This story is a sequel to Love Starved
April, YOH 1515 (by the Equestrian calendar). Fifteen years after Luna's Return, the third and last year of the Great Changeling War.
Theoretical-Infiltrator Compound was the elite of her elite Caste, tasked with predicting the logistics of the war that Queen Hunger planned to wage against the Realm of Equestria. But, when she came up with the wrong answer, she was demoted to a less responsible position. And when her trepidations proved correct, she was sent to the battle-front, to defend Hunger's last Hive against the final Equestrian onslaught!
But does the real threat to the survival of herself, and her friends, come from outside the Hive? Or from within?
ADDENDUM: AU as of Season 6 Finale.
Chapters (2)
Sad, but no Tragedy tags, I'm going to hold out hope that some of them make it out of this, but then I'm an optimist.
If anything, the Lings seem worse off than the Germans logistically, spears in an age of auto-loading rifles? That's an utterly devastated supply system.
Curious to see how Chrysi- I mean Hunger, is responding to this. Will we see some sort of return to sanity, or delusion to the end.
From what I remember of her previously, poison and a bullet are too good for her.
This needs an Inglorious Bastards gif, does anyone have one?
P.S. Congrats Jordan, evidently your story broke FIMFic, good job.
An interesting perspective? Yes. Spoiling the entire war? Also yes. You're an excellent historian, Jordan, but there are times when that gets in the way of your storytelling. Still, you definitely showed here that the journey is far more important than destination, at least for the journeyers.
In any case, this was a fascinating read. Incredible tension, palpable desperation, and characters who I genuinely felt for. And then my heart sank at the end, because Compound, Cowl, and Carry deserve better than the creature they serve.
The seemingly profligate use of fission bombs is rather distressing. I hope the ponies have a way to mitigate the radiation. Still, now I see why the Crawling Chaos endorsed Chrysalis. He does love making sapients nuclear-capable.
Looking forward to more.
Suddenly I understand why Celestia might have chosen Fluttershy to befriend the Twister. I understand, and am terrified. That horse scares me with her long view.
5184929
The Japanese actually fell down this far into desperation in the last year of World War II. Some of their village militias wound up armed with naginata or even makeshift bamboo pikes (a naginata is at least a well-designed polearm). Had America invaded in 1946, civilians armed in such wise were expected to charge regular Allied infantry.
This is one reason I believe the bombardment of Hiroshima and Nagasaki actually saved Japanese lives on the whole -- the suffering of the Japanese people if the war had been ended by invasion and ground conquest would have been indescribable.
Chrysalis, personally, is more a Hitler-like figure (mad individual tyrant leading her people to destruction), but the Changelings as a whole have a very "Japanese" cultural feel (extreme group loyalties, hardworking and close to fearless in battle). Unfortunately, as history shows, Japanese-like cultures can be led closer to complete annihilation than Western-style ones.
And in case you haven't noticed, I kind of like my lings. They've been very badly mis-led, but they're not inherently evil.
5184929
Oh -- one more thing. While the Changeling military was even at its height not as well-equipped as the Equestrian, especially now that the Equestrians are building equipment to modified Age of Wonders plans from Paradise's databases using Changelings from the Friendly Hives as factory workers, the Changelings did have artillery, firearms and such. Most either purchased from Equestria or other places using false identities, or constructed with captured or diverted factory equipment.
Compound was sent to the Provisionals and put in a near-the-front spider hole in a spear-armed team because she's being punished for dissidence. Not that she's much of a dissident by Human or Pony standards, but she does have a very intelligent mind, and she persists in thinking for herself. That's enough, especially as Hunger is going madder and madder.
I'm seeing a little bit of Subjunctive in this one. MOAR
Also, I want to see Queen Fluttershy
5186832
I'm perhaps not spoiling too much if I admit that yes, The Queen of Kindness is most definitely Fluttershy.
All hail Queen Fluttershy!!
So is this after Landscape Carrot returned to Equestrian society?
5188767
Oh yes, the return of Landscape takes place in YOH 1508, which puts it nicely after the end of Season 7, and hence far enough in the future that it's not likely to be the element which josses my fanon.
5188773 Okay... wouldn't he, after spending so much time as essentially one of them, want to make peace? Because I noticed at some point in the narration Compound said that Equestria no longer wouldn't accept their surrenders. As the husband or coltfriend or lover or something of the Element of Honesty, wouldn't he have quite a bit of leverage in this regard?
