Soft feathers lay across Sally's back. Any other day that might confuse her as she woke up. Blinking her eyes there was a green hue around everything that slowly faded until she couldn't notice it any more. Clear Skies leaned in and nosed at her cheek.

The mercenary blushed a little, did he just kiss her?

"Oh, awake? Didn't see you at the pods." Apple didn't get up from where she lay nearby. "When I got back you were already here, out of it. Clear seems quite taken with you."

Sally couldn't stop that blush but fought it down with the practice of a woman who had had to use communal showers in a military unit. "I am not unappreciative." She looked up to the eyes of the pegasus. They were a deep blue and she couldn't help but shiver. In a human face, that shade would be quite startling. "I spoke with their queen, she… okay, I don't know if I want to meet her again." Sally meant it.

"So just going to focus on getting out of here?"

The words seemed to confuse the human a little. "Get out? I can't leave." As she spoke the phrase her vision seemed to flicker green a moment. "Wait… no, I can't leave." It was odd for her, she could remember the conversation earlier about getting away, she even felt like here certainly wasn't where she wanted to be. But the thought of actually escaping repulsed her.

"Really?" Apple Stew got up and walked closer, one hoof reaching out to tilt Sally's head one way and the other. The confusion that warred in the woman's head was the only reason she hadn't pulled back. "Got her teeth in you, like what she did to the old timber wolf." Apple gestured to the bundle of sticks to one side that resembled a pony-sized canine. "One moment they wanted to attack pony and changeling alike, next, can't even try and fight anymore."

"Wait, so she hypnotized me or something?"

"Hyper… no, she used magic."

Sally trembled. Magic. It had been easy to ignore it up until now. It was just some odd glowy glowy thing. Now it was in her head? "Magic is real." She said it and drew a deep breath. "Magic is real."

The stallion pulled at his wing, tugging Sally firmly against his soft hide. Apple noticed the newcomer was having an issue coping and figured Clear was a perfect friend right now.

"Shh." The sound was soft and close. Sally was shaken from her terror by Clear. He was still smiling but now it seemed a lot more serious.

"Yeah, you're right. She is playing a game." Sally huddled closer still to the stallion's warmth. "You aren't all the way gone, are you? I have seen guys all the way gone and you have more there right now."

Clear Skies didn't say anything else. Right then, Sally didn't want anything else.

"Food." The word roused Sally and she stretched. Her leg was still giving her problems and she really didn't want to think about trying to leave. That would just make her worry again.

It was the same food as last time, apparently gruel and some fruit was the norm here and, along with the ponies, she ate up from one of the little wooden bowls it was served in.

"You, strange pony." The chittering voice drew her attention up to the changeling outside the pen. "You, yes. Queen Fangs wants to see you again."

Sally shook a little and the changeling proved to be a quick study of human emotions.

"Good, you should fear her." The green leash appeared and tugged at her. Sally was glad of it, it meant she had no choice. A small voice inside wondered why the queen hadn't made her want to visit her as well. The logical part of the mercenary knew. She wanted the woman to feel afraid.

It wasn't a long walk, and with the glow of the green magic Sally could actually see where she was walking in the near-dark. The voice of the queen was the first she knew of her presence. "A bite to eat today? No, today is for planning." There was a hint of breath on the back of Sally's neck and she fell to her knees.

The collar was gone and the changeling who had brought her too. As far as Sally knew she was alone in the chamber with the queen.

"Planning. Do not fear leaving the hive, at least until you next sleep." The words meant something to Sally, or at least something within her. "You say we should farm instead of steal. I like this idea. Do it."

A glow began at the queen's head and Sally was treated to the changeling's features revealed bit by bit as the illumination increased. Her hoof was on a dirt map, scrawled into the floor.

"Here is hive, here is farm. Hills here, river here." Sally's mind was quick to work at the problem, it was a good terrain for an attack. "Normally, they leave a sack of grain out for us, so we don't have to come close. We come close this time, I think."

A pincer attack, one squad moving in from a side to follow the water, the other sweeping in and closing the gap. With the changeling's magic, Sally knew, it would be a quick fight. She grit her teeth.

"If you don't tell me, I will tell you such lovely things. I will put more spells in that little head of yours. I will make you want to help, love helping. You would be a pet."

The last words were spoken by her ear and Sally snarled, trying to turn and deliver a punch to the queen.

Sally's fist came right in, her muscles pushing it hard as she could but something grabbed it less than an inch from that smug face. "I could make you not want to fight me. I could make you do many things, but making you use that brain of yours, that I can almost smell the violence seeping from. That I couldn't do."

The woman's knee chose then to remind her of it's frailties and she fell down with a grunt.

