Distorted images met Twilights dazed eyes, black figures scurrying to and fro, shades moving around through the surrounding terrain. But that’s all they were to her eyes, shades…

As quickly as her consciousness returned, it left her.

…

The next time Twilight managed to gain some semblance of consciousness, the light of Celestia’s sun was gone. Twilight spied that she was now in a well-lit, mossy brick hallway that arched towards the ceiling. Chitin like material was sewn into the structure giving it an almost organic feel.

There were even more shades now, all scrambling towards Twilight in excitement, before slowly retreating as some protective force kept them at bay. But what kept them back, or rather… was it ‘who’?

Twilight tried to make sense of her situation, to remember how she came to be here, but a pounding head kept Twilight from making any sense of her thoughts. As if something sensed her discomfort, her mind became filled with soothing voices comforting her, and it helped her drift back into a blissful sleep.

Twilight awoke with a start. She laid still for several minutes as memories of previous events caught up with her.

The Wedding.

Cadance.

Those all too familiar creatures.

And what happened just before she lost consciousness.

"You are a Changeling Twilight, you are my daughter, Princess to the Badlands hive! You are in the final stages of maturation, and you need this energy!" the frenzied Queen proclaimed.

Twilight scrunched her face, she thought back to a certain mirror, and the creature she would often see within.

Daughter…

It couldn’t be true, could it?

Twilight opened her mouth to deny the Queen's claims, but before she could all of Twilight's bodily functions seemed to rapidly shut down one by one. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as Twilight felt her disguise begin to peel away.

‘No… they can’t find out like this…’

“Twilight!” several voices shouted out as Twilight Sparkle impacted the ground, eyes closed.

The last thing Twilight felt before slipping into darkness was the feeling of somepony scooping her up into a warm, motherly embrace, stroking her mane softly as she drifted to sleep.

All memories after that were a blur, but it was the implication of her final clear memory that caused panic to fill Twilight.

“Did they see me? What I really am?” Twilight said to herself in a panicked tone.

But before her panic could go any further, Twilight sat up and took several deep breaths, just like Cadance had taught her all those years ago.

“OK Twilight, let’s focus on the immediate problems first, where the hay am I?”

Twilight examined the object on which she sat, it was a large comfortable queen-sized bed adorned with silk, most likely exported from Saddle Arabia. The bed was located at the end of a large room, centred in the middle facing the door. Just to the right of the bed was a desk with an inkwell and candle sitting on top, to the left sat a tall mirror. At the centre of the room sat a round table with comfortable looking cushions spread around. The floor was a polished wood while the walls were stone brick with chitin like materials sewn into them. But what really caught Twilight's attention was what sat along the lengths of both the left and right-hoof sides of the room…

“Books!” Twilight squealed in excitement.

Two large bookcases sat on either side of the room stretching from end to end. Twilight jumped out of her bed to examine the collection herself. Tracing a hoof along the shelf Twilight noted all the books were (thankfully) already set up in alphabetical order, but while many of the books were Equestrian in origin, Twilight saw some books she was unfamiliar with, books written in a dialect she was unfamiliar with.

As she continued to trace her hoof along the shelf she noticed something about said hoof.

It had holes in it.

Twilight groaned as her fears were confirmed, her disguise had been ripped away in front of those she held dear.

Before Twilight could think any more on the matter, the bedroom door opened with a creak and a feminine looking changeling strolled in, saddlebags hanging from her side with a red medical cross emblazed on them.

Both mares froze as their eyes met, the changeling drone's eyes widened in fear.

“Y… your highness I’m sorry for barging in bu…”

The drone saw Twilight continue to stare, unmoving. She had been made aware beforehoof of the princess’s issues when it came to panic attacks, and thus prepared herself for her inevitable reaction to waking up in a strange room and seeing one of the beings who had just attacked the city where she was raised.

Instead the drone suddenly found Twilight right up to her, almost muzzle to muzzle, with the biggest childlike grin she had ever seen etched into her face.

“You’re like me! What are we called? Where am I? Did you give me these books? Who are you? Why do we have holes in our hooves? What’s our history? Can you teach me to read your language? Do you have any more books? Do you…"

Twilight stopped herself as she saw the drone shrink down, eye twitching at the sudden bombardment.

“Oh… sorry…”

“Honestly, that’s not the reaction I expected…” the drone sighed.

“Yeah… well… anyway, my name is Twilight Sparkle.”

“I am well aware, your highness. My name is Panacea, I am at your service!” Panacea bowed down in front of Twilight.

“Wait, did you just call me ‘your highness’?”

A slight bit of panic returned to Twilight.

Panacea looked up. “Perhaps your mother should do the explanations, it really isn’t my place to do so.”

“Mother?” Twilights thoughts went back to the wedding.

“You are a Changeling Twilight, you are my daughter, Princess to the Badlands hive!”