5188844
Ah ... let me explain that. Confused my wife as well when I read this to her, so I knew this might cause problems.
First of all, this is from Compound's viewpoint, and her information is limited. She knows that at one point more and more Changelings were surrendering, and then the Equestrians overran camps of dead and dying Pony Captives, and then the Equestrian troops became more aggressive after the word of these atrocities got out, and it became harder for Changelings to surrender.
Secondly, it's not that the Princesses ordered the troops to stop taking prisoners. Or even that their own officers ordered this. It's just that there was an outbreak of spontaneous anger at the sharp end, which took a while for the commanders to get under control.
This actually happens in war -- once one gets troops worked up into a killing mood, it can be hard for them to turn it off when the enemy starts surrendering. And the revelation of atrocities produces a lot of anger at the front. I based this on some of the events surrounding the last months of the fighting in Europe, when the Allies started overrunning the Nazi concentration camps. This was also one of the reasons why Downfall, 1946, would have been so terrible for the Japanese -- Allied forces would have found out more and more about how they had treated their prisoners, and would have been very willing to kill anything Japanese that looked even marginially dangerous.
Of course the Princesses and the commanders under them want surrenders accepted. For one thing, every Hunger Hive or Swarm which surrenders is one that doesn't have to be fought any more, with attendant loss of life on their own side. For another thing, the Princesses and certain Ponies like Landscape Carrot are very aware that Queen Hunger's Changelings are more the victims of her mad ambition than they are inherently evil beings. And Equestria is culturally merciful: most Equestrians don't want to kill Changelings if avoidable.
There's even a direct economic incentive. Hives which submit are eligible for Reconciliation, which means that they can make deals to provide Workers for Equestrian industry in return for love, food and money. Everypony and everyling benefits from this, it is the engine which is driving the recovery of both Equestria and the Changelings both Friendly and formerly Enemy as the war draws to its conclusion.
And Rarity and Spike Belle are personally making a lot of money off of such deals; this is the point in history where Rarity Enterprises, Ltd. becomes more than just a fashion house (if you want the details, they start off with defense contracts to provide uniforms for the military, and take it from there). And they aren't alone -- any company which has any special contacts with Friendly Changelings is also benefiting from the war. Mention might be made of Spark Wheel Industries, and the true identity of Spark's wife Meadow Song.
This is the Great Reconciliation itself getting underway, a social movement which will lead to the integration of the Changelings into Equestrian civilization. And it's entirely in accordance with Celestia's plans. Celly plays a long game ...
5191039 Oh, okay, that makes sense. And those last two sentences made me think of something: have you ever had Celestia and Rarity have a real, one-on-one, serious conversation? Preferably about their (kinda) shared Talents of social manipulaion (to a certain extent).
5188844
Oh, as for AJ herself ...
She had her problems at first (YOH 1508) with Hive Carrot -- especially because she knew that the former Princess Sealant, regardless of what Sealant said or did, and even regardless of Landscape's lack of romantic interest in Sealant, was essentially love-locked on Landscape Carrot. Applejack's own betrothed. The fact that Sealant took the reign-name "Carrot" made this kind of obvious.
But AJ's anything but petty. She's the one who got to marry Landscape, she's the one who kept his love through ten years of Captivity, and the essentially-pathetic nature of the Changelings trying to adapt to Equestrian culture tugged at her heartstrings.
The Apples and Carrots are now seen not only by Hive Carrot but by all the Friendly Hives as Ling-Friends. Landscape Carrot Apple himself is practically worshipped by them as a saint -- due to his unique knowledge of Changeling language, culture and nature he is often the first Equestrian a Friendly or former Enemy Hive sees who is able to talk to them in terms they comprehend. He saved the lives of hundreds of Lings from Hive Evergloom, leading them to freedom as Queen Chrysalis overran the Hive; and his now-wife Applejack was one of those who fought to drive off Chrysalis' Swarm so that survival was possible.
Since then he's saved many thousands of Changeling lives -- it's impossible to count, but it would probably amount to something like hundreds of thousands by the end of the war. Landscape and Applejack are the face of Equestria to many of the Changelings, and they will be revered in the decades and centuries to come. When Chrysalis herself is but a nightmare memory, an ogre in the legends of the Lings, they'll still be putting pictures of Landscape and Applejack up on their hive walls, on worlds orbiting distant stars.
So yeah. Applejack and Landscape like the Changelings. And are well liked by them in return.
5191054
No, but I should do it.