"No, little morsel. You get a choice in all this. Be my pet, let me scrub every bit of your ape-like mind clean. Let me make you a kitten that trots obediently to a pod. Or show me how you would plan this."

Sally lowered her head. "There has to be something else? You can feed from me all you want I-" She looked up to see the changeling's horn charging. She knew that the world would turn green a moment later and she would do whatever this creature told her. Her tears came first, then the clenching in her gut of fear. The last straw was when her hands started to shake and she slumped down, looking at the map.

"Shame, I felt in you someone who would do nearly anything for the right price."

The words echoed in Sally's ears. Could it be that easy for her? Could she sell her soul to this creature, at the cost of whoever was in that farm?

She had done it before. She had been paid very well, but she had done bad things before. "Damn you…"

The laugh of the queen cut her to the quick.

"Do it my way, or no way."

There was a bite at her ear, she knew it was a sharp tooth of that creature. "Of course. But in the end, my way is your way."

"And no more mind games."

The hot breath of the changeling was against her cheek. "No, there will be mind games, but none for your little pony friends. How about that?"

"Are you really going to honor this agreement?" Sally turned, the fangs of the queen were taking up half her vision suddenly.

"My warrior slave, I promise you, the moment you mess up and show no worth to me, you will never have to worry about anything again. Your will is strong, you would have let me kill your mind if I hadn't offered payment. If I let you go, with nothing to bind you, I would never see you again."

Sally took a deep breath, then another. "Then we understand each other."

Queen Fangs stood beside Sally, on a ridge above the farm. "See, they have one pegasus, as I told you. They fly fast, swift as the wind, but they are not as clever as a unicorn and never as clever as a changeling."

Sally knew what was happening. A changeling disguised as one of the other ponies from below, walked up to the winged pony. Her heart hardened as she saw the green glow start and wrap around the pegasi's neck.

"Simple. You now have one of the greatest fighting forces in the world at your command. What will we do with them?" The queen's offer was so very tempting. Her soldiers had always been well trained, she made sure of that, but this was something else.

Below there was a brief struggle as two big ponies, with neither horn nor wings, moved shoulder-to-flank, bucking and lashing out at any changeling that came near. "Go for their legs, bring them down to ground and-"

"We know that already, but you worked it out in moments." The queen sounded so very smug. "This choice was a good one, for both of us. Lets go down there now and see what new morsels await."

Sally didn't need a collar, she followed the queen, her sore leg slowing her down a little. "Lean on me." The words were accompanied by the queen moving in beside her and Sally didn't think, she reached out and braced on the queen as she walked, taking the weight off her knee.

"Why do this to them?"

"This farm?" The queen's gait wasn't completely smooth and Sally was having to skip every now and again to keep up. She sounded amused at Sally's question.

"No, ponies. Couldn't you get all you need from those… other things?"

"In a word, yes. I fed my hive for many years on their fuzzy selves. We used their lives up in the pods but it was fine, there were always more." The queen turned her gaze to Sally. "But it was our first pony that we had, that taught us so much. He gave much more energy, and it was infinitely more delicious. But we broke him in a bad way, we discovered we couldn't use the pods too often."

She gestured with a hoof to the farm ahead. To where ponies were being rounded up with green magic, changelings each taking control of one. The more troublesome equines lay on the ground, a soft green glow around their features telling Sally that they had been disabled in a similar manner to how she had been. "You are efficient, if not subtle."

"Of course we are. Those little rabbit things are all but gone. Another hive used them at a far fiercer rate than we."

"You protect them?" Sally sounded surprised before it clicked for her. "You protect them because you can't get more."

"Hunted to scarcity. We protect what is ours. That includes you now, particularly since your value grows by the hour in my hive." The queen sounded delighted at this, one hoof reaching to rub down Sally's side possessively. "A curious position, really. We protect you and your mind protects us."

"Symbiotic." Sally spoke the word, not knowing if she felt repelled at the concept or… excited. The soldier and strategist in her was practically baying at the chance to lead these creatures.

"A what?"

"When two creatures act, to the benefit of each. Symbiotic. Like a bug that is poisonous to the creatures that feast on a plant. The plant will protect such a bug."

Queen Fangs laughed loudly at this. "Then come, little bug, let us see what our branches have caught."

Author's Notes:

Some darker themes still. The queen seeks only one thing, control. Once Sally gives her's up, her life becomes easier.

Yes, Fangs is a monster in the realest sense of the word. Chrysalis, the way I interpret her, is a young queen, with young desires and ways of carrying them out. Fangs is an old hoof at this game, but like any changeling, she is ready to change if the situation warrants it.