The pain burned, it throbbed and it stung. Sally screamed when she could, but even that was denied her when the pain was in her head.

Agony became her world, she couldn't even focus on voices for how much she hurt. She knew vaguely that the queen was the source of most of the agony, the changeling's magic boring in and twisting every nerve ending until it wailed.

Sweet Bite had made it her duty to care for both the queen and her mate while this was happening. Sharp had taken the weight of keeping the hive running, which when Sweet had a second to think about it was quite amazing.

Sometimes the mare heard Fangs howl every bit as loud as Sally, the work costing much more than had first been hinted. But slowly, over the course of days that cost Sweet in sleep and worry, she started to see what the fire of Fangs' magic was forging.

Sally's legs, twisted and wrecked by the spreading poison, were now dark black, very pony like and intriguing to the drone. Fangs noticed her focus and displayed her namesake. "That slime is poison to her kind."

"You are remaking her?" Sweet reached her own hoof out to feel those legs. Just like her own.

"Yes. It was this or watch her die. She was willing to die for this hive, to fight to her last." The queen rose up, Sweet feeling the magic her body focused start to coalesce in their horn.

Sweet watched as the ruined body of the human was slowly changed. The black seemed to stop at her hips as a new pattern emerged. Her carapace shell. Every inch of flesh was paid for, by the food in the hive mainly, but also with Sally's pain. Sweet watched as her lover was rebuilt, but not completely as a pony.

Fangs was struggling now. She knew changeling biology, intimately. But adapting it and merging it with the parts of Sally she wanted to keep human were tricky. Ribs were kept in addition to shell, concessions were made, but victories were won.

Sweet was joined by Sharp, the pair sharing an embrace before words were employed.

"How is she doing?" Sharp Mind leaned over, seeing the now familiar pony legs, tail and slightly adjusted hips. Sally's belly was now black as well, but the changeling noticed the dark tide had now claimed most of the woman's chest too. She couldn't help but giggle. "I like her squishy bits."

Fangs heard, where she was resting. "They are a defining part of her form, I thought to keep them." Sharp noticed how drained the queen sounded. There were two instincts that instantly tried to do battle within the leader-class changeling.

One part, a growing part, recognized weakness in the aging queen and immediately crowed in joy at her showing it and plotting Fangs' downfall.

It was shoved away, though. Sharp could see how much her mother cared for Sally, in what she was spending to save her.

"Come my queen, you look hungry." Sharp turned from Sally, knowing Sweet would care for their love.

"I always hunger, but not always for food." Fangs stood up, false bravado slathering her with strength. "Now, however, you are right."

Sharp nodded and stepped closer, clearly offering a shoulder for the larger mare to lean on if she needed it. She got a nipped ear instead.

"The day I need one of my daughters to carry me to the pods is the day I tear my own throat out." The words of the queen bolstered Sharp, who stood taller and felt pride in her tough queen.

It was yet more days, Sweet watching more and more of the human changing. Her queen dipped into the changeling form more often than human. Sally was now coated from head to toe in dark black hide, leaving only her arms bare of it. But she retained some human elements. The queen sculpted the woman's head, giving her a refined but small snout and remaking her ruined eyes.

Sweet wanted to reach in and hold Sally, but when she had tried, just once, the human's screams of pain had increased.

"I am almost done." Fangs rested, looking at the green-haired creature on the table. Sally's mouth was open, her lungs pumping. She had screamed herself hoarse.

"Her arms?" Sweet had learned when to ask questions of her queen. She felt a bond with the mare that she hadn't her whole life.

"Her arms. It will be the last and greatest fight." Fangs got up and left. Sweet knew she would be going to feed again.

Leaning in, Sweet leaned down so her horn touched the matching protrusion from the former human's head. "I promised I would be at your side. I will never leave it. Sharp couldn't be, but she works for you anyway." Sweet took a deep breath, smelling Sally's changed scent. "I don't know what Fangs is doing to herself, she looks… she looks like she is wasting away." Tears dripped from Sweet Bite's eyes, flowing down her snout and landing on Sally's.

She had a war that hurt to fight. Her queen was burning herself up to do this, to save Sally. She didn't want to lose either of them.

The tears flowed until the clopping of hooves made Sweet sit up. Fangs had returned, power burning in her anew. "Sit back, drone, I must finish this."

The drone did as she was commanded, it cost her a lot to have to sit away from her love. As she watched, Fang's burnt Sally's arms in fire, green and oddly hot. It tore at the flesh of the woman and darkened it to a deep black. Muscles ruined by poison twisted and reworked, finding a shape close to their original.

"Fingers… why did she want damned fingers." Fangs was cursing while she worked, her teeth clamping together as she worked on what she had just mentioned. Each twisted finger moved, adjusted, reshaped and darkened. The fire of the queen burnt them but like changeling fire did, it changed them.

"She is complete?" Sweet looked at Sally, examining every inch of the… mare. Sweet did smile at that, she really was a mare now.

"She is, but I am not done." Fangs took a deep breath, the sound catching a few times and sounding to both changelings like a slight rattle.

Fire engulfed Sally's pelvis. This magic, Fangs knew, would cost her.

The fire focused over Sally's groin, Sweet giving a shriek when she recognized what was happening. "Male?" She stood up and was almost ready to fight her queen at this.

