Ocellus seemed completely uninterested in the hatching changeling, except that she kept glancing back with an expression like she wanted him to hurry. But she didn’t actually say it. “So we lived here for ages just like that. The intelligent systems left us alone, because they still saw us as part of themselves. So long as we didn’t actively sabotage anything. But there was a problem. See… bodies like his aren’t meant to have real minds in them. The system has security measures, and they eventually reject your control and return to the swarm. Our first queen’s method was to cheat the system by harvesting emotion from ponies and other bodies who are supposed to be intelligent. That’s what you’re holding there, in a concentrated form. We get our fill of love, and we get to stay ourselves. We run out, and the body rejects us. Back to the swarm, and back into Harmony.”