“You’re back early, Two,” says boss when the lightning-based, short-range teleportation spell culminates, leaving behind Two and black shadows on the inside of Three’s eyelids.

It’s only been a day since her last report, although here in the tunnels no one without a clock or incredible sense of time would know it.

“I got lucky when I took a break in Vanhoover general hospital, and I saw a pretty weird thing.”

“Are they sowing tentacles on ponies in secret like in those scary books miss Gem brought from Canterlot?” Three peeks out from under boss’ dark blue mane, and shudders, “I… mean… scary only to small drones who haven’t been through all kinds of bad stuff like I have. Iwasn’tscaredatall- yaah!” he jumps and looks around as he hears a hiss. He breathes out a relieved sigh when he notices it was just a dwarf pony opening a portable heater to let out the built-up steam.

“No illegal medical experiments, no,” Two shakes her head, expression so passive it’s clear to anyone with any observation skills that she’s fighting with all her might not to burst out laughing, “I saw a strange orange wave appear on the horizon and spread through the sky. No idea where it came from, but it warmed everything up for a while.”

“Maybe the unicorns have figured out a spell to stop the cooling down of the planet?” boss offers a quick guess.

“Got it in one, dad!” Two nods, “I checked with Vanhoover town hall officials, and they explained things… after some persuasion,” she gives boss a seductive eyebrow wiggle.

“You bit them, didn’t you?” says One, unimpressed, which makes Two grumble to herself.

“...stupid...mom...know-it-all...”

“I’m not just a dumb punching warrior, Two,” One snickers, “You’ve never been one to bother with seduction. Venom and hypnosis magic, that’s you.”

Two looks away.

“Well, I guess you can be pretty observant if you want to be,” she begrudgingly admits.

“Besides, you don’t have the figure to pull it off like Gem or me,” One’s cocky smirk makes Two’s eye twitch, and the stones under the smaller infiltrator’s hooves start smoldering.

“I can outseduce you in my sleep you musclebound freak,” blurts out Two,

“Oh puh-lease,” One waves her foreleg dismissively, ”I’ve been melting brains with my crotch while your dad was still an egg in Chrysalis’ hatcheries.”

“A-hem!” boss clears his throat, “A declare this a tie, because while One is technically correct, I still recall that our last date night of roleplaying strangers in a bar started with her sensual greeting of ‘Come with me if you want to bang!’,” he looks at One now fully interested in examining the floor between her forelegs, and proving that, despite all biological evidence to the contrary, chitin can blush.

“Did she do the accent?” Three’s beaming from ear to ear, which isn’t just a figure of speech with changelings.

“...yes...” whispers One, “...I did...”

“Aaaand just like that, I think I won’t be needing a hatchday present this year,” says Two in a smug, singsong voice. The look of amusement on her face fades quickly as she returns to her report, “Jokes aside, though, the unicorn I got talking was a Hex Guard medic. According to military reports, the food situation is worse than we though. No one was ready for food situation this rough in late summer. Harvests are late and crops are screwed all over Equestria. Everyone is rationing what little they have, but within a month there will be a deadly famine, and by deadly, I mean a wipeout. And Equestria is the place in a good shape thanks to magic. Griffon Empire is crumbling already with all the states splitting off and raiding their neighbors.”

“Holes damn it...” boss breathes out and grits his teeth.

“Boss,” Three taps the king’s shoulder, “Did you talk to mister Hard Reset yesterday? When I asked him about helping, he told me ponies could stuff it.”

“Yeah, I did, with some more success,” he nods, “He’s willing to share some simpler blueprints, be he won’t let us lend ponies any prototypes or supporting tech.”

“That’s good enough, right?” Two tilts her head.

“Everything is in dwarvish, Two, and we can’t print them out in ponish, their devices simply don’t support that language in written form. We’d need someone to bring the blueprints to someone with the global resources to build the underground mushroom and moss farms, and quickly. Someone who is close, which means Cadance, and she knows us the best. Anyone trying to stay there, explain, and translate the measurements and everything in the process will be detained. I have zero doubts about that.”

“Ooooh! Oh oh oh oh oh!” Three raises his foreleg, bouncing up and down on boss’ back now.

“Send one of the infiltrators,” Two shrugs, “Hundred-and-four wouldn’t mind giving his life for the hive, I heard.”

“Two, I know exactly who would give what for whom,” boss frowns, “but I don’t feel like sending one of us to potentially die-”

“OOOOOOOOH!” Three raises his voice higher.

“You know that he’s-” Two nods towards Three, which makes boss lower his head.

“Yeah… I know.”

“You know he’s the best one for it. Pretty much the only one who won’t be nuked on sight, really.”

“I know, Two.”

“The tunnel is safe all the way to the Crystal Empire.”

“I know...”

“And, surprisingly, he’s been working with Six a lot, so he can read the blueprints, even though he doesn’t understand them.”

“Hethinksyoucanfixtechnologywithhugs!” boss hisses at Two.

“In Three’s defense,” One adds her two bits to the conversation, “I did see him fix a motorized power drill like that.”

“I know,” grumbles boss, “That’s the worst part.”

