. And they wouldn't say anything else. It was some kinda secret, and only you could tell me?"

Chance moved a little closer, and lowered her voice. "I'll tell you, just not here. Too many ponies who might overhear."

Her friend nodded to what was evidently quite a reasonable objection, and their discussion reconvened hidden beneath a refreshment table. Being small wasn't all disadvantages.

"I would've told you right then, if you'd been with us the other night," Chance whispered, as quietly as was possible to speak and still be heard. "I... I've been keeping a secret for a long time. That I'm actually... from another world, someplace far away. My cutie mark isn't Equus, it's the place I came from."

Scootaloo's expression grew suspicious, harsh. "Why didn't you say anything before? We trusted you. Took you crusading with us."

She cracked under those harsh eyes, whimpering. Her ears pressed to her head, and she wished for a moment that she could disappear.

Sweetie Belle came to her defense, pressing herself briefly to Chance's side and glaring at Scootaloo. "She's telling us now!"

There was a tense silence.

"I guess." Scootaloo glared for a few seconds more, then she shrugged. "So what is it like? The place you come from?"

Maybe if she weren't already feeling so guilty from hiding the truth about herself for months, she might've lied. No, not lied; omitted details. "Not good. Pretty awful." She glanced at her flank. "When I left, there wasn't any green left. All the plants had died." As she had expected, her words were met with expressions of shared horror. It wasn't as though she didn't share their feelings. Perhaps even more intensely, since it was her world.

"Guess 'ah see why you like Ponyville so much." She shivered. "If ‘ah went somewhere without nothin' alive, I'd wanna get out too."

"But if there's no green left, why is your cutie mark all green?"

She shrugged. "I think... maybe that's my talent? I mean... the other night..." Her words came more slowly now, all the energy gone from her expression. It was not as though such things were easy to talk about. Actually, rather the opposite. It took every bit of her determination to keep talking. "Discord was trying to convince me that my people were evil and that we couldn't save them. But... I stood up for them. When I did, just for that second, I guess I felt like everything made sense. Like I finally knew why I'd come to Equestria, and what I had to do to fix the place I came from. I don't really remember most of it, but I think I know where to start."

There was another silence under the table, this one more awed than angry. Chance tried to read the expressions of her friends in the gloom, but all she could make out was something like defeat. "What's wrong?"

The three of them shared a knowing look, a look Chance couldn't read. In the end, it was Sweetie Belle who answered. "We've been trying to get our cutie marks for years now. You're not even from Equestria, and you did it in two months."

She wasn't sure what to say to that, at least not until she started thinking back on the last few days, and remembered what else they had managed to do. "Hmm... you know, I think there might be a way to do something about that." She rose to her hooves, climbing out from under the table. "But that depends."

"On what?"

"On how you feel about coal."

There was no light in the Great Hive, at least none that came from the sun. No sunlight reached this low, so deep beneath the earth that the rocks were warm to the touch and the air was thick like water. Ponies would likely not have survived the conditions for long, which was part of why Chrysalis had chosen the location many thousands of years ago. The heat and moisture did not feel oppressive to her anymore, not with how much of her life she had spent here. Far longer than she had ever expected to live, that was certain.

Most of the Great Hive was in darkness, but that was no great deterrent for her children. Scent-trails marked important paths, and sound would serve well enough when one traveled far from the hive and into the caves. Yet one of the great chambers had light, light formed from magic and crystal and fire. The nursery.

If the larva never saw light, their eyes would never develop properly. Despite the amazing effort it took the swarm, there was always light within the hatchery. On this night the light was fire, refracted through a thousand crystals and fueled by the oil-secreting fungus they carefully cultivated in distant caverns. It burned closer to blue than yellow, though since the flames were not actually located in this chamber there was none of the acrid smoke that accompanied its burning.

To others the hatchery might not have been a pleasant sight. In some ways it resembled the hives of bees, with regular cells on every surface made from dark wax, each one incubating a young changeling-to-be. Thousands of wings buzzed in the air, each one a daughter dutifully caring for the next generation. They brought food, moved the developing changelings as they passed through their several stages of life, and carefully cleaned the chamber.

Chrysalis had not come for any of them. Her daughters knew their duty, and did not need her encouragement to keep doing it. Indeed, the affairs in this Hive had proceeded without her intervention for years at a time. Many of her children might be nearly mindless individually, but taken together they could accomplish almost anything.

The lowest cells were almost always empty, and used only for her most treasured children. The warmth here was best, and the air that always flowed upward from below meant fumes would not choke them. Only one of the many cells was occupied now, covered over with a thick membrane. Even so, she could see the little changeling developing within, lit by the blue refracted so brightly this close to the source of light.

The common needs of this young changeling were already met; the many attendants managed such trivial affairs. Yet there was one thing they could not give, one thing only a queen could offer. Had she been a bee, it would've been called the Royal Jelly. A little to an egg would cause him to develop into a fully intelligent and sexually viable drone, with a lifespan like a mayfly. Given consistently to a larva, it would make a queen.

