The hive of changelings was teeming with life once more. In the throne room, Chrysalis gave orders to the drones for collecting love, while Chitin supervised the rounds of the warriors.

Aglowing Shell walked through the corridors of her little world. She was happy, humming a tune that she was improvising from some song Pepper had taught her - a song on how to find a friend, all while she bickered nicely with any of her subjects she met.

At a bend of the corridor, a little blackback drone appeared out of a narrow side tunnel before walking over to meet the little queen.

"Sweet Dreams!" the young queen exclaimed with a big smile.

"Aglowing Shell, I'm glad to see you smile so much."

"Yes! It's thanks to Pepper Chilly!" chirped the child.

“What do you mean?” the drone asked, unsure what Aglowing meant.

"Thanks to her, the hive will get better,” the young queen explained. “Mother said so."

“And what exactly is she doing to make our hive better?” Sweet Dreams asked, as that information had been far too vague for her.

"I don't know." The child shrugged.

"What do you know?" the drone pressed.

"Mother said that Pepper had to leave for treatment, that she's sick, got some kind of bad blood in her head. It caused her to stay asleep, so she removed the blood, which is the new smell in the hive. But thanks to her, the hive will be as good as it was before!"

"Oh! This queen is resourceful."

Aglowing was surprised by Sweet Dreams' choice of words. "This queen? You mean she's not your queen, too? Aren't you from the hive?"

The drone was caught off guard by the sudden flood of questions directed at her, but seeing Aglowing Shell's face, which seemed amazed by the simple idea that the one before her could have come from another hive, she decided that a piece of truth wouldn’t hurt.

"Indeed, I'm not from your hive, Aglowing Shell."

"Whoa! Where's your hive? What's your Queen's name?"

Sweet Dreams was annoyed at the idea of giving her Queen's name, but giving the location of her hive was not a problem. She pointed with her hoof at the narrow corridor she had come from.

"You can see my hive from anywhere at night," she said proudly, looking up at the ceiling as if she could see the moon through the rocks.

"The night?!" repeated the little changeling, suddenly panicking and looking around as if surrounded by enemies, while at the same time hoping to find something that could protect her.

"Yes. You've been out of your hive at night, haven't you?"

Around Aglowing, everything slowed down. Scenes that disturbed her young mind flashed in front of her eyes. Her surroundings became blurred. Changelings stopped moving, glitching out of existence.

Sweet Dreams stopped daydreaming as she felt that the dream was turning into a nightmare. She barely had time to realise that she had been the one that unintentionally created it.

Aglowing was crying, looking down, magic crackling over her horn. In front of her eyes, she saw a wounded Chrysalis coming back from outside. The final blow to her heart came as a single star escaped her mother’s body and she fell, inanimate, to the ground. "NO!" the child screamed in horror. The magic of the little changeling exploded, utilising power from the depths of her heart. In a wave of magic that spread to the horizon, Aglowing swept the dream like a house of cards, forcing Nightmare Moon to lose her changeling appearance.

In the darkness of the dreamless sleep, only the cyan eyes of the latter was visible. Nightmare Moon tried to understand how this could have happened. The only thing she could think of was a survival instinct. Just as no hypnosis could push anyone to put their own lives in danger, Aglowing Shell had just destroyed a nightmare that seemed to be a threat to her life. Nightmare Moon was shocked. A child had just swept away the dream the mare had created in order to soothe her mind. "Aglowing Shell? What's wrong with you?"

"I hate the stars! Each of them was created at the death of one of my subjects! And the night is filled with it! I'll never get out of the hive again! I don't want to see the night anymore! I hate it!"

Nightmare Moon was mortified. What could she say? She, who had commanded the ambushes and assaults to decimate the changelings? Because of her, this little girl feared what she loved the most. The little girl saw the night as a huge mass graveyard. She looked away before closing her eyes, disappearing with the rest of the dream and betraying her presence with a faint smile that seemed slightly forced. "Very well. I won't bother you anymore."

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Aglowing Shell hiccuped at these words. She raised her head before looking for the voice’s origin, sounding panicked. "Sweet dreams!" she shouted.

Nightmare Moon stopped just as she reached the door that led out of Aglowing Shell's dreams. She turned around, curious as to why the little queen called after her. "What is it?" asked the alicorn.

"You don't bother me. So please come back! It's good to be able to talk to someone who's not from my hive."

Nightmare Moon once again didn't know how to answer that. However, it was the first time that a soul living on Equestria wanted to see her again, which brought a smile to her face. "If what you say is true, then I'll come back."

"Honesty in words!" replied the little queen.

Nightmare Moon was troubled by these words coming from a changeling—or, at least, a hybrid having been raised as such. "How do you know the concept of honesty?"

