Changeling Concept: The Nekropolis Hive

A few months ago, Enchantermoonstone sent me an idea for a new hive that resides in graveyards. At first I didn’t want to do it because I figured I already had enough hives, but the idea was too cool to abandon, so I kept it stashed away in some txt file. Recently I found it again, and after some mulling over it, I figured “why not?". So let me present to you:

The Nekropolis Hive

The Nekropolis Hive and its queen Calliphora are probably one of the most elusive and least explored hives in all of Equestria. They make their home in graveyards, feeding off ponies’ love by posing as ghosts of dead relatives and loved ones. Their numbers are unknown.

Usually they move into already existing family graves and crypts and only set up rudimentary constructions and decorations. Although they use remains and coffins for this purpose, they don’t actually eat either of those to manufacture their building material, as many ponies believe. Instead it has been found their “changeling goo" is mostly composed of various moss and fungi types.

They have little to no contact with other hives and are actually often purposely avoided by them, for the simple fact that, even if it sounds unbelievable, even other changelings are creeped out by them.

Beside their macabre living conditions, the biggest reason for this are their appearance and their general behaviour. While they appear even more “perforated" than other changelings, with colours reminding of dead leaves and decaying matter, their most distinguishing and disturbing feature is what appears to be a second set of eyelids that they can close vertically and, while see-through, allows them to block out most light. This is important because the hive is almost exclusively nocturnal and thus reacts pretty badly to bright lights. Even their hive is kept in complete darkness (which is why they seldomly keep husks).

Their general behaviour has so far been described as “sort of otherworldly". They tend to buzz around with their second set of eyelids closed, seemingly without direction, or huddled in dark corners, humming quietly, as if listening to some inner voice. Perhaps this stems from the fungi they consume and the various gases present in a graveyard. Nevertheless the hive never falls into ruin or disarray. When an intruder appears, the hive is immediately at full alert and goes into attack mode without so much as a whisper. Many a pony has already found themselves thinking they just walked into a zombie pony attack when the coffin lid next to them flew off with a loud hiss.

One should take special precautions when a full moon is out. For some reason, it sends the hive into even more of a trance and a strange sort of dancing motion above the graveyard it currently resides in. Any intruder is immediately killed on sight, but one can usually tell and avoid these events by keeping a lookout for red eyes dancing in the sky like fireflies.

Some ponies refer to this hive as “the order of the fly", proving that they are rather superstitious, but given that anyone who would find themselves in the clutches of this hive would surely think themselves in Tartarus, it is somewhat understandable.

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Edit
Since a few people have asked about Calliphora's personality, here's a short blurb copy/pasted from an answer:
Calliphora is...unsettling. Usually silent, just observing, or seems to be somewhere entirely else with her thoughts, but then she suddenly focuses all her attention on you. Unpredictable. In the face of danger (to her or her hive), she becomes very aggressive, very fast. Likes to toy with others' minds at times. (See The Meeting )