There was nothing physical to pass into the liquid substrate within, for the jelly was really just concentrated love, distilled by her own body into power. It did much to a young changeling. Most importantly, it gave her the strength to block out the voice of the Hivemind, and thus develop into an intelligence of her own. The only voice she would hear was Chrysalis, during these brief and infrequent visits.

I'm lonely. The thought came from within, more emotion than words. She was not yet old enough to be able to speak with anything so concrete. You came back.

She filled the little being with love, filled it until it was fit to burst and the energy started returning to her. I always come back, she soothed. Her voice was the only one the young queen would hear in her first year of life. That would mean loyalty, though that wasn't why Chrysalis came as often as she possibly could. It is good to see you are well.

I can't see, the voice replied. Her young daughters always seemed more intelligent after a feeding. What is see?

There was a ledge beside the cell, and she rested on it, looking into the opening and tracing the boundaries with a gentle hoof. You will, when you are older. There is much for you to see one day.

I want to see you.

A few more months and you will.

I want to see you.

She felt somepony coming then and rose to her hooves. She did not take flight, but she did turn to see who had dared to interrupt her.

As she had expected, it was no drone. Drones would have been content to communicate with her through the Hivemind. Rather, the Hivemind would communicate with her directly, not using a drone.

Only one of them had come, which was strange. As long as she had known them, the Builders had been a pair, and were never content to be on their own for long. When one died, the other would commit suicide on the spot, so they could be reborn together. Chrysalis held this knowledge very close, since it was one of the weaknesses she used to control these beings.

Of course, every one of her drones was female, which meant that even though one of the two had a male identity, it was impossible to tell which had come when she wasn't wearing the shape of a pony. As this was the Great Hive, magic was not being wasted on something so frivolous. There was no reading the Builder's thoughts or emotions through the Hivemind either. Though they both wore the bodies of drones, each had a mind like iron. Were it not so, their individual personalities would've long since been washed away in the swarm.

"I am sorry to interrupt you, my queen." The drone had the audacity to lower her head in respect, though in bearing it hardly even resembled her drones. There was audacity and pride in her every motion, and her insectoid voice practically dripped with arrogance.

"No, you aren't." The bow did not impress her. "Or you would have waited. What is it?"

Even for Chrysalis, it was hard to read emotion from insect eyes. Other changelings secreted pheromones that signaled how they were feeling, but neither of the Builders did anymore. They had mastered concealing their feelings after the first few lifetimes. Yet despite the lack of an obvious cue, she was sure the drone was smirking up at her. "It has to do with the pony we had planned to take during the Summer Sun celebration, the one who lives with Celestia's apprentice."

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes. "I am aware of the pony. Speak quickly."

"We may have another opportunity." She glanced briefly over Chrysalis’s shoulder at the cell behind her. "Perhaps in time to prevent that one from being a waste." She flicked a hoof at the occupied cell, almost bored.

Her mistake. Chrysalis closed the distance between them quickly, her curved horn beginning to glow with a faint, greenish aura. "Just because I won't let you and your twin have them does not mean they are a waste." Her voice was low; a dangerous growl. "Don't think that your usefulness is infinite, Builder. I spare two drones in a generation for you because I choose to, not because I need you." She withdrew a hoof's distance, gesturing back at the cell. "It is for her we fight, Builder. Her and her sisters. Don't forget."

However brazen the Builder could be, she would not argue or defy Chrysalis outright. They had tried, in past lives. Chrysalis had shown them just how much pain one body could endure before it died. Perhaps the fear she smelled from the drone was genuine, perhaps it wasn't. Either way it was enough to placate her. "Of course." This bow was far deeper than the last. "May we proceed? My brother and I both feel this is a time sensitive issue. The longer she remains with Princess Twilight, the more difficult she will be to contain. Taking her now still leaves the problem of the core, but at least our time-sensitive difficulties can be solved."

Chrysalis wanted to say no out of spite, confident that even an order given of pride would be obeyed. Yet she had not remained queen because she made her important decisions based on petty emotion. "You may. Take what you need, and do not be discovered. We cannot afford exposure."

The drone bowed again. "Of course, Queen Chrysalis. We will not fail." She took off with buzzing wings, vanishing into the gloom.

Chrysalis watched her glide up with the currents, into higher sections of the Great Hive. Only when she was sure the drone had gone did she turn back to the cell that held her growing daughter, reaching out with her mind.

I want to see you. The developing changeling inside seemed to have not noticed the delay, or not to care. Not that she was surprised; time was a difficult concept, and might take months for her to learn.

You will, she promised, the love in her voice as real as any pony's. You will see clearer than any of your sisters, clearer than I. You will save us from ourselves.

I love you.

It took her a long time to answer. I love you.

Author's Notes:

Here we are, with a new posting schedule. Mondays, everybody! Tell your friends!