“Come on, boss!” Three grabs the back of boss’ neck, and pull himself to his ear, “It’s just a few days’ trip for me, and even if the food princess keeps me around, the Crystal Heart is still there, so I won’t get hungry, and we’ll do so much help with those breathing and shroom machines.”

“Oh right!” Two taps her hoof against the floor, “There is one piece of good news that’ll make this an easier sale for Hard Reset. It turns out that oxygen won’t be that big a deal. The medic said that, for some reason, corrupted vegetation is faring pretty fine even with the lack of sunlight in that respect. It’s just the food that’s going to be the critical problem soon.”

“See? I don’t even need to carry anything other than the print-outs. You don’t even have to risk anyone else-”

“Enough!” boss raises his voice, not into a scream or anything, but with the usually quiet king it is more than enough to silence everyone around, “If we’re doing this, and I’m starting to think there really isn’t any other way, then you’re definitely, one thousand percent not going alone,” he flips his wings shortly to dislodge Three who gets the message and hops off, “Hard Reset may have refused your idea yesterday, but I’ll go tell him that this isn’t up for a discussion otherwise the whole council won’t budge, especially after having to leave Brauheim due to Twilight’s unicorns sniffing between the Crystal Empire and Rift. Can’t blame them for being ticked off, though.”

With that, he pushes through the endless procession of dwarves backwards through the tunnel. Two teleports away immediately after, leaving Three walking side by side with One.

“Can I ride you, miss One?” he looks sideways at the warrior over three times his height.

“Are you my king?” she answers with a smirk, “If not, no rides for you right now.”

“Aww, but I want to write into booksy,” Three waves the foreleg with the journal firmly set inside a leg hole.

After a short staring contest, One capitulates, sighs, and says:

“Fiiine, hop on.”

Three flies up on her broad back, and nuzzles the back of One’s neck for good measure.

“You know, I could go for a back rub,” says One out of nowhere as Three settles down on a right spot where he can stretch.

“On it!” he perks up immediately, salutes, and begins walking and turning around on One’s back like a cat getting ready to sleep.

He’s nowhere near strong enough naturally to properly knead One’s back muscles even with her chitin softened to maximum, but the genuine love pouring from his hooves pressed against her is more than even the best trained masseuse could achieve with a changeling.

Short time later, a tall, lanky changeling mare with messy brown mane and tail looking as if she chewed it down to size herself approaches the duo leading the dwarf procession in silence. In contrast to the dwarves singing drinking songs echoing through the endless tunnel and sipping beer from mugs while slowly plodding along, the mare, while taller than them in her size of a changeling infiltrator, simply doesn’t exude any relevant presence to her surroundings.

“Umm,” she says with a nervous shaking of her voice, “mom?” she raises something up in her hoof. It looks like a small, black block of wood with four nails protruding from the bottom, one on the top ending with a small ball made of flame spider silk and few strands of the same silk sticking from the other side. The spider silk is dyed wine-red, and there are two green blotches in front of the ball and a downwards bending line identifying the painting as a frowny face, “I made you this.”

One levitates the flimsy and makeshift changeling figurine up, narrows her eyes, and lets it drop on the floor.

“Ah!” the quiet changeling mare’s eyes go wide-

-as One crushes the figurine under her hoof. Not even stomping at it, just walking over it in a picture of perfect dismissal.

“Hey!” Three stops massaging One’s back, even going so far as to give it a loud smack.

Frowning, One looks at the other mare.

“You can do better, Thirteen.”

“I tried-” says Thirteen, her eyes watering.

“Then try harder,” One picks up the pace as Three jumps off of her back. It’s too late already, though, because Thirteen is nowhere to be seen anymore.

With a sigh and a lot of apologizing, Three pushes between the dwarves, picks up the mangled and broken figurine of One, flies up to the ceiling, and follows the faint tug of Thirteen’s hive link while scribbling into his journal.

Poor Thirteen. If only miss One would understand how much Thirteen loves her and dad.

You see, booksy (or you don’t because you don’t have eyes), last year miss One gave birth to something she called a ‘royal egg’ within a normal clutch. They all looked the same to me, but the itsy bitsy buggo inside this one didn’t come out as a larva. Instead, she started off as a full changeling, though tiny. Don’t worry, she grew into normal size later, now she’s kinda Five’s size, although a bit on the skinny side when compared to a warrior changeling like Five. Unfortunately, Thirteen doesn’t seem to be good at… anything, really, and I think that’s why miss One is always so mad with her.

OH, I KNOW WHO SHE REMINDS ME OF NOW! She’s like Gem used to be - lanky, skinny, uncoordinated and… I wouldn’t say it to in front of the boss, but miss One said Thirteen had the brain like if Cryo reverted to an egg and then got dribbled with. I think that’s really mean, but that’s miss One for you, never one to mince words. Thirteen is the sweetest and kindest changeling I know, and our hive has the best hug bugs, I dare anyone to dispute that!

And if they do, I’ll never hug them again. See? I can be mean too, but only to the meanest of the meanies. Too bad that when Thirteen is involved, miss One seems to be one of those.