Celestia knows exactly what Rarity is doing by building her business empire. And she wholly approves of it.
5191082 I imagine they would be good friends.
I personally don't like how you make Chrysalis as just tyrant. I just hope there will be more to story why she changed name etc to show some more character to her.
But...
I'm very impressed on how great and realistic it felt it was like 'cross of iron' movie from 1977 (if you didn't watched it, do it, its heavy movie but for sure its gonna give you some great ideas for this story). I love how you do it both technicaly and very good story telling not sure how other way to name it, its just well made.
Overall I'm waiting for more. And tell me because maybe I missed it but you used claws and hoofs then how they look uhh ? (Sorry I read it on phone and comment later)
5191853
Eh ... the thing is, canon Chrysalis derives from two main sources, A Canterlot Wedding (TV show) and The Return of Chrysalis (IDW comic book), and she really is this bad even in those sources. In both sources, she's not just engaging in a regrettable necessity for the survival of herself and her followers, she is positively enjoying hurting others, and in the comic book series rejects an implicit offer of symbiosis from the cat-creatures, preferring to torment and slay them. Chryssie is not a nice ling at all.
Going beyond canon, my main fanon inspirations for my version of Chrysalis and the Changelings are Phoenix_Dragon's three Changeling stories Fragments, Without a Hive and A New Way; Ardashir's Wolf in Pony's Clothing and Manehattan Madness; and Alex Warlorn's Not the Wedding You Remember. All six of these are well worth reading.
In terms of what I took from each of the stories, the characters of Princess Ceymi (who is one of the main characters of my own Collateral Damage and will be mentioned in Chapter 3 of The Fall of Hive Hunger-Prime), Nictis/Meadow Song (who has already been mentioned without naming him/her) and Spark Wheel come from from Without a Hive and A New Way, Azure Sky (who is mentioned as the beloved of Rainbow Dash in Divine Jealousy and the Voice of Reason) from Fragments and A New Way. The concept of the Friendly Hives and Equestria's alliance with them against Chrysalis comes from Wolf in Pony's Clothing and Manehattan Madness. Chrysalis' birth-name Kifuko, her spirit-guardian Maura and some aspects of her personality -- all to be mentioned in Chapter 2 -- derive from Not the Wedding You Remember.
To summarize, the message of all these stories is that Chrysalis is an exceptionally-evil Changeling, and perhaps even more to the point unusually aggressive for a Changeling Queen. The Changelings have spent most of the last two and a half millennia hiding (which is why Celestia is so utterly caught by surprise when a whole horde of them invade Canterlot in YOH 1503). They usually only kill to protect the secret of their own existence, or take Captives to obtain love, and they are very careful about doing either. Chrysalis, standing in Canterlot ranting about how she's going to rule all Equestria, is very, very atypical for a Changeling of any caste.
A very good reason is adduced in Not the Wedding You Remember. Namely, Chrysalis wasn't raised a Changeling. She was raised as a Zebra, and she fundamentally sees her place as in the light. The circumstances of her childhood and adolescence (which included slaughtering her entire birth-village) have left her quite pitiless, and when she fights her way to the top in the Hive which takes her in (originally as a slave) she decides that the Changelings should be a Master Race.
She is thus very analogous to some Humans who immigrated to other countries, fought their way to the top and became dictators. Such as the Corsican Napoleon Buonaparte, Emperor of France. The Austrian Adolf Hitler, Fuhrer of the Third German Reich. And the (Asian) Georgian Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, better known to history as Josef Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet Union.
In each case, the fact that the dictator was originally an outsider to the society they took over enabled them to internally-transcend the limitations of the cultures of their adoptive countries. In each case, the dictator led their country to martial greatness but -- in part bcause he over-reached traditional limitations -- this greatness partially or fully led to disaster. In Napoleon and Hitler's case, the final consequence was conquest of the country by the enemies their aggressions had aroused; in Stalin's case, the Soviet Union (just barely) avoided being conquered by an enemy he'd raised up (Stalin had enabled Hitler's own rise to military might via various agreements of which the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 was only the most famous), but he murdered so many Russians and members of other Slavic ethnic groups(tens of millions!) that he crippled the Soviet Union's future both culturally and demographically, with consequences we see today in Putin's crippled and demoralize rump of a once-great empire.