“Are we… in the Badlands?”

“We are, your highness.”

Dread fell over Twilight. “Then that means…”

Another figure emerged through the already open door. “I’m afraid it does, Twilight”.

Queen Chrysalis looked down upon Twilight, a warm motherly smile worn on her face.

“You!” Twilight shouted in anger, quickly taking up a defensive stance.

Chrysalis flinched at Twilight’s reaction to her, despite expecting it.

“Panacea, leave us.”

Panacea gave another quick bow before hastily retreating from the room.

“You’ve been here two days and you’ve already traumatised one of our subjects,” Chrysalis joked, trying to lighten the mood.

It failed.

“Two days?! Why am I here Chrysalis? What happened to my friends?!”

“Oh, I assure you that your friends, and that little city of theirs, are quite safe; I got what I needed and left, as was always my intention. Changelings are a race that stick to the shadows, if fate hadn’t forced my hoof the attack would never have happened.”

“Changeling, that’s what we’re called?”

“Yes, you seem to be taking the revelation of you not being a pony remarkably well.”

“Oh don’t worry, I’ve known for years!”

“You’ve… how?”

“My disguise failed in private, now, why did you attack us? How did fate force your hoof exactly?” Twilight demanded to know, her defensive posture not wavering.

“Love, Twilight. Both for love energy, and the love of the changeling I care for the most in this world, you.”

“Me?” Twilight deadpanned disbelievingly.

“Twilight, you’re my daughter, you’re my baby girl,” Chrysalis’s voice cracked slightly, her emotional tone making Twilight slowly drop her defensive stance.

“Impossible!”

“Is it? You already know you’re a changeling; Twilight Velvet couldn’t possibly be your birth mother! I am!”

“I…” Twilight wanted to dispute her, to deny it, but she sensed no deception within the Queen’s voice.

Panic and fear gave way to anger.

“Then why did you abandon me?! Leave me on somepony’s doorstep? And then why come back for me now?”

Chrysalis recoiled slightly, before giving a sad sigh.

“Walk with me…”

“Pardon?”

“Take a walk with me, I will explain everything.”

“With you? You’re joking right?”

“Please I… I would never harm you.”

Twilight looked up into the Queen’s pleading eyes, and then she relented.

“Fine…”

Both changelings left the bedroom behind and began to walk down long winding hallways, several drones bowed as they passed, and a few voices entered Twilight's mind.

There was silence between the two few a little while, before Chrysalis broke that silence.

“I didn’t abandon you…”

“What?”

“I didn’t abandon you! I had no choice!”

“Oh really? Queen Chrysalis, you always have a choice!”

“OK, so I did have a choice then, but it was a shitty one!”

Twilight flinched, ponies had a bit of a taboo against swearing in any form.

“I…” Chrysalis’ voice sounded pained. “I had to either give you up, or let you die.”

“Die?”

“Yes, die. Before coming here you collapsed, that was because you are a ‘Queen Class’ of Changeling. During your maturation process, your final stages of growth need a substantial amount of love energy to live – more so then you had ever absorbed before that point. While adult queens and drones can survive without love, just with standard food, we are weak without it. Eighteen years ago, soon after your birth our hive went into the worst love shortage in over two hundred years! I simply didn’t have enough love energy to feed you. During that time many of my subjects became too weak to even move out of bed. So you see, if I had kept you with me I would just have witnessed you die of starvation. I could not allow that to happen, so I sent you away.”

“To Equestria…”

“Yes, Equestria has more love than any other society I have ever encountered. The love of your adopted family, of your friends, kept you alive all this time. Hay, you even became the element of magic and defeated two beings that would have destroyed us all! I was so proud of you...”

“So I got my love energy off of my family and friends? So why an invasion?”

Chrysalis sighed, stopping just in front of a large set of guarded double doors.

“I miscalculated the love you would need, so when your final stage of maturation came about, the most crucial stage, as you were you wouldn’t have had enough love energy to survive. I had to act fast. I promise I didn’t harm a single pony that day, I even told them where to find Princess Cadance. She’s alive and well, back with her fiancé.”

“What’s so crucial about this ‘final stage’ of maturation?”

“That.” Chrysalis materialised a hoofmirror and hung it in front of Twilight, a crown-like antennae had grown out just behind her crooked horn, an appendage just like Queen Chrysalis’.

“That allows you to be connected to every Changeling within our hive, not just your class of ling, which when you were younger would have just been me.”

“Con… connected? Is that the voices I have been hearing? That buzzing from earlier?”

“Yes… though they really should be leaving you be right now.”

Twilight heard a broadcast through her mind. “Attention, while my daughter is now capable of understanding you, until I acclimatise her to the hive you will not make contact outside of emergencies."

Sure enough, the voices in Twilight's head died away, albeit begrudgingly.