"It's Pepper! She told me it's a way to find friends! Mother tried to explain the details to me, but she had trouble with the spark of magic, to the point that she made a lot of faces."

Nightmare Moon frowned. "Everyone has a problem with the spark of magic," she replied, her thoughts no longer lingering on the element itself, but turning toward Twilight Sparkle.

"Will you come back then?"

"When you’re asleep, I'm never far away." Then, Nightmare Moon used her magic to end the dream.

Aglowing woke up, realising that all this had been a dream. She was in her alcove, which was hidden from the rest of the room behind a tapestry that faced the door leading to her room. The walls of her alcove were coated with a viscous organic material that provided comfort for changelings. She crawled out of it. When her hooves touched the ground, she found herself in the middle of her toys. After hastily grooming herself, she went to the door and opened it. As she looked through the open door, her ears strained to hear the slightest sound. She did not expect to come face to face with Chitin.

"Hello, little queen. The decree of the Queen that prohibits you to enter the southern part of the hive is now lifted. She is waiting for you there."

Immediately, the child started running through the corridors to join Chrysalis. When she arrived in the southern part of the hive, Aglowing entered a gallery that led downwards at a significant angle, leading into a slope that continuously turned to the right, bringing the child deep underground. She finally arrived in a large room, which was in the centre of that endless seeming spiral she had just run down. The room was so large that Aglowing could hardly see the ceiling. In the centre of the room stood Chrysalis, who observed a large mound of loose soil from which a shrub grew that was no bigger than a filly.

Aglowing Shell sat next to her mother, who caressed her cheek-to-cheek.

"Mother, is there another black changeling hive nearby?"

"Why do you ask that question, my daughter?"

"I dreamed of another drone named Sweet Dreams. She said that her hive is not far away."

Chrysalis had some idea of who this black changeling was. "And what else does she say when she comes to see you?"

The child thought about the question. "She asks me if I'm all right. Whether Pepper didn't do anything wrong to me. Those kind of questions. She had a hard time believing that Pepper was there to... help me."

"I wouldn't really call it help. I was really scared for you, you know?"

"Yes, Mother, but she helped me understand why you were weird with me," she replied, making her cutest sorry face, which made her mother smile.

"I wasn't going to come and tell you: ‘Be careful, Mother will come and bite you, my love,’" she said, imitating a big, grotesque monster before tickling her.

Aglowing Shell twisted for several seconds, begging her to stop between laughs. When the torture stopped, she looked at her mother and then at the shrub, catching her breath. "What is it?"

"This is Pepper's gift I told you about yesterday."

"I wish I had seen her again before she left."

"I've already explained it to you. She had to leave as soon as possible. All that bad blood in her head needs to be treated by her friends, the ponies. She may come back one day. If you have no more questions, go back to your room now, I'll come later."

Aglowing Shell set out again, flapping her wings, imagining herself flying through the hive as she jumped joyfully. Chrysalis asked Chitin to approach her by using a sound like chattering and clicking.

This one was never far away. The child had not seen them in the corridors because the warrior was lurking from the ceiling right at the entrance to the cave. They took a few steps down to the wall of the room, then turned their head one hundred and eighty degrees towards Chrysalis. "My queen?"

"It's time to return the favour to Nightmare Moon, as ridiculous as it was in the end. You'll leave at dusk and let her know that I want to meet with her about the Pepper Chilly case."

"If I may, it's a waste of time."

Chrysalis observed her subject, who was as old as they were devoted to serving the hive. They carried out whatever mission the queen might order them to do. If Chitin hadn't been there all this time, she wouldn’t have been able to reach this point today. But it seemed that luck had run out, for she was now the queen of a hive that had fallen to pieces. “So what? We are at their mercy, as much as it hurts me to admit it. But if Pepper's death brings us more grace in their eyes, we might as well tell them the good news. I think she is already aware, but who knows. Maybe they'll leave us alone this time and we won't have to worry about their army walking towards the hive anymore."

"It will be done as you command, my queen."

"Chitin, let her know that coming with one soldier will be enough. And in the case you may not be able to come back—thank you for everything."

"We live and die for the hive, my queen."

"We're dying most of all lately," replied Chrysalis in a weary tone.

Chitin didn't know how to answer that. They jumped off the wall and began to run towards the closest exit of the hive, filled with boundless anger. Where was the Chrysalis they had always served? Where was the one who sang to celebrate each of her victories? They would turn sky and earth upside down just to see their queen be herself again. They would even challenge Nightmare Moon and defeat her if necessary, if they were assured that their queen would sing again. For the time being, they were going to do what was expected of them. If the opportunity arose, they would do what it took so that this day would be perfect, so that their queen could sing it again.