I am, obviously, making an analogy in this story between Chrysalis and Hitler. Her path is closer to Hitler's than to those of the other two leaders, because she institutes an explicit doctrine of racial superiority (my Changelings are in fact a Lost Kind of Pony) and uses it as ideological justification to launch a war of conquest; she drives the other Changeling Hives into the arms of Equestria (her claim to rule all Changelings as High Quen makes peace or alliance with those Hives impossible); in the end the forces she raises against her are so powerful, and so enraged by the atrocities she commits, that she finds herself defending a single Hive and eventually a single bunker within that Hive, awaiting her destruction. There are also overtones of the Imperial Japanese of 1937-45 here -- the Changelings are cooperative, hard-working and very brave in battle, and the aggressions of their leadership put them in a situation where they are confronting a far more powerful foe armed with atomic bombs, reduced to hopeless defensive expedients.
From all three fanfic writers I get the concept of the Changelings as creepy, scary but also pathetic. They were Twisted long ago by Discord into their current genome; over many centuries of the Long Hiding lost much of their culture and their former high estate as one of the Five Kinds; they follow a mad High Queen, and in doing so are experiencing terrible suffering and death on a genocidal scale. They are not inherently evil: they know Friendship, and even Love (though normally less personally and less passionately than do the other Kinds), and their eusociality is recognizably a variant of the Harmony. Their loyalty has been given to a monster, and they are being terribly misused.
But then, I'm an American writer of Jewish descent who grew up on stories, histories and board wargames of the Second World War, and who had as two of his main formative influences in his early appreciation of science fiction the German-produced Perry Rhodan and various Japanese animes, including Space Battleship Yamato and Macross. So the concept of an inherently-admirable people following monstrous leaders to their own destruction is hardly new to me.
You can plainly see my opinion of the Changelings in my version of Ceymi and my OC's of Compound, Carry and Cowl. I'll briefly discusss these characters.
Ceymi was a brilliant thinker whose intellect and aesthetic appreciation were too great for her rather limited birth-culture; she came to deeply appreciate and enjoy Equestrian society. The ideology she'd learned from Chrysalis caused her to formally despise the Ponies, but at the same time she formed strong emotional ties to them, both culturally and to specific individuals. The parents of her main Mask, Starry Eyes, became one of her main sources of emotional comfort and healing; and she fell in love with Thermal Soar. Chrysalis saw what was happening and deliberately broke Ceymi so that she could maintain her dominance over her. Ceymi died, around a decade later, without ever fully making the cognitive leap to appreciating that Chrysalis had betrayed her and more importantly was leading her whole Hive to ruin.
Compound is quite simply admirable, and doesn't appreciate how admirable she is in part because she's been raised by a culture so very deeply poisoned by the tyranny of Chrysalis. She's highly-intelligent, compassionate, and intensely loyal to her friends. What's more, she is an analytical thinker, calm in dangerous situations and a natural leader. Her concept of leadership is that it is something one does when a leader is necessary; she does not desire to abuse others, and she believes that a leader's job is to bear up under stress and make the right decisions for the benefit of her followers. Hatred and vindictiveness are not prominent in her character. She is, thus, close to an anti-Chrysalis -- and would make a far better Hive Queen.
Carry and Cowl, the two lings she has bonded deeply with over the last month and especially the last week, in part because expecting her own death she can open herself up to them in ways she could not when she still was very frightened of arousing the attention of the Specials, love her, and she loves them back in return. Carry is a big, strong guy; not a deep thinker but a ling who has a great capacity to care for others. Cowl is a bit of a nebbish, with more formal education than Carry, but considerably less courage (he's the first to snap under the bombardment, if you noticed).
None of the trio are monsters, and none of them deserve the horrors they're going through. They are just people, and in human terms rather nice people at that, who are enduring as best they can a dying dream of madness.
So, yeah -- sorry, but my Chrysalis is a tyrant, and a monster. But my Changelings, as a whole, are not. They're just a lost Kind of Pony, who got so used to hiding that they mostly forgot why they were hiding, and whose long fear and eusocial trust made them easy victims for a false leader to forge into a conquering army.
The Long Hiding is ending; elsewhere the Reconciliation with the other Pony Kinds has already begun. The Changelings have a great future as a race. But here, at Hive Hunger-Prime, the suffering is not yet over.
5191853
Why, thank you! In fact, I've seen Cross of Iron and think it was an excellent movie. And I'm glad you appreciate my attempt to write well in technical terms, too.
The Changelings, like all the Pony Kinds, are hoofed and originally from equid stock. The patterns of holes in their hoofs and cannons serve two purposes. They are paramagnetic wave guides for their powers, and their irregularlities let their hooves function as claws, mostly so that they can grip and climb the walls of their Hives.