“Huh, how does this hive mind work?” Twilight’s inquisitive nature kicked in.

"The Changeling Egregore, or hive mind, is a startling evolutionary advantage. It allows communication between changelings at close ranges, but not much else. Each changeling is on their own unique wavelength; but can also be taught to pick up others. The exception to this being queens like us. While I cannot tell where each changeling is, I can pick up and broadcast on any and all wavelengths, and gain a vague directional pull to my conversation partner. For example, each infiltrator in Canterlot had their own frequency that only they could hear, but they have also been conditioned to all hear one specifically for their class of changeling."

“Fascinating, it must have been such a complex evolutionary journey to reach this point…”

Chrysalis chuckled. “I know how much you love to research, and books. Later on, I will teach you our written language, so you can read all of our books and research to your heart’s content.”

“You know of my love for books?”

“Oh Twilight, while you may have been raised by the ponies, I was never far away.”

“Wait, every November fourteenth we would receive mysterious gifts, books usually. One of the earliest, however, was my Smarty Pants doll, was that… you?”

Chrysalis nodded. “I made that doll myself, I was so happy to see how much you loved that doll.”

“Yeah well, Big Macintosh seems to love it just as much nowadays…”

“Yes, well I never wanted to miss out on your birthdays just because of our situation.”

“Birthday? My birthday is on January eighteenth. Oh wait, that was the day you left me wasn’t it?”

“Yes, you were really born on November fourteenth; you spent most of those two months in a cocoon, as all Nymphs do just after birth.”

“So wait, do you give birth to all changelings like insects do or…”

“What? No! We have male and females just like the ponies do.”

“Interesting, do you…”

Chrysalis anticipated Twilight's question. "And no, we can't turn ponies into changelings, that’s a myth; reproduction works just like with ponies, male and female. Changelings can form their own relationships and produce offspring. A queen chooses her mate after very careful consideration and she is the only one who can give birth to female queens. There are no ‘male queens’. Since queens can only birth queens, it is essential we have an heir before we pass lest our hive decay without a queen to run the hive mind. Should that happen, changelings would either have to find another hive or simply die.”

“They need to be connected to the hive mind?”

“Yes, it’s written into our biology, losing it is like losing a vital organ. Your life expectancy is cut short.”

“So how long can queens live?”

“Oh thousands of years, I myself am one thousand and thirty-five years of age. I took over when my mother was killed by a rogue dragon around six hundred years ago.”

“Oh, I’m sorry…”

“It's fine, I moved on a long time ago...” Chrysalis sighed. “Anyway, enough of history and science lessons, there’s something I want you to see.”

Chrysalis finally placed a hoof on one of the doors and pushed it open, revealing an extremely large throne room reminiscent of Canterlot castle's. Like the rest of the structure, the walls were stone brick mixed in with chitin-like materials; the floor, however, was a dark marble. A dark purple carpet led from the door up to two obsidian thrones, the larger stood in the centre bearing down menacingly. The smaller throne sat just to its left, a lavender starburst cutie mark adorned on the backrest.

“My cutie mark?”

“Yes, I had the throne installed soon after I gave you up, the mark was added only yesterday, when I saw you still had yours. Something to do with you bearing the Element of Magic if I was to hazard a guess.”

“Never mind that, why is that throne even there?”

“Well…” Chrysalis took on an almost timid posture, where did the intimidating queen that attacked Canterlot go? “Twilight I… you’re my daughter, I love you. I want us to finally be together… as a family.”

“I already have a family! You know what? This trip has been very interesting but I can’t stay here. I would like to go home now.” Twilight stamped her hoof, resolute.

“But, Twilight you are home!”

“You think I could ever make a home with the changeling that attacked Canterlot? That harmed my brother? I know the reasons, and in time I might forgive, but I can’t forget what you did!” Twilight shouted, her anger getting the better of her.

Chrysalis looked away, defeated. “You may leave should you wish.”

Twilight recoiled, surprised by the Queen's reaction. “Just like that?”

“I’m a mother, not a jailor. At the end of the day, I just want you to be happy.”

Chrysalis rushed out of the room without another word, leaving behind a stunned Twilight.

Despite her remaining anger, Twilight couldn’t help but feel bad for her outburst, but her mind was made up. Twilight left the throne room, closing the doors behind her.

Elsewhere, in the dead of night in Canterlot, a single lone changeling love collector, one from different hive to Chrysalis’, fearfully scrambled away from his pursuers, diving into an empty alleyway and taking on the form of a brown stallion with an arcade joystick cutie mark. He really wished he could turn into a crow or something, but changeling biology only allowed for transformation into equine shaped life forms unless the changeling in question was particularly skilled with the ability.

“I thought the guards were ordered to capture, not kill…” the changeling muttered, fear in his voice.