"Back off, drone." The command was impossible for Sweet to fight. Sharp could, she knew, Sharp could stand up to the demands of a queen.

Sweet Bite watched as the mare she loved had her very genetic purpose twisted. Her marehood was still there, but more had come to be. "She will bear no foals, ever." Fangs coughed after saying the words. Ichor had splattered the edge of the table where she worked.

Fangs noticed this only peripherally, she knew what she was doing, what it would cost. This drone… no, this person, had thrown herself into the hive, had pitched her own life in combat to protect and grow it. Fangs would not be shown up by a drone.

The fire completed its work, Sally now sporting a sheathe and the needed testes to serve as her new role, but it had cost her. She would be barren. "This was your gift, silly drone." Fangs croaked the words out, green splattering out of her throat and marking Sally's hip. "I know full well how damn much you like putting yourself in her." Fangs smiled and lowered her barrel down beside the table, leaning up and resting her nose on Sally's fingers. "My daughter… Sharp Mind… now queen."

Sweet's scream resounded through the hive, as did the sudden loss of contact with their queen.

"WHAT HAPPENED?" Sharp's voice was on the heels of that scream, Sweet knowing she would soon have company.

Sharp burst into the room. "What is going on, what happened to the queen?"

Sweet was laying beside her dead ruler. She looked up with tear streaked eyes. "She knew it would take everything she had." Sharp was there suddenly, beside her, tears brimming too. "Damn her, why did she have to always be so alone."

Leaning in and pressing her cheek to Sweet Bite's cheek, Sharp shared her tears and her feelings. The mighty queen's body was unmoving, unbreathing.

"The hell…" The voice that cut into their grieving was croaking and sounding unsure. "Fuck this hurts. What…" Sally's big blue, typically changeling-like eyes focused and she saw the queen's snout. "What did she do to me?"

Sweet and Sharp both lifted tear-stained faces to look up at their lover.

"No… oh no, I didn't want this, I don't…" Sally tried to pull back from the dead queen's gentle smile, her hand tugging away fine but the rest of her body didn't quite work right. It definitely hurt still. "Why did you do this?" Her anger raised, she demanded answers from the peacefully dead Fangs. "I… I wasn't… I wasn't worth you!"

"Nothing was worth Fangs. But she had one last demand…" Sweet's voice had four ears twitch. Sally not used to the sensation lifting a hand to touch her own. "Sharp Mind, she wanted, wants, you to be queen."

There was a gasp from the doorway. There was a mix of leaders and drones poking their heads in. They all knew Sweet was a drone, a drone couldn't fight her queen's word.

"Queen?" Sally blinked and found her hand resting on Fangs' snout. She managed to struggle her new body forward a little, tipping her head down. "My queen."

The sound of changeling bodies, all drawing down, it was a chirping similar to Sally heard every night when her lovers lay touching. "My queen…" The phrase repeated again and again, each mouth of the hive saying it, even those not privy to the start of it.

"My queen." Sweet Bite kissed Sharp's hoof, grinning like a fiend, her emotions pulled and torn almost to breaking point. Happiness warred with loss.

It was a fight everypony in the hive suddenly had.

"Okay, so how do these damn legs work?" Sally's voice cut through the deafening silence. Sharp shook her head.

"I can't hate her, for all the things she did to make life hard. She saved you, Sally." Sharp stepped up and inspected Queen Fangs' last work. Shock hit her as she looked at the gender changes her mother had wrought. "What…"

Sally was caught by her lover's stare, looking as well. Words failed her a moment, there was a difference between the queen telling her what she would do, and actually having it done. "She was planning to make you a new hive, was going to see you would have everything you needed." Sally reached a finger down to poke it before pulling back self consciously. There were a lot of ponies watching from the doorway. "She said a queen could have a consort, a mare or stallion I guess, but that I had no role in a queen's life."

Sweet Bite nosed at her new queen, trying to break Sharp from her shock.

"This complicated things. She told me at the start, of doing this…" Sally gestured at her new form. "She gave me the choice, be female and forever in her service, or… well, this. She said I could be your breeder…" The term was a bit of an odd one, almost derogatory. Breeder-class changelings, the breeding males of the hive, were generally only chosen for their physical qualities.

"She said the changes she made would make you barren." Sweet reached up a hoof to rest on Sally's leg. "I guess she could only make one sex work properly."

That had both Sally and Sharp looking confused. "One gender?" It came from both queen and changed human at once.

"Oh, uh…" Sweet reached with that hoof, gently pushing part of Sally's new anatomy aside.

"Both…" Sharp looked shocked anew. Sally just slumped down on the table, losing her grip on the world completely.

"My… my queen." A leader approached them then, addressing Sharp Mind. "The drones need to see you, they need to hear your words."

Sharp was torn, but looked to Sweet and kissed the mare on the lips. "My consort, make sure my breeder is safe and cared for."

Sweet grinned up and kissed Sharp back. "My queen, I could not ignore your words."

There was no hint of dominance, or command. Only love.

Author's Notes:

Damn it. Damn it all to hell.

I came up with Queen Fangs as the antagonist, originally, about a week and a half ago. She was 'queen bitch' in my story. She was the will Sally would battle against and lose to. She was the driving force behind the plot.

Why did she give herself, so freely and nobly. I had to stop more than once, I cried for her. Even as Sweet and Sharp did, I cried because damn it, she became a hero.