Oh, and they are true mammals. They're only secondarily egg-laying and exoskeletal.
5192315
Oh god you know what is ironic that your post is longer than few one shots what I read.
What I meant that I didn't like your show Chrysalis as tyrant not the idea but that you didn't explained this in story, Chrysalis is that kind of character what you can do anything with good story or explanation. You just make her right now she is just tyrant nothing more. What I wish its that in next chapter you show some more her character or story involved with her. Sadly she is to big element to make her meaningless in story.
Oh and yeah I read new way, without a hive, fragments and wolf in pony clothes(but I actually don't remember what it was about xd)
But uh with something like making her half zebra you surelly need to explain this in story somehow.
Damn sadly my headcanon is that Discord didn't have anything to do with them because we see on IDW covers 'reversalis' and that we can deduct that changelings just are different race at all. And secondly very unpopular headcanon that they are actually well known but as myth/folklore, mostly because they origin is from folklore :P
TL;DR I hope you gonna make some world building not only in comments ;p
The Changelings are rather WW2 Japan like in this fic-great victories at first and then being curbstomped.
5197137
This was, in point of fact, one of my inspirations. Via Phoenix_Dragon, who had both Princess Ceymi and Nictis see the same thing -- that Equestria is a lot stronger than Chrysalis' Hive, and while Chrysalis could mount a good surprise attack, would inevitably lose any protracted war. Here, Chrysalis by becoming Nightmare Hunger and uniting many Hives under her control, was able to amass a much more dangerous force -- but Equestria had also been growing stronger in the meantime.
Wow. This is one of the better examples of the 'War is Hell' genre of horror I've ever read, not least for the extensive backstory on how the Changelings got into this mess in the first place.
And given how badly Nightmare Hunger is handling everything, I have to wonder if she'll be facing her very own 'Operation Valkyrie' in the near future, or have things gone too far for even that to occur?
I like the idea that a great many Changelings are now working for and with the ponies, part of the Harmony of Equestria. Even if worst comes to worst and all of these poor 'Lings die, at least their race will survive and even thrive.
Those lines remind me a lot of the words attributed to Admiral Yamamoto after Pearl Harbor; if I remember right, some historians said that as soon as he heard that the American aircraft carriers were still afloat, he told close friends that Japan had just lost the war. The sheer desperation tactics used by the Changelings also put me in mind of what both Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany were doing by the end, with the Volksturm and the Japanese edict that all men aged 15-60 and women aged 20-40 would be drafted and used to fight. I rather doubt that there was an Equestrian 'Battle of Narva', though, with allied or mind-controlled non-Changeling and non-pony troops (I.e., minotaurs, griffins, wolves whatever) being used to hold the Equestrian armies off for a few days until they were all slain.
Great opening chapter and I hope you do ore with it.
5246127
It's always hell -- it's even WORSE hell for the losing side. Especially if one's leaders aren't responsible or sane enough to admit defeat.
The problem is that the Changelings tend to be too loyal for their own good. Though if you noticed, one very ominous sign of defeat was when Changeling Swarms and even Hives started surrendering to the Equestrians. Changelings are sapient, and even their loyalty does not extend to being uselessly fed en masse into bug-zappers, day after day and week after week.
Hive Vespid was the first of the Friendly Hives, Equestria actively recruited more, and the Changeling Hives started flocking to Equestria in large numbers after Chrysalis became High Queen Nightmare Hunger and declared herself the rightful ruler of the whole Changeling Kind. Neutrality became impossible -- either the existing Queens bound themselves as vassals to the new High Queen, were wiped out by Chrysalis and had new Queens installed -- or they allied with Equestria. In her own arrogance she drove those Hives who did not want to follow her into the arms of Equestria.
Diplomacy wasn't Compound's speciality, and besides she made her crucial report after all this diplomatic stuff had already happened.
The same went for the defectors from her first war. Lings like Azure Sky and Nictis had seen enough of other ways of life to have lost their loyalty to Chrysalis. As mentioned in this story, they helped Equestria develop methods of defense against Infiltration, which ensured that nothing like Chrysalis' original attack on Canterlot -- or any other important place -- could be duplicated. Chrysalis didn't want to admit to herself the full extent to which the grand-strategic equation was changing against her, since it would make her great ambition impossible.