He remained in his hiding spot for a good twenty minutes before deciding he was safe. Still disguised, he slowly trotted into the empty street. He continued to walk down the street, planning on heading to the train station and getting the hay out of the city, it was far too dangerous after that idiot queen attacked the place.

An arrow whizzed through the air and dug into the changeling's right foreleg. Shouting in pain, he fell to the ground.

Looking up he saw several Solar Guards approach him, hate written on their faces. These guards obviously were acting independently, Solar Guards were never on duty that late. The lead Solar Guard, a Pegasus with a white coat and a blonde mane, approached with his sword drawn.

“You couldn’t run from us monster!”

“I had nothing to do with the attack, I’ve lived in Canterlot for four years, and I’m a pizza delivery pony, not a soldier!”

“You’re no pony! And I don’t care if you’re are innocent or not, your race is an affront to our harmony-driven land!”

“How is what you’re doing harmonious?”

The guard didn’t answer, instead, he kicked the changeling in the stomach, hard.

“You… are… the monster,” the changeling wheezed.

The guard lifted up his sword and drove it into the changeling's heart, killing him instantly.

One of the other guards ran up to his superior and saluted. “Nice kill sir! What should we do with the creature?”

Commander Broad Sword turned to the other guard. “Whatever you like, just as long as the others don’t find out. They are too loyal to those fools of princesses, ‘capture only, no killing’ Celestia said, what a load of rubbish. We will protect Equestria from these creatures, even if they won’t.”

Twilight began to walk down corridor after corridor, looking for the exit to the hive. Her thoughts were with her family and friends, what would they think of her now? Despite her remaining fear of rejection, she wanted nothing more right now than to be reunited with them. After about ten minutes of walking, Twilight realised she was hopelessly lost and she appeared to have stumbled into a residential part of the hive. This area was a much wider corridor with potted plants running down the middle, doors ran down either side leading into the apartments the changelings called home.

“Maybe I should just ask for directions, I mean I am the Princess right? They have to tell me.”

Looking around her, Twilight could see several changeling families watching her, both nervous and confused as to why their princess seemed to be in such a hurry. It would seem Chrysalis hadn’t informed them of her imminent departure.

Twilight was about to ask a nearby couple for the directions she wanted, but she saw a small changeling female break away from the crowd and approach her. The child sat down in front of her and looked up with adoring eyes.

“You’re the Princess!”

“Well, not really but…”

“You’re really pretty!”

Twilight couldn’t help but smile at the adorable nymph. “Well thank you, nice of you to say.”

The child smiled happily. “The Queen has been so happy to have you with us again!”

“Uh, was she now…”

“Uh-huh! My parents say that the Queen loves you very much and that you’re all she talked about for the last eighteen years, waiting for the day she got you back! You’re lucky to be here, I don’t know what I would do without my mama!”

“She was… really excited to see me again huh?”

The child nodded furiously. “One time after I snuck out of the hive, Mama said that she loves me so much that if she lost me, she would’ve just stop working. It must be like that for your mama too!”

The child looked into Twilight's eyes, with adorable puppy eyes that would give Spike’s a run for his bits.

‘Guilt tripped by a child… typical.’

Twilight noticed a passing guard and called out. “Hey, do you know where the Queen might be?”

Chrysalis’ sobs were filtered out by the enchantment surrounding her room and she had ordered her drones to leave her be, no point in her subjects seeing or hearing her state. Her room was very similar to Twilight's, but instead of the bookshelves, she had collections of items she had gathered over the years, whether that be art or random trinkets.

In her hooves, Chrysalis held tightly onto a fragment of a cocoon, the very one in which Twilight had once been held. She had known there was a possibility her daughter would reject her, but she had hoped against hope that it wouldn’t turn out like that.

She was wrong.

Her daughter would be leaving her, at least she would be alive and happy, her friends and family’s love would be enough from here on out. But nothing could fill the hole that was quickly consuming Chrysalis’ heart. She slowly traced a trembling hoof over the fragment, tears staining the bedsheets.

A creak caught her attention as she heard the door open and close again, turning her head she saw the last changeling she expected standing there.

“Twilight?”

Twilight couldn’t believe her eyes, she had seen a more vulnerable side to the Queen during their talk, but nothing had prepared her for this.

“You… you really do love me, don’t you?”

Chrysalis managed a smile. “Yes… forever and always. Why are you still here?”

Twilight gingerly approached Chrysalis.

“Because… I’m going to give you a chance… Besides, I still have a bunch of questions!”

Chrysalis’ eyes widened as hope re-filled the hole in her heart. Her tears of sadness turning to joy, she jumped to pull Twilight into an embrace.

“Thank you…” she croaked out.

‘Maybe everything will work out after all’ Chrysalis mused.

Author's Notes:

Lots and lots of dialogue, was quite fun to write!

I'm sure Commander Broad Sword won't be a problem in the future...