Compound complains bitterly of Nictis' treason, because it made it harder for Changeling Infiltrators to survive in Equestria, and specifically made Spark Wheel Industries a suicide mission, since "Meadow Song" was acting as her husband's SECURITY CHIEF. The best defense against a hostile Changeling Infiltrator is Equestrian magic deployed by a friendly Changeling Infiltrator.
I am of course making certain assumptions about the future of Nictis and Spark Wheel's romantic relationship which may be totally jossed by Phoenix_Dragon -- if he does, this could be viewed as an alternate universe to his regarding their decision. In this story, they eventually married, and Spark Wheel became an enormously successful technological innovator and industrialist. In part, because of the loving support of Nictis.
Yes. I basically cribbed them from Isoroku Yamamoto and handed them to Compound. Very similar strategic situation, though overland instead of aeronaval.
Your praise has led me to work tonight on the second chapter -- I'd already written almost two thousand words of it and tonight I've written a couple thousand more. I know exactly where this story is going, too.
5246533
This is great to hear, and I wish you luck with it. I'm looking forward to the next chapter.
And Compound continues to demonstrate just how much better she'd be as Queen. Alas for Hive Hunger-Prime, for it has become the plaything of the mad.
I was wary of Trapcastle at first, but that second encounter has me... hesitantly accepting her. Anyone that political I take with a chunk of salt, no matter how many kill orders they say they waylaid. Still, the picture she paints is a grim one. And Hunger's sudden dislike of the N-word has me wondering if the Crawling Chaos abandoned her after he got what he wanted. Curious...
The sack of Ponyville was one of Hunger's greatest mistakes. She went and made it personal. The poor, poor fool...
Also, "cocoonicle" made me laugh. Some things never change.
Eagerly looking forward to more.
5304850
Oh, N-for-Nightmare, but yeah.
Yep. Cowl was a bureaucrat.
See, this is making me wonder exactly how long the field commanders have been improvising around mad forecasts from central command.
5305917
Chrysalis has been growing madder and madder -- starting with when she accepted a Night Shadow to become Nightmare Hunger, but her sanity's been slipping as her plans have increasingly failed, showing her that not even the support of the Night Shadows was enough to bring her victory. She has one last desperate plan for revenge and ultimate victory, which we'll find out in the next chapter or two.
I've both read fiction and non-fiction about Hitler's last days -- is it obvious?
Another really good story chapter from you. Meeting Queen Hunger will be really dangerous, clearly.
I really don't understand why this has so few upvotes. This is another fantastic chapter, and you're setting up the next one beautifully. I especially love how you've portrayed Chrysalis - it has been a while since I've seen a version of her that feels so menacing. The way you've characterised her (so far at least) reminds me a little of Sauron - both derive their menace more from the dread and fear they inspire in other characters then their actual actions (although said actions ain't exactly nice), and it works wonderfully.
I just realized I never favorited this... I'm glad I found out. Much more interesting than studying for midterms.
good story so far.
A very good chapter but these lines made my blood run cold:
There were brushes and applicators, some with markings -- "Property of the Ponyville Spa," read a label on one squirt-bottle. Compound supposed that these had been taken in the sack of Ponyville, two years ago. That town had figured prominently in some embarrassing defeats suffered by the High Queen before She had become Hunger, and consequently She had ordered it burned to the ground.
Makes me wonder how many of the ponies from the show got away, and how many ended up buried in the ruins of their own homes. Like Aloe and Lotus? Did AJ and her family get out alive? I can't see them abandoning Sweet Apple Acres for anything, and even if they did, the grief of losing the ancestral home might have been enough to kill them.
I'm hoping we learn more about this someday from you.
... (The shelve I added this to should say enough.)
5846267
LOL, yep! And I accept the implicit compliment!
Before I read this, what is the Gore and Dark tag for ?
And how bad does it get ?
I've been rereading your stories to get me through a few weeks of hard work. Forgot how much I love your world-building, both subtle and overt. Especially for a somewhat alien society like the Changelings', which you make both workable and non-soul-crushing (at least, under normal circumstances).
A highly belated comment: did you deliberately set Compound and Chrysalis up as foils for Twilight and Celestia? One intellectually brilliant underling with leadership potential, one charismatic and manipulative queen. (Less manipulative with a Nightmare running the show, I'd imagine.) It was a neat parallel that jumped out at me. (And Carry maps nicely onto Rainbow Dash: physical prodigy with an enormous heart and...well, a hidden medium or two. I'm not sure the big guy can quite manifest hidden depths.)